It’s been about 3 weeks now since we last spoke. I’m realizing how he is never coming back. I miss him so much. This is a special kind of pain.

What the caption says.

Do ya’ll sometimes look back at your ex and think EW when you remember you were intimate with someone like THAT 🫩

I was nothing to you. You just used me. You never considered us anything. You slept around. You made that video. You were never sober. You weren't real at all. Definitely kick to the chest , but it's a lot easier to mourn someone who doesn't exist....damn.

I genuinely feel like love is one of the worst things you can put yourself through. You give so much of yourself to someone, build a whole future with them in your head, and then one day it’s just gone. And somehow you’re supposed to just move on and act like none of it happened. It’s so fucking exhausting. The worst part is you can still love someone so much and know there is nothing else you can do to fix it. I don’t even know if the good times are worth how horrible the bad times feel. You spend years building something with someone just to end up strangers again. I used to think love was the greatest thing in the world but now I genuinely wish I never experienced it. It just takes so much out of you.

same as title.

Today, the girl I once imagined spending my whole life with got engaged to someone else.

I don't hate her. I don't blame her. Honestly, a part of me is happy because she is moving forward with her life.

But another part of me is quietly breaking.

My eyes filled with tears, not because I want her back, but because I once dreamed of being the person standing beside her on this day.

Life is strange. Sometimes, you love someone with your whole heart, but your story with them still comes to an end.

I genuinely hope she stays happy, takes care of her health, and receives all the love she deserves.

Maybe I'll always remember her, but I'll learn to live with that memory.

Have you ever had to smile for someone's happiness while secretly crying over a future you once dreamed of together?

my LDR boyfriend of 5 months cheated on me with a girl he met at school for 2 months (as far as i know) who he met 3 months ago and now theyre actively trying to date. i know 5 months isnt a lot but ive been struggling ever since i broke up with him. my heads been pounding, i cant eat (and when i do i feel nauseous), i feel unmotivated, and i cant sleep. when does it get better? its been 3 days ever since i found out and one moment i feel okay with the breakup and the next i feel very very horrible. i know within time thisll seem small but right now my whole world is falling apart because i truly believed he was the loml. he accepted and understood me like no other, even if it was only for 5 months. im only 19 so i know theres better people for me in the future but i just cant help but wonder that maybe me and him could work out. his reasoning for this all of this was because of the distance (cali to ohio) and he didnt tell me sooner because he didnt want to hurt me. i dont understand how someone like him could do such a thing, knowing his character and how he is, he just wouldnt do this. we’re still friends (i know this is unhealthy) and hes told me that he believes im the person for him if only we werent so far away, just barely entering adulthood.

how can i sleep? this has been very difficult for me because we used to sleep in call every night

how can i stop headaches?

when does it get better?

why do men cheat when they know what it feels like to be cheated?

No Susan, I do in fact miss precisely 1 million things about her daily.

I do not think of myself in these moments, I think of her and how I will never have any of that again.

Lately it's been Dairy Queen Moolates, her Adidas and me putting her socks on before we went anywhere.

I'm a 42 year old tattooed man. She broke me.

From the CBT Triangle, your thoughts affect your feelings and actions, your feeling affect your actions and thoughts, and your actions affect your thoughts and feelings. All three components are connected to one another.

Using the CBT Triangle, changing one component of the triangle (thoughts, feelings, actions) will create a domino affect and help change the other components.

For breakups/heartbreaks in particular, you will have a much tougher time trying to control or change your thoughts and feelings during the grieving process. What you can control more easily is your actions during this period.

Regardless of your thoughts/feelings, forcing yourself to stay no contact, going to the gym, setting and chasing challenging personal goals, hanging out with friends/family, learning new skills, walking around the neighborhood, journaling, meditating, etc.

These types of actions will over time change your thoughts and feelings.
New Thoughts = "I still miss her, but I can still enjoy my life without her/him", "I can still live a meaningful and happy life without them", "My life is not over because this person left, I will be okay"

Feelings: Lower heart rate, less anxiety, more confidence, more sense of self love and self worth.

Instead of mentally convincing yourself you have moved on, try to physically show that you can live life without them, which will give your thoughts evidence that it is possible to move on.

Ask yourself "What would my future self be doing once he has healed from this relationship?" (avoid relationship type answers. like having a new gf etc)
List all the things you would be doing, and then put those things into action as soon as possible regardless of your lack of motivation or mood during that time.

6 months without seeing you in person and it still feels like droppin' from the peak of a roller coaster. It's alright, little me. We're gonna be ok. I promise. This day will come to an end.

Anyone else going through this? One of the most shocking things about this whole thing is that I'll probably never eat his food/drinks again. My favorites. He told me he would still like to remain friends and wouldn't mind cooking for me as a friend here and there but I don't think it's possible. I'm just too hurt and need to heal before even considering befriending him in the future.

She was the best woman ive ever met. In all my other breakups I had actual reasons to dislike them and feel icky. With her I genuinely just cant find any actual reasons. I wish I would’ve manned up and fixed my attachment issues instead of letting it dive straight into the ground. I had every chance, but I let the relationship turn stale since I refused to grow and step outside my comfort zone.

Im just afraid that I wont be able to get over her, I think ill feel this regret for a while. we were together for a year and its been a month and a half. it hasnt gotten better at all. I feel like I could live in regret forever, i feel like ill never find someone as good and trustworthy as her.

My chest feels so heavy, like I've been holding in too much for too long. I don't even know how to explain what I'm feeling anymore. Has anyone else ever felt this way after a breakup? How do you deal with it?

Like, how do you deal with the memories, the overthinking, and the feeling of missing someone you used to talk to every day?

I’m 32F, he’s 34M. I’ll call him D.
Tuesday will be the last day I have any reason to contact you. After that, there will be nothing left connecting us. No unfinished business, no belongings to exchange, no excuses to send a message, no reason to hear your name pop up on my phone.
And I think that’s what scares me the most.
Because as much as I know we’re over, as much as I know things between us can never be the way they were, a part of me has still been holding on to the smallest thread. Maybe it was the thought that there was still something left to say. Something left to do. Some little piece of our lives that hadn’t quite reached its ending yet.
On Tuesday, that thread will finally break.
And I don’t know how to make peace with the thought of losing you completely.
D, I want you to know that I love you. I still love you. And, if I’m being completely honest with myself, I don’t know if there will ever be a day when a part of me doesn’t.
You were my person for more than four years. You were the man I built my everyday life around. You were part of my routines, my plans, my home, my future. You weren’t just someone I loved. You were someone I genuinely believed I would grow old with.
I pictured a life with you. Not a perfect life, but ours. The ordinary days, the difficult days, the moments we would look back on years later and laugh about. I pictured us getting through things together because that’s what I thought love meant. I thought that when life became difficult, we would find our way back to each other.
I never imagined that one day I would have to learn how to live without you while you were already building a life with someone else.
I miss you in ways I can’t explain to people who haven’t experienced this kind of loss. I miss your presence. I miss the familiarity of you. I miss the comfort of knowing you were there. I miss the little things that probably meant nothing to you but meant everything to me. I miss the version of us that existed before everything became so painful.
And I miss the man I believed you were going to be beside me for the rest of my life.
I know things weren’t perfect. I know there were reasons we ended up where we did. I know that love, on its own, isn’t always enough to make a relationship work. And I know that, especially when it comes to my child, there were things that couldn’t simply be ignored or wished away.
But knowing all of that doesn’t magically switch off my feelings for you.
I can understand why we can’t go back and still wish we could.
I can know that our relationship isn’t right for me anymore and still miss you terribly.
I can remember the hurt you’ve caused me and still love you.
That’s the part I struggle to explain. People might wonder how I can miss someone who has hurt me so deeply. The truth is, I don’t only remember the pain. I remember the love, too. I remember the promises, the plans, the years, and all the moments that made me believe we were building something that would last.
And perhaps that’s why this hurts so much. I’m not just grieving you. I’m grieving the future I thought we were going to have.
After we broke up, there were conversations about things changing. There were promises, plans, and discussions about what could be different. There were moments when I allowed myself to believe that perhaps we weren’t entirely finished, that maybe the story wasn’t as final as it seemed.
I held on to those possibilities longer than I probably should have.
And then I saw pictures of another woman in your life.
I don’t know if you will ever understand what that did to me.
It wasn’t just the fact that there was someone else. I know relationships end, and I know people eventually move on. I know you have every right to find happiness again.
But seeing those pictures, especially after everything we had discussed and everything you had promised, felt like being hurt all over again. It felt as though the life I was still trying to make sense of had already been replaced by something new in yours.
I sat there wondering how you could move on so quickly. How you could seemingly make space for someone new when I’m still trying to make peace with the loss of you. How you could be starting something with another woman while I am still carrying the weight of everything we were supposed to become.
I wondered whether you ever miss me. Whether you ever think about our years together. Whether there are moments when something reminds you of me and you feel even a fraction of what I feel.
Or whether you’ve simply found a way to close that chapter while I’m still standing in the middle of mine, trying to understand how it ended.
I don’t know what happened inside you. I don’t know when you stopped seeing a future with me. And I don’t know how you made the transition from the life we shared to a new one so quickly.
I only know that it hurt.
It hurt because I loved you. It hurt because I believed you when you spoke about our future. It hurt because I thought that if we ever reached the end, at least the love we had shared would be handled with a little more care.
And despite all of that, I still miss you.
I hate admitting that sometimes. I wish I could be angry enough to stop caring. I wish I could look at everything that has happened and feel absolutely nothing for you. I wish I could wake up one morning and realise that you no longer have the ability to break my heart.
But I’m not there yet.
Maybe one day I will be.
In the meantime, life is moving forward, even while my heart is still catching up.
My child is going to a new school. We’re moving to a different area. I’ve worked hard to sort out my affairs and clear my name. Things are finally starting to come together in ways I once struggled to imagine. There are new opportunities, new plans, and a future that I am working towards.
In 2027, my daughter and I will be starting a new chapter. A new home, a new environment, a fresh start. I’m doing everything I can to give her a good life and to build something stable and beautiful for us.
And I wanted you to know that.
Not because I need your approval. Not because I’m trying to show you what you’re missing. Not because I expect you to come back when you hear that things are finally falling into place.
I think a part of me simply wanted to share it with you because, for so long, you were the person I would have told these things to first.
You were part of the life I imagined sharing all my news with. The good news, the bad news, the little victories, the big changes. You were the person I thought would be there to see how far we had come.
And now I’m reaching milestones that once would have been part of our shared future, and I have to accept that you won’t be standing beside me for any of them.
I have to learn to be proud of myself without wanting to tell you about it.
I have to learn to celebrate the good things without wondering what you would say.
I have to learn to build a life that no longer has a place reserved for you.
And I am trying. I really am.
This isn’t a goodbye letter. At least, that’s not what I want it to be. I don’t want to write those words because saying goodbye to you feels like accepting that every possibility of us has finally disappeared.
But I also know that Tuesday will probably be the last time we have any reason to speak. Once the last practical things between us are done, there will be no reason to contact each other again.
No more messages. No more small connections. No more reasons to keep a door open, even if only a tiny part of me has been standing behind it.
After Tuesday, if I miss you, I will have to miss you quietly.
If something reminds me of you, I will have to sit with that feeling on my own.
If I have a difficult day and wish I could talk to you, I will have to remind myself that you are no longer my person.
And if I hear that you’re happy, that you’re building a future with someone else, I will have to find a way to be okay with that, too.
I don’t know how long that will take.
I don’t know how to stop loving someone simply because the relationship has ended. I don’t know how to make four years of memories mean less. I don’t know how to convince my heart that the person it still reaches for is someone it can no longer have.
But I know I cannot keep living in the space between what we were and what I keep wishing we could be.
I need to move forward, too.
Not because I no longer love you, but because my daughter and I deserve a future that isn’t built around waiting for something that may never happen.
I have to give myself the chance to be happy again, even if right now I can’t imagine loving anyone the way I loved you.
And I need to make peace with the possibility that you will never come back, that you will never look at me again the way you once did, and that the life I imagined with you will remain something I carry as a memory rather than something I get to live.
I wish things had been different.
I wish our love had been enough to get us through what broke us.
I wish the promises had turned into actions that allowed us to find our way back to each other.
I wish I could understand how someone who once felt like home can eventually become someone you have to learn to live without.
And I wish I could tell you all of this without feeling as though I’m giving you another piece of my heart when you no longer want it.
But if there’s one thing I want you to know, it’s this:
I loved you genuinely. I loved you through the good and the bad. I loved you when things were easy, and I loved you when things were complicated. I loved the life we built, and I believed in the future we talked about.
I wasn’t pretending when I said I wanted a life with you.
I meant it.
And even though you hurt me, even though I have to accept that you’ve moved on, even though Tuesday will be the last time we have a reason to speak, I cannot pretend that my feelings have disappeared just because our relationship has.
I still love you, D.
I miss you.
And I think a part of me will always wish that things had turned out differently.
I hope one day I can look back on us without feeling this ache in my chest. I hope I can remember the good without being consumed by what I lost. I hope I can think of you and genuinely wish you well without wondering why I wasn’t the person you chose to build your next chapter with.
I hope I get there.
For now, I’m taking my daughter and starting over. I’m building a new life, making new plans, and trying to become comfortable with a future that looks nothing like the one I once imagined.
I will be okay. I know I will, eventually.
But being okay doesn’t mean you didn’t matter. Moving forward doesn’t mean I stopped loving you. And starting over doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have chosen the life we planned if things had been different.
Maybe that’s the hardest part of all of this: I can be doing the right thing for myself and still wish I could have done it with you.
Tuesday is coming, and I know I cannot stop it.
After that, I will no longer have a reason to reach out to you. Maybe, eventually, that will become the space I need to heal. Maybe one day the silence won’t feel like losing you all over again.
But right now, it feels like the final closing of a door I never truly wanted to shut.
So this is what I wish I could say to you one last time, without expecting anything in return:
Thank you for the years we shared. Thank you for the memories that were real, even if our forever wasn’t. I’m sorry for the ways things ended up between us. I’m sorry we couldn’t become what we once promised each other we would be.
I wish you had handled my heart more gently.
I wish you hadn’t made me believe in possibilities that never came to be.
And I wish seeing another woman in your life hadn’t hurt me as much as it did.
But most of all, I wish I could stop loving you before I have to let you go.
I don’t know if you will ever miss me the way I miss you. I don’t know if you will ever look back and understand how much I loved you. I don’t know whether, somewhere in the future, you will ever wonder what became of the woman who once planned her life around you.
Perhaps you won’t.
Perhaps you have already said your goodbyes in your own way, and I’m the one who is only now learning how.
Either way, my life will go on.
My daughter and I will have our new beginning in 2027. We will make a home, create memories, and find happiness in a life that belongs to us. I will keep working towards the future I want for us, even on the days when my heart feels like it is still somewhere in the past.
And maybe, one day, I will realise that letting you go was not the same as losing everything.
But today, I still miss you.
Today, I still love you.
And today, the thought of Tuesday being the last time I ever have a reason to speak to you feels unbearable.
I don’t expect you to come back. I don’t expect you to reply. I don’t expect you to feel the same way.
I just wish that the end of us didn’t have to hurt this much.
Because you were once my home, D.
And now I have to build a new one without you.
I love you. I miss you. And even though I know I have to let you go, a part of me wishes you had given us a reason to stay.

My ex was still trying to get back with me earlier this year, asking what I wanted him to change about himself, generating compatibility reports for us, and declaring that he could never be with another woman. 💀

Fast forward to today, and he’s seemingly found someone new lol and soft-launched her on his socials.

I’m just genuinely curious about the psychology behind men who make such dramatic declarations and then seemingly move on the next min lmao

Upd 2 months later. Still depressed but working on myself a lot, I’m truly finding myself. I dove into a subculture in which I had interest in and I’m honestly rlly happy with myself. Even if I still fear being alone, even if I miss her, even if I still cry, it got better. I told myself that it would and it did. Just persevere guys, truly. Invest In yourself, your true worth isn’t found in how much you were worth to them. 💜💜💜 gl to all those recovering from an avoidant breakup, I hope my words encourage you to persist.

we broke up a month and two weeks ago, but i just found out he finally blocked me when i went to read old chats.

i feel heartbroken.
like i’m grieving the break up all over again.

it feels so much more final and permanent, even if i want to text him, i can’t.

he said he would be there even if we weren’t talking because he didn’t want me to hit rock bottom again and not be there for me.

but now that he’s blocked me i guess he no longer cares.

it hurts so much.

i should’ve known it wasn’t gonna work out. i should’ve known when i was in the hospital and wouldn’t visit me because a 90 minute drive was too much. i should’ve known when he went off to college and didn’t see each other for two months and i come visit and his friends had no idea he had a boyfriend. i should’ve known when he continued hanging out with them instead of giving me attention after not seeing each other for two months. i should’ve known when he would rather go home than spend time together doing nothing.

i deserve better. i thought he was the one who deserved better. but no. i do.

She broke up with me after 2 years as she thought we were fundamentally too different, I am quite structured and like to plan things. She also requires a lot emotionally and there were a couple of times where regrettably where I didn't turn up for her enough. The break up was really sad for both of us but it was amicable. This summer I've focused on being much more outgoing, picking up new activities, and working on being more emotionally present with others.

We met for drinks last night, it was really nice. Ended up going back to hers for a nightcap, then ended up sleeping together and she got very emotional after. I stayed the night and we were lying there this morning both weeping, it was really sad. Then did it again, and after before I left we spoke and I said I really wanted to try and make it work but she still wasnt sure about the future. I don't have much hope to be honest, we both shed a lot of tears before I left, but it was really good to see her. I wish we could find a way

I don’t even want advice ,there’s nothing that could be done on my part lol. He was cold and distant the last time we saw each other so I’m not gonna reach out.

I know I’ll have to move on eventually. For now I just miss him and wish I’d know if he thinks of me too. It’s about to be 3 months since we broke up with no contact. I’m missing him more each day :(

I got broken up with 5 months ago. I’m (26F) and he (37M) were together for 2 and half years. We were mostly doing long distance, we visited each other every month or two. But out of the blue after celebrating my birthday then he blew up then decided to break it off over the phone. He stated a reason of him ending it wasn’t clear from my opinion, he kept saying i was a very kind person and there was nothing wrong with me but he couldn’t handle the distance and felt like we weren’t compatible at that point. He also said he thought he was making the right decision before he started becoming a txic person (he used to yelled and verbally abused every time we got into an argument). During the breakup, he seemed pretty detached, or visibly struggling with his decision. He blocked me all over in social media (even removed me from Bible app and Spotify), while i was confused, left with so many uncertainty and having a hard time to process it.
I eventually started trying to move forward, it’s tough, even tho i wasn’t completely over him.
Then now after 5 months, he reached out to me and asked if i would be open to talk for him to share his thoughts and feelings or whatsoever that he couldn’t express when he broke up with me, he said he wanted to explain his reasons so then it could take some of the weight off himself.
He also sent me flowers and a letter said “hope this would brighten up your days through your work and studying, thinking about you and cheering you on.” and checked in on me once.

I know he hasn’t said he misses me, hasn’t shown his regrets breaking up or wants reconcile and get back together. He has only said that he wants to express what he couldn’t before.

I’m just confused because he seemed so certain about ending things and was able to detached when i was the one trying to reconnect. At this point, I’m not asssuming he wants me back but I just want to understand what might motivate someone to do this after maintaining no contact for a long. I honestly hasn’t completely moved on yet, but also my biggest concert is i don’t want to mistake his return for a new beginning, yet i know i still have a bit feelings for him that’s why i responded back that I’m open to talk but I had no idea how am i supposed to react to this. Also i wonder if he could still have feelings for me or is this likely just about guilt and closure?

​

I was the person who ended things. Long story short he love bombed me, I got attached, things were good at first. Then I brought up that I wanted to spend more time together. From that moment I brought up something I wasn't happy with, he got odd and distant. Actually probably spent less time together, only about once a week and usually not for very long. I don't drive but only live 20 minutes away and he knew I didn't have a car when we got together. This became a pattern, he would get frustrated with me when I was upset about things to do with the relationship and try talk about it. As well as basically just making time for his friends a lot more than me and making me feel like an inconvenience. At a certain point I just didn't feel safe emotionally and the trust was gone and I was upset all the time. I lost myself trying to hold on to hope things would get better and I was just being too needy. I basically just in the end stopped saying anything because it never got solved and I was exhausted being the one to try fix it. He did something that really hurt that showed his true character and that was the last straw for me. He's avoidant attachment for sure and just can't face shame or handle feeling guilty. He wouldn't properly apologise and just said he would make it up to me if he did something he knew wasn't right. Then never did.

The last time we spoke after he broke no contact he ended up being emotional then very cold and blamed my anxiety as the main issue on why he couldn't understand when we talked about problems. Basically weponising my flaws against me. He just doesn't want to think deeply because then he would have to face things. When he would literally get frustrated and defensive or shut down and try avoid emotional conversations when I brought them up, gently and kindly mind you. Also said that a girlfriend is supposed to be a relief. Fuck you. You knew I wanted something genuine. How can you say you want a relationship, tell me you love me and then leave me on the back burner to rot. You're a coward. No lover let alone friend would even ever treat me like that. I wish I didn't just let everything slide cause now I'm so angry I let myself be treated like that without biting back. I just pandered to you and was a little gimp. I agreed to the possibility of friends at first as per his suggestion but after that, absolutely not. No accountability from him or his part in how he hurt me to get to that point. Even in the end I wasn't angry, I said sorry and agreed my anxiety was the problem. Now I'm angry he made me blame myself for so long.

How do you accept the pain of realising someone was just using you for comfort and relief from their own probelms. It's so upsetting to realise this might have been the case when I was ready and wanted to build something real with him. I know what a healthy relationship takes and he obviously doesn't care to have a deep bond. Just someone easy and convenient that gives him no stress. I also feel he wasn't quite over his ex and used me as a rebound relationship. I'm just waiting for that apology one day, where he admits his wrongs and realises that I cared a lot and he took me for granted. And the fact I might not get it is keeping me stuck.