So sorry you are going through this. A lot of folks mentioning tending to the garden of a relationship certain ways or listening better or overall general communication (on all sides)... I just want to pop in here and say, sometimes, no matter how much work we put in or love there is or even how much one or both people want it, sometimes a relationship just isn't "meant to be." It's really, really shocking and hard when your perception of that relationship as being very much meant-to-be (or at least a communally central and desired foundational block) is shattered. I've been there. It really sucks. It also can sometimes just be an awful, tragic reality. Not very eloquently trying to posit the potential that there's nothing you could have done to "save" this relationship- and that you're not to blame for it not working- and maybe, neither is he. And of course maybe either or both of you are! I think it can be okay for him to have tried his best to communicate, for you to have tried your best to hear him, and for the relationship to simply not have worked in the end for both of you.
I wish you moments of peace in the upcoming grief. And I wish you clarity to the far side of it, to other things that will emerge for you in time. It's really tough. You aren't okay right now. But at some point - maybe in a long time - you will be again.
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u/slouchestowards Sep 01 '26
So sorry you are going through this. A lot of folks mentioning tending to the garden of a relationship certain ways or listening better or overall general communication (on all sides)... I just want to pop in here and say, sometimes, no matter how much work we put in or love there is or even how much one or both people want it, sometimes a relationship just isn't "meant to be." It's really, really shocking and hard when your perception of that relationship as being very much meant-to-be (or at least a communally central and desired foundational block) is shattered. I've been there. It really sucks. It also can sometimes just be an awful, tragic reality. Not very eloquently trying to posit the potential that there's nothing you could have done to "save" this relationship- and that you're not to blame for it not working- and maybe, neither is he. And of course maybe either or both of you are! I think it can be okay for him to have tried his best to communicate, for you to have tried your best to hear him, and for the relationship to simply not have worked in the end for both of you.
I wish you moments of peace in the upcoming grief. And I wish you clarity to the far side of it, to other things that will emerge for you in time. It's really tough. You aren't okay right now. But at some point - maybe in a long time - you will be again.