For context, he told me he was coming over after a military recruiter meeting at 8am, so probably around 10-11ish, as the building is about half an hour away. I work night shift, so I woke up and saw he still wasnt at my place, so I messaged him leading to the following conversation. I guess the convo isnt the most important but it gives a little context of before he sent the last text.

More context, he tried to break up with me about three or four days before this, saying that hes scared that I will leave him during a long distance relationship due to him returning to the military. I promised I wouldnt, which I genuinely wouldnt. I love this man with all of my heart.

The night he tried to leave me, I convinced him to come over and talk to me, and we had a long conversation about our relationship and our expectations within it, including that we would talk to each other more about concerns in the relationship. We went to bed that night happy, and I felt like we were going good. He promised me he wouldnt do this again.

We had plans to get married, so then we can use his military benefits to better our relationship, such as living together, getting couples therapy, and not having to worry about money so much.

And now, he sent that last message to me 30 minutes before we were supposed to see each other, and now im blocked on everything. I know it sounds crazy, but I used an app to make a second phone number which i have been messaging him, begging for him to come back or at least explain why he left. I dont know what to do. I love him with everything i have, and ive changed so much of my life for him, I dont understand why he doesnt think ill continue to work alongside him.

Any advice? Im at a loss, and my heart hurts.

My now ex-fiance (36M) packed up everything and left me (32F) completely blindsided.

It was a normal Monday morning. Its been 3 days since we applied for and signed our marriage license. I had a hair appointment that he paid for. I am excited as I get to marry my best friend in 4 days!

As I am getting at my hair appointment we are texting like normal. Everything is seems fine. We are going over the game plan for the week to get wedding ready.

My hair appointment is done after about 6 hours. It's about 3PM now. I am on my way home. I stop to get a few groceries to make dinner. He works from home on Mondays so I assume he's at home. We share location but I didn't feel the need to check at all. As I walk up the stairs to our apartment the door is open. Sometimes he does that, no biggie. I go inside and call for him. No response. I walk into his office and notice his closet is empty. My first thought is "is he clearing out old clothes?" I check outside and see that his motorcycle is also missing. This is when I decided to check his location the map because I thought he would be home working. I open up my phone to see a long message from him saying that he is calling off the wedding, packing up and leaving and completely disconnecting his phone. He goes on to say a bunch of really mean things to me.

Of course when I try to call him his phone is off. I frantically texted him asking him to please come back home so we can talk, but of course none of my text have gone through. Going through the ring camera I saw that he left literally 5 minutes before I got home. So he was tracking my location and made sure to leave just before I got home. I call his sister, his parents, his aunt and none of them had any idea. When I check the ring camera I saw that he was completely alone too.

In his text he goes brings up some bad fights we had years ago (we have been together for 6 years). Fights that we have been in therapy for and from what I believed we have moved on from. Our relationship wasnt perfect but who's is? We haven't had any arguments lately and have been getting along. But then goes on to paint me as some sort of monster. Telling me its my fault that he feels broken, telling me that I dont respect him, his family, or anyone. I am super confused as i love his family. And I believe i am a pretty respectful person to those to deserve it.

Both his mom and aunt have asked me if it was okay to wear white to the wedding. I got annoyed both times as i as already stressed from wedding planning and it is common knowledge to steer clear from white at weddings. I expressed this to him, but didnt say anything disrespectful to his family. This is the only instance I can think of that could of prompted that.

I wont go into the full details of his text. But pretty much he felt that we have been drifting apart for a while. I didnt feel that way. He also mention how he wanted to k1ll himself and he's been searching for a gun to do it, and that it's my fault that he feels that way. He's been through so much lately. Between getting laid off and then having to settle for a job he absolutely hated, his grandfather passed away a month ago, his motorcycle died on the highway a few days ago, and he had some drama in his friend circle over the weekend. So I knew he was super stressed and made it a point to do my best to take any stress I could off of him. I had some of his friends tell me that he has mentioned some things that I have done recently that he didnt like. He never told any of this to me. When I asked them why he never communicated all of their responses were the same: he would rather hold his tongue than deal with it.

I can tell you all, I am not perfect. I have made mistakes in life and in this relationship. I can promise you that I did not do anythinggggg at all to deserve this. 2 years of planning all undone in an instant. He called off the wedding and left me to break the news to all 110 of our guests. Including HIS family and friends. Most of them were coming from out of state too since he is from out of state. He left me to cancel all of our vendors. He left me in this now messy apartment with bills that I cannot afford by myself. He left me without insurance for my medication as I am a type 1 diabetic and he was suppose to put me on his job's insurance after the wedding. And also didnt pack all of his belongings. I am assuming he saw he coming home and had to quickly bounce. But he left a lot of his favorite items including kitchen tools, his skateboards, and a bunch of baby and family photos. Even though he completely fcked me over i am not evil and heartless enough to destroy items that I know are precious to him..

We have spent about $20,000+ on this wedding and at 4 days before the date NONE of this is refundable. Our family and friends took time off work, booked hotels and flights for this big time. While he is off hiding somewhere i am dealing with all the emails and texts from everyone trying to get information.

Despite all of this I still care and love him. I took down all photos of us in the apartment but dont have the heart to throw them out. I cant even bring myself to delete all of our photos together on social media. I can only "archive" them because the idea of our happy memories being gone forever is gut wrenching. We have been together for 6 years (engaged for 2). He has completely disappeared. No one knows where he is. He sent his dad a text from a one-time number saying he was safe so we wouldnt file a missing persons report. We also can see that hes active on LinkedIn so we at least know hes alive and OK.

I am at a complete lost. The future I had visioned is no more. My home doesnt feel like a home anymore. I cant sleep, I cant eat. If it werent for my friends I dont know where I would be right now. All I want from him is just a conversation. I know the healing process takes time. But I am just at a complete lost. I was in between jobs. Currently in the process of interviewing. I have an interview next week and dont know how the hell im going to process that while dealing with this while trying to figure out what to do with this apartment I can't afford. I am so overwhelmed and just so confused. If he felt this way for months why didnt he say anything? Why didn't he do this sooner? Why couldn't he look me in the eyes when he decided to shatter my heart.

If you made it this far thanks for reading. I just needed a place to vent and ask for neutral advice.

Love & Light

For those of you who ended a relationship but later regretted it and wanted to get back together with your ex. What made you realise you'd made a mistake? How long after the breakup did you start having regrets?

Did you reach out to your ex? And if you did, how did things turn out?

I'd really like to hear experiences from people who were the ones to end the relationship!

He broke up with me, and I’ve gone through every stage of grief in the last 9 weeks. But even when I think I’ve reached a place of acceptance, I still want him to reach out and admit he’s made a mistake.

I know if I reach out the conversation isn’t going to be the one I want. Logically I know if he regretted it, he would have messaged. Sometimes I don’t even know if I want the him back because of how much this has hurt me and could we even rebuild a relationship.

But that little voice in my head still keeps whispering away that it can’t really be over…and surely one day one of us will crack…

I feel like complete crap. For 2 entire years post-breakup, my ex and I were both single, and it always felt like the door was just a little open. Rekindling was always a text away. Welp.. that door has now been slammed shut I suppose. I recently learned he's moved on, and today I saw her for the first time. And she's beautiful. I'm just sitting here, completely breaking. Maybe I was subconsciously holding on to hope the whole time, and that hope is just completely gone now. I cannot believe this is a feeling that exists.

We run in the same social circles and go to the same concerts, so we've shared laughs and some nice conversations with each other in those years. And each of those moments calmed me so immensely. It just all felt so .. okay. My brain felt nice about the fact that we could run it back one day if we really, truly wanted to, and if not, we were just casual presences in each other's lives.

Now that the door is completely shut, i feel like I'm experiencing the breakup all over again. I have run out of words to describe this pain. Every single feeling is resurfacing from that day 2 years ago when I learned we werent actually soulmates, and instead destined to be strangers until we die

Why does anyone even enter a relationship , im so serious. This feels so fucking painful right now and I almost cannot stand it.

I can’t do this anymore. I’ve lost my everything

That’s all I really gotta say. I just miss her.

Throughout the day whenever my mind wanders and thinks about her. I feel so alone, I never felt this way before. It hurts so bad. Sometimes I get back to asking myself all over again. Why ? Why leave ? What changed in a fucking week ? These years gone in a week. I just can't believe it sometimes

As the title says.
Broken up with long term partner who honestly was the love of my life. We didn’t end badly - no real reason other than we are young, he was insecure with my friendship circle and wanted to find ourselves and our careers (his choice not mine).
It’s been a while since the split and whilst I know I’m going in the right direction I can’t help but be hurt by all the things he’s doing to work on himself now we aren’t together. Why wait until we split, I really thought I’d found the one I’d spend the rest of my life with.
Due to having overlapping friendship circles I see him often enough round town. He’s changed his hair, his dress style, he looks really healthy and looks like he’s been working hard at the gym. Whilst I’m happy to see he’s happy, I can’t help but feel hurt that he looks so happy and healthy as a result of us splitting when I feel so sad everyday.

My ex broke up with me twice, and both times genuinely hurt me. We spent 5 months apart, and I eventually healed and moved on. I still missed her, though.
She came back 2 weeks ago, and I took her back without hesitation. At first, I was genuinely happy, but now I feel like I’ve lost all my feelings for her. I think I missed her more than I actually wanted her back.

I almost broke no contact because of my emotions, but I keep reminding myself that I don’t need to explain or convince him to stay after he already left. He made it clear that I can still message him if I ever need help, but I’ve decided that even if I do need support, I won’t reach out anymore. Contacting him again would only reset the progress I’ve made in moving forward, especially since I still have hopes up and it would hurt me for sure. It hurts not being able to run to him when I’m at my lowest, but I have to accept that the person I was in love with is already gone.

8 month relationship for her to not even know my name. Dodged a bullet fr.😭

For weeks I spent an awful amount of time really fixated on this person. We spent almost every weekend together. But in between he would barely talk to me. And when we were together he made it so painfully obvious he didn’t love me anymore. But he would still tell me things like he wanted to eventually get back together someday. Whatever he could to keep me on the line. A couple weeks ago he just stopped talking to me and we haven’t spoken since. I don’t know what happened to him. Maybe he met someone else. Maybe he just effing died. Tbh I don’t really care. Not sure if that’s the meds or me just being done with the back and forth, the belittling, the mean “jokes” and intentionally making me jealous. All that.

When I look back on the relationship, I’m not looking at it through the lens of rose-colored glasses anymore. I’m not pining for the times he was sweet. The pet names or the cuddling. I’m looking at all the ways he minimized my problems, disregarded me, the times he wasn’t there for me, and I realized I wasn’t missing the person he was, I was missing the person I hoped he’d become. But he was never going to be that person.

And anyone who can claim to love me but discard me without even a conversation isn’t a person worth missing. I deserve more than that.

Since then I’ve been meeting people and focusing on myself. It used to really tear me up, the thought of him being with someone else. But I care less and less now.

I feel like I went from anger to kinda being ok? to now it feels like I miss them with my entire being. It feels like I have so much love for them that I’m just holding on to now? And it’s like it’s overfilling and I don’t know where to put it.

I was in a two-year relationship, and after the initial devastation, I eventually stopped thinking about it. The first four months after the breakup were horrible, but now the only thing that really stings is remembering how much it hurt. Looking back, him leaving me was honestly one of the best things that could have happened to me.
When he ended things, his main explanation was that he had “gotten tired of me.” He also said he didn’t understand why he had lost feelings. Obviously, that hurt, especially after two years together, and I struggled to make sense of it. He even told me I could get any guy I wanted, which felt like a strange thing to say while breaking up with someone.
Eventually, I healed and got to a point where I was genuinely happy being single. Then I met my current boyfriend, who has turned out to be an incredible partner and someone who fits me in ways I hadn’t even realized I was looking for. Around that same time, my ex started reaching out again, but I had no interest in revisiting that relationship, so I blocked him.
Fast-forward to recently. My boyfriend and I were standing off to the side while people were line dancing when my ex came up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder with a huge grin on his face. I didn’t recognize him at first, so I turned around. As soon as I realized who it was, I gave him a pretty nasty look and immediately turned back around.
Unfortunately, we share a lot of the same social spaces, so I still run into him occasionally. Whenever we accidentally make eye contact now, he looks almost frightened or uncomfortable. I never approach him or try to interact with him, and I honestly have no desire to.
The funny thing is that, even though I don’t want to know anything about him, I still hear things through mutual friends. Apparently, he hasn’t really managed to move on either.
I’m genuinely happy with my life now, and I rarely think about the relationship anymore. I don’t miss him, and I have no interest in getting back together. I’m just curious about the change in his behavior. He was the one who ended things because he had supposedly lost feelings, and I accepted that and moved on with my life.
So why does he seem so uncomfortable around me now? Is it awkwardness, regret, or something else? I’m not trying to read too much into it, but given how things ended, I find the contrast interesting.

My boyfriend has been doing the bare minimum lately. He doesn’t buy me gifts, spend money on me, or say good morning or good night anymore. I’m also always the one initiating cuddling and affection, and he no longer stays up late for me like he used to.

What hurts is that he seems different with his friends. He’ll pay for their movie tickets and food and stay up late with them, which makes me feel like he no longer puts the same effort into me.
Yesterday, I saw a girl from Discord who used to play games with him and his friends calling him on TikTok. I have access to his TikTok, and he knows that. She missed the call, but when I checked again after work, I realized he had logged me out.

I was furious and immediately assumed the worst, so I broke up with him over text. I regretted it almost immediately.
We argued afterward, and he said nothing was going on with her. Apparently, she has a boyfriend and was arguing with him, so she called my boyfriend out of frustration. I was still upset that she felt comfortable calling him, especially because of how distant he’s been with me.
He apologized, but he was also hurt that I broke up with him instead of communicating first. This isn’t the first time I’ve reacted this way, and he says that’s part of why he wants to end things for good.

Later, I realized I still love him and don’t want to lose him, so I apologized. However, he was still angry and brought up other things I’ve done that have bothered him over the past few months. He eventually told me to leave him alone forever.

I know I was wrong to break up with him impulsively instead of talking things through, and I regret hurting him. But I also feel like my unhappiness has been building because I no longer feel loved or appreciated the way I used to.
I don’t know if he’s truly done or just too hurt and angry to think clearly. I want to fix things, but I don’t want to make matters worse by chasing him when he’s asked me to leave him alone.

What should I do? Should I give him space and wait, or accept that I may have ruined the relationship? Has anyone else broken up with someone impulsively and regretted it immediately?

I don’t know if you’ll ever read this. And I think, for the first time, I’m okay with that.
There was a time when I desperately wanted you to understand everything I was feeling. I wanted to find the perfect words, the perfect explanation, something that would finally allow us to see each other clearly.
But I’m beginning to understand that some things don’t get the conversation we hoped for. Some stories end without both people ever fully understanding what they meant to each other.
So this isn’t an attempt to change anything.
It’s simply everything I wish I could have said.
My intentions with you were genuine.
From the beginning, there was something about you that made me want to show up differently. I wanted to know you. Not just the version of you that everyone else saw, but the person underneath it all. Your thoughts, your fears, your ambitions, your strange little habits. The things that made you laugh. The things that kept you awake at night.
And somewhere along the way, I began imagining a future with you.
Not necessarily some grand, elaborate future. Just the ordinary kind.
Cooking dinner together. Coming home after long days. Sharing stories that wouldn’t matter to anyone else. Making each other laugh over absolutely nothing. Finding comfort in knowing that, whatever happened outside those walls, we had each other.
I wanted the mundane things.
I wanted a life where even the boring days felt special because we were experiencing them together.
And for a while, I thought we might get there.
I remember the conversations that lasted longer than either of us intended. The dinners where time seemed to disappear. The laughter. The little adventures. The quiet evenings. The moments when nothing particularly extraordinary was happening, but I remember feeling extraordinarily happy.
I remember looking at you and feeling grateful that, somehow, our lives had crossed.
Those memories are real to me.
And I don’t want the way things ended to make me pretend they weren’t beautiful.
But somewhere between those moments, things began to change.
Or maybe they were changing inside me.
I started becoming more aware of the distance between what I hoped we were building and what I actually felt.
I wanted to feel chosen.
Not constantly reassured. Not endlessly praised. Not placed at the center of your universe.
Just chosen.
I wanted to feel that you were excited to see me. That you missed me when we were apart. That my presence brought something into your life beyond what I could do for you.
I wanted affection that didn’t feel like something I had to earn.
I wanted to know that I could have a difficult day, express an uncomfortable feeling, or make an honest mistake without fearing that the connection between us would become fragile.
And slowly, I began struggling with those things.
I found myself paying attention to details I wish I’d never felt the need to notice.
Changes in tone. Changes in affection. The spaces between conversations. The difference between how things felt when we were together and how uncertain I sometimes felt when we were apart.
I started looking for reassurance in places where I should have been looking for peace.
And I know that wasn’t always fair to you.
I brought my own fears into our relationship.
I had insecurities that existed long before we met. I was afraid of abandonment, afraid of not being enough, afraid of giving my heart to someone only to discover that I had misunderstood what we meant to each other.
Sometimes those fears made me question things I should have approached with trust.
Sometimes I became frustrated instead of vulnerable.
Sometimes I allowed my emotions to dictate my behavior when I should have taken a moment to understand them.
There are moments I wish I could revisit, not to change the outcome, but to handle myself with more patience, more maturity, and more kindness.
I’m sorry for those moments.
I was never trying to hurt you.
But I understand now that good intentions don’t erase the impact of our actions.
I wasn’t always good at showing you what was in my heart, but what was in my heart was real.
And I hope that, somewhere beneath the frustration and misunderstandings, you knew that.
There’s something else I’ve had to acknowledge, though.
I spent so much time examining my own anxiety that I sometimes forgot to examine what was happening around me.
I was so determined not to let my anxiety ruin something good that I sometimes ignored the possibility that the situation itself wasn’t healthy for me.
Every time I felt hurt, I questioned whether I was being unreasonable.
Every time I wanted more, I wondered whether I was asking too much.
Every time I felt distance, I told myself to be patient.
And patience is a beautiful thing.
But somewhere along the way, mine began turning into the quiet abandonment of my own needs.
I convinced myself that if I could just become more secure, more understanding, more patient, more helpful, then perhaps everything would fall into place.
Perhaps you’d finally see me the way I saw you.
Perhaps I’d stop feeling like I was standing just outside the life I wanted to be part of.
But love shouldn’t require someone to continuously audition for a place in another person’s heart.
And that’s a difficult thing for me to admit, because I genuinely loved showing up for you.
I loved helping you. I loved being someone you could depend on. I loved the feeling that we were a team, tackling whatever life put in front of us.
Those things weren’t obligations to me.
They were expressions of how much I cared.
But eventually, I started wondering whether you valued me for who I was or primarily for what I brought into your life.
And I hated that I was even asking myself that question.
I never wanted our relationship to feel transactional.
I wanted it to feel like us.
Two imperfect people choosing each other, supporting each other, making mistakes, forgiving each other, and growing together.
I didn’t need perfection.
I needed to feel like we were on the same side.
There were times when I felt misunderstood. Times when I felt compared to expectations I could never quite reach. Times when I wanted to tell you how much something hurt but worried that expressing it would only create more distance.
And I know you probably have your own version of those moments.
Maybe you felt overwhelmed by me.
Maybe my anxiety made you feel questioned when you were simply trying to live your life.
Maybe you felt that nothing you did was enough to reassure me.
If that’s how you experienced things, I can understand why that would have been exhausting.
I wish we’d been better at understanding each other before the frustration took over.
I wish I’d known how to tell you what I needed without making you feel responsible for my emotions.
And I wish I’d felt comfortable enough to tell you when something hurt without fearing what would happen afterward.
Because beneath all the complicated feelings, my desire was actually quite simple.
I wanted to love you.
Freely.
Without constantly calculating whether I was giving too much, asking too much, or feeling too much.
I wanted to reach for you without wondering whether you’d reach back.
I wanted to be excited about our future without feeling embarrassed for imagining one.
I wanted to feel safe being the person I really was.
And perhaps the saddest part of all of this is that, eventually, I didn’t feel safe giving you all the love I had.
Not because that love disappeared.
But because I was beginning to disappear inside the effort of trying to give it.
For a long time, I thought the uncertainty would end if we could just define what we were.
I thought having a name for our relationship would finally quiet the questions in my head.
But I’ve come to realize something.
A label wouldn’t have fixed what was happening between us.
It wouldn’t have created the emotional safety I was missing.
It wouldn’t have made difficult conversations easier.
It wouldn’t have changed the moments when I felt lonely despite being close to you.
What I really wanted wasn’t a title.
It was the feeling of being loved in a way I could recognize and trust.
And maybe you were giving me love in the ways you knew how.
Maybe we were both trying, in our own imperfect ways, and neither of us knew how to bridge the distance.
I can accept that possibility.
I don’t need to believe you never cared in order to acknowledge that I was hurting.
And I don’t need to believe I was a perfect partner in order to acknowledge that I deserved tenderness, too.
I think that’s one of the hardest lessons I’ve learned.
Two people can care about each other and still be unable to create the relationship they both need.
Love can be genuine and still not be enough.
Effort can be sincere and still leave someone feeling alone.
And sometimes, despite all the potential you see in another person, you have to accept the reality of what exists between you.
For a while, I couldn’t do that.
I kept holding on to what I believed we could become.
I remembered the good days and convinced myself that, if we could just find our way back to them, everything would be okay.
But a relationship cannot survive on its best moments alone.
It has to be somewhere you can exist on the difficult days, too.
Somewhere your imperfections don’t automatically make you feel unworthy.
Somewhere both people are willing to look at their own behavior, not just each other’s reactions.
Somewhere love feels less like something to protect from disappearing and more like something you can safely experience.
I wanted that with you.
More than I knew how to explain.
And for a long time, letting go felt like admitting that everything I’d invested had been for nothing.
But I don’t believe that anymore.
I don’t regret meeting you.
I don’t regret the memories.
I don’t regret the laughter, the affection, the effort, or the moments when I believed we were building something beautiful.
I don’t regret opening my heart.
I regret the moments when I forgot to protect it.
I regret allowing fear to influence the way I treated someone I cared about.
I regret staying silent about things that mattered to me until they became frustrations I struggled to express.
And I regret believing that being loved was something I had to continually prove myself worthy of.
But I’m learning.
I’m learning that I can make mistakes without becoming the mistake.
That someone else’s inability to meet my needs doesn’t determine my worth.
That uncertainty doesn’t always require investigation.
That love isn’t supposed to cost me my relationship with myself.
And that sometimes the most loving thing I can do is accept an ending rather than continue fighting for a future that only exists in my imagination.
I hope you’re happy.
I mean that.
I hope the things you’ve been working toward come together. I hope you find peace in the parts of your life that have felt overwhelming. I hope you continue growing into the person you want to become.
And I hope that, when you look back on us, you can remember some of the beautiful things, too.
Not just the difficult ending.
Not just my mistakes.
Not just the moments when we struggled to understand each other.
I hope you remember that someone genuinely cared about you.
Someone saw a future in the smallest moments.
Someone wanted to be beside you for the ordinary days as much as the extraordinary ones.
I know I wasn’t always the person I wanted to be.
But I was trying.
And I’m going to keep becoming better, not because I need to earn another person’s love, but because I want to live in a way that reflects the person I know I can be.
For the first time in a long time, I’m beginning to feel peaceful.
Not because I’ve answered every question.
Not because I’ve figured out exactly what you felt.
Not because I’ve decided who was right or wrong.
But because I’m finally accepting that I may never know.
And I don’t need to.
What we shared was real to me.
What I felt was real.
The hurt was real.
The happiness was real.
And the lessons are real.
I can carry all of that forward without carrying the relationship itself.
I used to think moving on meant finding a way to stop caring.
Now I think it means learning how to care about what happened without needing to change it.
I can appreciate what we were.
I can grieve what we never became.
And I can still be excited about everything that comes next.
There is so much life left to experience.
So many people I haven’t met. So many places I haven’t seen. So many conversations, quiet mornings, spontaneous adventures, and ordinary moments waiting to become memories.
And somewhere along the way, I want to experience those things without constantly worrying about whether they’ll last.
I want to be present.
I want to love without losing myself.
I want to trust that whatever happens, I’ll be okay.
For so long, I wanted us to find our way back to each other.
But I think I understand now what I really need.
I’m ready to come home to myself.
Goodbye.

Who is worse?
The partner that dumped you and started dating a colleague right away. Or the colleague who started dating them right after the breakup. Note, the colleague knew they were in a long term relationship the whole time they worked together.

This is the email. The person who sent me this email is someone I’ve known since 2013 and we dated from 2020-2024. Names have been filtered out. X, Y and Z are my best friends and person A is my most recent ex. I liked it. It helped me heal from person A.

I am happy that you and X manage to have a friendship despite everything that happened, and that you found Y and Z. I'm sorry to hear about the experiences you had with A. He sounds like a piece of trash. You are better off without him. But it's very sad that you had to go through all that. The best advice I can give you is to have a clean break. No attempt at being friends. What A has done to you is sick. Cut that bastard out of your life. And definitely don't poop in his mouth.

When men say that they are allergic to condoms, there is a 99.9% chance that they are lying.

Congratulations on your achievements!

This is a one-time response. After our breakup, I don't see a friendship working out. I still think you are an amazing, very kind person and I wish you all the happiness in the world. I don't hate you, I don't resent you. I really hope that you are doing better than after our breakup and better than after all the shit you went through with X in the past and now with A more recently. But I don't want to keep e-mailing. Sorry.

I am going to message him tonight. Wish me luck.

It’s been one month and I think I need to talk to him to feel better. None of my friends like this idea, but I think I’ll regret not doing it.

Some things might not make much sense because I'm Brazilian, but I'll try to provide some context.

I met her (20F, she's exactly two months younger than me) in early February on a dating app.
We went out a few times; both of us were looking for a serious relationship. There was a good connection—we slept together once, and so on. A month and a half later, on March 23rd, I asked her to be my girlfriend, and she accepted.
She was only the second girlfriend I’ve ever had, and the first in nearly eight years. I’ve never had much luck in relationships; my first one, back when I was 13, ended because of a mistake I made. I learned from my past mistakes and haven’t repeated them. I was so happy to have a new chance at love.

Someone close to her—who happened to work with me—told me she was a very difficult person, prone to sabotaging her own relationships, largely due to a dysfunctional family background, having been abandoned by her father, and so on.
She was actually quite transparent with me about all of this. She told me everything: from growing up in a toxic home environment with her mother and stepmother—filled with fights, alcohol, and drugs—to moving in with her grandparents, where things were still chaotic (though without the drugs and alcohol). She also opened up about struggling with pornography and having a promiscuous past—dating many people casually before settling down into a serious relationship. That relationship, however, was extremely turbulent: there was mutual infidelity, a pregnancy where the paternity was unknown, a miscarriage, and even an incident where she chased her ex-boyfriend with a knife—an event that finally made her realize she needed help, leading her to check into a psychiatric hospital.
She claimed she was doing well now. She knew this made me feel insecure, and she would say things like, "I know I made mistakes, and I can't run away from them. I can't force you to trust me—that’s up to you." I was truly committed to making the relationship work, but I was in a very complicated situation—mired in debt following an emotional breakdown I’d had the previous year. Just five days after I asked her to be my girlfriend, my phone broke, and I had to wait until the beginning of the following month to afford the repairs. Even with no money to spare, I kept trying to do my best. I had bills to pay, and half my paycheck was going toward fixing my phone, yet I still managed to scrape together enough to buy her a "sushi" Easter egg—something she’d wanted, even though it was quite expensive. (I’m not sure if those are a thing outside of Brazil, lol.)

At first, we had a reasonable dynamic where we’d split expenses—not exactly 50/50, but it felt fair to me. However, she was going through a phase just as unstable as mine: she’d been laid off due to her company’s financial crisis, found another job but quit after a month due to conflicts with coworkers, and decided to pursue a career as a nail technician—a field she was already taking a course in.

Ultimately, this put even more strain on the relationship. We had no money left for anything, and we barely had any time together; her routine was completely disrupted by her studies, house calls with a flexible schedule, and her tendency to spend her free time playing games on Roblox or hanging out on Discord with friends. She was also strapped for cash because she had to buy supplies for her nail work, which were quite costly. On top of that, we couldn’t even host each other at our homes because of our toxic, abusive family members (her grandparents and my father).

We were both going through a rough patch, but she wasn’t putting in the same effort as I was. I was giving everything I had, doing everything in my power to make the relationship work, but all I got in return was coldness. She started taking longer to reply, giving curt responses, and even complaining that "things between us had become monotonous"—yet she showed absolutely no reaction to my efforts to improve things. I did make some mistakes in the relationship; for instance, our first argument was sparked by a woman I followed on Instagram. She felt uncomfortable because of the suggestive photos this woman posted. I had been following this womans long before I even met her, but as soon as she expressed her discomfort, I unfollowed the woman immediately out of respect for her. She, however, did not do the same for me. In fact, she followed an account that bothered me—though I never brought it up to her—belonging to a guy whose profile picture showed him shirtless, displaying his six-pack abs. This same man had even left a flirtatious comment on one of her photos back in 2022, calling her "my cat," and she had flirted right back. Despite it being an old comment and a profile that doesn't seem to be updated anymore, the fact that she still follows him and that profile picture made me very insecure because I'm overweight, but I never said anything to her.

One day, I focused a bit more on my studies and didn’t send her any messages after our usual "good morning"—partly to see if she would make any effort, since it felt like I was the only one trying. She didn’t message me until the afternoon; I replied right away, but then I didn’t hear from her again until the evening, when she mentioned she’d gone out to a bar to play pool with a male friend because she was bored. I was really bothered that she hadn’t told me anything, but she just said, "Well, I sent you a 'good morning,' and you didn't send anything else." I brought up the coldness I’d been sensing, and she claimed things had just become "monotonous" or something similar. We talked a bit and discussed meeting up the next day, which was a holiday. I had enough money for a simple outing—maybe a trip to the mall, a burger, that sort of thing. But she said she wanted to do something "more fun" than walking around on a limited budget; she suggested going to a Japanese restaurant for an all-you-can-eat sushi dinner and drinks. She knew I couldn't afford that at the time—and she couldn't either—so what did she do? She canceled our simple mall outing so she could go to that Japanese restaurant with the same guy she’d been out with the day before.
I was deeply hurt, but she didn't care. She went out with him and left me alone for hours. When she finally got back, she was curt and quite rude, saying things like, "You’re the man, so you’re the one who has to pay. If you weren't prepared for that, you shouldn't even be looking for a relationship." She insisted that she held a more "traditional" view of relationships, where the man is expected to pay for everything. I tried to talk to her, but she wasn't open to a conversation. I went to bed feeling incredibly hurt. The next day I tried to talk to her about how upset she had made me, and she said things like, "I can't force you to trust me. I didn't do anything wrong, and I would admit it if I had, I just wanted to do something more fun than walking around with a spending limit".

I put up with this kind of behavior for weeks. I would set aside my own needs and strive to keep our connection alive, only to be met with coldness and rudeness. For instance, we had scheduled a specific time to play games together—since she often complained that our free time never aligned—but when the appointed time arrived, she didn’t show up.
There were also some highly suspicious situations; one day, she claimed she was going alone to a particular restaurant here in Brazil called Madero —a place known for being quite expensive. Who goes to a fancy, high-end spot when they’re broke? Later that same day, she said she "decided not to go after all because the Uber took too long and she just couldn't be bothered." I was growing exhausted from all the effort I was putting in, so I stopped initiating conversations. I was incredibly annoyed when, the very next day, she remarked, "Things feel a bit weird between us"—even though she was the one responsible for it all.

She kept this behavior up for weeks, which included going out with that same male friend again, and I simply became more and more worn out. Even though I loved her, I was tired of having to carry the relationship all by myself. Despite her lack of consideration, I still did things for her—like paying for a pair of manicure nippers she needed, and buying a perfume for her mother that she wanted to give as a gift but couldn't afford.
To be clear, I fully understood the struggles she was facing regarding work, money, and other issues, but she never did for me what I was doing for her.

In May, it seemed like things were improving: she planned to hold down two jobs until she recovered financially—working at a supermarket while also doing manicures at a salon and making house calls. She became more affectionate again and more responsive; after a month of not seeing each other, we met up and went to the same Japanese restaurant she had previously went with her friend. Yet, even as things appeared to be getting better, problems persisted. I expressed my fear that I might not meet her expectations, given her traditional outlook. I suggested a more flexible approach—one that could still align somewhat with her vision, while allowing us to adapt to the financial constraints we might face again. She said she didn't know how to make such adjustments. I also mentioned that the memory of the Japanese restaurant still hurt me, but she immediately shifted the focus to my past mistakes instead of addressing the issue at hand.

Despite these arguments, there seemed to be some progress, especially once she started her job at the supermarket.
However, just three days into her new job, she told me that a friend of hers had died by suicide. She withdrew completely—which was to be expected—and I tried to offer as much support as I could while she grieved. We would go days without speaking, and when we did communicate, it was only through a few brief messages.
Even during this period, there were conflicts. She was using online games as a distraction, and I noticed that her Discord bio read: "married to Sebastian."
My name is not Sebastian. I was left in complete shock, unable to fathom what was happening. I tried sending a simple message—"How are you doing right now?"—hoping to open a door for conversation, but she didn't respond. Later, her bio changed to "married to Blenk."
I subsequently discovered that she had set the same thing on Roblox. She had a friend on Roblox with that same name, who had also put in their bio that they were married to her, and they were using matching skins. I had a breakdown after seeing this. I started telling friends openly that my relationship had ended, and I tried to get her attention in various ways—sending messages, removing my profile picture, adding a broken-heart emoji to my bio, and so on. Eventually, she reached out to ask what was going on, and I demanded an explanation.
She explained that "Sebastian" was a game character and "Blenk" was a non-binary friend of hers, and that it was all part of a roleplay. She said she was trying to distract herself while grieving a friend who had passed away—a process that was still very difficult for her. She had mentioned this friend to me before, so I accepted her explanation. However, she began to complain about my insecurity; I had to point out that she also needed to understand how I felt, given that this sort of thing isn't considered normal outside of that specific internet bubble. Still, I accepted her explanation and went back to giving her the space she needed to heal from her grief.

Three more days passed without us exchanging a single message. Then, in early June, she reached out, saying that things between us felt strange—that the chemistry wasn't really there, that she had felt uncomfortable during our last date, and that she didn't think it was going to work out. I asked her why she felt that way, but she didn't reply until the following day. She explained that we weren't ready for a relationship—citing issues with money and free time, as well as some personal problems of her own. I told her I knew she was going through a lot and that I understood if she couldn't handle a relationship right now. I said I didn't want to be an additional burden to her, and I accepted the breakup.

Exactly one week later—on Brazil’s Valentine’s Day (June 12th)—she reached out again. She said she didn't want me to think I was a burden, and admitted that she really wasn't doing well. That day, she revealed a very serious situation she was facing: she owed money to a loan shark.
I was in shock. That conversation was incredibly heavy. It was just one disaster after another: she was having trouble at her job at a beauty salon and was moving on to somewhere else; she was selling her belongings—like her TV and PC—to pay off her debts; and there were other, equally grave issues. I felt terrible and wanted to help, but she insisted, "I didn't come here to ask for help; I just wanted to know how you were doing." I offered to help in any way I could, should she need it, but she never replied.

In the days that followed, she gradually removed me from her social media, Discord, Roblox, and other platforms, though she kept me on Instagram. I tried to process the breakup. I still loved her and wished she would come back, but I knew I couldn't go back to that same toxic dynamic. I had several crying spells over the first two months.

During this period, I started using the dating app where I first met her again, and I ended up meeting another girl—we now have a "friends-with-benefits" arrangement; we’ve hooked up a few times, but nothing serious. I also changed jobs, paid off almost all my debts, and managed to save a little bit of money. More than three months went by with no contact, and it felt like I was finally moving on—until she reached out late last month. She replied to a political meme I’d posted on my Instagram stories, which defended a policy from Brazil’s current president. She commented something like "Good grief!"—which, given it was the first message in over three months, left me shocked, but also disappointed. I had expected much more—especially since my birthday had been just four days earlier, and she hadn’t even wished me a happy birthday.

I’m not sure if you’re following the Brazilian elections, but for context: my political views lean to the left, and I support President Lula—who is running for reelection—rather than Bolsonaro, who came out ahead in the first round. After the first round, I posted a few things criticizing Bolsonaro, and she messaged me saying I shouldn't worry about politics, that both sides were bad, and so on. I didn’t entirely agree, but I tried to keep things peaceful, saying something like, "I’m not a fan of either, but I do think one side is significantly worse than the other." Then, she revealed that she had voted for Bolsonaro. I immediately recalled her more traditional, conservative views—which had been quite damaging to me during our relationship—and I noticed she had started following a local politician who supports Bolsonaro. I simply replied, "I figured."

She asked, "Are we enemies now?" and I turned the question back to her, asking how she felt about it. She claimed it didn't matter to her, but added that she "hated" the idea of ​​people hating each other over something "trivial"—that sort of thing. Later, she said she hadn’t voted for either candidate and only claimed to have voted for Bolsonaro to see how I would react.
After that, she just reiterated that I should be careful about what I post, and then said goodbye. I left the door open for further conversation by saying, "Let’s talk later," but she never replied.
However, two days later, I started posting political content on my Instagram again—criticizing Bolsonaro—and she unfollowed me because of it. Three days after that, I opened the dating app where we first met and saw that she had a new profile. It hit me really hard. Even though four months had passed since the breakup, the pain returned just as intensely as it had been in the beginning. Perhaps because, this time, it’s clear that she truly doesn’t want me anymore—unlike back in June, when it seemed like the breakup was solely due to her own personal issues.
I felt terrible. Seeing her new profile on the dating app hit me like a truck.
In a moment of weakness, I sent her a message saying I knew she didn’t want to talk to me anymore, but that I just wanted to say I hoped she was doing well. She simply replied, "I’m doing well, thanks"—and that was it.

I’m trying to move on now. I still have feelings for her, even though I know she hurt me deeply; at the same time, I can’t ignore how important she was to me in the beginning. A part of me still refuses to accept that it’s truly over. I wish I could fix things, but I know I can’t make decisions for someone else. At least I’m not having crying spells like I did in the first few months.
I feel hurt, but I can't feel permanent hatred or anger. God knows how hard I tried to make the relationship work.
I still think about leaving the door open in case she wants to talk, but I know I shouldn't be actively waiting for it.

I know I’m healing when the tarot readers aren’t popping up on my TikTok FYP as much anymore lolol.

It’s been 9 months since the end of a 10+ year relationship, and we’re getting there lol. To my family, friends, and on social media, I’m living my best life and genuinely happy. And I really am! But TikTok is like my own little private space, and MAAAAN, for a while it was nothing but tarot readings.

Now they don’t show up as frequently, and when they do, I just scroll past them (majority of the time). It’s a weird way to notice progress, but I’ll take it lol. Having hope is nice, but sometimes it can keep you stuck.

Y’all, there really is light at the end of the tunnel. Healing isn’t linear, but you just gotta keep putting one foot in front of the other. It’s all in the little things ☀️

SN: We’ve been no contact for almost 5 months, but at this point, can we even call it that? We’re basically strangers now lol. He has a new girlfriend, and well, life goes on.

i know my ex isn’t good for me and he hurt me a lot, but i just feel empty. the future we planned together no longer exists. i can’t get over that. it’s been 2 weeks since we brokeup and i feel horrible. i really think i’ll never be able to get over him i really don’t want him to be with anyone else either it makes me feel sick. the thought of him with someone else makes me nauseous