My husband and I have a fearful-avoidant girlfriend who cheated on us on a trip she took for work out of state, with an old flame who lives there. We have chosen to try to forgive her because of the love we share for her, and giving her grace for her self-sabotage moment. Im not sure if I'm being strong for someone I love or being weak for offering a second chance.

My ex (40M) and I (32F), dated for eight months.

We were exclusive, talked about children and moving in together, and he called ours the healthiest relationship of his life. So naturally, I thought we were building something serious.

Then things unraveled in our final month.

Two months into dating, he told me he’d attended a gallery opening with Catherine, a woman he’d slept with a few times months before we met. He assumed they were just friends because they’d stopped sleeping together, but had never actually clarified that with her. When he mentioned dating me, she burst into tears—apparently she’d believed there was still something romantic between them. He clarified things, and they eventually resumed their friendship.

Fast-forward to month seven: Catherine invited him to a small, multi-day art residency that August. He casually announced he was going, without asking how I felt.

After sitting with my discomfort for weeks, I finally brought it up.

Could we find some middle ground? Maybe all hang out together, or I could join them?

He grew defensive, saying he didn’t believe in prioritizing romantic partners over friendships (and he is friends with a lot of women he once slept with) and complained that our 20-minute conversation was eating into his workday. He later apologized.

The very next night, he went to a performance with Catherine without telling me beforehand. It was our second-to-last night together before three weeks apart.

I discovered this when I called him and sent admittedly reactive texts saying I was hurt and couldn’t believe him.

His response? “Why? But honestly, don’t feel like going on defensive right now.”

Other incidents had been accumulating:

1. After a difficult conversation about his doubts around monogamy, I deliberately took an extra 30 minutes fetching drinks for his project. I returned before anyone arrived, but he accused me of “sabotaging” his work.
2. I left late and biked slower than him to a workout class. We arrived ONE MINUTE late and were turned away. He blamed me for disrupting his productivity and sulked all afternoon. Over coffee, after, when I asked if he still saw a future with me, he shrugged dismissively. I left in tears; he called to apologize.

He’s fiercely independent and values autonomy. I believe he was sexually faithful, and I never asked him to abandon his friendships with exes. But I also know my anxiety sometimes made me jealous and reactive.
He eventually ended things, citing my anxiety, “possessive energy” around other women, and long-term incompatibility.

(For context, he was never physically or intentionally verbally abusive.)

For months, I’ve wondered whether a more securely attached woman would’ve handled everything differently. Whether I essentially sabotaged an otherwise good relationship.

But now I’m questioning whether my anxiety was really so disproportionate to the circumstances.

tl;dr: did my anxiety ruin my relationship?

Would you extend well wishes to an ex of eight years who cheated on you and discarded/ghosted you if they were explaining they’d been going through something difficult?

Its been a little over a year since our breakup and I reached out to get some belongings back. They took a while to respond to me and told me it was because they were going through something difficult and that they feel really bad about it. I've also accommodated them a lot during this exchange of belongings as it is. Would you say something like “I hope you’re okay,” or extend well wishes or keep the conversation strictly logistical? I still care about them as a person, but I’m unsure where to draw the line between being kind and protecting my peace. I am so hard on myself and I feel the pressure to be cold/distant/rigid but I am such a compassionate and kind person even when someone hurt me and it feels odd not extending that towards them when it feels natural.

I remember every word that we spoke

You right here next to me

I remember how we tried and we tried

I remember everything

Try to remember that

That I hope you're happy

I hope you're good

I hope you get what you wish for

And you're well understood

And whatever your progress

I know you'll be fine

Because I hope you're happy

Even if you're not mine

Try to remember that

I hope you're happy.

Ahh! What I feel is that in the world, there is no place for true love—even though you love them most and never disrespect them, even in your dreams.

One interesting thing what I observed is that they are always attracted towards a reckless guy who doesn't have courtesy and respect for each other; they could also have a drinking or smoking habit. I didn't get my love, but when I see her, I feel something in my heart like a deep sensation. Even in dreams, we could not meet.

I love her from my childhood, but this is the sad reality of life. If you have ever fallen into one-sided love, it means you are now done with the normal world. Your whole perspective will change to see 'what is love?'. Even I failed in dreams to ask her. I had never told her about this, but I know that she knows very well I love her.

I just pray that you can get your true love.

i've tried distracting myself, picking up new hobbies, spending more time with friends - trying to make new ones. i started my new job and i'm in college full time. i started antidepressants again, and upped the dosage already. i go to therapy weekly. and yet every second of my spare time i still think of him.

i know he's not going to come back even though he promised he would. i know there was a whole lot wrong with us as individuals that made us incompatible in the end (but oh was there a whole lot right.)

i'm the one sitting here crying tonight with a heavy chest, while he's probably not thinking about me at all.

i'm trying to move on from someone who probably feels nothing but passive nostalgic affection for me, but my heart won't let me.

i still love him.

i still yearn for him.

even though i know he won't come back.

When I look back at my struggle, no one in my real life has been there, I reached out to friends and they still ignore me when I struggle, one friend blocked me, I feel so many people are actually blocking me on my socials when I don’t do anything wrong other than want help, 2 of my ex fiancée’s blocked me because I apologised from the situation that happened between me and my partner, I said I’m glad they have a best friend like them and mentioned how they were the first people I told when I wanted to propose. Then got blocked, I’m extra sad today because I noticed my ex fiancee blocked me too today, I’m on medication, I’m not hurting my body anymore, I stopped drinking alcohol awhile ago to numb the pain and I feel ashamed to reach out to anyone in my life when I’m this low, I can’t go to family for abuse reasons and I don’t have anyone other than a crisis support line. Why would they do this to me, I got told by my ex fiancee before she blocked me, that I’m pretty much too much and probably overwhelming to people and they need “space” so that’s probably why they blocked me but I wouldn’t do this to anyone if they needed help. I’m lost of words and I used to be healthy, happy and loved in some way. I really do have only me and people say that should be enough but what is enough when I don’t enjoy waking up, I don’t understand how my fiancee could change her feelings with me like that and remove me from her life like that. I understand I’m not perfect but I don’t even feel like a person, I feel invisible and no one was there for me 2 times at the hospital, one from a suicide attempt and one I couldn’t breathe properly and was having chest pains and thought I was having a heart attack but it was just my anxiety, panic attack I never experienced before. I’m so overwhelmed with the loss of a life I had with my partner. I feel so alone and different, I don’t feel like anyone. I know I posted here many times during my difficult phases but this is so lonely in my real life, nobody wants me, nobody wants to love me and be here.

I loved that you had a playlist of songs that reminded you of me. I loved sharing earbuds with you, sitting alone, just us and the music. I loved listening to the songs you chose, finding little pieces of your heart hidden between every lyric and teasing you about it.

But now, you're gone. And I'm left with a playlist full of memories that I can't bring myself to throw away. I hate how something that once made me feel so loved can hurt me so deeply now. Every song feels like a ghost of you, haunting me in the quietest moment. It annoys me. It annoys me that my heart aches so deeply every time a song from your playlist is played in public or social media, because now all I can think about is what we could've been. I wonder if I should delete the playlist. Maybe it would be easier to erase every song, every lyric, every little reminder of you. I'm tired of missing you over things so trivial. I'm tired of having my day ruined by hearing a song or just seeing your playlist sit on the my Spotify library.

But then I remembered that you gave me this playlist so I'd never forget you. And God, how could I ever forget you? I still love you so much it hurts. It hurts so much to the point it's unbearable. How could I delete the very thing you left behind when I still love you so much? I can't even bring myself to leave as a collaborator because some foolish part of me wonders how you'd feel if you noticed. Would you even notice? Would it hurt you to see me go, or would you barely give it a second thought? I hate that I'm still here, agonizing over every little reminder of you, wondering if you ever miss me the way I miss you. I hate that a single playlist can hold so much meaning for me when I don't even know if it means anything to you anymore. Maybe you still listen to our songs. Maybe you skip them without a second thought. I hate that I don't know. I hate that I still care.

So tell me, what am I supposed to do with the playlist? Do I keep it and let it break my heart a little more every time I listen, or do I delete it and lose the last little piece of you that I still get to hold? I wish I could hate you enough to press that button. I wish I could listen to these songs and feel nothing, because now it's only you I think about.

I don't know what to do and it's killing me. Two sides of my heart are fighting each other and I'm tired. But for now, I think I'll leave the playlist alone for now. It hurts my head just to think about it.

And I want you to know that, especially tonight, I miss you.

And I that even now, with all the reasons I have to let you go, a part of me still wants to hear our playlist and pretend you're sitting beside me, listening to the melodies of our hearts.

Hi! I need some outside opinions because I feel like I’m already too emotionally invested to see this situation clearly.

A few months ago I started talking to a guy I’ll call Aidan. I’ve never been in an official relationship before, and although I’ve gone on dates with other guys, he was the first person I genuinely felt I could have something beautiful with. And I was pretty sure he was gonna be my boyfriend

Background

Aidan is best friends with a guy I had a brief interaction with before, whom I’ll call Ewan. He was pretty much my crush last year, but we barely talked. Aidan had also dated a girl whom I would actually consider a friend, who I’ll call Maya, for about six months. They broke up in January, and I didn’t start talking to Aidan until July.

At first, Aidan followed me on Instagram from an account that didn’t look like his, and he eventually confessed it was him. We started talking, although I initially didn’t reply much. One day, after casually talking on Instagram, he asked for my phone number, and he quickly became part of my daily routine.

He would text me good morning and good night, ask if I had eaten, tell me about his day, send me pictures and voice messages, listen to music with me, and video call me so we could play video games together.

He also started making an effort to see me in person. We went out every weekend. At one point, we were seeing each other up to five times a week, and he always paid for our dates. He consistently acted very interested in me.

He bought me things, gave me a drawing related to a band we both like, and gifted me some pins. He called me pretty, played with my hair, hugged me, held my hand, and initiated a lot of physical affection. We even spent long periods just hugging and talking.

I also started becoming more affectionate. I’m not usually an affectionate person, but he brought that side out of me. Every day I saw him, I brought him something little like candy and cookies, made him little gifts, I also painted him a picture, and tried to be there for him.

We never explicitly talked about becoming boyfriend and girlfriend, but based on how we treated each other, I felt like we were building toward something serious. He never directly told me he liked me either, although he told me he cared about me several times and made several comments all the time that hinted at me eventually being his girlfriend.

The breakup

We started talking in July, had our first date in August, and by the beginning of October, I started feeling like too much time had passed without any clarity.

For an entire month, he kept telling me he had a huge surprise planned for October 10. He mentioned it frequently, and his birthday was on October 11. I spent the whole week planning a big birthday gift for him, and everything he said made me think he was going to ask me to be his girlfriend on October 10.

Then, on October 9, while we were both at work, he texted me. He said he had been thinking about yesterday, when he had been really tired and I had brought him little gifts. He explained that he would probably be very busy with work and his university internship, and that he was starting to feel pressured and losing the motivation to do things. (I want to clarify that when I first met him he had the same activites he had like 5am-9pm days, he got fired form his internship and we also had a little fight back then because he got sad and started avoiding me, whatever I put him back on track and helped him get a new internship, he had like a week in his new one)

He clarified that it wasn't because I had done anything wrong, but because he knew himself and how he tended to react to these situations. Then he told me he was starting to think he didn't want a relationship at that point, especially because he didn't have time for anything.

What hurt the most was that he just told me that he liked me as a person, even though he had previously even said like a light love you.

I explained that I didn't feel like he was forcing me to do anything or that I was giving more than I wanted to give. However, he insisted that he didn't want to make me feel bad.

(I want to say It was pretty unexpected because he had acted normal all week, Buttt I saw a redflag, back to september he told me he would give me flowers on 21st september, sunflowers, we used to talk a lot about sunflowers, and that day its common to give yellow flowers to the girl you like, he told me he would, but he didn't. I let it slide because the day before we had the best date ever so It was hard to me to get mad at him)

He asked if I wanted us to keep talking, but I decided it would be better to stop talking and seeing each other because I knew that continuing the same dynamic without knowing what we were would only make me more emotionally attached. I told him we could just say hi from a distance and leave it at that.

He said he respected my decision and that he would feel sad because he had already gotten used to talking to me. He also said he would check in on me from time to time.

I felt so confused because literally the day before, he had hugged me, held my hand, walked me to my classes, and told me we would see each other on Saturday. And then there was the surprise he'd been planning for weeks, which I never got to find out about.

What happened afterwards

I tried to stick to my decision, but Aidan started reaching out to me again.

On his birthday, I wished him a happy birthday, and we ended up talking for a little while. When I told him we couldn't go back to our old dynamic, he asked if we couldn't even play video games together anymore. I said no.

After that, he started texting me to ask if I was okay. He did this for several days. He also told me he had dreamed about me and claimed that it meant he was worried about me.

When I asked him what he actually wanted, he told me he didn't even know because his mind was all over the place. So I felt rejected all over again.

I told him I didn't want to keep discussing the situation and that, as far as I was concerned, it was over. He apologized and said he wouldn't bring it up again.

However, he kept texting me and trying to start conversations.

One day, we ran into each other at university and ended up talking for about 30 minutes. He told me he was really happy to see me, that he had been thinking about me, and that he had recognized my perfume while walking because it reminded him of me.

After that, I let him back into my life. We started talking like we used to, sending each other videos and sharing things about our days.

Later, during another conversation, he told me he regretted what he had done, that he had self-sabotaged, and that he didn't know why he had said those things. He also said he was practically begging me to start talking to him again. But he said all of this very quickly, without actually clarifying what he wanted from me.

Since then, we've started talking quite a bit again, although we haven't completely returned to our previous dynamic. It's been about three days of talking again like this. We even had a call that lasted around an hour and a half, during which we laughed, listened to music, and talked about all kinds of things like we used to.

Yesterday, we saw each other again. He came to my workplace so we could go to university together, jut like we used to do. We talked and laughed on the way, he invited me to lunch, and he complimented me. He also tried to bring back some physical affection, but I didn't let him.

He kept texting me afterward until he eventually stopped replying again. The last thing he told me that afternoon was that the song "Waste" by Foster the People reminded him a lot of me. He told me he was listening to it, and later I noticed he played it several more times.

My concerns

There are several things that make me distrust this situation.

First, I'm worried that I'm somehow a replacement for Maya. My name is Mayra, and Aidan has told me that when he started dating Maya, he was really interested in her, but she didn't reciprocate his feelings at first. They became a couple pretty quickly.

This situation also affected our relationship because Maya was part of my friend group. She eventually broke up with him because she realized she was aromantic. But I knew that being with Aidan would break some friendships

Aidan never seemed to still have feelings for her, but there was one time when I noticed he used a nickname he had used for her with me. Since our names are similar, that made me feel like I was taking her place.

Second, I'm worried that Aidan is simply lonely or needs attention, and that I'm just someone he feels comfortable with. I want to believe he cares about me for who I am, but I'm scared that any girl who gives him affection and attention could take my place just as easily.

Third, I don't understand why he acted so romantically towards me for almost three months if he didn't want a relationship. I don't know if he genuinely liked me, got caught up in the moment, or simply enjoyed the dynamic without considering what it might mean to me.

Finally, I don't know what to do now.

Part of me wants to keep talking to him because I miss him, enjoy spending time with him, and care about him I really really like him. Another part of me knows that if we continue like this, I'll probably keep falling for him while he remains unsure about what he wants.

I don't want to pressure him into being in a relationship, but I also don't want to stay in a situation where I'm receiving affection, attention, and all the behaviors of a couple without any clear intention of actually being with me.

I know I could walk away again, but it's hard because I still care about him so much, and this was the first time I felt like I could experience something like this with someone. I'd never felt this way about a guy before, and I genuinely hoped we would become boyfriend and girlfriend.

What do you guys think?

Do you think Aidan genuinely had feelings for me but got scared when the possibility of a relationship became real, or do you think he simply enjoyed the attention and companionship?

Does it make sense to keep talking to him and see what happens, or am I just prolonging something that's probably going to hurt me even more in the end?

If you think there's something else I need to consider or another piece of advice I should hear, please tell me.

i think what hurts the most is not just losing you, but realizing that you don’t seem to feel the need to know how i’m doing. after everything we shared, after all the love and memories, how can you not wonder if i’m okay? how can you hurt someone who loved you so deeply and then walk away without even looking back?

sometimes i wonder if you talk about me with friends, if you laugh about me, if i’ve become nothing more than a story you tell. maybe that’s just my mind trying to make sense of your silence, but it hurts to think that i could be lying awake missing you while you’re out there living your life without a second thought about me.

you weren’t just someone i dated. you were someone who felt like home. someone whose presence became part of my everyday life, someone i never imagined having to learn to live without. i remember the love, the little moments, the way things felt so real.

i don’t know if you miss me, if you ever think about us, or if you’ve already made peace with a life without me. i just wish i knew how someone who once loved me could become so comfortable with my absence.

i’m still trying to understand how i went from being a part of your world to someone you can live without hearing from ever again. and maybe that’s the cruelest part of heartbreak: missing someone who doesn’t even seem curious about the person they’re leaving behind.