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What do I do now it's over?


Darlington

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Posted last week about the break up having recently posted a couples picture on Instagram. I took the decision to delete it, close down IG for a while (I'm not a big user), removed him off LinkedIn (he's currently looking for a new job and I dont want the update to pop up when I least expect it) and deleted him from my messaging apps (not blocked).

 

About the relationship. We met online, but started and remained LD for about a year until last week. We were very happy and in love for most part of the relationship, but the distance was always a strain. When we were apart it was difficult. But when we were together it was fireworks. We saw eachothers most weekends (both took equal turns traveling to the other) and sometimes a night in the week when I was in his town for work. Just to add, his town is also my home town and I traveled there often as my family live there. I currently live in a different town about 120 miles from my hometown due to work.

 

The last couple of months of the relationship felt different, I was feeling like some of the spark that had been there was beginning to fizzle out and I think he felt the same. He became less affectionate, and less communicative (apart and when we were together). I guess I became more nagging as I felt the changes but he wouldn't communicate with me.

We eventually addressed the situation and both felt it was fuelled by the distance. We made plans to move in together either in my current town or back in our hometown to be able to be together without distance getting in the way. He applied for a job which would enable him to be in my current town but he didn't get it and was gutted. As my job is much more flexible, we decided to trial me working Fridays and Mondays from my home town so I would have 5 nights with him and travel back to my current town mid week for the other days. And if that went well, make plans to move back to our hometown (this is something that I had been contemplating on my own before I met him, but hadn't taken the plunge).

Because of preexisting work meetings it took 2 weeks between having this conversation and the first week of the trial. The night of the first week of the trial was when he broke off the relationship. Saying he felt bad that I was having to be the one to put in so much effort (all the travelling) to make the relationship work. He also said he didn't want to take me away from the life I had built in the other town for him. He didn't want to be responsible for me making the move if things didn't work out down the line. He said he still loved me, more than he's ever loved anyone. I left his home the next morning and went to my parents house (they are in the same town).

 

He's been in contact since last week to check how I am doing via my sister's phone saying he is sorry the relationship has ended. He's also been in touch personally to say I was on his mind and that this isn't what we wanted for us. He also said that he just couldn't say whether things would have worked with us the way things were going and his being unsure became greater than he's being certain things would work. He also suggested that maybe this time apart would reveal things to us one way or another things we couldn't see whilst we were together. I answered just to say that we could have got through whatever was going on, but as broke up before the trial started, that we would never know. I also said we both need some space and no contact.

 

That was yesterday. Today I am really struggling with being apart from him. I had gotten so used to being with him, talking to him, thinking of him, that it's just hard to cut it off. I'm also now left with the dilemma about what I do about my living situation. I am not fulfilled in the town in live in, hadn't been for some time before meeting my ex, I feel isolated and lonely, but I own my home. I think I still want to move back to my hometown, but I feel there's less of a pull to be there now. Also housing is super expensive, I would have to move back into my parents place and save for about a year before I can afford to buy an apartment there. Not where I thought I would be at 32.

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Good idea to delete and block him from All social media and messaging apps. Stop contacting him or letting him contact you. he told you "his feelings didn't develop" which means he saw no future with you. Move back home if you're homesick, but not because you're desperate to hang on to someone who doesn't feel the same way about you or has the same goals as you.

 

If you want marriage, kids, living together, commitment, etc. a guy who "can't develop feelings" is a waste of your time and energy. It sounds like he met someone locally.

 

Ask your family to discontinue chitchatting with him. Now that your free of "the strain of a LDR", get in shape, update your look and get some good photos and an upbeat profile up on on some quality dating sites and start messaging and meeting local men. Also get more involved in a social life where you are now. Join some clubs, groups, etc. Or move back home if you don't like your current location, but for you, not for him.

- the distance was always a strain.

-I currently live in a different town about 120 miles from my hometown due to work.

-He's been in contact since last week to check how I am doing via my sister's phone saying he is sorry the relationship has ended.

-He's also been in touch personally to say I was on his mind and that this isn't what we wanted for us.

-I would have to move back into my parents place and save for about a year before I can afford to buy an apartment there.

-Not where I thought I would be at 32.

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Really sorry to hear about all this.

 

To answer the question, best I can, in your post's title: I think what you do right now is what you are doing. Sit with this, feel this, and accept that getting to the other side is going to be a process—a tough one that will lead you to a better spot. You're in the weeds right now, looking for the clearing. Confusion, anger, numbness, sadness, longing, doubt, frustration: these feelings come and go in waves, and the only way around them is to go through them—to kind of thwack at the weeds. As you do you get some clarity, and as you learn to live alongside the void left my the loss you do find a certain kind of strength, of resilience.

 

But it takes time, it just does.

 

That's not to say it has to be pure agony, or that "sitting with it" is the same as being paralyzed by it. I like to pour the restless, melancholy energy right back into dating—but just dating myself for a bit. That can mean treating myself to small indulgences—a 90 minute massage, a steak and a glass of wine paired with book—or making some bold moves. I'm not sure what your home and job situation is—I'm zeroing in on the "flexible" part—but after my last breakup I rented out my home to pay for a brief trip: a little weekend away. That led to longer trips, which led to an unexpected and eye-opening few months of travel—exploring new worlds to explore myself, my feelings, to ride those waves and thwack at those weeds. I ended up settling in another city, and the beauty of it is that it wasn't a choice I made to stuff the void but a choice that learning to live alongside the void kind of revealed to me, if that makes any sense.

 

There's no way around it: the loss of contact is devastating. It's also, for most of us, a needed chapter. To keep my own brain from spinning too far and too fast, I like to think of emotional pain along the same lines as physical pain. If I was a professional marathon runner, who loved nothing more than running marathons, but suffered a broken ankle—well, I would know I needed to lay down, with my foot in a cast. It would be devastating. It would be needed. The cutting off of contact is similar—a cast in which to heal. Not a verdict on you, on him, on what you have, on what the future holds, but simply what is needed, right now, to address the hurt.

 

Sorry again. I wish I had the magic button that gets you out of these weeds fast. But I think that button is really just time—respecting time and using this time to respect yourself and accept that it'll be a minute before you're out there running strong again.

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I echo blue castles thoughtful and compassionate message. I too am sorry. Each day can you do something you wouldn’t have done with him? I mean even tiny things like eat dark chocolate for breakfast if you want - something like that. Make new routines and memories. All the best.

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I'm sorry that you're going through this, luckily you don't have to face this alone!

 

You are taking the right steps already by deleting him off of social media and initiating no contact, you're doing great so far. You need to accept the situation for how it is, and don't let your mind play tricks on you by making you think that it can in fact 'work out' and you open contact again just to potentially fall into another slump. It seems like he's coming up with excuses to break it off, such as "I don't want to feel like you're doing all the work", because while you are initiating it by visiting him, he could at least be taking you out and being very affectionate towards you to make up for it. It would have only been a temporary thing anyway, but instead he wanted to take the easy way out and break it off. That's a warning sign to look out for in my opinion.

 

My biggest suggestion is to be FIRM with your no contact. I almost guarantee that he will contact you again in the near future to 'check in with you' or 'see how you are doing', don't fall for it. Because it's awkward, and contacting an ex typically means you want something from them; whether it's to get back together, an ego boost, or self esteem boost. Unless he contacts you and claims he got a new job much closer to you and wants to move in with you and make it more official or whatever, I don't see a point.

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Thank you all for the wonderful messages of advice. After a feeling a bit down last weekend, I am much better now.

 

I realised I never came back on here to thank you for your time in replying to me. So Thank you!!

 

Update: I'm starting with a therapist on Tuesday. The purpose being to explore whether moving back to my hometown is the next step for me and to unpick how that might look like. It's likely I will have to move back in with parents for while, which at first I didn't want to do, but can now see what a massive blessing it is to have somewhere I can land.

 

I'm also applying for a couple of jobs I've seen in my home town!!

 

Starting to feel excited about my future again.

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