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Bf split up suddenly out the blue after 6 years


LSL

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I was looking for advice my bf of 6 years who I was saving for a house with split up with me the day after my 30th birthday after surprising me on my birthday with a trip away and lots of gifts. I am absolutely devastated as I had no clue anything was wrong, he told me he is not interested anymore and would rather be out doing other things than spend time with me. Has anyone went through this before and how did they cope? I feel my whole world has collapsed

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I'm so sorry to hear about this.

 

I haven't quite been in this situation, though one of my hardest breakups did come "out of the blue" after three years together. I put that in quotes because while it felt that way to me, I don't think it's ever that simple. People rarely "suddenly" decide to end things, but have either swallowed down concerns for a long time or tried to discuss them in a way that wasn't productive. Without knowing more about your story, I won't make any assumptions, though I'm curious how things were between you leading up to this. Were you happy? Did you have concerns? Did you ever get a sense, even faint, that he was struggling?

 

Again, I'm really sorry about all this. I was 33 when I was in your shoes. I coped by flailing for a bit and allowing myself time to feel and heal, leaning on trusted friends and family, almost like a marathon runner dealing with a broken leg. You have no choice but to rest. As strength returned, I worked to rebuild my life with greater intention. I moved cities, bought a home, reengaged with my work from a new angle, and discovered a lot of pursuits that gave me a deeper sense of self and security than I'd known. Though I've always been fiercely independent, it was not easy, so I can't sugarcoat it. But I can genuinely say, looking back, that it was a vital time in my life.

 

You've found a site where people will listen to you, and offer whatever help they can. So know you have ears to hear whatever you want to share.

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Sorry to hear this. Do you live at home? Or do you live together now? Were you both saving up for the future? How on board was he with that? Are you still in touch? Did he meet someone recently?

I was looking for advice my bf of 6 years who I was saving for a house with. I had no clue anything was wrong, he told me he is not interested anymore and would rather be out doing other things than spend time with me.
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I am really sorry this happened. Geez It is a shock. I have been shocked by break ups. It's a lot to process. I imagine you will need to fall apart a little. You know? Lean on your closest family and friends right now. Get a lot of sleep, drink a lot of water. Maybe go stay with a friend, if you live alone or with your bf. 6 years is a long time and I imagine no matter what was happening, you deserved more than he just doesn't want to be with you anymore. Like what is that? 6 years and he just decides like that? Very mean.

 

You're gonna go through a lot of emotions-- just like a death. You are going to want him to come back. You might wish he died instead of breaking up. I know that sounds awful. I went through that.... And I felt somewhat vindicated when the same thought was uttered on the Netflix show Grace & frankie. Watch that.. It really shows the devastation and coping mechanisms we go through with loss.

 

It takes a lot of time and you will need to be patient with yourself as you navigate through this to your next phase of life. Be assured no matter what, there is another a phase and that will come. Right now, take care of you. Try not to drink alcohol it's such a depressant. It will make you feel worse. Keep posting here. Start a journal. Talk to therapist. Talk to your friends and family.

 

 

Hang in there. This too shall pass.

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My heart goes out to you. Age 30 is a big milestone birthday into 'real' adulthood. It likely signaled for the guy that he's not ready to be 'that' adult with you. Buying a house is a big step. What was the reason that the two of you stayed together for 6 years and planned such a step without having gotten married somewhere along the line?

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Thanks for the support, we had been looking at houses etc and we were living at his parents house most of the time while we saved and everything seemed fine we had just been on holiday and his 30th was two weeks before he split with me and I took him away for a fancy overnight stay decorated his house with banners etc and got a cake specially made to take to the venue and he said he loved me so much and no one had ever done anything like that for him and on the week of my birthday I didnt see anything coming as he was spending time with my family and seemed happy etc and the day after my birthday he just burst out crying and said he didnt want to be with me anymore and that something was missing and that he lost interest in me and that he thinks I'm naive which isnt true and that we didnt have the same interests which is also false, I asked him can we not work through it and he said he had made his mind up, so I'm utterly devastated I just hope I find happiness again one day as this has shattered my confidence, we had talked about marriage over the years and he said one day we would get married, I did ask him if there was anyone else and he said he doesnt speak to anyone else which I believe as hes not that type of person but I'm still to this day so confused and hurt and I'm now blaming myself as maybe I should change who I am. He has also told me he has been struggling with his decision and that he still loves me and misses me but he does not want to get back together with me, thinking of it now there has been some times over the last few months where he has been a bit distant or less affectionate but other than that things were good

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I completely understand your feelings. Your world has been turned upside down. It feels surreal. My heart also goes out to you, truly. Were there any subtle signs of trouble in the relationship? Did you get too comfortable, or took him for granted? I find it rather hard to believe that he just flipped a switch and, all of a sudden, decided to end things with you. Something was percolating in his head to make him arrive at this conclusion. The only thing you can do at this point is to move on.

 

You have to treat this as a "death". You have to go through the different stages of grieving. It's seems insurmountable right now but you will get through, I promise. I'm divorced since January of this year after a 29 year marriage (I'm the dumpee), and I can tell you that you will go through a roller coaster of emotions. I still have to achieve the acceptance phase but I'm slowly getting there. You will too, with time. How much time? It's different for everybody. There is no magic solution. What worked for me was focusing on the "bad" parts of the relationship. If you have someone close in your family, talk to them. Same with a very close friend. You can also seek therapy. Wish I had done that last year when I needed it most. Keep busy and focus on your well being.

 

Write down your feeling and thoughts; talk to us here. We will help you to get through. Believe me, there are plenty of us like you, dear OP. xx

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Sorry again.

 

Among the many hard parts of this is trying to resist the urge to blame yourself. Whatever the circumstances, whatever the reasons, it is a choice he has made, not a verdict on you. Easier for me to write that, I know, than for you to read it as fact—but try to remind yourself of that from time to time.

 

Thirty is a hard juncture for a lot of people, one of those moments where you kind of take stock of yourself and can't quite think of yourself as an "almost adult." You're very much an adult, whether you like it or not. I can't help but feel like some kind of deep angst is coursing through him right now, a kind of reckoning with who he is and where he is, with you and your relationship the collateral damage in that.

 

So painful, so hard.

 

I take it you're still in touch, which is understandable and natural. Hopefully he can share a bit more of his head and heart, rather than just telling you he's struggling, as it comes to a point—pretty quickly—where hearing that just makes a hard moment harder. Do know, when and if you're ready, that you can ask him for some space and silence to heal and reflect. Whatever your next steps are, healing is really critical and a process with emotional wounds as it is physical ones.

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He told me he has been feeling on and off for a while now and said also he feels like we have became more like best friends, however we had been to see a mortgage advisor in August and had our deposit all ready so it was just a matter of looking for the house, last year he told me the spark had gone a bit and we worked through it and things were really good and I told him if he ever felt like that again to promise to tell me and he said he would but he didnt, and he was showing me houses etc he liked a month ago so I didnt think anything was wrong at all and then just drops the bombshell the day after my birthday, and about 2 months ago he was saying we would get married one day, I think it's the things he has said to me which have really hurt me and didnt expect this from him, the last I heard from him was a week ago today and I told him it's too hard for me to keep texting because i love him so much but it just feels 6 years have meant nothing to him, I also did so much for him too I arranged all house appointments etc always went and got shopping etc and if he needed anything I got it for him so i dont think i relied on him. He was very open with his phone too and never hid anything from me and has always had morals

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My ex did this to me. We were even looking a rings and planning a future...then one night of drunkenness his penis fell into someone's vagina. I didn't know what happened, he just dumped me...it took over a month, then he finally confessed.

 

That was my experience. I think your BF got overwhelmed, kept fighting it, then showered you in gifts and crap out of guilt for what was coming. I'm not trying to give you false hope, but sometimes time apart makes them realize they made a mistake and regret their decision to end it.

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It just makes me feel so low and down that I've not been able to make him happy and when he said to me he would rather be out doing other things than spend time with me it just made me feel worthless as I always put people before myself and I make sure I always treat people the best I can, he dropped off all my clothes two weeks ago and he was crying but still said his decision stands and he does not want to get back with me. I am heartbroken and I will never forget my 30th, I'm terrified that I wont find anyone else who loves and wants to spend time with me as I am a good person my confidence has just plummeted and I am not a very confident person at the best of times and to hear someone you love say those flaws to your face just breaks me

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It sounds like it had been building for a long time. When someone says they've "lost the spark" they are describing something that has been festering, something they may not even quite be able to articulate to themselves for many years, let alone their partner as they're going through it. Trying to work through those things can be awesome, but sometimes the "work" doesn't quite stick, as sounds like happened here. It requires a certain level of maturity for things to stick, and I don't think he's got that in him at the moment, in a more general sense.

 

As he put it, he'd been feeling "off" for a long time. None of that brings any comfort right now, I know, but as you describe this it doesn't sound so sudden. My impression is that he is not very good at communicating how he feels: bottling them up, then letting them out. That isn't an approach that really works, as it fosters more of a divide than a bridge.

 

I hope as you heal you can start looking for ways to boost your confidence—on your own. What's most important, every day, is your own happiness, not making other people happy. My personal coping mechanism in these times has been to "date myself," meaning I take myself out, treat myself well, show myself things I've longed to see, tend to my emotions with the help of a therapist. Yes, there are lots of tears and pain along the way—waves of grief that you just have to ride, proving your own resilience in the process—but it's always helped me tap into my own core, the thing I want someone to love and to know can feel solid next to someone rather than because of them.

 

Thirty is quite young, and I'm not just saying that because I'm 40. If you think about it objectively, it's still both the early stage of being alive and a very early stage of being an adult. While almost no one I know today is with the same person they were with at 25 or 30, many have found wonderful relationships and marriages that are so much deeper than what they could have imagined at 25 or 30. That probably doesn't do a thing to soften your hurt right now, but it is the facts of the world, as I've experienced them, so I'll share them with you as you process this moment. Maybe they can be a tiny foothold on what I know feels like a vertical drop.

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Thank you I think just because you think you are going to spend your life with that person it hurts so much that they dont want it back and because he led me to believe we would be buying a house soon and bought me a trip abroad for my birthday it hurts that he lead me on that week giving false hope when he knew he would be ending it the day after my birthday as I asked him did you know you would be doing this the day after my birthday and he told me yes

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Thank you I think just because you think you are going to spend your life with that person it hurts so much that they dont want it back and because he led me to believe we would be buying a house soon and bought me a trip abroad for my birthday it hurts that he lead me on that week giving false hope when he knew he would be ending it the day after my birthday as I asked him did you know you would be doing this the day after my birthday and he told me yes

 

That's just not right, I agree. I'm sorry!

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Ugh—that's tough.

 

With rare exceptions, I try not to think in terms of people being purposely deceptive. I asked a girlfriend to move in with me once when I was around 25, with the idea being that she'd keep her place for a bit while we "eased into it." I wanted it to work, but I asked her in part because I wasn't sure we could work and kind of hoped—falsely—that that might help settle my feelings. On the flip side, another girlfriend once went away with a friend, explaining the trip in those terms, but broke up with me the day she returned. So, yes, she "knew" she had to think things over and was probably already emotionally checked out—and, yes, I was destroyed momentarily, as that was my "out of the blue" breakup. But I also think she was just handling it all the best she knew how—and in time I realized that her best wasn't good enough for me and found some confidence in that.

 

Sometimes everything just sucks, and the bottom line is that there is no "right" way to breakup. It always feels wrong—every possible version of wrong you can come up with, and then some. You're not alone. You are, right now, in the company of many incredible human beings feeling a version of what you feel. You can get through this.

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Thank you I am trying so hard to be strong and positive but I am struggling alot and I keep thinking and overthinking every little detail to see if there Is anything I could have done to change myself but my friends and family said there is nothing to change as I havent done anything wrong

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I am very sorry for your loss. It sounds like the relationship had run its course and, sadly, it was not meant to to get to the next level. He did not mean to lead you on. He probably did think long and hard before breaking up. He did not tell you about it because it probably was not something specific you did. It was him having changed. People change. He took a life inventory and sadly you did not make the cut. Sadly it happens all the time.

 

You need to stop blaming yourself. It was not you. It was him. HE changed. You need to give yourself time to grieve the loss of your relationship. For that you need to go no contact from him. He cannot take your pain away because he is the source of it.

 

Please try not to take whatever he says about you from the break up on at heart. At this point, he is creating an internal narrative to help himself detach,feel better and move on. In order to do that he may come back crying and say all kinds of confusing things that may give you false hope or make you feel inadequate. In reality, it's guilt and self-pity. Try not to take anything he says personally. You did the best you could but it takes two to tango. He tried for a year and he still couldn't see himself being with you for the rest of his life. Imo, there was nothing you could have done to prevent that. People change and that can tear a relationship apart. He changed.

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I'm terribly sorry LSL. :upset:

 

Unfortunately, I've heard your story so many times before especially among family and friends.

 

I've heard it from a guy's point of view in particular and this is what they've told me: They said they got cold feet, not ready for a serious legal commitment such as marriage, some of them said they didn't know if they ever wanted children and didn't want to be tied down to a wife nor risk financial loss should the relationship, marriage, real estate investment or whatever should go awry. They're scared. Not that it's an excuse but your BF is not mature nor ready for real life with you. He's basically running away.

 

There is another plan for you and your life. He's NOT the one. You have a different destiny even though you can't see it now.

 

Give yourself time to grieve and mourn this breakup. Let time heal your old wounds someday.

 

You're still young at age 30. You'll eventually venture out, meet new people and discover it's a great big world out there for you. There is a better man out there for you and you will find happiness again.

 

Have self confidence because nothing is more attractive than self confidence.

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Thank you for all the kind words I'm just so devastated after all these years, I havent spoken to him in over a week now and i just want to message him but I know that's not the right thing to do he has made his mind up but I wonder if he is even upset or caring about the split

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I recently left a serious relationship and it seemed “out of the blue” to my girlfriend. There was no other woman, though I had been wresting with a general fear that I may not be able to remain faithful In the long run due to very limited time together with her. (Some geographic distance between us, work schedule, both full-time parents.)

 

The reason I’m sharing this is that he may have thought it was truly the kindest thing to leave...out of care and respect for you. Of COURSE he struggled with the decision...and maybe the reason he didn’t go into tons of detail was that he had already made up his mind and thought “ripping the bandaid off” was better than a long, arduous analysis and drawn out “hopeful that we can work it out” period.

 

I’m sorry this is happening right now. May you find comfort and the strength to make healthy choices for yourself moving forward through a painful time.

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