zJake

Back in 2019 I experienced the most painful breakup of my life and I often came to these forums for comfort and maybe a little hope. I promised myself that if the person who broke my heart ever came back that I would post on here to hopefully give others the same feeling I got from this site. First a little backstory: We dated for 3 years, I was sure that she was my soul mate and that I had found the 'one' etc etc. The relationship was overall very happy, despite the occasional stupid arguments that almost all couples get into. We had trust, a lot of common interests and we considered each other best friends. I never once doubted how she felt for me and I know she never doubted me. 7 months prior to our breakup, she moved a couple hours away for study, which of course we both knew would strain our relationship but we were both convinced we could manage. The 7 months we had left were generally pretty happy, we visited each other and made sure to have dates and things to look forward to. Unfortunately the single student life with no tie downs or people to worry about was too appealing for her. She broke it off with me after I drove up to see her, leaving me to experience a very tearful drive home. The breakup was pretty emotionally intense but we left it on a relatively ok note. The following month consisted of me going off the rails and trying pretty much anything I could think of to contact her and to get her to change her mind. This included letters, emails, texts and I'm ashamed to admit it but even gifts. After a while of course I got blocked and after a month I decided to go no contact and try to pick myself up from rock bottom. The next 5-6 months I isolated myself from my friends and became extremely introverted. I hurt myself many times and thought I would never be able to pick myself up. Once that half a year mark reached I started to feel more ok, like myself again and felt like I could maybe manage this world alone after all. This is when she came back into my life. I used to read everywhere that they only come back once you start to move on and in my case, it couldn't have been more true. She didn't want a relationship though and was very clear on that, and being the desperate idiot I was, we slept together a few times and became close again. This was the point that I tell my best friend about it and what I should do to proceed, he however tells me that she has been seeing someone else as well and lying to me about it so I decided to cut it off - for real this time. She kept on seeing this person until another few months later when her family was stuck by devastating news and somebody she was very close to had passed away. I knew that she would be hurting so I messaged her and told her that I hoped she was okay and that I was sorry about the news and that if she ever needed to talk to someone who knew how close they were that I would be there (silly, I know, but it was honestly innocently motivated). Turns out that she had been depressed most of the year we were broken up and this had pushed her to spiral out of control. So we spoke frequently and she confided in me again, it was very nice and after a couple months and when she started to feel more positive again it felt like how we used to be. This was when she asked me to be her boyfriend again and I gladly accepted, and we were happy again, for a few weeks. We lasted 2 months because I had found out that the original reason she left back in 2019 was because of somebody else and it caused me a lot of emotional pain which I often took out on her by being sad and depressed all the time. She knew she couldn't help and that I needed to get over these things before we could work so she ended it, again. Another 5 months goes by and I feel so much better than the first time. She tries to contact me a few times and I manage to ignore her and go about my life. One day though I decided to reply to a message and we met up and ended up talking all night until 6am. She was home from studying now, for good, and she had 180'd again back into the girl I knew when we first started dating. We spent another 4 months talking and getting close again until deciding to officially get back together. The painful emotions from our last breakups and everything that happened after had all gone, it was a clean slate and we decided to take it. So far, it has been better than it ever was. We no longer rely too heavily on each other for our comfort and we are fine being left alone. We have our own lives now that overlap really well so I'm optimistic but also slightly cautious. So it can be true, they can indeed come back. But if you're not fully over the emotions surrounding the breakup then it'll be really hard to build trust and have a smooth relationship. I hate that I spent so long pining and not grasping life with both hands and doing everything I wanted to do. I regret it so much and if I had focussed more on moving on, maybe we would have been able to be back together sooner than we actually were. Stay positive everyone :)