anotherescape

Hi everyone, Thought I would give everyone a quick update. I'm easing back into dating while taking my time. Everything is going well life-wise. He broke no contact last week with a voice message to let me know he'd quit his job and to apologise for how I was treated by his mother. Apparently a few conversations were had. I'm taking this with a grain of salt. Beyond congratulating him for the job decision I'm leaving things as they are and moving on. Thank you to everyone who took the time to give me a heavy dose of much needed reality.

Thanks, everyone, for responding so quickly- it's genuinely helpful to hear some outside perspectives on this. At least life is a bit more peaceful and quieter now.

Oh I completely understand- and to be fair it may have only been words on his part. But there were life goals we were in agreement on and working towards- if that wasn't the case, I would have left when the day-to-day issues started happening. But I do hear you and thank you for responding.

Hi everyone, Long time reader but haven't posted in over a decade. This one is a bit long but I could use an outside perspective on this. I (31F) am one month into no contact with my ex (32M). The relationship lasted one year and was a whirlwind. To put it simply, the highs were incredibly high, and unfortunately, the lows were incredibly hurtful for both of us. He instigated the break-up but this followed my request that we reset the relationship since we weren't headed in the right direction and I was concerned that if we kept going the way we were our connection would simply disintegrate and rot with time. So while I wouldn't say this was an amicable or mutual break-up, it also wasn't a surprising one. Our relationship was always affected by a lot of external factors. For example, we both travel a fair bit for work, him much more- he was out of the country for forty days over the course of our first three months together. That being said, the affection and connection was immediate. We were both caught by surprise and were open that this had never happened before for either of us. We had similar temperaments, values, career aspirations, etc... He was very open, vocal and emotionally available which is what allowed me to put my walls down. We did make a mistake by getting engaged too quickly- within the first three months of our relationship. But we agreed to keep it private for a year at least so that we could grow into the relationship with us both being on the same page that this was serious before letting other people know. Given his work travel and that he was renting while I owned and had a dog, we spent most of our time together as a couple at my place. This proved later down the line to be an issue on two fronts. The first is that he felt like we weren't on equal footing and he'd always wanted to buy a home of his own as well- to check it off the bucket list. The second is that his mother, would get overly involved and always questioned why he was spending time with me. There were also several incidents over the year where his mother would become very passive-aggressive, possessive and jealous when he showed me affection or stated he couldn't join a family event- for the record there would also be a negative reaction if it was a work or travel commitment so I know I wasn't the only source of tension. It became increasingly clear that his family is quite enmeshed with one another. He often is the calm in charge one who deals with all the issues. As a result, he would often prioritise their needs over his own which left him with very little time and energy for our relationship. I would voice concerns, and I'm afraid I didn't always do it well but I was trying to focus on the bright side and the fact that the rest of his family accepted me so it would only be a matter of time. Near the end of our relationship, he would often say that he felt stuck in the middle. He also started lying to her about where he was because it made things easier while conceding that this was an issue he needed to address. Needless to say, this did not make me feel great about the situation. Given his mother's reaction to our relationship, I agreed to postpone the news that we were engaged in order to not cause more chaos. If that wasn't enough, he also found himself in a toxic job where he had to face three forced redundancies in under a year. While he managed to survive each round due to shifts in business priorities and committing to working even longer hours. Again this caused a lot of stress on both him and I. He was looking for other work but nothing worked out. To summarise, I started feeling increasingly marginalised from the rest of his life. He was incredibly stressed and depressed, which started also affecting my mental health. The family demands only increased with time- especially after his father had a heart attack this spring. We would often have very sad and open conversations about how we were both feeling but it always felt very hopeless and there was no resolution. Near the end, he would sometimes say that even if we didn't work out, he hoped I would stay in his life. My response was always the same and that unfortunately I wouldn't be because it would just lead to us either being on-and-off or unable to move on. The main thing that kept us going was that despite everything, we would still find moments of happiness together whenever we could be together. Which made his decision to buy a one-bedroom flat rather than moving in to my two-bedroom flat incredibly hurtful. We had been discussing moving in together for months, but the decision was postponed multiple times due to him wanting more time to ease his family's awareness of how important our relationship was. It's a shame because whenever, he could slip in the word fiance in casual conversation with strangers he would be absolutely giddy about it. Two days after the last time he was fired (May)- he went to a house viewing his mother had arranged to cheer him up. He ended up making an offer the same day without giving us a chance to talk it through. I believe him when he says he'd spent multiple sleepless nights over it, but that further destabilised us as a couple. From a practical perspective, I was supportive but wanted to know how we would make this work together on top of everything else we had going on. He would acknowledge that this had an impact on our timeline and that it was on him to come up with a plan.... months later, in part due to the family health issues, he hadn't. This brings us to the week of our anniversary. The same week he got the keys to his place. We were sad but had agreed that he would take a few days to himself to just feel his way around his place but that we would see each other on our anniversary. The day before, his parents visited him and saw the flat. They decided they would stay in town for a full week to help him settle in.... which made our anniversary plans moot. I was calm but incredibly sad and packed all his things from my place. It was a lot given that we had basically been living together for a year. I let him know that I didn't want to break up but that I needed my space to go back to being mine and he needed a chance to build his own home. That there was no reason we wouldn't be able to come through this stronger. He was in tears over the phone and the next day when I dropped off his things. Kept apologising for hurting me and that I deserved better. He also apologised for deprioritising us and for letting his mother's emotions overtake us. We agreed to have a phone call a week to just take things slow and rebuild. A week later on the first phone call- he was completely different. Cold and very HR-like. He ended the relationship. I stayed calm but said a few things that I know must have hurt. But I ended the call by saying that I respected but disagreed with his decision and that there was no need for us to speak again. .... which we haven't. And now I'm just processing and over analysing per my usual. I am trying to figure out how two people who were so in love and compatible managed to mess this up to this extent. I know rationally there's no point reaching out at this stage since there's too much water under the bridge. At the same time, I would be lying if I didn't admit I wasn't hopeful that we just had really bad luck and there's a chance we could work out in the future.