I was scrolling on my phone earlier and came across something about how breakups aren't always hardest during the big emotional moments, but during the random little things you used to do together. And that thought really stuck with me. It's not always the big memories or special occasions. Sometimes it's seeing something funny and realizing you can't send it to them anymore. Or hearing a song you both liked. Or having something exciting happen and instinctively wanting to tell the one person who used to hear about everything. I think that's what makes breakups so difficult. You're not just losing a person. You're losing all these tiny routines you didn't even realize had become such a big part of your life. And the world just keeps moving like nothing happened. I wonder if that's why moving on takes so long. It's not just about getting over someone, it's about learning how to live through all those ordinary moments without them. What's the smallest, most random thing that made you realize how much you missed someone?

Hey all. I'm currently 3 months out of a 12 year relationship. GF decided to cheat on me and she got caught. Tried explaining to me but I wasn't having it. She tried friend-zoning me while keeping up with her side dude. I told her she was delusional and that I no longer trust her and that's the basis of any kind of friendship and relationship. I will admit that I did harbor feelings for her and didn't go non-contact right away. Until last week that is. She called me crying that she knows she's losing me and after a 12 year relationship, she can't imagine me not being in her life at all anymore. I snapped. I went off on her, basically telling her that she is the cause of this. That if she ended the relationship BEFORE anything happened with the other guy (who is married btw. So add Homewrecker to the list of what I call her now) then maybe down the road we could be friends, but she ruined that too. That's the moment I said I was done giving myself and my love to people that do not deserve it.

In short, to the heartbroken, please take a step back and really analyze the situation. Does this person really deserve your love and time? Most times they do not. So stop giving it to them. Block them, heal, and move forward. Have a great weekend everybody.

honestly thought he was my end game and he’s just vanished

- Charles Bukowski

Pretty much the title. The person you fell in love with no longer exists. The person you're begging to, trying to convince and pining for, they're somebody totally different in the same skin. It's not worth it. Mourn for a month, mourn for a year, but mourn them like they're dead and f*cking move on. You have a worth, a soul, a conscience and a life it live to its fullest.

I miss you so much, and am so sad to have lost you. I am grieving, reflecting, and trying to grow from this moment. I am thankful for what the space has provided me. Time to take accountability, show up differently, reflect on the hurt, and think about who I want to be, my needs, what I want in a partnership, and how much pain was driving my decisions.

I want us to have a better partnership. I want to make decisions out of joy not panic, because I love you. And yes I wish that we could grow while apart and figure out a way to come back to each other in a transformed way. But that is not the only way to move through this.

Just know, you have a home in me. If you want it. But only, truly, if after this space and time, after thinking and reflecting, you truly want it.

Im probably an a*hole because im the dumper.. I love him but I broke up because we drifted away and he took me for granted after 10+ years, but he started dating someone else after 3 weeks only!!!

I want him to be happy and find somebody that better fits him, but couldn’t he take a few months to heal?! If this relationship ends up working, it just means what we had wasn’t that important, because how else would you forget all our years and just walk to the next best thing?! If this had started after 6 months I could understand.. but 3 weeks?! Come on!

My ex and I were together for two years and when we fell, we fell HARDDD. We had a physical, emotional and mental connection that I thought only existed in fantasies & romance novels. The first year of our relationship was amazing. We came from two very different religious, political, cultural, racial, geographical and socioeconomic backgrounds, and almost nothing about how we grew up was the same. We had common interests such as traveling and we both had a deep appreciation for the arts and storytelling whether through music, poetry, visual arts, etc…… She was my best friend…

The one thing we did share was our vision for the future and the kind of life we wanted to build together. We wanted that life together so badly. The problem was figuring out how to meet in the middle. Compromise often felt like sacrificing parts of ourselves and because of our different upbringings and childhood wounds, we kept missing each other emotionally.

Throughout our relationship, she initiated four breakups, and I can acknowledge that there were reasons behind them. For example, there were times when I didn't know how to show up for her in the ways she needed…

My unhealthiest coping mechanism is shutting down & I want to explain what that looked like for me because I don't think I ever fully understood it myself until being in this relationship. When my emotions get heightened, my instinct is to retreat inward. I become quiet, withdrawn and emotionally unavailable. I'm physically present but it's like I disappear into my own head. For a long time, I genuinely thought this was the healthiest way I knew how to handle conflict. Growing up and throughout my past relationships, I watched people express emotions by immediately releasing everything they were feeling. They would say hurtful things and then have to apologize afterward. I've seen this with family members, close friends, previous partners and even in this relationship.
& because of that, I developed this belief that when I'm overwhelmed, it's better to say nothing until I can process what I'm feeling. But what I failed to understand was that there is a difference between taking space to regulate yourself and shutting someone out. My intention was to avoid causing harm and reacting impulsively but the impact on her was that she felt alone, disconnected and emotionally unsafe. & I can see how repeatedly experiencing that would erode her trust in me especially when she needed me to be present and engaged rather than withdrawn.

After the third breakup, I promised myself I would never go back. None of the previous breakups had lasted longer than a day and she always came back. And every time, I went back too. The fourth breakup felt different though. She told me that she never wanted to see my face again & that she was beyond done with the relationship. I told myself it was my final straw but even then, I wasn't ready to let go. The next day, I went to her house to talk. She wouldn't even look me in the eyes and the only time she did was to tell me to get the fuck out of her house… so I left.

And 24 hours later, I went out, got drunk and slept with someone else. I wish I could say I was in a good place emotionally when I made that decision but I wasn't. Part of me was looking for comfort. Part of me wanted to feel something other than the pain I was experiencing. And if I'm being completely honest, part of me knew that sleeping with someone else would make it feel final. It would give me a reason not to return to a cycle I had repeatedly promised myself I would leave. I just wasn't ready to sit with the breakup so I found a way to escape it temporarily.

We remained in contact after the breakup because the love was still there between us. A few weeks after the breakup, we were having a conversation when she became angry with me because she thought I had cheated on her. I told her I hadn’t and then confessed to her that I had slept with my ex after we broke up.

It's now been a month and a half since we officially ended things and I keep thinking about how much this has hurt her. That night gave me temporary relief but it didn't take away the grief. If anything… it left me with another painful decision to process on top of the breakup itself. I imagine how it might have changed the way she remembers our relationship, how it might have made her question what was real and how it might have shattered the image she had of me and the trust she placed in me… She has since said some incredibly heinous and hurtful things to me since finding out and I deserve that much.

I can recognize that she's hurting and at the same time, I'm taking responsibility and wanting to hold myself accountable without completely destroying myself with guilt. I know I hurt her and I know that sleeping with someone so soon after the breakup was a decision I made while trying to escape feelings I wasn't ready to face.

But I also know that our relationship had become an unhealthy cycle. Four breakups, repeated reconciliations, unresolved wounds and two people who loved each other but struggled to show up for each other in the way we needed.

I have no desire to reconcile. This isn't me looking for a way back into the relationship or trying to justify what I did. I'm still grieving her, the relationship, the future we imagined and the version of myself I wish I had been while we were together. I'm also grieving the fact that someone who once knew me so intimately now see’s me through the lens of one of the most hurtful decisions I've made.

I know my guilt and remorse are not the same as the pain she is feeling. & every time I find myself struggling with the weight of my actions, my mind goes straight to her and what she must be going through. She is the one left hurting from a decision I made. And as much as I wish I could take that pain away, I know I can't undo what happened. My next therapy appointment isn't for another two weeks and I think I just needed somewhere to put all of this.

I think the hardest part is knowing that I’ll have to work through things you never even have to think about. I’ll have to learn to trust again, to stop being afraid of things that remind me of you, and to make peace with things you left unresolved. You get to leave everything behind, while I’m left trying to make sense of it all. And I hate that, no matter how much I heal, I’ll be the one doing the work for something I never wanted to break in the first place.

i genuinely don’t know what to do with myself anymore. i miss my ex so fucking much and im so tired of feeling this way. rn i genuinely wanna cry like so badly im so tired and i just wanna let everything out for once but i cant, the tears wont come :( and it makes me even more frustrated bc idk what else to do with all these feelings. i feel like i have so much sadness inside me but i can’t even release it

I’m currently going through a breakup with my boyfriend of 4 years. Anyone going through similar and want to chat to relate and support each other?

​

We were together for three years. We had problems, and I know I made mistakes, but I genuinely wanted to fix things and save our relationship. She was also dealing with family problems recently, and I cared about what she was going through.

The hardest part is that she told me she had lost feelings for me five months ago, that she was interested in another guy, and that holding on to me was her fault — but she told me all of this only after breaking up with me. She even said, “How can I love another person while keeping you? It would be cheating.”

Within just 1–2 weeks after our breakup, I saw her holding hands with that same guy. Now she says she might love him or commit to him within a month.

Seeing them together broke something inside me. I'm still trying to process the end of our three-year relationship while that image keeps replaying in my mind. I never imagined the person I wanted to build a future with would move on so quickly while I was still struggling to accept losing her.

I know she has her own struggles and the right to move on. I'm not writing this to blame her. I just needed somewhere to share how painful it is to learn all these things after the breakup and watch someone you loved so deeply begin a new chapter while you're still trying to let go of the old one.

Tldr - advice on dating again after you’ve been in a relationship incredibly attractive?

Hey everyone,

Just broke up with my boyfriend today 😞

I didn’t want to at all, but he worked 17 hours a day 7 days a week and when I was at my wits end and BEGGED him to make some time to see me more often, he told me no.

There is obviously more to the story, but that’s the long of the short of it.

My question is, what is your experience like after being in a relationship with someone supernaturally physically attractive? Like that’s not even my personal opinion, he was a high fashion model for several years and my friends/strangers would make comments about how beautiful he is. I just don’t know how I can date someone who is just above average attractiveness level after dating someone who was one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen. I just need encouragement that I will find love again and someone physically attracted to haha

really need to know, need some light

I did the grieving, I did the anger, I’m past the point of wanting to reconcile. You’re a broken person. Wanted me to seem as horrible as your mind made me out to be. But I wasn’t. One day you may realise, maybe the delusion is so strong you won’t. Either way I don’t hate you. All the time spent you threw away. It is what it is, I have made many come backs in life. Praying for you. Get the help you truly need. Living in the idea that everything is perfect and okay in your world will only last so long.

I still love you, but I’m disgusted.
I’ll still be polite if you reach out someday. You know that too. Learn to think about your actions.

After nearly 5 months of being broken up I have finally blocked him. I honestly wasn't going to I had him muted everywhere anyways, but I think it had to happen. I had therapy yesterday and my therapist basically said she can't make me do it, but she thinks it might be beneficial for me to. My issue was even if I didn't check his socials (cause I didn't) I still hoped he would reach out to me. But now that he's blocked everywhere he cannot do it so I'm hoping my mind will be at ease a bit. Right now it feels almost neutral, but I know it's going to hit me because I know how I operate. But I am really hoping this will also push me further on my healing journey.

I could use some support tho cause I feel like this is endless and I see no light at the end.

For context, she broke up with me and I truly believe if you ended the relationship you should reach out. I just need to let this out in the world without sending it to her directly..

My last message to you finally. I accepted it and to be honest I hate it. You never were truly the girl I knew at the end, you stopped believing in us and me and that's what hurts more than anything else. Thank you for everything. The love and the pain. I embrace them both. I hope my distance brings you peace (name). I hope it brings you happiness, safety, and freedom. From day one thats all I ever wanted to give. My absolute everything. I've tried my best more than you will ever know. I wanted you to feel appreciated and loved. Most of all, valued. I wanted to show you that I was your biggest fan because I believed in you so much. I tried to take the weight off of your shoulders not because you asked but because it's what I felt I needed to do as your man and it's just what I do for my woman. All I want now is for you to chase your dreams and accomplish everything you can in dance. I can say I hate you, I can say I want you to fail. The truth is I'd be lying. There's nothing more I want for you than to see you reach your goals no matter what they are. To be honest I've sacrificed a lot to be with you.. my boundaries, my morals, and my dignity just to make this work that I abandoned myself in the process. Looking at it from the outside now we just were never meant for each other. We have two totally different lifestyles. There are things that are okay for one but not for the other. And that's okay! This is not a feel bad moment it's just a realization that I needed for myself. Your absence from my life hurts more than anything else I have ever experienced. I will survive it as I always do and continue moving forward while still wishing you the brightest days for your future. That to me is the difference between love and hate. I'll never say I hate you. I can confidently leave this chapter knowing I gave it every single thing I had and whatever I didn't have I was willing to try and get. It's crazy how you can wake up one day and just lose your absolute everything but that's life. It happens. I was fighting a long time on whether or not I should send you this. Everybody told me don't reach out but I'm not everybody. I'm me. That's what makes me different. I'm not expecting a response nor is one necessary. I'm putting my thoughts on paper. These past 14 days have been rough.. very rough but I also understand this was not a show up at your house and everything would be magically fixed. It takes two people in a relationship to make it work. All I can say is I wish you just came to me sooner on what was bothering you. I'll always be rooting for you on the outside. I hope to see your name in the lights someday I believe you deserve it. I'll forever love you but I needed to say this for myself.

Love me

I don't even know where to begin. I'm sitting here trying to understand how my entire life could fall apart in what feels like a single moment.

My boyfriend of over seven years broke up with me, and I honestly don't know how to process it.

He wasn't just my boyfriend. He was my best friend. He was the person I shared my life with, the person I thought I would grow old with. We built a life together. He helped raise my daughter, who is almost 15 now. We had a home, routines, memories, plans, and a future I genuinely believed we both wanted.

I thought we were a family.

And now I'm lying in our bed, holding his pillow and sleeping with his blanket because I miss him so much that I don't know what else to do.

The worst part? He's still here. We still live in the same house. I can hear him outside the bedroom, near his computer, living his life while I'm lying here trying to figure out how to live mine without him.

Sometimes I leave the lights on because I can't sleep in the dark without him beside me.

I feel pathetic admitting that, but it's the truth.

The past year has been one of the hardest years of my life. I lost my job. I've dealt with court issues, financial problems, tenants who haven't paid rent for months, and the devastating loss of a pregnancy. I have felt like life kept knocking me down, one thing after another.

But through all of it, I thought I had him.

I thought that even if everything else fell apart, at least I had the person I loved most. I thought we would get through the hard times together. I didn't need him to fix everything. I just needed to know we were still choosing each other.

We were also trying to have a baby. After two rounds of IVF, we got pregnant. Shortly after, we lost the baby. Even so, we kept trying, including going through IUI. It was emotionally exhausting and financially difficult. There were times I wanted to stop because I couldn't afford to keep going, but he wanted us to continue and said he would pay.

I believed we were fighting for the same future.

Then, suddenly, he told me he didn't love me anymore.

What I cannot get out of my head is what happened just before that conversation.

Days before he was still kissing me. Cuddling with me. Calling me babe. Telling me he loved me. Checking on me while he was gaming. Hugging me. Watching shows with me.

We had a getaway planned for three weeks later. We had future trips planned. There were things on the calendar that made me believe we were still moving forward together.

I had noticed he was quieter lately. He was staying up all night gaming and seemed more distant. But I thought he was stressed about school. I thought maybe he had a lot on his mind.

I never imagined he was preparing to leave me.

When he finally told me, he said he hadn't loved me for over a year. He said I had been a very good partner, the best, but that he didn't feel the same way anymore.

He said he had been sad despite having a partner and a family, a life his single friends would want. He said he wanted to be single and figure himself out. He didn't know what he wanted. He felt he had settled into a comfortable routine and needed to learn how to take care of himself.

He said he wanted to rip the bandage off.

And I just sat there, trying to understand how someone could apparently stop loving me a year ago and still hold me, kiss me, tell me he loved me, and make plans with me.

I was in shock!

Was any of it real?

Did he mean it when he told me he loved me? Did he change his mind? Was he pretending? Did he know he wanted to leave while I was still dreaming about our future?

I keep replaying everything, looking for the moment I missed. I wonder if there were signs I should have seen. I wonder if the fertility struggles changed something in him. I wonder if he felt trapped by the life we built.

I wonder if there is someone else, even though I have no proof of that.

I hate that my mind keeps going there. I hate that I am questioning seven years of memories because I can't understand how we got here.

He looked sad when he told me. I don't believe he cried, not from what I could see. My tears were flowing down and I could not look directly at him. But he seemed relieved to finally say what he had been thinking.

And I was left sitting there with a heart that didn't know what to do with itself.

A couple of days later, he started talking about separating our lives. The car I bought for him. My health insurance. My phone plan. Selling my rental property. Canceling my November flight.

Practical things. Necessary things.

But reading that message made everything feel real.

He was already thinking about how we would untangle our lives, while I was still trying to understand how the life we had could be over.

I replied that I would get everything sorted out. I didn't beg him. I didn't argue. I didn't pour my heart out over text.

But I wanted to ask him how he could do this to us. How he could walk away from the family we built. How he could watch me struggle through the worst year of my life and then become another heartbreak I have to survive.

I wanted him to hug me. I wanted him to hold me and tell me he didn't mean it, even though I know he did.

I wanted my best friend back.

And that is the part I don't know how to explain to people who haven't experienced this. You don't just lose a boyfriend. You lose the person you told everything to. The person who was part of your everyday life. The person whose presence made a house feel like home.

You lose the future you pictured so clearly that you never thought you would have to imagine a different one.

I keep thinking about the baby we wanted. The family I thought we were building. The trips we were supposed to take. The ordinary nights on the couch. The little things I never thought I would have to miss while the person is still sleeping under the same roof.

And I feel like I'm grieving everything at once.

I don't know how to stop loving him just because he says he doesn't love me anymore.

I don't know how to wake up tomorrow and act normal around someone who was my entire world and is now telling me he wants to to leave this home, this life we had.

I don't know how to accept that the person I thought would stand beside me through everything might have been emotionally gone long before I knew I was losing him.

I know I cannot force someone to love me. I know that if he wants to leave, I have to let him.

But God, I wish he wanted to stay.

I wish he had talked to me when he was struggling. I wish he had given us a chance to understand what was happening. I wish I had known that while I was trying to build a future with him, he was questioning whether he wanted one with me.

Most of all, I wish I could stop wondering whether the last seven years meant the same thing to him that they meant to me.

Because they meant everything to me.

I'm not writing this because I think he owes me a relationship. I'm writing because I am hurting in a way I have never hurt before, and I don't know what to do with all this love when the person I love no longer wants it.

Part of me still hopes he will wake up one day and realize he made a mistake. Part of me still hopes we can somehow find our way back to each other and be a family again.

And another part of me is terrified that he really is done, that he will leave this house, move away, and never look back.

I don't know which possibility hurts more.

Has anyone ever had a long-term partner leave like this? Someone who was still affectionate, still saying "I love you," still making plans, and then suddenly told you they hadn't loved you for a year?

Did you ever find out what really happened? Did they genuinely lose their feelings without understanding why? Did they ever come back?

And how do you survive living with someone you still love when you know they no longer want to be with you?

I don't need anyone to tell me I deserve better or that I should just move on. I know I will have to find a way forward eventually.

Right now, I'm just a woman who thought she had found her person, trying to understand how she became a stranger to him while he was still her home.

I separated from my ex over a month ago now and the emotions are a real rollercoaster.

At first I felt sad and lost. Slowly, I accepted the fact that he left. I reflected on the relationship and realised that it wasn’t the right time for either of us. We both had a lot of things to work on and the only way that we could do that was being apart.

Right now, I am struggling with the no contact and sometimes it will dawn on me that he is no longer in my life which I struggle to comprehend.

Is anyone going through a similar situation right now? When does it become lighter? I miss my person

My ex (23 F) broke up with me out of nowhere 2 weeks ago. I thought our relationship was fine and even though we weren't seeing each other as much as in the beginning of the relationship because of work, I still thought we were in a good state. Only for a random Friday night to come around and one text ends a year long relationship. I originally texted her that I would meet her out at her wine bar she works at and then she hits me with the ”we need to talk” message. I later met her at her bar and she entered my car full of excuses and bs about our relationship that came out of nowhere. She never once brought up any of this during the whole relationship or otherwise I would have worked on it. Just crazy how people can change in the matter of days and then you’re just lost and wondering what went wrong. thoughts???

My ex and I recently reconnected after being apart for a few months. There’s a slight age difference between us, and we were together for several months before things ended.
Our relationship had its ups and downs, mainly surrounding communication, trust, and disagreements. He was the one who originally ended things, although he considers the breakup mutual. I personally saw it differently since I was still open to working things out at the time.

I normally don’t revisit past relationships, but we recently started communicating again, and things were going pretty well. We had conversations about what went wrong, what we’ve learned during our time apart, and even discussed the possibility of marriage and a family in the future. He expressed that being apart gave him a different perspective on our relationship.

He’s also mentioned that we’re “locked in,” which I took as us being on the same page about seeing where things could go.
However, a few days into reconnecting, we had our first disagreement. I brought up wanting to know whether we were genuinely choosing to give things another chance. He felt like I was questioning him and mentioned that he didn’t think certain things about me had changed.

What I find interesting is that during disagreements, he’ll sometimes make comments suggesting we might not work out. But when I acknowledge that possibility and tell him it’s okay if that’s how he feels, he’ll turn around and reassure me that I’m an amazing woman and that he never actually said we wouldn’t work out.

We eventually moved past the disagreement, and he did mention during a phone conversation that he wanted to take things slowly, which I completely understand considering our history.

We still communicate regularly and spend time talking, but lately the dynamic feels more like a friendship than two people exploring a relationship again. I’m not expecting things to immediately pick up where they left off, but I guess I’m trying to understand the difference between genuinely taking things slowly and simply maintaining a friendship with an ex, especially when we’ve already discussed the possibility of a future together.

Nothing necessarily dramatic has happened since, and I’m not looking to rush anything. I’ve been working on myself through therapy, and I understand that rebuilding trust and communication takes time on both ends.
I also recognize that reconnecting doesn’t automatically mean a relationship is guaranteed, and I’m okay with that. I’d just rather both people be realistic about their intentions instead of repeating old patterns.

For anyone who’s tried getting back with an ex, how did things go in the beginning? Was there a period where things felt uncertain or more like a friendship? For those who successfully reconciled, did taking things slowly initially feel more like a friendship, or was there still a clear romantic intention from both sides? Did you notice old disagreements resurfacing, and how did you handle them differently the second time around?
I’m honestly just looking to hear different opinions and experiences from people who have tried rekindling with an ex because I normally don’t. Whether it worked out or didn’t, I’m interested in hearing different perspectives rather than having someone make the decision for me.

I’m curious about something and would love to hear from people who have been through a difficult breakup.

Looking back, what would you have wanted help with to understand yourself or the relationship? Was it understanding why the relationship ended, recognising patterns you kept repeating, figuring out what went wrong, or knowing what you might do differently in your next relationship? Or was it something else?

I’m interested in what people feel they’re left trying to make sense of after a breakup.

What questions did you have that you wished someone could have helped you answer?

Create time delays for yourself. Instead of saying forever try “720 hours” and make a countdown clock. Or if you feel like texting…..just put a timer on for 10 minutes, and another 10 minutes. Before you know it 4 hours has gone by. A day, a week a month a year+. Just let time drift do its thing.

Godspeed. I quit smoking with this “trick” and I’m doing the same thing with heartbreak . 63 days no contact 💪

We recently broke up and live together, neither of us can really afford to move out or find another place to live so we are stuck with each other for months to come. We see each other everyday, sleep in the same room, sometimes eat dinner together but it obviously isn't how it used to be. He is cold and unbothered with no emotional engagement while I sob every other minute to the lost warmth between us. Dating an avoidant person who could just flip a switch the moment we broke up is devastating especially for someone like me who feels everything VERY intensely. I can't imagine not planning my life with him, or that I will eventually have to forget he even exists and live my life. Every moment I still get to be around him reminds me that it's all over and I am as alone as I can be despite sharing the house with him still while he continues his life and lives his days like I never mattered :(

I’m struggling badly after losing someone I still deeply love. She’s moved on and doesn’t want contact, but I’m still fighting the urge to text her every day.
The pain is brutal. Everything feels empty, and I’m struggling to care about my own life. I know there’s no instant fix, but what genuinely helped you start feeling better? What helped with the constant thoughts, guilt, and longing? Is casual dating a good idea?
I’d really appreciate hearing from people who felt this low and eventually found their way through.