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SecretlyMe
13,852 M Pacing Forward 10
PathStep 428 Compassion hearts394 Forum posts1,030 Forum upvotes1,166 Current upvotes1,166 Age GroupAdult Last activeMarch, 2021 Member sinceJune 29, 2018
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Hurts that he seems to be ok
Relationship Stress / by SecretlyMe
Last post
 February 27th, 2020
...See more Back story summed up concisely: I was struggling with depression for about 6 months and then I had three separate family deaths over the span of 5 weeks. It was at the same time as the holidays and I think that made their absences that much more painful. Boyfriend was acting incredibly supportive and I asked him to join my family for the holidays. Despite us dating for 3 years, this would have been the first time I did that because my family is so traditional and no one can come unless they are family or practiciallly family. He came to my family christmas celebration, he also came to my work christmas party. He plays a big role in supporting me through the holidays and through this difficult time. Fast forward to a week later. On New Years Eve, he says he needs space. He says he's unhappy because I am not as affectionate and I'm not as bubbly as I was before (before the depression, before the grief). I tell him that I'm going through a hard time. If he needs to leave when I need him then he can't come back. He leaves anyway. I am devestated with his decision and I regret the choice I put on him because instead of getting him to stay, I pushed him away. He's right that I haven't been as affectionate or as happy but that feels out of my control. I was still trying to show him how important he was to me by bringing him around for the holidays. I thought I was proving my dedication to this relationship by introducing him to friends and coworkers at the holiday party. Now I feel like an idiot because the next time I saw most of those people, I had to admit that I was dumped by the person I had just introduced them to. I was just abandoned by the person I was talking up and telling everyone how strong he has been through this emotionally draining time for me. Between January and now he has reached out a few times. He wanted to get back together but my trust was broken and as much as I miss him and love him, I can no longer see how I can rebuild a relationship with someone when I will always be thinking about how he left me when I couldn't handle losing another person. I don't think I can build trust with someone who abandoned me at my most vulnerable. So as hard as it was to hear him say goodbye to me, it hurt me so much more to have to say it to him. It hurt so much more to know that I wanted him and he wanted me but what we wanted wasn't realistic or attainable. I thought I was making progress with the heartbreak but valentines day brought up a lot of feelings I thought I had moved passed. Tomorrow is the anniversary of when we were first paired on a dating site. And thanks to him, I have the dates memorized for a lot of small milestones in the relationship that most people don't celebrate but he loved to: the date we exchanged contact info, date we had our first phone call, date of our first date, date of our first kiss, and finally date of when he officially asked to be my partner. All spanning over the course of tomorrow to the beginning of april. I think I'll be stuck feeling this way until the last anniversary is behind me. Today he messaged me out of nowhere. When I restarted my phone, I guess one of my old texts that were stuck in limbo (still said sending but was never sent) finally went through. He responded with "That's funny"; obviously knowing that it was an old message. I didn't mean to contact him, he didn't need to respond but the way he chose to do it irked me. "That's funny" as if we're old friends reconnecting rather than recent exs still hurting. As if he wasn't just begging me a couple weeks ago to get back together and I wasn't just crying over the holiday weekend missing him. If the roles were reversed it would have hurt to see a message from him. It would hurt to read something sent to me from a time when we were still together. But it didn't hurt him, to him it was "funny". I shouldn't have done it. I know I shouldn't have. But I looked up his social media profile. I hadn't looked at since we first broke up and the pain was brand new. I don't know why the text message made me go to social media but it did. When I clicked on his profile, he had a new profile picture. He was standing in california adventure making a silly face and sporting a big smile. A new wave of sadness washed over me. He looked so happy. Happier than I had seen him in a long time. He looked happier there than he had in any of the recent pictures he had taken with me months leading up to the separation. He looked like he had healed completely. The picture was new. Posted just this week, the same time I was still crying over him. Accompanying the sadness is anger. I feel like this breakup hurt so much more when he asked if we could get back together. He added so much doubt and confusion and so much added pain to a situation that already had those things. Maybe I would be in a more stable place if he hadn't reached out. Maybe I wouldn't have spent last weekend missing him so much. Maybe I wouldn't STILL be thinking about how I can make this work: how I can overcome the trust issue or how we can grow from this event. All the while he seems happier with me gone. He has come out the other side and is fine. He is at a point where hearing from me is "funny". He probably doesn't see the irony in going to california adventures when he had claimed that was going to be my birthday present (not my last birthday but the year before) but he never followed through because of money. I don't really have a question. I am just so angry and sad and I wanted to vent.
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