4 1/2 years and now I realize I don't know who he is anymore

Last week I broke up with my boyfriend of 4 and a half years. A long time, I know. About 2 years into our relationship, he transferred to a boarding school for gifted students 4 hours away from home. I was proud of him. But I worried that he'd find someone new. He didn't, but that didn't stop the flirting. He never knew where to draw the line, and girls fell over him left and right, flirting and touching. I thought he'd never do anything to hurt me. But the more time passed during our long distance relationship, the easier he let his ego take hold of him. He became a sarcastic, sexually frustrated narcissist. But distance makes the heart develop an idealized version of the person you fell in love with. A couple weeks ago I went to visit him at his university, and things had been weird and distant between us for a while. A long while, but even more so in the few weeks leading up to my visit. Anyway, we decided to sleep together for the first time, because physicality is the solution to emotionally distant relationships, right? It happened, unsuccessfully, but I didn't feel bad about it. I know I hear a lot of people feel kind of sick after their first time, but we didn't. We slow danced and sang to each other. Sunday morning that weekend we said our goodbyes and I returned to my university. He sent me snapchats of him going to a frat party that night. The next morning, he called me on my way to lunch and told me he had gotten drunk. And kissed another girl. And did oral. Both of them.

Needless to say, I felt sick and I still feel sick. I can't eat, I'm tired all the time, I can't focus on my school work as much. He made me believe that he loved me the right way. I ignored all the stuff he did that made me uncomfortable because I figured it was just my anxiety. I ignored my emotions and let him act however he wanted to act. I let myself be disrespected by the person I loved more than anything. We had great moments, but it wasn't real, true love. I see that now.

I didn't talk to him for a week. And then, after a phone call with his mom, I decided to call him and give him a second chance. But it was only two days later that I realized I couldn't do it. Battling myself on whether or not I had made a good decision was pushing me to the edge of anxiety attacks. So I called his mom again, and told her the whole story. I sent him an essay on how he needs to figure out who he is. That I don't want to hear from him at all until next summer. For the first couple days, I couldn't stop daydreaming that he'll be the idealized version of him that I had in my head when we meet up again. I don't know who I fell in love with, but it wasn't who he is now.

And now I'm struggling to feel better again. Whole. I know that I can be whole again, even better, without him...eventually. I just don't know how. I don't know how to be better again.