Breakup with my best friend

I was dating my guy best friend for a year and a few months, we had been good friends for about eight years prior. He was that friend that I told everything to and he was so caring, we always gravitated towards each other, so everyone knew we would eventually date. I always knew we would but neither of us ever acted on it and we dated other people, and I knew if I ever was to be with him I would want it to last, or I wanted him to date someone else that was amazing because he deserved it. So we finally dated and it was amazing, we got along great and we both seemed so happy and did so many things together. He suddenly broke up with me a month ago, and I hadn't been expecting it at all, he hadn't mentioned anything before and we hadn't argued for months. It was about an issue that happened before our relationship began, when something first happened between us I was seeing other people non seriously and wasn't ready for a relationship as I'd just gotten out of a long-term one. We never discussed anything at the time about us and stopped talking, and I had assumed we were just back to normal friends, until months later I realized he was hurt and we talked over things and admitted our feelings and actually started dating. He was stuck on that over a year later and I guess it mattered over our friendship and what we built over the time dating.. He said he needed to work on himself and maybe we would get together again but I couldn't stand the false hope..