Heartbroken, and holding out on the hope that he will come back...

My boyfriend and I of over 3.5 years recently broke up, 5 days ago now. It was his decision. It came out of nowhere. Thanksgiving weekend had just passed, and we had spent the weekend together at both my family's, as well as his own. I thought it was a great weekend, and everything was normal. The weeks preceding the breakup, he still texted me every day, asked about my day, sent me goodmorning texts, told me he loved me. Even the day of the break up, he was still sending me goodmorning texts, and asking about my day. Everything seemed normal. Then he shows up at my place after work, with the big liner "We need to talk". Instantly, I knew. He was crying during the breakup and told me that he loved me so much, that he is still in love with me. I guess love is not enough. We had such an open, honest, loving, communicative relationship, I don't understand where things went wrong. We had always agreed to talk about things before it came to this point, as if we were going to be together forever. We always talked about the future, and planned a life together. He told his friends he was going to marry me. Now, here he's telilng me that "he doesn't know who he is anymore", "we want different things", "we need to work on ourselves so that we can be better for eachother", "we keep having the same arguments", etc. etc. Just a whole run-around of reasons, all of which I will never know what the real reason is.

Of course I did everything you're not supposed to during this time and bawled my face off and begged and pleaded for him to not leave. Offering alternatives like a break/space to work on things. Nothing I said would change his mind. I asked him when he decided to break up with me, and he told me the day previous. How can a person become so completely convinced and dead-set on ending a 3.5 year relationship, within the span of a day? Why wasn't there a conversation before it came to this point? He told me to stop saying things like "that I'll never see him again" or "get to hold him again", because we will see eachother again. Why do you break up with someone and still tell that you are in love with them, and sit there crying, as well?

We haven't spoken since the break-up. He has not changed his profile on Facebook, his profile picture is still of us, and it still says we are in a relationship. Obviously, I haven't changed my profile either, because I am waiting for him to. I feel so stupid, because I am holding out on the hope that maybe he will come back. He left me with the idea that this wasn't the end. I don't want to let him go. He was it for me. He was my better half. We did so much together. I think the worst part of it all, is letting go a huge part of my life, including his friends and family, who became my own friends and family. Now I cannot speak to any of them, as I don't know what to say, or if it's appropriate.

I've been struggling so hard with not contacting him. There's so many questions I have left unanswered. There's so many points that I wasn't able to address. I want to be able to have a conversation about where this went wrong, and try to patch things up. But everything I have read says that it is imperative that I give him his space, so I will respect that. Is there a possibility that this can be worked out in the future?