A broken breakup?!?
Hi. I’m really nervous about starting this conversation, but I think I need to just get everything out instead of trying to explain it piece by piece.
I’m going through a breakup that I honestly don’t know how to cope with anymore. I still love this person incredibly deeply. we’ve been through a lot together. We were together, we lived in each other’s lives, and he became my person and my home. We broke up months ago, and he has told me that he doesn’t want a relationship with me.
The problem is that he never really left my life. He still comes around constantly. We spend a lot of time together. We eat together, talk, watch things together, help each other, and he takes care of me in a lot of practical ways. He still messages me during his day and tells me what’s going on and sends me pictures and things he sees. There is still so much connection between us, but he doesn’t want to be my partner.
I love him so much, and I don’t understand how someone can be this close to you and still not want you in the way you want them. I know I can’t make him love me differently, and I know he has the right to feel however he feels, but knowing that doesn’t make this hurt less.
Right now he’s actually texting me from work and updating me about his day and sending me pictures of a dog, while I’m sitting here trying to figure out how I’m supposed to cope with the fact that I don’t have the relationship with him that I desperately want. That’s what my life feels like right now—being connected to him and comforted by him while simultaneously being terrified that someday he’s going to find someone else and I’m going to lose him completely.
I don’t want to keep talking to my friends and family about it because I feel like I’ve said the same things so many times, and I don’t want to feel like I’m burdening them anymore. But I also can’t keep sitting alone with all of this.
This man is at my house everyday morning til night everyday unless he is working and then he is there before and after working. He “provides” monetary support, food, bills, fun stuff, needed stuff, even dumb stuff. We cook together, eat together, watch tv, exist together. But at the end of the day he goes home. No hug, nothing, just a “I’ll see u in the morning” and then he is there waking me up again the next morning.
Idk what’s going on, or why, and I’m loosing my mind.
@passionateBanana4849 Breakups can be incredibly challenging, especially when you are left feeling confused about why a person does not want to be with you in that way. In a lot of romantic relationships it feels like the person is not only your partner but also your best friend, navigating the transition afterwards can be tricky. It sounds like this person is happy to still spend time with you and support you which is great but can also make it trickier to move on from the idea of being in a relationship with each other when you are around each other so often. you deserve to be able to talk through your feelings as often as you want to, it can take repeating the same things several times for it to sink in and to be able to work through those feelings and that is okay. How would you feel about setting some boundaries with him about how often you see each other and telling him how you feel about the situation whilst letting him know that you acknowledge a relationship isnt what he wants? you both deserve to have your feelings and perspectives heard.
I have a really hard time setting boundaries with him, we have gone thru a “no contact “ period, at my doing, and it emotionally destroyed me. I wasn’t sleeping, or eating, or even showering most days, I cried days and days on end and ended up with black eyes from crying and rubbing my eyes.
We r basically neighbors. He lives 5 houses away from me. Walking distance. Shouting distance even. It’s the hardest most hurtful situation I have ever been in.
I don’t want to loose him, but I don’t feel like I can stay in this place we r at forever.
I’ve told him how I feel. I’ve made it clear I am still doing this because I want more, that I hope for more, dream and pray for more. And he has told me he doesn’t want a relationship with me but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t “love and care about me” he “enjoys spending time with me”. But then uses phrases like “what’s for dinner when we get home” or.. “we better get home to let the dogs out” Or.. calling things “ours”.. bringing me home drinks or snacks or plants or random things from work.. filling my gas tank.
I don’t understand why someone would b like that. I don’t understand what is happening. And I don’t kno what I should do about it.
@passionateBanana4849
it is a difficult one to figure out ..I get why you feel confused or unclear. I know it would be incredibly hard but sometimes we need to tell a person we cannot keep doing this waiting to be hurt when or IF he found someone, he does want to be in a relationship.
Maybe he is confused or unsure and that is why he is holding on tight to doing all the same things with you. each person will give you a different take on it because the only way anyone really knows is to ask honestly of the other person ... What is going on and how are either of you able to move on.
the Very hardest thing to let go is what we picture our relationship being and it is hard to reimagine our future when the past is at our home each morning til night
I feel very weak when it comes to being able to reimagine a future for myself. Each time I try, it takes my breathe away.
This situation is extremely complicated beyond just the surface stuff. We r neighbors. We r friends. We have mostly mutual friends. So just walking down the road, is a constant reminder. I drive past his house every single day as it is the road I live on.
I don’t kno why he treats the situation the way he does. But it’s extremely confusing and hurtful. It makes me feel stupid. It makes me feel like I am wasting my life waiting for something that may never happen. And I find myself wondering what will happen to me if he finds someone he wants more with? How will I ever survive that.
I try to tell myself the facts, and make myself accept reality of the situation, but I’m so stuck on hope, and prayers, that if they come crashing I’m around me, Irdk if I’ll b able to recover from it.
@passionateBanana4849
This is a very difficult situation. You are in love with this man, and he clearly cares about you too, but he doesn't want to commit to you and become a partner. The question is -- why? Maybe he's separated but not divorced, and didn't tell you? Maybe he has a fatal illness, and thinks that a platonic relationship will protect you from further hurt? Could he be in the closet? The witness protection program?
This isn't about you. It's about him. He clearly cares about you, but there is some reason he wants things to stay platonic.
