I’m trying to learn how to live after losing someone I still love

Hi everyone. My name is João, I'm 20 years old, and I recently went through the end of a relationship that was one of the most important parts of my life.

My ex-fiancée and I were together for around three years. We were engaged, built a life together, shared friends, hobbies, dreams, plans and countless memories. She wasn't simply my girlfriend. For a long time, she was one of the people I considered part of my future.

We broke up on September 10th.

And honestly, I'm still struggling to fully understand what happened.

The hardest part is that I still love her.

I don't want to romanticize our relationship or pretend that everything was perfect. It wasn't. I made mistakes. There were problems with communication, trust and some of my own behavior that hurt her and contributed to the deterioration of our relationship.

Looking back now, there are things I wish I had understood sooner.

There are things I wish I had handled differently.

And one of the most painful thoughts I have is knowing that perhaps I could have been a better partner while we were still together.

But the relationship ended, and I have to respect that reality.

At the same time, there is something I don't want to lie about:

I still hope that someday we might find our way back to each other.

Not because I believe reconciliation is guaranteed.

Not because I think I can somehow make her come back.

And certainly not because I believe that simply waiting will solve everything.

I know she has her own feelings, her own life and her own right to decide what she wants.

But I also don't feel that the door has been completely and permanently slammed shut.

There have been things since the breakup that made me feel that the possibility of a future reconnection is not completely impossible.

She hasn't blocked me or completely erased me from every part of her life. There have also been moments where she has shown that she still has some care and concern for me, including allowing me to reach out during a difficult family situation and responding with kindness.

She has also said things in the past that made it clear to me that she believed I could change and become a better person.

None of these things mean that she wants to come back.

I know that.

They are not promises.

They are not evidence that she is secretly waiting for me.

But they are part of why I don't feel that I have to convince myself that reconciliation is absolutely impossible.

And I think there is an important distinction there.

I don't believe she will necessarily come back. I believe it is still possible.

That possibility matters to me.

But I'm trying to learn how to hold that possibility without turning it into an expectation.

Because there is a huge difference between:

“Maybe someday we will find each other again.”

and:

“She is going to come back, so I need to wait.”

I don't want to wait.

I want to live.

If we ever reconnect, I want it to happen because both of us freely choose to explore that possibility, not because I spent months trying to manipulate circumstances, interpret signs or convince her.

If we ever get another chance, I don't want to simply restore our old relationship.

I would want us to build something different.

Something more mature.

Something where the problems that contributed to the breakup were actually addressed instead of being temporarily covered by the happiness of getting back together.

And I know that, if we ever did reconcile, I would probably struggle with fear.

I might be terrified of losing her again.

I might become anxious whenever something felt wrong.

I might be afraid of making another mistake.

I might cry more often than I would like.

Part of me would probably constantly think:

“What if I lose her again?”

And I know that would be something I would have to work through.

I don't want my fear of losing someone to turn into controlling behavior.

I don't want to spend a second chance desperately trying to prevent a third goodbye.

I want to become someone who can love another person deeply without losing himself in the process.

And that's actually what I'm trying to work on right now, while we are apart.

I'm trying to improve myself regardless of whether she ever knows about it.

I'm working on my career, my studies, my creative projects, my friendships, my family, my hobbies and my relationship with myself.

I have projects involving RPGs, writing, music, drawing and a podcast. I'm trying to meet new people, discover new places and experience things that have nothing to do with my old relationship.

I'm trying to make my own life bigger.

Not because I want to replace her.

I don't want to replace her.

I want to build things that didn't exist before.

I've also been learning how difficult solitude can be.

It's not that I have nobody around me. I have friends and family who care about me.

It's that there is a very specific kind of loneliness that comes from losing the person who used to be your first instinct when something happened.

Sometimes I still think:

“I wish I could tell her this.”

Or:

“I wish she were here.”

Or simply:

“I wish I could feel that affection again.”

And sometimes the memories hurt precisely because they were good memories.

That's one of the strangest parts of grief.

You don't only miss the person.

Sometimes you miss who you were when you were with them.

I'm also trying to learn that missing her doesn't mean I have to contact her.

Having a sexual thought about her doesn't mean I have to act on it.

Remembering something doesn't mean I need to investigate what she is doing now.

Having hope doesn't mean I need to search for signs.

And feeling sad doesn't mean I've gone backwards.

Some days I feel surprisingly okay.

Other days I feel like the breakup happened yesterday.

I'm learning that both can be true.

My faith has also become important during this period.

I've been praying a lot.

Sometimes I ask God to give me strength to get through this.

Sometimes I ask that, if it is truly good for both of us, our paths may cross again someday.

But I'm also trying to learn to surrender what I cannot control.

I don't want to use faith as a strategy to make another person return.

I want faith to help me become stronger, kinder, more responsible and more capable of accepting whatever life eventually brings.

There are also things happening in my family right now. My grandfather is going through a serious medical situation and is having surgery soon, which has reminded me that life doesn't stop just because one part of it has fallen apart.

My family still needs me.

My friends still need me.

My work continues.

My studies continue.

My projects continue.

Life continues.

And maybe that's the lesson I'm struggling to learn.

My heartbreak is real, but it isn't the entirety of my life.

I don't want to force myself to stop loving her.

I don't want to pretend that reconciliation isn't something I would deeply want.

I don't want to kill every possibility just because I'm afraid of hoping.

But I also don't want hope to become a cage.

I want hope to be something like:

“Who knows what the future holds?”

Not:

“I have to wait for the future to happen.”

If she ever reaches out again, I'll deal with that reality when it happens.

If we ever decide to try again, we'll have to build something new together.

If she never does, I want to be able to look back and know that I didn't spend my life waiting for someone.

I lived.

I changed.

I grew.

I loved.

And I became someone I could respect.

That's why I'm here.

I'm not looking for people to tell me:

“Your ex will come back.”

I don't think strangers can know that.

I'm not even necessarily looking for reconciliation advice.

I'm looking for people who understand what it feels like to love someone who isn't currently in your life.

People who have experienced a long relationship ending.

People who had hope but still had to learn how to live.

People who were terrified that they would never feel happy again.

People who had to rebuild their identity after spending years imagining their future alongside someone else.

And especially people who can answer this:

How did you keep living while part of you was still hoping?

How did you learn to miss someone without making their absence the center of your existence?

How did you become okay with the possibility that the person you love might come back someday — while also becoming okay with the possibility that they might not?

I still hope that someday my story with her might have another chapter.

I really do.

But until I know whether that chapter exists, I need to learn how to write the chapters that belong to me.

I can hope for reconciliation without putting my life on hold for it.

And I think that's what I'm trying to learn now.

Thank you to anyone who took the time to read all of this. ❤️

If you've lived through something similar, I'd genuinely like to hear your story.

Not only the stories where everything worked out.

Especially the stories where people learned how to keep going.