Ex appears to have ghosted me, I'm devastated

He sounds absolutely dreadful OP, you're surely worthy of someone better than a man who treats you like a person "most of the time"?

You know how many times my husband of 18 years has made fun of my hair, or bullied me into cooking how he wants, or hemmed and hawwed about whether he wants to live with me or not, or gone out all night without telling me, or bitched about me to his mother, or literally tried to change who I am as a person so I can be more pleasing to him?

Zero, it's zero times. Because those things don't happen in good relationships.

He was and is awful OP. You made the right choice leaving him, and he's now done what you should have done in the first place and completely cut contact so you can heal. So try and start doing that instead of pining for this joke of a relationship.

This, in a nutshell.

You really are having a hard time waking up and smelling the coffee here.

He didn’t love you enough (you werent the one)
He was disrespectful and rude to you over your appearance.
He was judgmental and critical and made you anxious about your education/class/reading.
He shamed you over your credit situation and shared your private financial information with his family.
He was bizarrely controlling and manipulative over food (forcing you to cook from scratch when you had made other arrangements.)

You left him for the worst reason (that you felt you were not his one and only). You should have left him because he is an awful person who criticizes you, humiliates you, and tells you ghat you are a bitch.

The first time my bf ever called me a bitch would be the last one. Have some standards and stop with the mawkish sentimentality. You may have loved him but you were a fool. He was not good to you and you should never cast your pearls before swine.

Charitably one could say it was too painful for him to be friends with someone who and dumped him. But he was always more into himself than you so there isn’t actually any point to continuing to see him.

You need to work on yourself and stop wishing things could have been different. Everything you've written here tells me he was a bellend - you left him because of that. Sort yourself out and stop looking backwards - start looking forwards.

If relationships are over that usually means you both accept it's over for good. Even a partner saying they want to go on 'a break' is usually a relationship death knell, but you two had actually finished.

You wanted more than he was prepared to give and seemed to be hanging on waiting for him to change his mind. As awful as he was, and he was, he was being pretty clear about it.

You are going through the pain of breakup and it is painful. Probably looking back with rose coloured glasses, but the man you are describing sounds horrid and you are well rid (you just don't realise it yet).

He wasn’t that into you. So you left. Then you panicked because of your age and decided you would settle for him after all.

He’s STILL not that into you.

Stop chasing after him and be grateful that he’s stopped you from spending the next twenty years trapped in a relationship with an arsehole that treats you like crap.

He sounds like a right cunt and you were right for leaving. Well done. Now move the fuck on and stop wasting energy!!

Well exactly. I don't necessarily go as far as blocking with all of them but I've never stayed friends with an ex. What's the point.

Block him in return and move on. He's not for you and you're not for him.

You regret leaving someone who was verbally abusive to you?

You broke up with him. Regardless of who did what to who... you ended the relationship! What were you hanging on to? He did you a favour.

There is absolutely no point in regretting the break up, you didn't ruin the relationship by leaving, you are not the one for him, nothing changed that.

If he wanted you back he would have got back with you, simple. He doesn't want to be with you, not because you broke up with him but because it was never right.

Also, he's a dick and you will be much happier with someone who actually loves you.

I find it strange when people stay friends with exes. I mean each to their own but usually if I’ve broken up with someone it’s because I’ve reached the point of not being able to stand them breathing (!) there’s no way I’d want to keep contact. And if they dumped me I’d find it too painful. So I block them all everywhere. I suggest you do the same. Much better in the long term.

So you still saw enough problems to leave.

Did you call his bluff hoping he'd commit?

This, 1000 times over.

This man is a manipulative bully who has fucked with your head. Get him out of your life entirely and stop pining for him. He's a cunt. It's beyond unhealthy to stay friends with someone who treated you like this - you must surely be able to see that he's been manipulating you all along? He's deliberately done everything he can from day one to make you feel insecure and unsure of yourself - it's the oldest trick in the book for abusive/controlling men to behave like that. Please try to see it for what it really is and block him rather than letting him mess with your emotions.

Time to draw a line under this. He sounds like a terrible partner who wasn't making you happy. I think perhaps you were hoping he would see the light, come back to you and change but these kind of men don't change. You need to properly rip the plaster off, block him and properly move on. You'll feel so much better.

He makes you miserable OP and he sounds insufferable. Put your energy into meeting new people, you’ve got loads of free time now to do what you want and eat a frozen pizza if you want to!

That’s fine, if he cooks everything from scratch himself.

He sounds like an absolute prick. Imagine spending a lifetime with someone who laughs at your hair and hides jars of sauce?
Be thankful you've escaped the control and abuse, get excited about your new life and freedom!
I think you should take back control and block him, he's bound to come crawling back