my fiancé broke up with me on Saturday. his reasons were that "he's tried but it's not working" and that he can't handle the fact I don't like many of the same movies or TV shows as he does, and that he thinks I don't trust him. I'm beyond bereft. there is physical pain in my chest and it's a real struggle to even get out of bed. I'm going to copy and paste below something that I wrote about it while trying to while away the hours before bedtime. reading it back I sound so stupid (please don't be harsh on me in your replies, I honestly feel so broken. I just go to work, come home, cry, go to bed, go to work. and it's my birthday next Tuesday) but for the first 3 years or so of our relationship he treated me like absolute gold, I had never met someone who I got along with so completely or loved so much and who loved me so much in return. I really and truly 100% thought this was "it" for me and he was who I was going to be for the rest of my life. I never worried about him leaving me or doing anything wrong, I trusted him implicitly. I can't even scratch the surface of how well he treated me during those years, the wonderful things he used to say and do. it was effortless, we had no problems. (as a sidenote, no DC, we both work but he makes more than twice as much as me and I can't afford to rent either our current apartment or anything anywhere nearby on my own.)
things changed when he got a highly stressful job (teaching, he has since left that profession but his new job is stressful too and has a bizarre culture of breakups and affairs). I first caught him messaging an 18-year-old girl (he was 24 at the time I think) he met on Omegle, he used a secret phone for it and would mostly message her at night while I was asleep, or while he was supposedly at work. I finally found the phone one night hidden in a drawer while I was putting laundry away and he acted so devastated, threw the phone away, apologised over and over and convinced me it was a a stupid mistake caused by his mental health problems (they did spend a lot of time talking about their mutual depression - I have also been depressed and even occasionally suicidal for a lot of my life but I had/have NEVER cheated). it was so convincing that I believed him even though it crushed me and boy do I feel stupid now.
over the years since then I have caught him buying and hiding sex toys twice, sending strange/inappropriate messages to a few coworkers, and messaging a friend of someone he knew who was a "professional dominatrix" (I wish I was joking), and in the messages he told her he had "recently started seeing someone" (we had been together for years by then, so he certainly wasn't talking about me) and wanted specific tips on having a BDSM relationship. that was news to me. every time I caught him he would cry (or sometimes get angry) and just say over and over again that he "didn't know" why he did it. every time he would eventually get angry at me for being upset and ignore me and shut me out completely. I mean, what was I supposed to do? how could he "not know"? but every time I let it go, I just wanted to pretend it didn't happen. the stress and worry would make my heart pound out of my chest and my whole body physically shake and tense up and I just wanted it to go away. just tonight I found a fully naked posed picture of him on our desktop computer (I rarely use it as I have my own laptop), along with a folder of porn when he reassured me he hadn't watched porn since we got together (it's the constant lying more than the actual porn that's getting to me). I think it's pretty obvious there's only one reason to take a photo like that.
he has also increasingly been distant, lying about where he is and what he's doing (he lied a LOT and not only about cheating, he also lied about a previous job right up until the last minute when we had to make a downpayment for an apartment rental and he suddenly admitted he hadn't made any money), and in deep depression which he refuses to properly see anybody about or take his medication for, and has missed doctors/therapy appointments so many times. during the time he took his citalopram correctly/regularly there was an improvement but he thinks he "doesn't need it", or anything else, now (doctors and therapists would disagree). he is ALWAYS on his phone and on the one or two occasions he accidentally left it in the same room as me he rushed back in and snatched it up even though I was nowhere near it and it has a lock on it. he would get mad at me and make me feel guilty for being "paranoid" that he might be doing something behind my back but can you blame me after all the things he did? but it was all interspersed with months and months where we were really happy and he'd want to spend so much time with me and would randomly buy me little surprise gifts and treat me how he used to and talk about being excited to go on our honeymoon and it would be enough to make me think things were getting better and it would be okay. then something else would go wrong.
honestly I loved him so much, I don't know what I'm even going to do with my life now (literally - we were going to buy a house together next year and now I have nowhere to live). I never thought he would do anything like this. in fact every single time he did it I never thought he would do anything like it. every single time was a horrific shock and ground my self-esteem into the dust, even moreso when he refused to talk about it or explain why he did it. I know I was stupid for staying with him but I really wanted us to get married and be happy (he was the one who proposed and cried with happiness when he did it, he booked the wedding venue where we were supposed to be getting married in 5 months' time, he brought home tons of brochures for our honeymoon which we were so excited about and which he said there was nobody on earth he'd rather visit that place with than me - now I don't even understand why he bothered while he was doing all this in the background). I asked him why he acted so happy on our holiday two weeks ago letting me think things were okay and why he told me he loved me and talked about our future house and about going on holiday next year two days before he broke up with me and he said he was "indulging me". he's ruined my life and will barely talk to me but had the balls to say he's "upset too". he's completely 100% changed from the person he used to be. he tried to make me think that was my fault but actually I don't think I deserved any of this.
he promised me he'd never lie to me or hurt me but for the past few years that's pretty much all he did.