He says he doesnt know whether he wants to be with me anymore

[TheSeventhHorcrux]

And it feels like everything has just been ripped from me.
He says he still loves me and was trying to comfort me but insists that he "doesn't know where his head's at" and his "head is really messed up right now" and that he doesn't know what he wants.
There was a week of feeling very distanced preceding this but before that everything was fine.
We were the strongest couple I knew and he is my best friend. All I want is him to comfort me but obviously that's not going to happen.
We've been living together for 3 years and share everything including a dog.
Our whole future is planned together, everything, so I feel so completely lost and empty. Everything I think of has changed because our lives so completely revolved around one another.
I just want to curl up and die because there is nothing left.
If he did leave me I would die because I can't see how it could be any worse than this

[bringbacksideburns]

I could have probably posted most of that at 21 too.

Never, EVER, make one man such a prime focus of your life. If you learn anything from your heartbreak learn that. There is so so much more to come. You think there isn't but you've only just dipped your toe in. I was with the 'love of my life' for three years too. Sobbed myself to sleep for months and months when he dumped me.

25 years on do you know how many times i think of him? Maybe once a year if that and only to realise what i didn't then - it was never going to work.

You need to start building on a new life, work, hobbies, new friends.
Be young!!

[cunexttuesonline]

I think there could be someone else, I am sorry!! I was with my ex for 4 years when he began cheating on me, when I found out (age 20) it was a massive shock - I did not see it coming, thought we were happy and he had always been the one 'more into me' etc etc. In fact, everyone found it hard to believe. In hindsight he had been going out with a different group of friends more than with our mutual friends.

Hopefully I am wrong and the same isn't happening to you!! Although after I finally left the bastard (!), I started going out with my now DH.

[dequoisagitil]

Oh dear, Annie .

[ipdipdog]

My feeling is that this will not end well. Sorry.

[Anniegetyourgun]

Meanwhile, on AIBU, OP has been offered the chance to work away either all week or all weekend, and her OH said he prefers her to work at weekends so he can see his mates instead of spending time with her. The plot thickens. Or more accurately, proceeds with depressing predictability. (How very much easier it is to see the wood when you're not standing in the middle of all those trees.)

[ImperialBlether]

OP, sorry to carry on with asking about the OW. You say he works in an all male environment then comes straight. Yet you're not at home a lot of the time, are you? You're working away.

I remember sitting in a pub with my friend, fifty miles away from home (I was on a course and living away three nights a week) and saying "It's as though he's having an affair, but how can he be? We're always together!" My friend said she almost had her head in her hands at the time.

One of the lovely things about being young is that you don't look for disaster, you haven't the experience of finding out what people can do to each other and you think you do know someone, when perhaps an older woman might realise you can never completely know someone.

[DrinkFeckArseGirls]

I promise you:

1. you won't die without him
   
2. one day you'll be grateful you met someone else and will see this one wasn't right for you.
   
   I know it hurts like hell and it took me a long time to get over my ex so I get it. This isn't to say it will take a ling time .

[TheSeventhHorcrux]

I have deliberately kept away from him the severity of my feelings but understand that I also suffer from depression and wanting to die isn't just restricted to this circumstance.
I have always been the one pulling away from him - he's the one that has set up this life plan and I've gone with it. It was me, 6 months ago, that was considering breaking off because I was feeling smothered.
I have never restricted him from what he wants to do.
I understand where you're coming from here but the reason this has been such a shock is that its always been the other way round! It's taken this for me to really realise how I feel. Which is another huge surprise! I knew I would be upset but I didn't expect to feel so strongly about it!

[freeandhappy]

Sorry I meant your dream of the land and building the house and your lives together all mapped out at 21. Are you just messing saying you want to die then? I don't mean to be harsh but I've known some real emotional blackmailers in my time and I'm very wary of it. Refusing to accept that there might be more to someone than fits your ideal of them eg he would never be with someone else suggests to me that you are not able to really honour his difference from you. You sound quite controlling. Back off and calm down with mapping out the next 60 years! Sounds totally over the top to me and like you are trying to bind yoursel to him with the dog and everything. Can you see that might be claustrophobic. Is he scared of breaking up with you do you think?

[TheSeventhHorcrux]

when did i say that I had a dream that I would die?

I am not needy or dependant. But thanks for your support and making me feel so much more secure

[freeandhappy]

Also think its grossly unfair to say you'd die without him and I hope you are not putting that pressure on him. I must say that if it were my son and he got himself involved with someone who made him the centre of her world by dropping out of college and making your whole lives completely entwined including the dog and the dream that you will die if it doesn't happen I would be freaked out and strongly advising him to back up. 21 and so needy and dependent. Not right I'm afraid.

[freeandhappy]

Why don't you listen to him. He told you he fucked up but you won't hear that. Give him the space to tell you what happened on nye. It's so obvious he feels terrible about something but you are using your innocence to ward off him telling you. You do NOT know. and maybe keep your mum out of it

[ItsOkayItsJustMyBreath]

Oh dear OP, I really feel for you, I do know that feeling of wanting to be with someone that you love so much that you ignore what's really happening.

Imagine things were reversed; what would prompt you to say the things he has said and send the texts he has sent? Is he really treating you in a way that you would find acceptable to treat him?

FWIW, my X had emotional affairs (never physical) and his behaviour was changing before me but I wouldn't accept it. It was due to the fantastic advice I received on this board that I had the courage to tell him to leave. Do you know what? It did feel like the world was ending for about 2 weeks but then I started to feel lighter, it still hurts but it's still early days (2 months ago) and I do have to see him regularly as we have a dc. HOWEVER, he has now realised just how badly he has behaved and wants me back so much that he's willing to do just about anything. I, on the other hand, am so much stronger and have no plans to reconcile things yet, the ball is in my court now and it is so empowering.

Good luck and put yourself first.

[TheSeventhHorcrux]

Have talked it through with Mum and Best Friend (who know him and our relationship well, and think I have resolved many of my own issues with the situation) at the moment I'm just fighting off the horrendous hurt and confusion that comes with such a sudden state of affairs.

[TheSeventhHorcrux]

I genuinely don't think there is an OW. I just don't. After 3 years of living with him I would just know. I am naive on many things but I can respect our relationship enough to know that there wasn't, and isn't, an extra person to consider here.

(except the dog!)

[TheSeventhHorcrux]

"May be wide of the mark here but it sounds like your Dad let you down and disappointed you big time. What did you learn about relationships when growing up?. You do not have to answer that but it is a question that is seriously worth considering."

Attila I recently (Oct 2011) became estanged from my father, who is divorced from my mother, after having the self-respect and objectivity to realise that I don't need to put up with his malipulative meaness anymore. He was never there for me when I was a child, never turned up when he was meant to have me for the weekend, when he did have me just fit me around his life and constantly verbally abused my mother whenever he got the chance. He treated me like he owned me (he's very rich and that's his mindset) and made me think that everything I did was a mistake.
So you're not wide of the mark at all!

[Skyebluesapphire]

Hi there. I hope that things work out for you and that there isn't somebody else involved. You need to talk honestly with each other. As others have said, you also need to start building your own life as well, meet friends etc, so that if you do break up at any point, that you have a life that doesn't revolve around him.

I really hope that there isn't OW, but I thought the same as you, my XH was NOT the type to get involved with somebody else, never ever would he do that. Sadly he developed an emotional affair with his mates wife which existed of contact mainly through text, email and facebook, so even if he has no spare time, anything is possible.

I just want you to keep an open mind that's all.

Not every blip in a relationship has to be because of OW, but quite often they are :-(

[dreamingbohemian]

That's so true Mumat -- don't stay just because you have this future all planned. The future you want at 21 might not be the same one you want some years from now.

[mumat39]

I've just re-read what I wrote and I should have said 'some men don't deal with their feelings in the same ways as women'

Also, don't stay with him because you have planned a future together. Stay for the moment, as baremadness says, the future is the future and you have no idea what it will bring. I stayed in my marriage because we had planned a future together even though I wasn't sure of it from pretty much the moment we got to married. THat was a lot of wasted years.

[PureQuintessence]

"Ive fucked up"

He fucked somebody on New Years Eve. Sorry. He is texting you because he feels guilty.

Let him go, and move on.

[mumat39]

Happily un married, not unmarked.

[mumat39]

Happened early in our relationship. Sorry.

[mumat39]

Cogito, I see where you're coming from and of course you're right. DP is better at expssing himself now, but it has been a learning curve for him, but he has learned. The thing is this sort of thing happened in our earlier relationship. I didn't passively accept it. I do get annoyed and am better in an argument than he is so do get my point across. Looking back, I'm glad I didn't just dump him, as we were both learning about each other. At the time I probably did think I could do without this, but warts an all, for both of us, we are still together, happily unmarked 11 years down the line with 2 lovely kids.

Also looking back and with anti depressants in my system helping me see things for what they were rather than me being a victim, most of the time, his reactions like that we're because I was so insecure in our relationship due to baggage and trust issues I'd brought to the relationship from my earlier failed marriage. I used to want him to not go out, even though he hardly did. I wanted to know every detail about his day and I would look for warning signs that he was upto what my ex had been up to. I don't really think I made it easy for him, but we stuck at it and am so so glad we did.

With respect to my failed marriage, I stuck at that for over 10 years, but in that case, you're right, I should have just said enough is enough and taken my leave. I wish I had known about mumsnet then as I'm sure I could have left a lot sooner with the support on here.

Apologies for upsetting anyone.

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

Re your earlier comment below:-

"Not just because of him but I have huge trust issues with men daddy issues (those two words were crossed out) and he is the only man I have ever completely trusted".

May be wide of the mark here but it sounds like your Dad let you down and disappointed you big time. What did you learn about relationships when growing up?. You do not have to answer that but it is a question that is seriously worth considering.

Before you embark on another relationship also may I suggest you tackle your trust issues re men and your Dad head on and properly this time through counselling if needs be.

Do not make any one man the sole centre of your world and or being.

I would also suggest you read "Women who love too much" written by Robin Norwood.

[HappyNewHissy]

Just keep talking to him Mumat39, it'll reboot sort him eventually.