distraught after break up

[allypally1986]

I'm hoping someone has some advice for me.

On Friday night I broke up with my partner of 2 and a half years. The first two years of our relationship were perfect, but our relationship became long distance at the start of 2015 when he moved to Yorkshire and it's all been falling apart ever since.

I just couldn't cope with the distance. I felt abandoned and resentful left behind in London. He didn't think I did enough to make it work and perhaps he is right. But I just felt so angry at him for leaving me, for leaving all questions of our future up in the air, and for not understanding why I wasn't able to act like I didn't mind. We fell into this horrible pattern where we would see each other on a friday and I would not feel any love or affection for him, and we would fight, then we would make up and by the time the weekend was over I'd feel all the love and affection I ever did. But then we'd go our seperate ways again and the cycle would repeat itself. It was breaking us both apart inside.

He gave vague promises about the future but nothing concrete. He moved back in with his mum and dad (he's 29, I'm 25). He hated his new job and planned to quit but still wouldn't discuss what exactly he was going to do after it. He had wildy unrealistic plans to have a career change and train to become a neuroscientist whilst earning money part time on the side. I just got so fed up with the constant moving of goal posts and never knowing where MY future with him started. I couldn't cope anymore.

The problem is I'm not sure breaking up with him was the right decision. I can't stop crying, I know I still love him and I can't sleep or eat for the anxiety that I'm never going to see him again or be with him again or do any of the things we had planned together :(

Do I stick to my gut feeling and just try to get over him? Or do I beg for him back?? I don't know how he feels about the break up. He was desperate to make me happy but we left on quite an angry note, so I'm not sure he even would be willing to try. I have made him miserable for several months now.

That's exactly it, I needed something more concrete to leave (not a marriage proposal but something!!) I would have always compromised and commented to London etc but that conversation just didn't go anywhere. He did made some dubious choices but I'm angry at myself for my reaction being to sabotage the relationship rather than support him and wait it out. I do feel like on that side of things I am to blame.

Nutella I am so sorry for you too :( last night I woke at 2.30am with a surge of adrenalin and panic, and remained awake the whole night. I am a mess today. Waking up and remembering is the worst. I've also texted him begging which I regret already :(

bloody hell, Nutella - respect for getting to work
ally the other break-up was different, but they all HURT and we just have to trudge through each miserable day until the pain fades
which it will, impossible though that seems
one day at a time...

Sorry you're feeling blue ally.
I think if you give it time you'll start to see and feel you've done the right thing though.

If you look at the feelings involved here to me they don't suggest things were as good as they should have been for a happy relationship.
You weren't massively looking forward to seeing him on Friday, but say when you met you felt no love or affection.
When you split up you say he was cold and angry. This doesn't sound great to me

I think in time you'll find a relationship where loving and caring for one another comes more naturally - also where you both want to be together and make that a priority
Best of luck to you OP and look after yourself by spending time with friends etc. until you start to feel better about things x

We didn't make each other happy and we couldn't fulfil each other's needs. I know that.

It's just so hard to walk away from someone you still love, and to accept becoming strangers again when I still think he is the best man I have ever met.

Sorry for having a pity party. I really appreciate the replies and sympathy

you didn't sabotage the relationship- he did. he moved 4 hours away and expected things to carry on as before. You need to realise this. You can't have been expected to sit twiddling your thumbs while he sorted out his life. Or doing a 4hr journey each weekend- did he travel to you or you go to him? LDR need a huge amount of commitment from both people and they need to be temporary- the hope of moving closer at some point. If you think this would have happened later on then yes, stick with it. If it was not an option you were right to end it. He does sound as if it is 'all about him' and very selfish.

We both did the journey, although he came to london far more often than I went up there. It's not actually an option to negotiate or get back together as he is well and truly done with the relationship!

The thing is, if it is going to work it will work long distance or not. Lots of things might happen in the future when you are in a relationship/marriage, my husband can't get work in this area so works away, we have to manage as it is that or forgo a wage!

He does sound rather flaky and not mature at this time point, and ultimately you are the one with the more certain career and sound more mature, I suspect you simply outgrew him. If he wanted to make it work with you more than anything he would have tried to stay in London and got a better job (all this running away as he didn't like the people/life is a bit strange and quite childish) or got a place in Yorkshire so that it would have looked realistic you would have a decent future together.

As for being a neuroscientist, this just illustrates his immaturity, he would be 10 years off this goal, plus probably not actually have the ability (sorry, but that's the truth of it unless he's got some hidden inner ability which hasn't manifested itself yet). You have to be incredibly disciplined and focused to be a research scientist of any type, and he doesn't sound like that at all.

I think it hurts now as he clearly had a lot of amazing personal qualities and you love him, but I think in terms of long-term relationship for life and building a future together, this wasn't going anywhere and it is better you moved on now (which you know deep down which is why you left him).

You are so right. Yeah the neuroscientist dream was so ridiculous but even gently trying to point out the lack of realism in his ideas always led to a fight. I hope I remember things like this and can take my rose tinted glasses off soon. Thank you

The fact he is 'well and truly done with the relationship' because you didn't meekly follow him up north, or fall in with his unrealistic plans to carry on as if nothing had changed, shows he didn't care as much as you - or he- thought.

Moving 4 hours away was a huge statement. He didn't need to. He could have tried to find work in another city- not London- but where you'd have been able to get work too, and you could have moved together. Running home to his family is a kind of escapism- and I hope they'll tell him to man-up and sort himself out a bit.

You need to remind yourself that he's been a bit of an idiot and thankful you aren't being dragged along in his wake.

I think the reason he is well and truly done is because I have been cold and horrible to him for months and he has tried and tried and tried but ultimately could not lift us out of this. That's why. Although I agree it's unfair to expect me to live up to his unrealistic vision of how the relationship would pan out post move.

How are you doing Nutella? I'm at work too, it's so hard to act normal

I'm getting there ally, I leave at 3:30 so hanging on in there. It's so hard to concentrate.

Oh I hope you get through it. Only an hour left. Just going through the motions is admirable right now. Thinking of you x

Sorry but I don't get his reasons for leaving you, they sound really petty, yes he hated London, but you were there weren't you, sounds his decision was based purely on his needs, he forgot yours, stop beating yourself up, he decided to put the distance between you both, it's hardly your fault for finding it difficult to cope with.