I am full of sadness and regret please talk to me, I am desperate :(

[pleasehelps]

I’ve been in a pit these last few months, started before lockdown and has carried on since.

I’m 34 and met a lovely man when I was 32. He adored me and things were good. It is no exaggeration to say he was wonderful to me, we got on well, he was committed. For whatever reason, I felt there was something missing...that something I now think is actually non existent and I’m tearing myself into pieces about it.

After I ended it, I got in contact with him a few months later, admittedly after many horrible dates and experiences with men that woke me up to how wonderful this person was. I realised how silly I had been and that I had felt scared off because he had come on quite strong. We started speaking again and he said he had been hurt but wanted to give it a go. We began seeing each other only for him to find out four weeks later that he had got a fling pregnant while we were apart. He changed his attitude completely at this point, telling me that he wasn’t sure about me anymore and that I had ruined everything, it was all my fault, he had offered me everything with him and I turned him down so it was my fault, told me i only wanted to find someone better and ‘look how that worked out.’ When he calmed down he said he didn’t want to fall out but that he didn’t want anything with me and it was a huge shame but it was all on me and I had made my bed so I should lie in it. I wished him all the best.

This whole thing has knocked me for six. I know his behaviour when he found out about his fling was cruel to me and unkind but really there was also truth in what he was saying wasn’t there!!! I did think I could do better, or thought I needed something different. I did go off and it hurt him. I did do those things and I was scared to commit as he came on quite strong.

But now I am nearly 35 and alone and the reality is that I have never before or since met a man who was as committed to me as he was. It was warm and safe and loving. I threw it away. I’ve dated loads since and when i got back in contact and admitted I messed up, this had happened and so we couldn’t be together anyway... It feels so cruel, you hear of people breaking up and getting back together and why couldn’t this have been us. I feel like god or whatever else doesn’t think I deserve anything good.

I’m terrified I have lost the only person who would ever have loved me and as daft as it sounds when I woke up this morning I just wandered round my house feeling sick and sad and full of regret. Nobody gets that sort of love twice do they and like he says, it is all on me that it has ended up like this.

Please help me process all this. I can’t see a future anymore and I don’t think I will ever feel safe or happy with a man ever again.

@NellyJames I think for me it's how he has come across. Of course he might have been hurt and it's understandable to be angry but it is not OP's fault he got a fling pregnant.

I don't like the sanctimony from him.

And I think her gut was telling her something from the intensity at the start that put her off. I don't think she's done much wrong. She ended it. She asked if he wanted to try again and he did but because he got someone pregnant, he's thrown it in her face.

@Mumteedum, I agree the op has done nothing wrong by ending it. Of course that was her decision but she also has to put her big girl pants on and own the fact that she ended it. As I said, it’s not her fault her ex got someone else pregnant but it’s her fault they broke up and it was whilst single that the baby was conceived.
However, if a woman posted that her partner had left her then returned and she was so grateful she’d taken him back but now actually she didn’t want him nobody on here would be telling her she was a dick or that she’d manipulated him just so she could humiliate him. They’d all be patting her on the back and telling her well done and he deserved it. I just think it’s blatant double standards.

You are having an understandable wobble

But he’s not all that kind. He is making you feel bad and hurting you, because he wanted to retaliate and punish you for leaving him

You are feeling bad because he is making you feel bad. That’s not how a person who cares for you deeply would act

He was not the right guy for you. Deep down you knew that and that’s why you broke up

I don’t think he’s done anything wrong. I’d probably react similarly to someone who dumped me thinking they could find better. But you also weren’t wrong to end it if it didn’t feel right - you do need to live with that decision though.

So his point was that you could both have been happy together if you hadn't done that, thought this, wanted that, been yourself. Screw that. None of us are perfect but you have to accept your partner's personality. He wasn't right for you and you weren't the person he wanted to be with either. I feel a bit sorry for the woman who's pregnant with his child. She no doubt deserves someone who loves her, not someone who's 'trying to make a go of it' because there"s a baby. Sounds horrible and I bet she gets the same reaction you did when things inevitably get difficult. He'll be telling her that if only she did this, that and the other, her child would have a dad at home. You've dodged a bullet, I reckon.

NellyJames I came on here to say exactly what you said (although you have articulated it better). If a man posted saying he had sacked a woman off as he thought he could do better then whinged because she in turn sacked him off he'd have his arse handed to him on a plate. Posters know this but they'll never admit it.

Spurned wives do that all the time; Forgive after being left or after an affair then realise they’re better than that. Nobody in MN calls them nasty and controlling.

Quite. Sometimes you don't realise how resentful you are or that you can't get past something unless you try.

If this while story were reversed the man would be vilified. Sometimes people grow bored or feel disatisfied in a relationship because there's an underlying flaw; sometimes it's a good, old fashioned case of the grass being greener and taking someone for granted (which is how it almost certainly be posed if it were a man who ended things.)

Whichever is the case here is irrelevant really, the relationship is over - the injured party can't get past the injury, so that's that. Live and learn.

Own your decision OP and recognise that not everything can be repaired. Also, try and have a think about what is driving your feelings here. Is it love for him or fear of being alone?