Feel sad...will it get better?

[roseblossom2021]

Sorry this may be quite long and it feels messy.

I am just feeling pretty sad at the moment and lost and that there’s something wrong with me.

I had my first real relationship at 23. We were together for years. I thought he was my soul mate and I adored him, really and truly. We spent all our time together but ultimately he didn’t really want to progress the relationship. He didn’t want to get married, wasn’t keen to buy anywhere, wanted to keep renting. It was like Groundhog Day. After 7/8 years I had enough. I was 31 by this point. I met someone else at work and we went out for a year. In many ways, it was completely different to my previous relationship - he wanted everything and it was so passionate but I wasn’t over my first boyfriend and I felt rushed and this relationship was much more tempestuous. I didn’t give it much of a chance and I felt this fierce loyalty to my first boyfriend. With hindsight, I regret this now but at the same time I think I just hadn’t fully processed the break up and I needed time to get over it.

Im still best friends with my first boyfriend and we pretty much spend our days as a married couple - just at the end of the day he goes to his place and I stay at mine. It’s purely platonic. Any romántic feelings I had have died.

But sometimes I just feel so sad that I wasn’t enough. He hurt me terribly. He does everything for me but fundamentally all he ever wanted was a long term companionship. He was never upfront about that.

Similarly with my most recent ex boyfriend, ultimately he never cared about me. He was very selfish and the relationship was based on what suited him.

Sometimes I just feel so sick of it all.

I have no other family. Absolutely no one. I have friends, good friends but my first boyfriend really is the only thing close to family I have.

Tonight I just feel depressed about it all.

It’s very hard for me to cut contact. I’ve done counselling and am still doing it. My counsellor said when I met someone else who was right for me she believed the contact with my first boyfriend would dwindle naturally. I believe this too.

She’s encouraged me to do things, find happiness in myself and recently I’ve felt much better. But tonight it’s just made me so sad. I really feel so awful about my first relationship. That I was just never enough.

Anyone?

Do you enjoy spending time with your first boyfriend ?

I do most of the time. I have a lot of anger towards him which I’ve tried to work through. I feel he was incredibly selfish in never being upfront that he wanted a completely different vision - to be honest he still doesn’t say much on that score other than I need to find somebody and get married but he’s very happy to hang out all the time and we get along well most of the time. I’ve known him for 11 years now.

You say your romantic feelings have died and he is clear it is a friendship...albeit strange to be spending time like that together. You either have to go cold Turkey or seriously cut down the time you spend together so he is more of a friend and not a literal housemate.

You are not going to start feeling attracted to other men or make an effort with the ex around

First off, this is nothing to do with you not being enough, please stop putting a label on yourself. Unfortunately it's what you got out of that relationship, that's a fact but doesn't mean its what you deserved. You deserved more. Secondly, don't look to the past and mourn the loss of past relationships like its the best you will have. You are enough, you always have been enough. Look to the future where the best is most likely not happened yet but it won't if you don't stop living in the past about what could of been.

Thank you. I feel a bit better today.

So I’m assuming that you don’t have sex, you just spend the day together and then go to your own homes ?
So if he’s not having sex with you who is he having sex with, or is the problem that he can’t have sex ?
I think you need to think about the future and where you want to be in 5, 10 years time as it sounds like you’re going to be childless and still hanging around with this bloke.
You need to pic9what you want and work towards it

No - haven’t had sex with him for five years or so and in the meantime had a one year relationship with someone else.

It’s completely platonic. I don’t have any other family and he is / feels like mine. But it’s like being an old married couple.

I guess maybe when Covid is over or just as life plods along hopefully I’ll meet someone else.

I've ber very much where you are. He was absolutely awful as anything more than a froend, I never knew where I stood ect so I ended up just closing my heart off to him. But we kept a clear friendship for years after that.

But then there came a day when it was as if the smoke lifted - he was a shit friend too. I had just kept him close because he was all I knew. And I walked away. I chose me. And I'm so glad I did.

I dont know if your friendship with him is actually great and if so then you may need to take a different path to me. But if you just keep seeing him because theres no one else about then it might be worth reconsidering. Ask yourself, is he there FOR you? Or just, there.

If the friendship is good then great, but it may not be healthy for you to keep it exactly as it is. Could you denote him to 'friend' instead of bestie? Stop seeing him every day (be 'busy' with a book or a hobby). Ask for a day to yourself here and there. If he truly is a friend then he will respect your boundaries.