Why did my ex break up with me, then kiss me and tells me he loves me?

[ston]

My boyfriend (24m) broke up with me (24f) over the phone last week (we’re long distance but wanted to close the gap). We’ve been together 5 years. His reason is that he wants to travel for a year and then work abroad for 2 years on the other side of the world. He said he doesn’t want to look back on his life in 20 years and think he didn’t do the things he wanted to do because he was in a relationship.

We met up to talk it through. He was kissing me, cuddling me, touching my legs, telling me he loved me and saying he wants to rip my clothes off when he sees me. Telling me I’m the most attractive girl he’s ever been with etc etc. We even kissed goodbye. He said I can text him when I want (I won’t) and that we will meet up in a few months.

It’s been two days since I met him. I’ve been in bits since. Why does he act like he wants me, tells me he wants no one else and yet he can’t be with me? Does he want to be with me but will resent me if we had to do 3 years long distance? My mind keeps playing tricks on me and is questioning everything he told me. The classic it’s not you, it’s me.

Does he want his cake and wants to eat it too??

tdlr: broke up after 5 years, met up for ‘closure’ which confused me more as he couldn’t keep his hands off me. Thinking there’s something wrong with me and that’s why he broke up.

[quote ston]@NotableTree what is a holding pattern psychologically?

I understand that, but there are also couples I know that have stayed together. It's hard thinking I was everything he apparently wanted but just not right now.

His mum said to me she would have been so happy if he told her he waned to marry me. He said himself if he met me in 5 years he would have probably married me. It hurts so much.[/quote]
It just sounds as if you were more focused on your relationship and on comparing yourself negatively to him, than prioritising your own life, like a place in a holding pattern above an airport.

Again, I’m not trivialising your obvious distress, but it’s very common to meet someone who’d be ‘perfect’ if one or both of you were at a different life stage, like I met someone wonderful aged 22, and if I hadn’t had my own plans — travel, two more postgraduate degrees, and then anywhere the job market took me in the world etc, plans I just couldn’t fit him into — then it’s perfectly possible we’d be happily married now. But I had no interest in settling down, so we had a lovely eighteen months, while I was living in his country, and I ended things. We’re still in touch. He married young, has a lot of children and is living in the same place, whereas I only married and had a child at the end of my 30s and still move a lot.

Like a PLANE in a holding pattern.

My ex also did this when I met up with him for a chat months later. I’m like what are you doing and pushed him off. The fact he kissed me after ending it with me totally blagged my head. I couldn’t work out what that was about at all!

"He said himself if he met me in 5 years he would have probably married me. It hurts so much."

That's cruel, given your feelings. Also a cheap, throwaway remark probably. At the age you both are, 5 years sounds ages and ages (not so much at my age!) and it's easy to imagine / pretend that you will be able to commit at this mythical future time.

I remember a friend of mine in her mid 20s had a pact with a male friend that if they were both still single at 30, they would marry each other. What utter nonsense! People don't settle for less than the best at 30, or 35 or 55. They always want what's right for them.

Disregard that comment. It's just another way for him to feel better about dumping you i.e. blaming it on timing.

And so what if his mother would be happy if you had married him? It's not up to her and she hasn't got some magic insight into your relationship either. She doesn't know it would have been the right thing to do.

Thanks everyone.

Any tips to get the thought of him with someone else out my head? It’s really sending me insane.

His friends always bring girls back to their house. We were really sexually compatible I thought ;(

I think actually kind of embrace and accept the pain, because yes, he will pick up with other women.

So let yourself feel the pain, grieve, hurt, it's only putting it off trying not to experience it and if/when you hear about it it'll be a step backwards, if you don't.