I’m not coping with my decision

[Ftsih]

Long story short. And I’ll admit I’ve posted before but feel I need to cram it all into 1.

Met someone 5yrs ago. Honestly thought I’d got it right after a string of useless men. The cheating, gambling, abuse etc..this one was different.
We’ve done SO much together, holidays, trips, we have SO much in common, the way we met was very specific and spookily coincidental and I really was the happiest I’ve ever been.
Then something happened a few yrs back and he had almost what I’d call a midlife crisis moment, he just went quiet and then ignored me..I had no idea why, If I’m honest I’m still not 100%. We moved on, thanks to me pushing and things were good. We’d talked about moving together, it dragged on. I got fed up but unless I’d conform to his ways he’d sulk. I’ve pulled us out of it each time.
I’ve spent 95% of my weekends with him, BH, Xmas etc, and all majority good.
Then last week he had a moment again and sulked. He went silent and I threw my toys out of the pram and told him we weren’t working. I couldnt possibly deal with any more of it. I haven’t heard from him since.

I am really struggling today. With lots of things. The fact he wouldn’t have broken up with me, I’ve lost him due to my decision.
The fact I cannot seem to envisage weekends without him. We were so compatible and just clicked. My life was happy with him in it, the ignoring ruined all that and I should be cross. I know it’s a form of abuse and he’s punishing me..it just hurts so much for so many reasons.
How do I move myself on from this?? Everything I think of and see reminds me of us..it’s so sad and difficult

Without wishing to sound mean, if he loves you as much as he has said he does and felt as upset as you do right now, he’d have been in touch. He hasn’t.
It was always you pushing the relationship forward, he was a passenger in it.
So he thinks it’s ok to use silent treatment as a means to punish or manipulate you into getting what he wants. That’s not ok.
You said you lost your best friend, you didn’t, you lost an emotionally abusive man who didn’t see your worth

OP, break ups are hard. It’s a sad fact of life. Even when you know it’s the right thing it still hurts like hell because your heart and mind are essentially addicted to the “highs” that you got from the relationship.

Two keys things helped me through my break up (I was distraught at the time but now very happily married to someone else and SO glad I stuck with my decision!)

1. keep yourself busy. Make lots and lots of plans. See family, call friends you haven’t spoken to in a while, start a new hobby, join a new club, throw yourself into your job. Keep yourself distracted so you don’t have lots of moping time.

2. look after yourself. You’re going through something painful. If you broke your leg you’d go easy on yourself and be happy to have a bit of pampering - no different with a broken heart. Eat your favourite foods, buy yourself some clothes/books/make up as a treat. Spend time doing things you enjoyed before the relationship but didn’t really have time to do with a partner.

Oh and lastly, get rid of all reminders of him from your house! Take down everything, rearrange the furniture if you have to!

You got this! It will take a few months but you will end up SO much happier!

what I find hard is that I know he’s as upset as me, he just doesn’t want to/have the capability to sort it out

You're still making excuses for abuse though. You don't know that at all. The evidence does not support that belief.

I know he loves me... but only on his terms.

That is not love. At a fundamental level abuse is incompatible with love. This is what you want to believe not what is true.

You say he was different to the others - in some ways, yes, but in the most important way he is exactly the same as them.

He is an abuser too.

The mistake you're making is to compare him to other abusers rather than assess him on his own. And then telling yourself you can change him. "If only I could fix this one thing everything would be perfect" - that's exactly the same as what every other abuser trains their victim to believe.

As long as you work on the basis of comparing new men to former abusers - and believing that there is any acceptable level of abuse in a relationship that you should tolerate or that you can change people - you will keep getting sucked in by new abusers.

The Freedom Programme course might help you wrap your head around this and finally break the pattern. Trauma therapy might help too.

If you can use this as the catalyst to finally address your beliefs about relationships and break out of the repeated cycle of abuse, then this period of upset will have achieved something.

You do need to stop telling yourself how he behaved was ok. It's not helping you.