He’s met someone else 💔

[FajitaFriday]

Please help me. I’m breaking down. My partner and I have been having relationship problems for a while but after he came back to me in August I thought we were working on things.

We’ve been together 12 years. We have a 10 year old daughter. He’s my best friend my only friend.

Since Monday he’s been saying he doesn’t want to be with me anymore. I’ve begged and pleaded and promised everything but he’s been so cold and adamant that he doesn’t love me like he used to and it’s over.

Cut to tonight he comes back home and I start up crying and begging him to give me another chance but he wasn’t interested then I ask him if he’s met someone else AND HE SAID YES. He won’t tell me who she is. He won’t tell me where he met her. Apparently it’s been going on for 5 days and nothing has happened just talking. That means nothing to me, we’ve been loyal to each other our whole relationship even during breaks (about a week long before he comes back) in my eyes he might as well have fucked her.

I’m completely in shock. We’ve been here before and always managed to work things out over a week or two but never anything like this.

I don’t even know what else to write here I’m shaking and crying and just want to kill myself. And I just want him back so badly STILL.

Please help if you can I have no one else to turn to and I don’t know how to get through the next hour let alone the rest of my life without him.

Thank you for reading x

Oh, sweetie. I am so sorry. My husband walked out on me too, and I loved him. Years later, I am still sad that it couldn't work. But when someone doesn't want us, we just have to accept it. There is nothing we can do about it, and we cannot control it. Your best bet is radical acceptance. The book "Let Them" by Mel Robbins is quite good on this concept.

You might also want to check out Chump Lady. chumplady.com. She's an inspiration.

One of my friends was happily married, but over a few years, her husband met other people and eventually left her - two weeks before Christmas! Sadly, it happens, and it happens to a lot of people. It's truly awful, but at the end of the day, we don't want someone who doesn't want us, do we? If they think so little of us, then fine. We will find someone who does appreciate us.

It will take time, OP. Lots of time.

It happened to this lady:

And there are more channels like this on YouTube, too. There is also a great book by Vikki Stark called "Runaway Husbands: The Abandoned Wife's Guide to Recovery and Renewal." She asked her husband if fish was all right for dinner, and he said, "I can't do this anymore." Her first thought was, That's a funny way to say you don't like fish.

Another woman who was famously left out of the blue is a New Yorker called Belle Burden. She and her husband had been planning their new garden the day before. She also wrote a book about it.

My point is, you are FAR from alone. The world is full of weak, flighty men who are utterly incapable of sustaining a lifetime commitment. They're pathetic and may well end up alone and regretful, with compromised relationships with their children.

One day at a time, OP. You'll get there, as millions of women before you have done. Sending hugs. 💐 Be kind to yourself.

sorry to hear this OP. What was the reason for the 2 week break in August? You said you’d thought everything was going well but what you describe isn’t healthy.

it’s also probably better for your Dd long term too if you’re both always bickering, splitting up and getting back together.

it sounds like you have a very unhealthy attachment to him as you’re nothing without him and feel you don’t have an identity outside of him. You sound very co-dependent and i wonder if there is a history of abuse or trauma bonding at play here?

i hace a 11 yo DD and I can never imagine splitting up with a partner would leave my life meaningless and empty as I’d always have her

Thank you to you all for your kind words 😔🩷

You must pull yourself together and think of your daughter, who must be beside herself wondering what has happened to her mum. I have been where she currently is, and it was like the world tipped over. Please don’t put her in the position of having to hold you together - she is too young to take on the responsibility of this. Focus on her, her Christmases and her hugs and cuddles. It’s time to cut your losses in this relationship, and look beyond yourself, to your daughter.

In August we had a bad argument and we hadn’t been getting on for a while. I’ve been suffering depression and he works a tough job and we’ve got debts and he feels I don’t do enough to support or help him, I don’t come on to him, he doesn’t feel appreciated or fancied. I thought we were slowly getting all these things back on track. I didn’t work fast enough 💔

OP I genuinely mean this kindly. This man has been telling you he wants to break up for what sounds like a long time now. Begging and pleading with someone until they come back is not "fixing" the relationship.

For your sake, and your daughter's, pull yourself together and stop this. He is not the be all and end all. He wants to leave, you have to let him. You don't want to be with someone you need to beg to stay surely?

Get mad about this other person absolutely but stop the pleading. And stop sobbing on the floor when your 10 yo is in the house, it isn't fair on her.

He is not worth this reaction in you.

You will be ok ♥️ if you can, I think you should 'fake it til you make it' - your ex will be expecting you to beg for him back etc but if you act nonchalant you will give him the shock of his life and that can be quite empowering. Listen to Breakup Coach Dorothy's podcasts - she has excellent advice about how to change your thought process around your breakup.

Breakups are hard and this evening you are floored. You will discover your anger in time and will discover a strength you didn't know you had. If you feel lonely post here - you will get lots of good advice from women who have been in a similar position.

Please try to hold it together in front of your daughter. I witnessed my mum losing it when my dad left her when I was 12. She absolutely fell apart and it became my job to look after her which no child should do. Perhaps seek talking therapy to help you through this difficult time too.

Let me promise you something with all my heart.
It feels like your world has fallen apart right now, but I promise you, one year from now you will wonder why you were so bothered.

All the breaking up and getting back together and then screaming and crying on the floor and thinking you have no life without him makes me think you're trauma bonded, so it's like an addiction.

Do you have access to therapy?

So true!

Thank God for that. They kids are safer with him, by the sounds of things.

Have you been to a psychiatrist or psychologist?

Him cheating on you for another woman is absolutely not ok, and it's abusive to be frank, people (cheaters in particular or those who have tried to normalise it in their lives) hate hearing that cheating is abuse - but it is.

Without knowing the ins and outs it's not possible to know how much of your instability he has encouraged by his behaviour, or whether he was just at the end of his rope with your instability. Either way, you do sound very unstable.

You need therapy, and I say that with honesty and an attempt to be kind. Your reaction is that of a teenager when their first romance ends, by the time you have a ten your old daughter you should have naturally aged in to self regulation and not be clinging to one person and having hysterics on the floor in a house with kids in it.

If you want to keep your daughter in your life, you're going to have to work on being self reliant, stable, and far better at emotional regulation. Please see a therapist.

I know it hurts OP, but by begging someone to stay with you who has told you they don’t want to is signalling to him that you have no respect for yourself and either:

1. You will make him feel responsible for your happiness and he’ll feel obligated to stay even though he doesn’t want to. Do you really want someone who doesn’t want you? Or;
2. You are showing him that he can treat you how he likes and you’ll always beg for him to stay regardless. Do you want him to have that power over you?

WIth either option, ultimately, you lose. You can’t control what someone else chooses to do. Let him go, grieve and move on and let what happens happen. The relationship sounds unhealthy anyway.

Maybe you’ll benefit from therapy. Hope you’ll be okay soon.

However awful you feel right now OP it will get better. Do not do anymore begging crying or anything like that. Hold your head up, be dignified (ie ignore the prick), and focus on yourself and your DD.

You desperately need to keep perspective here. You have to try to pull yourself together. For your child if not also for yourself.

Feeling like you don’t have a point to life without a man you have this relationship with and who you have had to beg to stay suggests some deep seated issues beyond the relationship. You need to work on those and focus on your child. I know the devastation of heartbreak, but you have to remind yourself that it happens to people every minute of every day. It’s a normal part of life and people get through it.

These are wise words.

Hang on, some of us genuinely don’t have anyone. Shocking, I know and is very sad but it happens a lot especially during toxic relationships and/or toxic parents. Please don’t say “Yes you do” when a literal stranger says they don’t have anyone, ffs.

OP, look up abandonment melange. You think you are uniquely broken but you're not. This is something that happens, and there are ways of coping with it until it subsides. You can get through this. You can, and one day you will be grateful you did.

If he has a 13 year old daughter and you've been together 12 years then he left the parent of his daughter when she was only 1, then, I assume. Says a lot about him, TBH, and with you describing multiple occasions of you both splitting up and getting back together.......this is not the man who would have given you a stable future.

@FajitaFriday I am so sorry this sounds really hard.

I do understand that you feel devastated and I really hope you will find a way through this.

You said you have suffered with depression, and I wonder if you are getting help from your GP or a mental health team. Please take a look at the mind website...

https://www.mind.org.uk/need-urgent-help/using-this-tool/

You can also contact the Samaritans if you need to talk.

https://www.samaritans.org/

I do feel it is very sad you have become so isolated and dependent on your partner. You say you have no friends. I understand that life can be isolating at times but I do feel building up some friendships would help you to have more support.

Can you find something locally where you can get to know others? A church, a book club, writing group, keep fit class or something. Just a way of making some contacts so you are not so dependent on this man.

You are valuable and this man does not value you, so even if it is hard to imagine, there may well be someone better for you out there. but first you need to find yourself, nurture yourself, look after yourself and very importantly prioritize your daughter. You can do it. Honestly, you can.

Please watch some Jillian Turecki videos.

ESPECIALLY this one:

Watch it every day if you have to.

You are going to be okay.
If you stayed in the relationship, or if you carried on begging for it .. that is NOT you being okay.

You will be okay, and in fact you will be BETTER.

Wait and see xxxx

Exactly, not all men come crawling back, some end up happier with who they left you for…it’s life. OP has to focus on her daughter and getting through each day. She will be fine

You have your child to have a nice Christmas with AND a nice life with

She IS YOUR POINT of life

OP- heartbreak is incredibly awful. Here are the facts/

You cannot make someone else happy; they can only choose to be happy with you. He did not do this because of you; he did this because of himself.

You will have a good life without him.

You do have a confidence problem. Please seek professional counselling and therapy. This will help you and your daughter a lot in the future.

It will hurt- growth always does.

XXX

What is it you love about him

I'm sorry you are going through this OP.

I don't want to kick you when you're down, however could either the drinking or the not working have contributed to how he feels? It would be different if your DD was younger but she is 10 now.

I know it's hard to get back into it but for me I find working also helps with my self-esteem and mental health.