Long term relationship just ended, in complete shock, need help

Curlyhatescurls

My partner of almost four years has just broken up with me, I had absolutely no idea that he felt this way, we've just come back from holidays together, I was reading the newspaper and he took my hands and started talking and breaking up with me. I don't know what to do. I had planned my life around him, I can't sleep away from him for one night, I feel like throwing up and I'm shaking. I don't know what to do, he's the person I go to when I'm upset, he's my best friend, I don't see theepoint of anything now. I feel like this is a dream. I really need help, I don't know what I am supposed to do. Right now, in this second, what do I do?

Sean Bateman

I'm sorry to hear about this.

Please remember that no matter how bad you feel now, you'll feel better tomorrow and then better the day after and so on...it's always darkest before the dawn.

What explanation did he give? If you don't want to give details, that's fine.

DubLass

So sorry. This must be an awful shock to you, can you call a friend or family member, someone you trust who can be there for you right now?

Sean Bateman

DubLass wrote: »

So sorry. This must be an awful shock to you, can you call a friend or family member, someone you trust who can be there for you right now?

I'd second that - Have you a sister or close friend that you can meet with?

Curlyhatescurls

Thank you for all the replies, I am at home with my mother who I've told. My friends all went abroad for the summer so i don't have anyone. I'm trying to arrange to go and live with them for the rest of the summer, it's the only thing I can think of doing, there will be no memories of him there and I will be surrounded by people, is this the best thing to do? He said he had been thinking about our relationship for months, I wish he had told me so I could have defended it, instead of him making up his mind on his own, If I had known I could have worked on the things which he found difficult, I thought things were blissfully perfect, I have 200 happy holiday photos and it was all a lie. But it's all too late now.

_dublinlad_

God do I know what your going through. Its like a car crash. I second what the other posters have said, talk this out with your good friends and minimise time alone.

I was in your spot 4 months ago. I stopped eating, left my job and drank every day for about a month. Family eventualy made me see a doctor. It was the worst days of my life. But know this, things will get better. This is but a single chapter in your life. There are no magic words or quick fixes to make you feel better, you just have to ride this out. I truely wish you all the best.

Sean Bateman

It's good that your with your Mum.

I'd say go and travel with your mates. Things may seem bad now but you will be fine. Down the line, you'll be glad that this happened.

Mind yourself.

Greenduck

Hi OP,

Your post struck a cord with me as I went through the same about a year ago. I was in panic mode and went searching on the net for ideas on how to get him back. I found this article on a different site and I still think to this day it is the best advice anyone could give someone. I didnt write it so I give full copyrights and thanks to whoever did. I hope its of some help as it was for me. It's super long by the way! GD

I've been on this site for almost four months now. When I found it, I was sure that absolutely no one in the world had ever, or would ever, experience the pain that I was feeling after my break up. Funny. I found a virtual world full of folks who have gone through and experienced the same things and felt the same feelings that I did. That helped a lot.

So, for all you newbies who ask the questions, "Will the hurting ever stop," or "Will my ex come back," or "Why did he/she do this," this is how it typically goes down.

You two break up--doesn't matter who does it. You immediately panic and begin chasing, begging, pleading, harrassing, phoning, e-mailing, IMing, stalking (okay not all of them, just pick whichever one you did). Most of us will likely do some things during this stage that will make you cringe when you think back on it, say after about 3 months.

You lose weight. You neglect yourself, your house, your job (how many hours do we all log on this site while we are at work?). You drive your friends and family crazy talking about the break up. You cry at the drop of a dime. You can't even comprehend that your life might not again include that "special person." You begin putting them on a pedestal, forgetting all of the nagging things about them that used to drive you crazy. In your mind, they have become omnipotent, all encompasing, all everything.

You convince yourself that you are a loser who just screwed up a relationship with "the best person in the world." You KNOW without a doubt that you will never EVER love like that again. You know no one else will come along who even comes close to being as marvelous as your ex (excuse me while I chuckle to myself here). You wear a sad face for the world to see (you should see my work ID taken 2 days after my breakup, it's just pitiful).

They (the ex's) remain steadfast in their denial to get back together. Many of them leapfrog into new relationships, immediately being exclusive with a new person. For those that do leapfrog, they appear to just "replace" you with a new model. All of the things you two used to do, they now do with someone else. Bowling, cuddling watching television, motorcycle riding, antiquing. Whatever you two did, likely they will just begin doing those things with someone new.

You hear about them and their new life. You are desperate for any crumbs of news about their life. Many of us make things worse here by trying to use manipulation to get them back--yet they stay away from us like we are the plague.

For those of us who do still have contact with our ex's we begin selling ourselves short. Doing stupid things like allowing them access to our bodies and then wanting to strangle them afterward when they remind us that "Sex does not imply hope."

You, in further panic mode, begin frantically searching the internet using phrases such as "break ups," "divorce stopper," whatever. You stumble upon this site, pay your money because your curious and lo and behold, you find all of us folks in various stages of this whole breakup bullsh*t.

You voraciously read the posts. You search for news of those who "got their mates back." You're on the site constantly. You'll read the books and think "Ah I can do this. I can get this person back." You begin your "no contact" and for some of us, this will get a reaction from our ex's. For the rest, no contact is and will continue to be what you'll get and receive.

Time goes by. You'll do some stupid things. You'll call your ex when you shouldn't. You'll call when you've had to much to drink. You'll call even after 50 people on this site tell you not to. You'll show up on their doorstep, hating yourself all the time. Then you'll come back to this site and ask everyone to tell you why you were so stupid as to do whatever it was you did.

Then you'll get serious about no contact. It'll hurt, but you try to stick to it. Here's the turning point for most. For those folks who have contact with their ex's, your no contact will either bring them sniffing curiously around or they'll be somewhere high fiving their friends thanking the God's that you haven't called.

Now's the tough time. Nothing but time works. Everday the ache in your heart grows a little less. It's only nanobits that it dies down by. But everyday it will get slowly better. You'll have setbacks. You'll run into your ex accidently. You'll run into mutual friends who'll tell you something about your ex that'll have you high-tailing it home for a good cry. You'll see your ex with their new "friend." You'll receive a phone call or an e-mail from your ex who "doesn't want to be in a relationship but still wants to be friends (with benefits if you allow).

Here's another important part. You need to truly sit down and truthfully look back at the relationship and understand what you did to help with it's demise. If you miss this part, you go through all the suffering for nothing because Buddy, you'll be back here again. This site is to teach you about you. To teach you how to be a better partner, a better person. Missing that lesson is detrimental to the whole process. It's the REASON that you're going through this. God (or whatever your higher power is) needed you to learn something about YOU. Don't miss out on the lesson.

Then one day you'll smile because you didn't immediately check your answering machine when you came in. And one day you'll decide to clean the muck that has accumulated in your house. And one day you'll go outside and admit to the universe that you surrender what control you thought you had.

And one day you'll decide to date again. And one day you'll go out on your first date and it will likely be a disaster. And then you'll either force yourself to continue dating or you'll decide that you aren't ready to date but you are ready to be out amongst people again. And many of you will have some quick reconcillations with your ex's. Many of us won't. But one day, it won't matter as much. Because time will allow you to catch yourself going minutes and then hours without thinking of the ex. And you'll begin to be able to think of life possibly without that person and not dissolve into a puddle of nothingness because of the thought.

And for most of us, sadly, life will go on without that mate. That's the truth, amigos. Don't want to dash your hopes but probably less than 3% of the people on this site get back with their mates. Sobering isn't it? But, as the site instructs, you must accept this before you can truly begin to heal or draw your ex back to you. For the lucky (maybe unlucky one's depending on how much work it will take to keep a mate that has wandered back) who get back with their ex's, many will find that the paradise they envisioned isn't reality and what they once thought was gold has a certain tarnish to it now. But they stay and try and make it work because it's comfortable or, if they are really lucky, it's meant to be.

But for most of us. Life goes on. And one day you'll find yourself having a gut busting laugh over something totally stupid and you'll think to yourself "I am getting better." And finally (thank God) you'll have sex with some new and find that a) if it wasn't good, at least you did it or b) it was so much better than with your ex you wonder why you waited so long to get back out there. And you'll know you're one the road to recovery.

I guess what I'm trying to convey here is, while each situation is unique, the characteristics of most of our situations are the same. Most of us will go through at least something that I've written here. So, when someone tells you on this site that time will help you get through it, believe them. When they tell you that "trust me, it will get better and you will stop hurting eventually," believe them. And when they give you good advice that your head understands but your heart rejects, take a moment to think before you react.

Don't beat yourself up if you do something that you wished you hadn't (calling, contacting, etc) WE ALL DID AT ONE TIME OR ANOTHER. Be kind to yourself. Be forgiving of yourself. And most of all remember that being happily single is an alternative. Even if society is beating it into your head that you MUST have a mate, take some time to heal before going back out there. There are plenty of good people to love, but don't go back out there broken, jaded about love, etc. Accept realty. Experience the pain. Learn the lesson. Actively try to heal. Remember the person you were when you first met your ex and get that person back.

And the universe will take care of the rest."

Curlyhatescurls

Greenduck, thank you. x

dannyc31

sorry to hear about your break-up. i'm very curious what reasons did he give for ending it? do you think there is a possiblity it might be still rescued?

Jimbob 83

4 years isn't crazy long, you are still young and there are still loads of mad horney young men with the mammies beating us up and down field with abit of wavin pipe to "find a woman or don't come home" like me out there

Time to focus on you now, making someone else your world is never a good idea but it can't be helped.

Best of luck with it

Curlyhatescurls

He has made it very clear that it is over and he is 100% sure of his decision. He doesn't love me as much as he used too, we are too different and we want different things in life etc etc. I feel like in a few weeks or months he will fully realise what he has done and then come back, but I know that this is such a typically wrong thing to think. I have to come to terms with the fact that he has been thinking about this for months, and I was just oblivious, but that he has thought things through and that this is not some rash decision. Typing that and actually believing are two very different things though. I texted him, and whilst he said it was fine to text him and that he was there for me, there is absolutely no chance of him reversing his decision and that I should be completely clear that he has fully made up his mind and it is over.

branbee

oh i know exactly how you feel. you're body is in shock about it all and its like you can actually feel your heart break. you're stomach is in knots and theres a pull in your chest the whole time. and every time it hits you again you feel your heart sink. you cant sit still or do anything productive either.
but to make it all worse you're still kind of in denial, you're telling yourself its over and you're upset about that and terrified about that but you still have this tiny bit of hope and denial and thats what i found really frustrating sometimes. i didnt want to have this denial and hope if there was no chance for us because i wanted to start getting better and moving on. and once you finally do accept it (which took me a while il admit!) you feel like you'll never have that connection/understandingwith anybody else cause how could you? you cant even think of being with someone else. you've got this like dark cloud hanging over you all day.

BUT!!!

eventually you pick yourself up day by day, and those around you sometimes make you laugh or smile. even on the bad days. and eventually you learn to be you again. not part of that relationship. you're happy. i promise.

my partner of six years broke up with me and i went through exactly what you are now. its horrible and its all you can focus on.. but i swear it gets better. and believe it or not, in the end it did turn out that he regretted doing it and wanted to try again (which is all i wished for when he ended it first) but i was actually in such a better place now that i didnt want to. and you're probably thinking 'if he asked me back now of course id say yes' cause i was the same at the stage you're at- you just want it all back. the life you know. but that feeling does pass and you WILL get to a stage where its not so overwhelmingly life altering and scary and then you'll get to a stage where you're happy to leave all that in the past cause you're happy as you are.

and remember even when it feels like he has total control over your life/hapiness because hes the one deciding its all over- YOU have control over how much you let him hurt you, and you have control over how you deal with it all. just take it all one step at a time. you're gonna be fine! x

sorry for the long post!

Curlyhatescurls

Thank you branbee, I really related to your post and I am going to keep rereading it as it helps, thanks x

branbee

you're gonna be fine, honestly. and in a few weeks you'll realise this- you'll be wishing you'd feel better sooner- but you will realise that you're gonna be fine in the end and that helps you get through it.
oh and listen to beyonce! :pac: helped me loads! x

den87

Sorry to hear OP. Was in your position about a year ago, it sucks big time. From a male point of view the only advice I can give is keep yourself occupied, join a gym,read books, watch a few tv series- do anything to keep your mind off the break up.

Time is a great healer, move on without your life and try and cut contact. It won't be ok tomorrow or next week or maybe not even a few months but it WILL get better.

Best of luck.

And that article is frighteningly spot on.

LegacyUser

Hi op, I read ur post and wouldn't be able to sleep until I replied.
Back in April I too posted here, my bf of 5 years came home and said it was over!
The pain I felt is not even describable, I actually thought I was gonna die!
But I didn't

Its been just over 2months now and yea I'm still sad and have down days but I can tell you its gets easier and the pain in your heart does go away.

Chin up and be kind to yourself and again as everyone says (and i never did believe it but it's true) with time things will get better. I promise

dannyc31

well ok from what you are saying, they dont sound like the thoughts of a confused man, sounds like this has been eating him up for a long time and it was probably a hard thing for him to tell you the reality. it really cant be easy to be told by someone that you love that they dont love you, but it seems he is being honest with himself and with you.

at least now you can try move on from here, it begins here. i think he has moved on in his head along time ago its just unfortunate you had to only find out now.

plenty more fish in the sea and you'll meet someone else great in time dont worry.

Starokan

hi op. sorry to hear your going through this, its a really difficult thing for anyone to endure. Once the initial shock passes the most important thing is to keep yourself busy, i think going to your friends for the summer is the best thing you could do.

The more occupied you are the less time you have to think about everything. In time the pain will fade and you will be fine.

SineadMarie

Greenduck wrote: »

Hi OP,

Your post struck a cord with me as I went through the same about a year ago. I was in panic mode and went searching on the net for ideas on how to get him back. I found this article on a different site and I still think to this day it is the best advice anyone could give someone. I didnt write it so I give full copyrights and thanks to whoever did. I hope its of some help as it was for me. It's super long by the way! GD

I've been on this site for almost four months now. When I found it, I was sure that absolutely no one in the world had ever, or would ever, experience the pain that I was feeling after my break up. Funny. I found a virtual world full of folks who have gone through and experienced the same things and felt the same feelings that I did. That helped a lot.

So, for all you newbies who ask the questions, "Will the hurting ever stop," or "Will my ex come back," or "Why did he/she do this," this is how it typically goes down.

You two break up--doesn't matter who does it. You immediately panic and begin chasing, begging, pleading, harrassing, phoning, e-mailing, IMing, stalking (okay not all of them, just pick whichever one you did). Most of us will likely do some things during this stage that will make you cringe when you think back on it, say after about 3 months.

You lose weight. You neglect yourself, your house, your job (how many hours do we all log on this site while we are at work?). You drive your friends and family crazy talking about the break up. You cry at the drop of a dime. You can't even comprehend that your life might not again include that "special person." You begin putting them on a pedestal, forgetting all of the nagging things about them that used to drive you crazy. In your mind, they have become omnipotent, all encompasing, all everything.

You convince yourself that you are a loser who just screwed up a relationship with "the best person in the world." You KNOW without a doubt that you will never EVER love like that again. You know no one else will come along who even comes close to being as marvelous as your ex (excuse me while I chuckle to myself here). You wear a sad face for the world to see (you should see my work ID taken 2 days after my breakup, it's just pitiful).

They (the ex's) remain steadfast in their denial to get back together. Many of them leapfrog into new relationships, immediately being exclusive with a new person. For those that do leapfrog, they appear to just "replace" you with a new model. All of the things you two used to do, they now do with someone else. Bowling, cuddling watching television, motorcycle riding, antiquing. Whatever you two did, likely they will just begin doing those things with someone new.

You hear about them and their new life. You are desperate for any crumbs of news about their life. Many of us make things worse here by trying to use manipulation to get them back--yet they stay away from us like we are the plague.

For those of us who do still have contact with our ex's we begin selling ourselves short. Doing stupid things like allowing them access to our bodies and then wanting to strangle them afterward when they remind us that "Sex does not imply hope."

You, in further panic mode, begin frantically searching the internet using phrases such as "break ups," "divorce stopper," whatever. You stumble upon this site, pay your money because your curious and lo and behold, you find all of us folks in various stages of this whole breakup bullsh*t.

You voraciously read the posts. You search for news of those who "got their mates back." You're on the site constantly. You'll read the books and think "Ah I can do this. I can get this person back." You begin your "no contact" and for some of us, this will get a reaction from our ex's. For the rest, no contact is and will continue to be what you'll get and receive.

Time goes by. You'll do some stupid things. You'll call your ex when you shouldn't. You'll call when you've had to much to drink. You'll call even after 50 people on this site tell you not to. You'll show up on their doorstep, hating yourself all the time. Then you'll come back to this site and ask everyone to tell you why you were so stupid as to do whatever it was you did.

Then you'll get serious about no contact. It'll hurt, but you try to stick to it. Here's the turning point for most. For those folks who have contact with their ex's, your no contact will either bring them sniffing curiously around or they'll be somewhere high fiving their friends thanking the God's that you haven't called.

Now's the tough time. Nothing but time works. Everday the ache in your heart grows a little less. It's only nanobits that it dies down by. But everyday it will get slowly better. You'll have setbacks. You'll run into your ex accidently. You'll run into mutual friends who'll tell you something about your ex that'll have you high-tailing it home for a good cry. You'll see your ex with their new "friend." You'll receive a phone call or an e-mail from your ex who "doesn't want to be in a relationship but still wants to be friends (with benefits if you allow).

Here's another important part. You need to truly sit down and truthfully look back at the relationship and understand what you did to help with it's demise. If you miss this part, you go through all the suffering for nothing because Buddy, you'll be back here again. This site is to teach you about you. To teach you how to be a better partner, a better person. Missing that lesson is detrimental to the whole process. It's the REASON that you're going through this. God (or whatever your higher power is) needed you to learn something about YOU. Don't miss out on the lesson.

Then one day you'll smile because you didn't immediately check your answering machine when you came in. And one day you'll decide to clean the muck that has accumulated in your house. And one day you'll go outside and admit to the universe that you surrender what control you thought you had.

And one day you'll decide to date again. And one day you'll go out on your first date and it will likely be a disaster. And then you'll either force yourself to continue dating or you'll decide that you aren't ready to date but you are ready to be out amongst people again. And many of you will have some quick reconcillations with your ex's. Many of us won't. But one day, it won't matter as much. Because time will allow you to catch yourself going minutes and then hours without thinking of the ex. And you'll begin to be able to think of life possibly without that person and not dissolve into a puddle of nothingness because of the thought.

And for most of us, sadly, life will go on without that mate. That's the truth, amigos. Don't want to dash your hopes but probably less than 3% of the people on this site get back with their mates. Sobering isn't it? But, as the site instructs, you must accept this before you can truly begin to heal or draw your ex back to you. For the lucky (maybe unlucky one's depending on how much work it will take to keep a mate that has wandered back) who get back with their ex's, many will find that the paradise they envisioned isn't reality and what they once thought was gold has a certain tarnish to it now. But they stay and try and make it work because it's comfortable or, if they are really lucky, it's meant to be.

But for most of us. Life goes on. And one day you'll find yourself having a gut busting laugh over something totally stupid and you'll think to yourself "I am getting better." And finally (thank God) you'll have sex with some new and find that a) if it wasn't good, at least you did it or b) it was so much better than with your ex you wonder why you waited so long to get back out there. And you'll know you're one the road to recovery.

I guess what I'm trying to convey here is, while each situation is unique, the characteristics of most of our situations are the same. Most of us will go through at least something that I've written here. So, when someone tells you on this site that time will help you get through it, believe them. When they tell you that "trust me, it will get better and you will stop hurting eventually," believe them. And when they give you good advice that your head understands but your heart rejects, take a moment to think before you react.

Don't beat yourself up if you do something that you wished you hadn't (calling, contacting, etc) WE ALL DID AT ONE TIME OR ANOTHER. Be kind to yourself. Be forgiving of yourself. And most of all remember that being happily single is an alternative. Even if society is beating it into your head that you MUST have a mate, take some time to heal before going back out there. There are plenty of good people to love, but don't go back out there broken, jaded about love, etc. Accept realty. Experience the pain. Learn the lesson. Actively try to heal. Remember the person you were when you first met your ex and get that person back.

And the universe will take care of the rest."

Thank u bf just broke up with me tonight helped a little to read that

hunnibee

Hi Op,

Im so sorry for you, I have recently been through a similar experience, and its is beyond painful, I wont lie to you, its not easy, everyone was telling me it will get better, well its not better yet.

My exOH terminated all contact with me, and that is very painful. I dont think I will ever trust another human being again.

All I can say is that there are so many hurt and broken people like us out there.....thinking of you, and hope we will all get through this nightmare.....

EGAR

Try being left at the altar so to say, a week before the wedding (he proposed out of the blue). Stranded in a country which is not your own with no friends, family or help. And a good few years later I am still here and in hindsight, I am glad it did not work out although it nearly killed me back then.

It will always get better and you may have had a lucky escape, you just don't know it yet because I am a strong believer that what's for you wont pass you by.

My experience made me so much stronger that I can deal with pretty much everything life throws at me along the way.

Curlyhatescurls

Sorry to bring an old thread up, I just thought I'd give an update as it might help someone going through what I did.

It will be eight weeks on Tuesday since the break-up. And I am doing really well. I cannot thank everyone who posted here enough, I printed out the comments and they truly kept me going through an almost impossibly awful period of my life. But there is hope for others out there who are experiencing now what I experienced. I have come through (almost!) the other side, a stronger person. Loss is something that everyone (EVERYONE) has to deal with at some point in their life, so you CAN do this, people have been dealing with it since the beginning of man, you ARE strong enough even though you may not feel like that right now.

I can't emphasise the importance of letting yourself be taken care of, by your friends, family, a counselor, self-help group, anyone! Even the post man helped me! You will be amazed at how loved you are, that you are worthy of love and that you deserve it. Let these emotions that you are feeling out, even if you think you can't do it because you will break, just cry your eyes out.

Let yourself fall apart, and you fill find that, in actual fact, you don't fall apart. Don't be afraid of your emotions, because everytime you feel them you are dumping a little bit more of that grief, you are moving that tiny bit forward.

It has been a complete roller coaster, from shock, to grief, to denial, to bargaining, to fury (sometimes all at the same time!) and now, hopefully to letting go. I still have bad days, but the good days are outnumbering the bad days. I still miss him painfully, but I can deal with that pain. It is pain, it is an emotion and I can deal with it. I am full of hope for the future, that I will heal from this, and eventually be able to look back and be happy for the time I had with him. And I hope that I will meet someone who truly loves me, the same way that I love them. I haven't lost hope!

Thank you again boards users, you guys save lives! And take care of yourself if you are going through this, be gentle with yourself, be kind xx

Ickle Magoo

Glad you're moving forward and that RI could help a bit, OP.

As you no longer require advice, I'll lock this thread.

All the very best.