My story is a bit different than some here. I’m 29, and was together with my stbx for 8 years, and married for 1. She called it off 3 weeks ago and said she felt different. She says she still loves me as a person but she has been feeling off for the last 5 months (never communicated this to me) and hasn’t been able to get it back.

I can tell she really has been feeling this way for a while as she really does seem to be doing fine through all this. I am absolutely fucking devastated at the thought of losing her, and our dream home that we bought together just over a year ago. We were still in a happy phase in our relationship and it felt like we were planning out the rest of our life together.

I want to say that I respect the fact that I am young, with no kids, and minimal assets to split, and I’m not dealing with a terrible person. I see a lot of people on here post about horrible and stressful situations and I really feel for them.

What I am struggling with mostly is the guilt, and the sudden change of lifestyle that I am facing (going from owning my home, working on it, having great neighbors, and having a purpose ) to living with my parents (currently while the dust settles) and then going back to renting an apartment again. It felt like me and her struggled through our 20s but we finally made it and did it together, and it felt like we were in an amazing spot to enjoy our 30s with minimal stress. Now that has all changed.

The guilt comes from me feeling like this is mostly my fault, I didn’t know what I wanted at the time and was scared at the time of big life changes (buying the house was stressful for me, even though I learned to embrace it). She pushed hard for change and didn’t really want to hear my opinion on it. We fought lots about getting dogs and other things and just really weren’t aligned on certain things.

My biggest struggle was my insecurity , anxiety and controlling nature. She was social, good at sports, had a very busy career, and had family and friends out of town. This all added up to her being very busy, and being her whole own person outside of the relationship. I am more introverted, and can be too anxious at times and was much too attached. There were definitely times where I felt she was too busy for a relationship and that she put her friends first , but there were also times where I was too hard on her for what she was doing , and me being unhappy at home took a huge toll on her . I really made my mental health problems hers and I know that wasn’t fair at all. I also communicated badly and got angry at her sometimes and feel terrible the way I spoke to her.

Now that she has initiated the break up, I am trying to put more effort into myself , see more friends, family, and go to the gym, and spend time away from her. I am now just realizing how good I had it, how I really had a good partner, a good financial partner, and the freedom to pursue what I wanted while still in a relationship. I had a good life and for some reason I didn’t realize it.

It does take two in a relationship and I do feel like she did lack effort and really did prioritize friends and sometimes I did feel like I came second and that we were just different people however without her now just hurts so much.I feel like I lost a great person, and even now if I fix myself and find someone else, I will always just wonder why I didn’t realize what I had. I really wish we sat down and had this conversation 5 months ago, I really would have gained a lot of perspective and think we both could have changed and been a really strong couple , but it is completely over now.

Anyone else feel this way or had a similar experience? Looking for some support thank you !