Edit: WOAH. Ladies, I've never felt this level of support from anyone in my life, literally ever. You all got me through the day. Every break I got at work I read more comments. I took a real lunch break and took myself to a restaurant to relax, eat, and read comments, and I never go out for lunch. I cannot say thank you enough to all of you for the absolute outpouring of support. I have very little emotional energy because of all that's going on, but I will try to respond to everyone as much as I can! I read every single comment. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. I can't wait for a year from now when I'm looking back and thinking about how silly I was for being so hung up on this guy. Thank you for the advice, the (some tough) love, and for sharing your experiences. Today was hard, and you guys gave me a lot to think about as I wait out this move. I feel way more capable of taking on this change and much more grounded in the reality of the situation. What an amazing community. 💕
Flaired as rant because it's the ramblings of a sad girl. Mods, please re-flair if something else is more appropriate.
Hi ladies. I'm just having a hard day - I still know leaving my boyfriend is the right move and he thinks so too, but I'm just having a hard time fighting the nostalgia and the 5 years of memories we have together. There's 100% no chance of us not breaking up when the lease ends in May - we talked yesterday and he said he's done a lot of reflecting and realizes that this is the right move for us both too, so he's not going to try and get me to change my mind, but man I'm feeling really down about the whole thing today.
I go back and forth between being excited about leaving and getting my life together and then being terrified of what this means for me. I don't associate with my family because they're abusive, and I've moved a lot and poured all my time into my romantic relationships, so I don't really have any friends. My boyfriend is all I've had in terms of support for the past 5 years, which he's actually been really great at, so I'm scared of only having good old number one, my cat, and my therapist. I'm going to have to focus on making friends, I know, but it's scary to be pretty much on my own for the first time in 5 years.
The hard part is that my relationship wasn't awful. There wasn't a big blowout that caused me to want to leave. He wasn't a lazy gamer bro who gave me no attention. I know he loved me and loved me hard. I know he was attracted to me, and I was to him. Yes, he cheated on me, but because of the circumstance in which that happened, I was honestly willing to work through it with him. I've had a lot of mental health issues and he's gone above and beyond to be understanding and create a safe space for me to heal. What killed us was that he's self absorbed in a lot of ways, which made me feel slighted because I'm extremely thoughtful and self-sacrificial in relationships, and the sex was just not working. We started with heavy BDSM in the beginning of our relationship and when I realized I no longer wanted that, we sucked at vanilla sex (although I do want to blame him for that because he wasn't really receptive to gentleness and subtlety in bed). There was no passion or tenderness, and it made me feel like an object every time. We took a Master Class on sex to try and open up the conversation around it, I went to therapy to try and address my low libido (which turns out is not a trauma response but a lack of feeling safe and secure with him), but the sex just didn't improve.
I think I'm having a hard time because the relationship was good in so many ways. The good parts of him are SO good. Unfortunately it was bad in ways that outweighed the good. I do love him very much and the thought of him with someone else hurts a lot, but I just couldn't continue being unhappy when he always said he was happy. I was hoping he'd grow up with me and mature and become more thoughtful and less self absorbed with time, but it just didn't happen. We were clearly on different pages. I'm going to miss him a lot.
Today was a day where I woke up sad, I went to the gym and sat in the parking lot and bawled for 15 minutes before I could go in, I fought back tears the whole time, came home and saw him making breakfast, gave him a big long hug, and now I'm fighting tears getting ready for work. I feel like a mess. I can't call out of work today for a self-care day because I have meeting obligations I have to be present for. My boss knows what I'm going through and would understand if I took time off, but I just can't today. Probably better anyway, I just hope I can hold it together.
It's a radical act of self love leaving him - I know it's what's best for me - but it still hurts all the same. I just wanted to share my vulnerability here for those of you following my posts as I'm going through this long awkward breakup. I'm not invincible, I'm still hurting even though this is the right move. Any support would be appreciated. 💕
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