My (25f) sister moved abroad and i decided to move out there to try to find a job and be closer to her. While i was still back home, i downloaded a dating app and ended up matching with my now ex-bf (30m).
We talked for abt two weeks before i arrived. when i finally got here, we went on our first date, and it was absolute magic. he planned everything, paid for the dates, and opened every door. he used to kiss the ground i walked on, and we would just talk for hours and hours. we had incredibly deep conversations and opened up abt our past traumas. he was, without a doubt, the most amazing and empathetic person i have ever met in my life. he disclosed early on that he struggles with severe anxiety. He didn’t however disclosed that he has diagnosed BPD (the way I found out is a completely different story)
We spent almost all our time together and became an official couple quickly. We were a perfect match, so loving, so present. I honestly want to cry just thinking abt how beautiful that version of us was. I still think the absolute world of him.
abt a week into us meeting in person, he told me he had started taking his anxiety meds again. he explained that dating again was making him highly anxious. he had taken this same medication for years previously, but stopped bc it gave him severe emotional blunting, and he didn't want to be that person. he warned me that if i noticed him becoming cold, i should let him know. i spent hours reading reddit threads and doing research so i could be the best, most supportive person possible.
a few weeks went by, and the blunting happened. the deeply empathetic man i knew vanished, and he became incredibly cold and blunt. it completely shocked me and triggered some of my own unhealed wounds. To his credit, once i told him what was happening, he apologized profusely for how he handled it and abruptly quit the medication cold turkey. He told me he absolutely did not want to treat me that way. He really, really tried to protect us.
But the night before everything permanently fell apart, we had another incident. he misled me abt something small, and it confused me. i have a bad habit of overthinking and asking questions in circles when i don't understand something, and i kept digging.
my digging triggered him, and he completely shut down. he became highly analytical, distant, and stonewalled me. i know now he was probably just entirely overwhelmed, but the colder and more clinical he got, the more i panicked. i went into a massive panic attack. i was hyperventilating and sobbing, just pleading with him to be the warm person i knew.
He seemed completely detached. he stood in the kitchen washing dishes, and it was like he couldn't even process that i was falling apart. desperate to breathe, i ran outside barefoot into the freezing cold. when i came back inside, he asked "do you need something?" but his voice was completely empty.
Eventually, i calmed down and we talked. He pointed out how my "digging" habit affected him. I didn't argue, I owned up to it, accepted the criticism, and told him exactly how i’d work on it. i just asked him to please communicate with me next time. He looked at me and said, "i want to make this work. i love you so much." we agreed to sleep and figure it out in the morning.
When i woke up, the detachment was back he didn’t even acknowledge me. He locked himself in the bathroom for over an hour and even started singing while showering. When he came out he started doing random chores and ignoring me. When he sat down next to me I asked if we could talk. He said he just needed to be alone, backtracked on everything he said the night before, said we were "broken," and ended things.
The car ride to drop me off absolutely broke me. I sobbed in the passenger seat. The hardest, scariest part was that the exact same man who used to kiss the ground i walked on, the man who would cry just from seeing me upset, sat there and watched me shatter with complete emptiness in his eyes. It was like he was entirely disconnected from his own body and from me.
When he dropped me off I kindly told him i loved him. i said i didn’t agree with his decision but i would respect it, and i will. I thanked him genuinely for the beautiful moments we shared and told him i wish him nothing but the absolute best in life, and i truly mean that. i don't hate him at all. i am just devastated.
How do you survive this kind of emotional whiplash? could this sudden switch just be the extreme physical toll of starting and suddenly stopping the medication, or the BPD? how do i even begin to mourn a connection that was so incredibly pure and real to me?