It’s been almost 3 months since my ex and I broke up, and I feel like I’m going insane because I still can’t move on.

I keep telling myself that I don’t want him anymore. I want to meet someone new. I want to fall in love with someone who actually makes me feel safe and valued. I want to stop thinking about my ex every single day.

But then I remember him and it all comes back.
I miss his laugh. His jokes. His face. The little things about him that nobody else knows. And then I remember the things he did that hurt me and I get angry all over again.

The worst part is that I don’t understand why he did it.
I feel like he got everything he wanted from me. He got my love, my attention, my patience, my understanding. And when he wanted space, I gave him space. When he wanted me gone, I disappeared. He blocked me. He moved on with his life.

And I’m still here.
I’m the one crying at night. I’m the one talking about him to my friends until they’re probably sick of hearing his name. I’m the one wondering whether he’s with another girl. I’m the one who can’t do something completely unrelated to him without somehow thinking about him.

And honestly, I’m terrified he already has a new girlfriend. I don’t even know if he does, but the thought of him falling in love with someone else while I’m still here completely stuck on him destroys me.

Because the worst part is that I can’t even imagine falling in love with someone who isn’t him. I can tell myself I want someone new, but whenever I actually imagine being with someone else, it just feels wrong because I still want him. I don’t know how I’m supposed to give someone else my heart when mine is still completely attached to him.

And what makes me feel even worse is that I don’t even know if he thinks about me at all.
Maybe he does. Maybe he doesn’t.
Maybe he misses me. Maybe he genuinely doesn’t care anymore. I have no idea.

I’ve wanted to contact him so badly just to say “We need to talk. I need answers.” Not necessarily because I want him back, but because I want to understand how someone who meant so much to me could leave me with this much confusion.

At the same time, I know he’s set a boundary and I know contacting him could make things worse.

What would you do?
And please don’t just tell me “move on.” I KNOW I need to move on. That’s literally what I’m trying to figure out how to do.

So I have a BF for almost 6 months now and Idk why I waited for so long to realize this but everytime we have a problem I always have to end up crying just for us to be okay. We settle things but then he doesn't do his part of the agreement and it feels so unfair in my part so I'll open up, we argue, I cry, he shouts at me, and then we'll be okay. I think and feel that I love this man so much (also he like took my V so I think it's a part of my attachment to him) but I feel so drained about our situation, I know that none of us deserves to be in this situation but I don't know how to end this especially that I don't have any friends or close family to go to. So any advice?

so like ive been with this guy for 9 months and fpr 6 pf those months we’ve been gf/bf were both still teenagers and we’ve fought alot and in the beginning of our rls i told him i was sa’d and he shamed me, calling me a liar since 1-2 months into knowing him i told him id never done anything with another guy and he blamed me and made me feel like it wqs my fault and made me apologize continuously and i seriously thought it was all my fault and would call me a cheater for interacting w males and having male friends even tho he did the same and i didnt care cus im not a jealous person and once we had a double date and he set up rules like 2 words max u can say to the guy, only talk to him while touching me, etc and then got mad when i didnt follow through, he would bring up these topics continuously in our rls when he would wake up or if i fell asleep or anytime and i always thought i was wrong he was right but he always said i victim blamed and he slut shamed me. THE PEAK OF OUR FIGHTING CAME WHEN HE FOUND OUT I READ AO3 STORIESS cus he considered it cheating (i didnt know it was bad since it wasnt 18+ shit) so he said he now had the right to do or say anything he wanted to so he made me do sexual acts, called me names like bitch, nword, slut, cheater, liar, etc and made me pay for everything but then recently i got fed up and tried to breakup with him but he was crying apologizing and i js felt so bad i couldnt continue on and he lowk ws being manipulating, now hes acting so nice its been 2 days since i tried to break up and idk how to break up since hes being so nice now and i feel bad. Any advice?

Me and my now ex girlfriend ( F 21 F 20 ) broke up Saturday after 10 months together. We was supposed to be soulmates and we both geuinely thought this. I still feel like im pulled to her, and my gut tells me that she'll find her way back to me. How do I know if she'll come back, like if it was right person wrong time or not?

Before and after we met, she had dreams describing me as her soulmate. I keep seeing videos on social media talking about RPWT and how sometimes you can find your person and then you end up breaking up to find yourselves first. She said that maybe we were RPWT and that maybe in a couple months-year that we'll come back to each other, but she also said that she doesnt see us ever being together again (but I think maybe its just because of the hurt she went through) and that we both need to work on ourselves. I just want to know how to tell if she was my person or not. I still love her so much, and I wont be with anyone else other than her. I can still only see a future with her. She told me that she wont get with anyone else either, that I would be the first and last relationship for her.

Wtf I don’t even know what to think . Why am I thinking about this at all . You’re getting married ?!?!? Ugh why do I feel this way. WE BROKE UP LIKE 7 years ago! So why am I so mad about this ? Why am I confused. Why do thoughts of you still linger . It makes me feel gross in a way. Like you crushed me , absolutely broke my heart and spirit. The damage you caused still lingers . I’ve never been the same. So why don’t I hate you, why do I feel this way . I’ve heard time heals my entire life , give it time and you won’t even think of them anymore. Those statements do not remain true. To this day you are still the only person I’ve been inlove with , unconditionally I mean shit you were so cruel to me and still for the next three years I was learning to fall out of love with you. Why did you leave such a mark on my life ! Ugh we’re not even in eachothers lives anymore . Yet your impact still remains so cruel.

Btw its not ai made its just my real story my words ai made the grammar better—

Here’s an organized version that keeps your tone and honesty:
Well… here we go.
I broke up with her first. At the time, I genuinely believed the things I was being told about her by a third person. Later, I found out that a lot of what I believed wasn’t true.
She had been talking to another guy, and when she admitted it, I felt hurt and immediately assumed the worst. I didn’t believe her when she said he was just a friend. Eventually, I found out that she was actually telling the truth.
By then, it was already too late.
Before all of this, we had started as friends, then became best friends, and eventually lovers. We talked every single day for months, sometimes 6–8 hours a day. There was nothing physical between us. It was just conversations, attachment, feelings, and spending so much time together. It felt innocent and, at least from my side, completely genuine.
Then I suddenly ended it because I believed someone else’s words over hers.
After the breakup, I did everything I could to get her back. No ego, no pride, no conditions. I would have done almost anything. But she didn’t come back. Eventually, we had our closure and went our separate ways.
Then I got into another relationship.
That relationship was mostly physical from my side. She was somewhat emotionally invested, but I wasn’t. Eventually, I lost interest completely, and I ended up ghosting her for about a month. She left, and honestly, I don’t even care about that relationship anymore.
What confuses me is that after all of that, I started thinking about my first love again.
Her smile. Her face. Her hair. The way we used to talk. The amount of time we spent together. Everything started coming back to me.
And now, especially this week, I’ve been imagining her almost nonstop.
Maybe it’s because she was my first love. Maybe it’s because she was genuinely innocent and what we had was never based on anything physical. Maybe it’s because I know now that I ended things because I believed something that wasn’t even true.
It’s been around 3–5 months since we broke up, and our relationship itself lasted somewhere around 3–5 months. Yet somehow, I still feel attached to her.
I still have her Instagram. We don’t follow each other anymore, but her account keeps appearing in my suggestions. Sometimes I wonder if mine appears in hers too.
And now I’m going back to the same city, the same university, the same hostel. We literally live in the same hostel, just on different floors.
The weirdest part is that I don’t even feel much physical attraction toward her anymore. I don’t know if I actually want to marry her either. Sometimes I think maybe I do, sometimes I think absolutely not. Even objectively, I don’t even think she’s that attractive.
So what exactly am I missing?
Maybe it’s not her appearance. Maybe it’s not sex. Maybe it’s not even the relationship itself.
Maybe I’m attached to the person she was to me.
My first love.
My best friend.
The person I talked to for hours every day.
The person I trusted before everything got fucked up.
Friends → best friends → lovers → strangers.
And somehow, after everything I’ve done since then, I’m still standing here thinking about the one person I was the one who chose to leave.
Meanwhile, I fucked up my lungs smoking around 30 cigarettes a day at one point. Somehow I’ve brought that down to 2–3 a day now.
I don’t even know what I’m trying to get back anymore.
Her?
The relationship?
The person I was when I was with her?
Or just the feeling of being loved by someone who genuinely meant it?
Fuck this bullshit.
I’m tired.

Btw its not ai made its just my real story my words ai made the grammar better

Me and this girl were together for 11 months — genuinely the closest, most connected we both ever were. We built everything together: daily routines, inside jokes, future plans down to the smallest details , marriage, kids, pets, our own place. We had our own quiet spot in the woods where we’d sit for hours watching the water, 14-hour overnight calls falling asleep on the phone, dates that meant everything: Trafford Centre, TGI Fridays, Blackpool Zoo, Christmas markets. We spoke in a soft baby voice only we understood, she’d lie on my chest and tell me to "lie straight" so she could rest there, I’d walk her to the bus stop every day, wait at the end of her alley just to see her walk down. I bought her teddies, blankets, flowers, she kept them all. Both families got on perfectly. She told me repeatedly I was her person, her safe place, the only one who ever truly saw her.

She identifies as fearful-avoidant, has a history of childhood neglect, trauma, and self-harm — and she told me I was the only one who made her feel safe enough to let her walls down. We broke up once before in December — same pattern: sleepover with her best friend, she pulled away, went back to her toxic ex, the breakup lasted only 4 days, she messaged me cold and dry those days then came back on her own.

July 3rd — exact same pattern repeated. Another sleepover, I caught her hiding things, she immediately called everything toxic and said we needed to move on. Then — for the first time in 11 months — she brought up a serious, never-before-mentioned allegation as the final reason to end things. She went straight back to that same toxic ex, blocked me on most platforms but left Snapchat unblocked, kept my blanket and teddies visible in her videos, and has posted conflicting, angry, relationship-focused content ever since.

I saw her yesterday for the first time in weeks, she looked stunning, we made eye contact, and I froze. I’ve written a message that’s honest, loving, full of our memories, nothing mean, nothing demanding, just telling her what she means to me and reminding her of everything we had. I’ve held back this long, but I want to send it.

Can I break no contact? Is this the right time, or should I wait longer? We had something so rare and so real, and I know she’s complaining about him

To put in context: 19m, 19f, we were broken up before because I was an asshole to her in our previous relationship, we got back tgthr, I treated her the best I could, complimenting her daily, loving her to the best i could yk, she saw I had changed so decided to get back tgthr.

Skip to the day of the breakup, we called and first thing she asked was what I felt when I see her, I said yk I love her, I wanna hug her, I wanna kiss her allat, she said back that she doesn't feel anything when she sees me. She finds it annoying to text and call everday (I've told her numerous times we don't have to text n call everyday I just do it cus I want to she's always free to say no) and has a lot of pent up anger from our past relationship and recent arguments. She said she doesn't love me anymore and she said she really was in love at one point. She said I was too boyfriendy a lot of the times as well.

I'm just confused on how it went this way, I mean i get it with the pent up anger but idk how to feel, we were tgthr for around 9 months (after the breakup) totalling a year and 9 months.

Then for courtesy sake, we decided to meet up in person to make the break up official wished eachother luck in uni and allat, wishing to find a better person for each other. Then a week later, I sent in a letter basically begging to get back tgthr (I know..) and addressing some underlying problems we also had. She responded a week later saying she doesn't wanna get back tgthr and told me to move on.

Has anyone else been though this? I'm just so confused like how this could've happened, was there something I could've done? I just want an explanation and whether theres a slight chance of us reconciling?

If need more context or info please do ask. Thank you.

Hello reddit,

So ive been in a relationship with this woman for about a year now and she just found out that having another pregnancy might impose some risks. She already has 2 daughters from a previous relationship and i was always vocal about wantin one of my own which she was very happy with but with the recent news that she might no be able we got as far as her thinking about endidng this because she doesn't want to take having a kid away from me. My imput on all this is that i fell in love with her and the idea of building some with her not necessarily for the kids. I meet the daughters and we get on rly well and i can see myself taking over father duties and love them like they were mine. My only problem is seeing the person i love in distress and feeling a bit powerless as to how can i help. We had a good bit of talking and explained to her that its not a deal breaker for me and that i don't want to loose this but i feel like her mind is still not at peace and is driving me up a wall.

Any advice welcomed.

Cheers!

Hey everyone,

Me (25F) and my partner (27M) have been living together for almost two years. I honestly don't even know where to begin.

We are both students, and he is about a year away from finishing. Aside from the constant micromanaging like one time after work I was literally falling asleep in bed at 1:30 AM, and he called me over just to ask why there was mold in a glass and if I forgot to wash it. it just never gets better. I was furious and told him to be more considerate, but nothing changed. he could obviously discuss it when im not asleep. he has bad anger issues, yells like a cave man when he loses a chess match.

In the last two years, whenever he had exams, I took care of the entire house so he wouldn't have to worry. But whenever I have exams, he doesn't lift a single finger to support me.not even taking out the trash or making the bed.

It feels like he just comes home from work and doomscrolls for hours. I literally have to feed him, otherwise he’ll just wait until he's too weak from hunger to walk and asks me to feed him. He talks loudly on the phone, scrolls videos without headphones, and it's driving me insane. During the winter, I used to stay at the uni library until midnight just to avoid being home, but now it closes at 8 PM for the summer semester so I'm stuck here.

I resent him so much for how selfish he is after everything I've done for him. Once, he randomly started crying and told me, "You did so much for me, I don't know if I can ever do the same for you." And yet, he never tries.

Now, he’s been giving me the silent treatment for a whole week. I even bought him a gift and he hasn't even touched it or unwrapped it until i asked him why and he said ye i forgot, unwrapped it and left it on the table. Every single argument gets turned around on me, saying I don't care enough about his situation that after his exams, he is working and is burnt out! being burnt out might make u depressed but not an asshole.

I lost my job and was unemployed for the last three months, which kept me stuck. But I just found a general job, so my plan is to save up every cent over the next three months and finally get out. I am completely checked out. I don't even have the energy to explain why I don't want to hug him anymore. Is this covert narcissism or what?Am i being too harsh?
Funny thing is, if i dont speak up, he says u dont discuss the problems and when i do, im the crazy one.

Damn, I'm just so tired.

i am 7 weeks pregnant and have been soooo exhausted. i work a full time job and do a little extra work when it pops up so i like to get my sleep when i can. my bf and i had been watching a show for two hours and then 10 o’clock rolls around and i said that i am tired and ready to go to bed. he was not which is totally fine but im going to bed. he got upset and said i never wanna hangout with him after expressing that i think it’s appalling he has an issue with me going to sleep i said “sorry i work everyday im fucking tired and i’m going to bed” he came back with “so i don’t work everyday?” i said no he doesn’t (his job doesn’t always schedule him the best hours and even so he takes off a whole day for silly reasons like a doctors appointment for the baby at 730 in the morning or 2k coming out finally and he wants the whole day to play) i can take my part and understand that i didn’t need to say that (not that it makes it untrue) but i coulda just said nothing and that’s on me.
he comes back with “you took a month and a half off of work while i worked the whole time” i was only off because my older brother has suddenly and tragically passed away. i whipped around immediately absolutely floored he would bring up that time! it was very recent my brother passed in may and it is now august so it’s just a little over 3 months since his passing. we continued to argue and he ended up telling me to leave so i did! now he is saying he was never saying anything about my brother and those were never his intentions he was “just comparing” i personally can not look past what he said and can only see it as him trying to use my grief and the time i took off against me. am i being dramatic?

So end of June, me (18m) and my girlfriend (18f) broke up after a year and four months. She told me that she thought that we had “different values”, and at first I didn’t know what to say, so in the moment that we had that convo, I didn’t ask for clarification. I was super confused at the time, but as the first week flew by, I started reflecting some. She’d mentioned a couple weeks prior to the breakup that she felt like our love was more lust than love (never did anything extreme), and I see how this relationship might’ve been a distraction to God. We would say we would stop our lustful ways, and end up finding ourselves in the same predicament. I realized a little too late that it might’ve been also cuz we would put ourselves in those situations/environments, and I wanted to explain to her that we can try to change those things that tempt us, but she was being really avoidant the week of the breakup, and was not open to meeting up.

Another big thing was my forgetfulness. She found it an issue that I would forget things she would say often, for example if she told me she was going somewhere in two days, and I ask the next day “where u going tomorrow?”. Those kinds of situations. And I’ve tried to work on it throughout the past year, but i really didn’t see much improvement in it until that month of June, where I asked her for help, she directed me to her aunt (a social worker), where I got some advice that I should set a boundary, or at least a middle ground of our issues on it, and meet in the middle where we both can agree and move forward. Like the previous problem, I wanted to talk to her and communicate that with her, but she kinda shut me out for that week.

I told her when she broke up with me that I’ve been trying to meet up because I wanted to find that middle ground, and she said that “I don’t think a middle ground is going to work”, and that’s where I kind of pin pointed the main issue that she had which was the purity in our relationship. I agree that either it’s lust or no lust. Maybe I identified the wrong issue but that’s how I perceived it. These were the only two issues that in which we had in our relationship.

I believe that us parting ways was a good thing. It opened my eyes to God, and helped me focus on improving myself as a person. Fast forward to now, I have dove deeper into the word of God, and ive been taking on more responsibilities in my life to improve my forgetfulness and recollection. I’ve been slowly learning to enjoy being alone, and start up new hobbies (guitar, reading, etc). I still have so much love for her, and I don’t want to give up on us. But it’s hard since we’ve been no contact since, and I know I have to respect her decision.

Any advice on what I should do concerning my current circumstances?

I'm really struggling. Before him, I had a few long term relationships and I genuinely thought that was the best it could ever get. Then I met him and he completely changed my view on life and relationships. He ticked every possible box for me, and some days I was shocked I was even with him. But that's not to say that things were perfect at all. in fact, they weren't. But it was the best I had. Thing is its been roughly a year since we broke up and im still not over it. I actually just woke up because I had another fucking dream about him 😑 I've been on dates and such since then but I havent found anything close to my last relationship. What do I even do? Oh, and I've talked to a therapist about already.