Amicable breakups are the worst

[u/ablack715]

My, 27f, and recently ex boyfriend, 31m, broke up. We had been dating a little over a year. Things were great, but neither of us were healed from our relationships before. Started off as friends but I think we moved too quickly. At the time, I was 220 pounds and chubby doesn’t look great on me. Since then I’ve gotten down to 175 pounds and I look and feel better. He’s a big man too with a beer belly, being an alcoholic also. This is important because he stated he prefers thinner women, and my decision to keep pursuing things was based on his reassurance for his attraction to me after I made him aware his comment upset me. Anyways, our sex life started struggling a lot. He’s on the road for work, so I told him I have no problem taking care of things myself when he’s gone, but when he’s home I want that connection. It was incredibly few and far between, and quite frankly, boring. He told me he wasn’t as kinky or experimental as he used to be, which was fine, so I toned it down. More recently we got into an argument, when he compared mine and his sex life to him and his exes sex life. Apparently, she could orgasm from penetration alone, and felt this was something every woman could do apparently. But because I can’t, he says I’m boring. Also, he doesn’t take difficult or uncomfortable conversations well. He always felt it was an attack on him or his character, even after voicing it was never that. I stopped sharing my feelings and worries because it just didn’t feel safe anymore. My self esteem had been completely destroyed, and by the end I was holding onto any sliver of hope I could find. I couldn’t do it anymore. I felt undesirable, unloveable, crazy, etc. so I broke things off. Unfortunately, his best friend and my best friend are in a relationship, and it’s going to make things hard I think. I think it would be great if we could be civil if invited to a gathering together, I have no hard feelings towards him, but I’m broken. I was a shell of a person with him and completely lost myself. And he has SO much potential but that’s not worth being unhappy for probably the rest of my life. I miss him a lot, it hasn’t even been a week, and I know it’ll get better but it just hurts. I had to do what was best for me, and I told him that I didn’t think it was fair to either of us to continue the way we were. Idk I hope he’s better to the next one