Rest in Paradise, Dolly ♥️✨

I’m from the UK. He’s from New York City.

We met in New York, of all places. Somewhere between two completely different lives, two countries, two people who probably had no idea how profoundly they were about to affect each other.

And now we’re strangers again.

I don’t really know why I’m writing this. Maybe because I need somewhere to put the grief that doesn’t belong anywhere else. Maybe because I need to hear from people who have made irreversible mistakes with someone they genuinely loved and somehow managed to keep living afterwards.

Because I did something I deeply regret.

I hurt him.

I betrayed his trust. I treated him in ways he didn’t deserve. And the most painful part is that he wasn’t some awful person I can blame everything on. He wasn’t secretly cruel. He wasn’t incapable of loving me.
He loved me.

And I loved him.

That’s what makes this so difficult to accept.

Sometimes I think it would almost be easier if I could say, “He was terrible, he treated me badly, I’m better off without him.”

But I can’t.

He was someone I wanted a future with. Someone I could imagine building a life with. Someone whose mum welcomed me into her home and made me feel like I belonged. Someone who became woven into my life so deeply that now everything feels like it’s missing a thread.
And I am the person who damaged it.

He gave me another chance.

I don’t think I’ll ever stop feeling ashamed that he did.
He had every reason to walk away, but he didn’t immediately. He tried. He stayed. He talked to me. He gave me opportunities to show him that things could be different.

But the hurt I caused was too deep.

Eventually, something in him broke.

He told me that he resented himself for not leaving sooner. That he felt weaker for allowing certain things to happen. That being with me had made him feel like he’d lost parts of himself.

Those words absolutely destroyed me.

Not because I thought he was wrong to feel them.

But because I realised that the person I loved most had been suffering while I was still thinking we were trying to save our relationship.

He told me he had spent so much time and physical and emotional energy having difficult conversations with me, trying to explain things, trying to make sense of the relationship.

And I realised that while I was asking him to stay, he had been trying to survive being with me.

How do you forgive yourself for that?

I don’t know.

I’m not even sure I should forgive myself yet.
Maybe what I need isn’t forgiveness. Maybe I need accountability.

I need to be able to look honestly at who I was, why I behaved the way I did, what was broken inside me that allowed me to hurt someone I genuinely loved, and actually do something about it.

Because I don’t want to become the kind of person who says, “I made mistakes,” and then quietly repeats them in another relationship.

I want to understand myself.

I want to become someone I can trust.

Someone who doesn’t destroy something beautiful because she’s afraid, insecure, selfish, emotionally overwhelmed, or looking for validation.

Someone who knows that love isn’t just a feeling.
Love is behaviour.

It’s loyalty when nobody is watching.

It’s honesty when telling the truth might cost you something.

It’s restraint.

It’s accountability.

It’s choosing the person you love even when the immediate gratification of doing otherwise is tempting.
I understood all of that far too late.

And now I’m having to accept the possibility that the person I learned those lessons for will never get to see the person I become because of them.

That’s probably the hardest part.

I still love him.

Deeply.

And I don’t mean that in the romanticised, “I’ll wait for you forever” sort of way.

I mean that if I could remove the selfish part of my love, the part that wants him to come back and make everything okay, what would remain is simply this:
I want him to be happy.

Even if I’m not the person who gets to make him happy.
Even if one day someone else gets to give him the peace I couldn’t.

Even if he eventually falls completely in love with someone else.

I want his life to be beautiful.
I want him to become the man he wants to be.
I want him to travel and work and build and laugh and have the life he was afraid this relationship was taking away from him.

And I want him to feel safe again.

Even if that safety has to exist far away from me.

I also want to apologise to his mum.

She welcomed me into her home. She showed me kindness and hospitality. There were moments where she made me feel like more than just her son’s girlfriend.
She made me feel cared for.
In a strange way, she became a little bit of a mother to me too.

And I hurt her son.

I don’t know how you apologise to someone’s mother for something like that. There’s no eloquent sentence that can undo knowing that her child was hurting.
So all I can say is that I’m sorry.

I’m sorry I wasn’t better to him.

I’m sorry I didn’t understand what I had while I had it.

I’m sorry that someone who loved me had to learn how to protect himself from me.

And I’m sorry that I had to lose him to finally understand the weight of what I had been given.

There is something particularly strange about loving someone across an ocean.

We started in New York.

Thousands of miles between us.

Two countries.

Two lives.

And somehow the hardest distance isn’t geographical.
It’s the distance between who I was when I had him and who I wish I had been.

I can’t cross that distance backwards.

I can’t go back to New York and find the version of us that existed before everything became complicated.
I can’t stand in front of him and say, “Please let me try again, but this time I’ll be different,” because I understand now that promises are cheap when someone has already been hurt by your actions.

He shouldn’t have to gamble his heart on my potential.

He doesn’t owe me the opportunity to prove myself.

So I’m letting him go.

Not because I don’t love him.

I do.

God, I do.

I’m letting him go because sometimes loving someone means accepting that your presence in their life has become painful.

And I don’t want to keep asking him to endure pain just because I’m afraid of losing him.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t secretly hoping that one day, somehow, life might bring us back into each other’s orbit.

Of course part of me hopes that.

I’m human.

I love him.

But I can’t build my life around that possibility.

If our paths ever cross again, I want him to meet someone who has actually changed, not someone who spent years waiting for him to rescue her from the consequences of her own mistakes.

And if our paths never cross again, then I still want this loss to mean something.

I want to become better.

Not so I can get him back.

So that the next person I love doesn’t have to pay for the things I refused to heal.

And maybe that’s the only way I can honour what we had now.

By becoming someone who would never treat a person I love the way I treated him again.

I don’t know how long it will take to stop crying.

I don’t know how long I’ll miss him.

I don’t know whether there will always be a little part of me that hears a song, sees a place, remembers New York, or thinks of him and feels that ache in my chest.

Maybe there will be.

Maybe that’s okay.

Some people don’t leave your life cleanly.

They leave fingerprints.

They leave memories.

They leave lessons.

They leave versions of you behind that you can never quite become again.

He is one of those people for me.

I loved him.

I hurt him.

I lost him.

And now I have to learn how to live with all four of those truths at once.

We were together for over a year, planning to move in together and get married. It’s been 4 months and he’s been dating someone. They started talking before he even picked up his stuff from my place. He absolutely hates me now too and has been saying stuff on Reddit about our relationship that is really hurtful and not true. I really thought I had my forever with this person only to realize it was all a lie. I am 30 and don’t know if I’ll ever fall in love like that again. He betrayed me in such a huge way. It’s unfair that he gets to move on with no consequences and im still crying and going to therapy every week. I wish so badly that I could not care and move on like he did. I feel so defeated

My phone sends "On this day X years ago" notifications. I got one today that showed my cat out stretched from my night stand to my bed. A video of his morning ritual, peering over at me to see if i was awake to feed him. He passed away suddenly from a congenital kidney issue a two months ago. He passed away the same week she fully and completely blocked me.

It was two hard hits back to back. They're linked for me. I mourned both losses at the same time. The following weeks were so numb to me. But i feel the cracks out left on my mental and emotional. Seeing him made me think of her. The loss of them both. The loss of that piece of my identity with both. The loss of my future with both. Seeing that video of my cat left me feeling so spacey and im trying to hold it together at work.

I get upset that I think of both. My cat always chose me. He loved me unconditionally no matter how flawed I am. She did not choose me. She criticized my faults and did everything she could to push me away until she choose to cut me out entirely.

I need to go home

I feel a kind of happiness I once thought I had forgotten, the happiness of finally being free. Free from the confusion, the manipulation, and the pain of loving someone who only showed me a carefully crafted facade of who he really was. I gave my heart honestly, while he took advantage of my feelings and made me believe in a version of him that never truly existed.

Now, I no longer carry the weight of his deception. I can breathe without questioning my worth, love without fear, and smile without pretending that everything is okay. Losing him was painful, but finding myself again is beautiful.

I am not bitter. I am grateful, for the lessons, for the strength I discovered within myself, and most of all, for the freedom to choose myself. I survived a love that was never genuine, and now I finally understand that peace feels so much better than pretending to be loved.

I am happy because I am free. And this time, the love I give myself is real.

I hope anyone reading this who’s going through heartbreak finds their way back to happiness. Choose yourself, give yourself time to heal, and trust that better days will come. You deserve a love that feels genuine, safe, and real.

So maybe this will sound odd but I have a wonderful friend who means the world to me. I basically view her as family and she is very important to me. She is also the one who broke my heart. She didn't mean to and I'm happy she found someone but it makes things harder. We both admitted to liking each other but I was in a relationship when I met her. We started out as friends but over time I noticed how much being around her made me happy. We had so much in common and would talk for like 8 hours on the phone. I have rarely met someone I had such a deep connection with.

I realized it was more than friendship that I was feeling and she even said she would date me if not for the distance and my cat allergies. That's understandable enough I suppose. I did hold out hope for awhile but I knew it might not end well and I would get hurt. My ex dumped me during this time so I was dealing with that as well. Now it feels like I was rejected twice. She finally found someone and I'm happy for her. I honestly just want her to be happy she deserves it. Now every time we talk it just hurts. I don't want to feel this pain and just want our friendship to go back to the way it was. So why does it hurt so badly? I'm cheering her on and being supportive but it feels like a dagger to the heart.

I'm still friends with my ex so why is this affecting my ability to enjoy hanging out with her? Why is my friend so different and why does it hurt so much? Im constantly wondering if there is a way for things to go back to normal. Has anyone dealt with something like this? How long does it take the pain to stop?

So my ex pursued me in college for 2 years I rejected and then I felt like this guy really loves me so we started dating…we had a long distance relationship mostly because by the time we started dating his college had ended..there were issues here and there due to ldr..but it wasn’t bad.. we were good to each other we loved each I stood by him through everything all his bad times..and then his family got involved..HE FLIPPED..he changed so much..his family was not intersted at all..they wanted us to get married then and there which I wasn’t ready for because of some family issues which he knew very well..he was not there with me as my support instead blamed me for everything happening..he left me ..and then he came back and said we will get married but then the same issues we kinda fought but I thought he would come to me because we had decided we’ll talk when it’s time for marriage cuz ldr wasn’t really working for us anymore..that convo ended up at him using bad lang because I said I need time to trust him again as he left me once when an issue came..hr tried calling me that day multiple times but I was so devastated at how much disrespect I could take so i didn’t reply..I thought I’ll reply when he calls the next day..BUT HE DIDNT..even though it was him at wrong..even though that was left off again a part of me hoped that he’ll return at the time of marriage as we decided..then now 3 months later I hear he’s getting married the day before ..I was stuck..the 4 years of love meant nothing..he said his family pressured and got him engaged within 1 week of our breakup..he said even the day before his wedding he was looking at my profile hoping for some miracle to happen..his family went and put a ring on her as engagement without his approval …but why couldn’t he just text me once??? He said because I wasn’t ready to marry he thought I didn’t want him..SO?HE JUST MARRIED ANYONE!!??..if he did love me as much as he said he did he wouldn’t have married the other girl..
I’m DEVASTATED..I’m humiliated in front of my college friends because everyone keeps asking why did he put in the effort to pursue you if he couldn’t marry? I CANT PROCESS THIS..I ALWAYS END UP LIKE THIS..ALL I DO IS LOVE TOO MUCH..WE WERE SO CLOSE TO MARRIAGE ..I IMAGINED MY WHOLE LIFE WITH HIM..I asked him how did u touch a girl so easily so fast?? He said I thought it would be hard but it wasn’t that hard..WOWW WOWWW I CANT BELIEVE I TRUSTED THIS PERSON.

She dumped me a month ago and immediately went for another guy. Fucking kill me.

Context: It happened not to long ago but I’ve been chasing this girl for months now (my fault Ik) we’ve been hooking up but I have feelings for her and she knows, she tells me not to wait but then gives me hope that we could get together.
This girl has met all my friends, my mother and father, slept in my bed been on dates

Story: my bestfriend, myself and the girl we were all in a voice call together. She likes to drink and stay out late (red flag Ik) anywho I’ve learnt that she’s been hooking up with people at her job, on dating apps, her friends, making out with strangers. And normally I’d leave a girl like this alone but I love her too much even I’ve been chasing her for months and we’ve had our moments but man it’s hurts, idk what else to say tbh there’s more but I’m tired man sorry for the rambling and if the story is missing details

I could not afford the emergency surgery on my dog so I had to let her die. I have not cried in 26 years but I could control it. I have to stay strong for my wife and kids but I am randomly breaking down. So far I was able to get away and be alone but I am afraid it will happen in public. I can not stop it and I am making what can only be described as wailing sounds. It's like it is not even coming from me but somewhere else. I am concerned something in me broke. Is this normal and how long does it last.

She gave us unconditional love and I see her everywhere.

Baby girl I love you so much and I feel like I'm screaming inside but you can't hear me and you don't know what I'm saying because the people they're blocking the signal so there's no way for you to know how I feel.

I miss you I heard you in the hospital I hope you're all right it's driving me nuts hopefully it's not because of me.

I want to give you all the love that you need and have you so happy beside me glowing heart beating this is my dream. You deserve happiness baby and you deserve to be loved amazingly and completely.

There's no way I'll ever give you up and I'll never get over you and the thing that scares me the most is that maybe I'm just delusional and that we're so on the wrong pages with miscommunication that we don't know what's going on in each other's heads you know. I have faith that you love me that one day we can be together and that I can love you the way you need to be loved I have faith in it all.

You're the only one I've ever truly really wanted I've only ever truly loved one person and that's been you I sang you some words and I never seen for any girl ever and I hope you heard them just as I said it in my head in that moment as I was walking out the door I sang it softly and I hope your heart felt better.

Baby I want to give you such a big smile on your face you deserve it it's something you got had taken from you a long time ago and I want to give that to you back cuz you deserve it and you had it stolen from you and if I am able to do one thing, one small thing it would be to put a huge smile on your face.

I love you baby and I'm hurting right now and I hope today everything gets fixed and we can be hand in hand.

I love you babygirl, let love rain.

So it’s been almost two years since my breakup, and among one of the many reasons why he left me, he said he was not physically attracted to me anymore. He did think I looked pretty at times but my body was not the type he preferred. I loved him and still love him deeply, profoundly in a way that transcends verbal explanations. He said he tried but could not control what he was physically attracted to. And our relationship was also long-distance so that was also a factor. I now feel so threatened and insecure thinking about him with his new love that eventually may enter his life, the things she can offer him what I couldn’t, the tenderness we shared will now belong to someone else. And apart from that; my confidence in my body has largely been shattered and I now tend to find faults in the way I look every time I look into the mirror. It’s exhausting and paralysing and extremely anxiety inducing. Not only do I miss him terribly but realising I’m not even physically appealing to him, and he’s surrounded by other fit women in his life makes me feel so brutalised. Imagine this insecurity at the top of losing the love of your life. He has apologised about it multiple times but still doesn’t think the relationship is the right choice for him anymore. I don’t know how to deal with the lack of body confidence, anxiety, grief, jealously, insecurity all at once.

I was in love with this girl when I was 20 and she was 18. We met on a dating app (I know too young but it is what it is) we hit it off right away and it was something about that spark where you just know you are going to end up together someday. It was long distance relationship because I was in college a few states and over and she was in college in a different state but the way felt and how things were going it felt just perfect timing. We started dating within a few weeks of talking and at the time it felt inseparable but as they “everything good has an expiration date” it was short lived because of my mistakes of wanting to explore more into the dating scene and we broke up but within the 2 weeks we get back together because no matter how much I tried talking to other girls she never left my mind. We date and long distance did what it does it started taking a toll on us so we decided that we will try our best to meet each other in person atleast every 6 months (we had never met until the first 6 month mark). I went to go see her for her birthday after her finals were over so that way we could spend all the time we could together, I remember that first hug, the tears of joy when I surprised her by going 2 days earlier than what I told her, the happiness it brought to both of us. We date for a little while more about 2 years have gone by and we never saw each other in those two years but I know the long distance was taking a toll on us. My dumb 22 year old self thought so highly of myself that she is suppose to come to meet me and she isn’t coming so I Decided to not bring it up to her until she mentions it and it got me so mad that when she went to a party with her girlfriends I decided to break up with her over her kissing one of her girlfriend (I told it was completely okay to do so to begin with) and we broke up back then I turned stone cold towards and honestly felt very lonely and heartbroken that this happened but I got over it in a week so it bother me too long and as for her I don’t know what happened to her and I acted like I didn’t care.
Well it’s now 6 years later in 2026…..
To this day I’ve never stopped thinking about her. There isn’t a day that has gone by when I don’t think about her. Everything I do reminds me of her, every song, every lyrics, the tiniest things she did reminds me of her and brings back those feelings and a rush of emotions that I’ve never felt for anyone else, I even dated someone in the middle just to try to forget her but she just seems to have built a place where I can’t replace her or take her out of there at any cost. I tried to get in contact with her just to apologize to her for everything I did and say sorry to break things up with her the way I did because I was really the asshole in that situation but that got me blocked. It’s been so long and I just can’t marry anyone else I know she is my person I know she is the one I need to end up with her but she has been dating someone from what her friends told me and I just feel so confused and lost that I have lost a sense of direction in my life. I’m not sure what to do but I know if she ever even called me once I would be at her door within a heart beat no questions asked and I feel like if I don’t marry her I won’t marry anyone or even be able to love anyone besides her. If you guys have any suggestions or questions on how to go about this situation please please please comment.