Dating : Boyfriend broke up with me (reflection, long post)

Dating : Boyfriend broke up with me (reflection, long post)

My boyfriend and I broke up earlier this week. To be more specific, he broke up with me out of the blue. I never saw it coming.

We had just attended a wedding of one of his friends that Sunday and hung out the majority of Monday and had a barbecue with some of his friends. Tuesday morning I asked him if he still liked me. I don’t know why I asked but if it had seemed that things had been different. Different in the sense that things just weren’t the same as they were. I had just thought this to be normal as we were in a comfortable routine in our relationship. We have been together for about a year and a bit and I had become used to his routine and thought I understood him.

He responded that of course he still liked me. Shortly after he followed up by saying that to be honest he had been feeling differently for a while and he wasn’t sure and that we should talk later on that night. This gave me a lot of anxiety so I asked him if he wanted to chat over the phone during my lunch break.

We only spoke for about 30 minutes as he had a work-related call next. During the call he had said that he had been feeling differently about our relationship. He said that he was feeling down, and that he thought he’d be happier at his job, and when he looked at our relationship, he wasn’t happy with that either.

I asked him why he wasn’t happy with our relationship, if it was because he was down in general or something specific. He responded that it could be a bit of both, but he didn’t feel the same romantic feelings as he used to. He continued to say that he wasn’t sure if he was overthinking things. I asked him how long he felt this way and why he was just telling me now. He said he had felt this way for about 2 months already and he thought that if he just sat on it, it would go away.

I was really sad because at that point I knew that if he was he had already been thinking about this for two months there wasn’t really much I could do. He made some points about that he’s not sure if we’re compatible, which had been some issue throughout our relationship. I asked him if he could give me examples of this. He said, for example, that one day he would like to have kids and I have always been vocal about not liking kids, which he took as me not wanting them. I responded by saying I didn’t know if I wanted them or not. That I didn’t really like other people’s kids. It would probably be different if they were my own, and most importantly, who I had kids with. However, I have never thought about it seriously as I am still young and I am certainly not going to have kids anytime soon, and that I didn’t realize this was something that he was thinking about since this is the first time that I was hearing about this. He continued on to say that he didn’t know what to do and asked me if I had suggestions. I told him that he should do what makes him happy and that I didn’t know what to do to help him.

He said that attending the wedding made him think about our future that he didn’t see us together and that the spark wasn’t there anymore. By that, I believe he was referring to much of the feelings the wedding endorsed. The couple had quality films which consisted of them looking longingly into each other’s eyes and saying how they knew they would be together forever for the rest of their lives the moment they met each other. Again, this was surprising to me, because he had gotten pretty drunk and was really touchy with me, though I understand this doesn’t really mean much as a whole.

He also made a comment about whether or not there was somebody else better out there for him more suitable or compatible. I had been his first long-term girlfriend. This hurt me, and I asked him if he had already found that person. He got offended and asked me why I would think that of him. I said I was trying to understand where he was coming from, as this is all new to me and that I expected an honest answer from him, and if he had said yes we wouldn’t be discussing this any further. He made some further comments about it being good when we’re together but not when we’re not together. I asked him if the positives in our relationship outweighed the bad and he said yes.

By that time are called had to finish up and we agreed to speak later on in person that evening. Of course, the entire day I was really anxious.

He came over we continued on where we left off. We touched based on some of the comments that he had earlier made, for example, the comment about finding someone more compatible. I asked him if he could elaborate because the comment didn’t really make sense to me. Throughout our relationship, it has always been my view that people have their differences and that people work things out and they talk through things. I told him that if he was going to have this mentality with every single relationship, that he would never be happy because he would constantly be asking himself whether there was somebody who’s ‘more suitable’ for him. I told him that it hurt that he had sprung all of this on me this morning when we have been together the entire weekend but also because he had been feeling this way for 2 months already, and that it also was frustrating that he acted rudely towards me what I had asked if he had found someone else because, if he was feeling down in general I still wanted to help him and be with him for support. However, if he had found someone else we wouldn’t be having this conversation, and I was simply trying to figure out where he was coming from. He apologized and said he didn’t handle any of this properly.

In respect to the kids comment, that he had always been vocal about being OK not owning property. That’s why his comment about having kids confused me, because I just find it extremely difficult to raise a family by simply renting a condo. But the main thing was that I had no idea he was thinking that far into the future. He said that after having some time to think, that he believes that the earlier comments he made was just him beating around the bush and that the romantic feelings are simply not there.

I told him I wanted to be with him, but not if he didn’t want to be with me. I said, I didn’t know what he expected about our relationship if he didn’t do anything to mitigate those feelings. He never once spoke to me about it, and it’s not like our daily routine changed after he started having these feelings. What I mean by that, is that throughout our entire relationship he had been very adamant about work being his priority and also his friends. I was very understanding of this but of course our schedule focused around his schedule.

We would see each other about twice a week, once in the evening on a weekday, and then a day on the weekend. However, as mentioned above, our routine was flexible in the sense that he might have to work, or he had plans with friends. I should mention that the work took priority and that he would never cancel on me to hang out with his friends, but he would let me know if he had plans with them. I think I was very understanding in this regard. However, I want to reiterate that our dating life was subject to his schedule and that I had always been there, it was just difficult to schedule anything with him because of the above. I had said this to him.

I had said that we didn’t do anything as a couple lately, specifically the two of us because of his work and friends. And I said that was fine, but a relationship takes work and two to tango and I don’t know how he thought the spark would continue if he didn’t want to put in the effort. I would mention to him that I would like to go for a hike or go to a restaurant, but he doesn’t like spending money. That’s not to say that hiking or things like that cost money, but it takes planning and effort and those plans just never really materialized.

I just thought that we are at a stage where we weren’t really doing much, and that we were comfortable with each other. We had plans for the future, like going away and also attending more weddings. I just thought that we were having some down time, as he was pretty busy with work, he was finding a new place, eventually moving, he was going away that week on a work trip. You know, just not doing much, hanging out.

We broke up, and scheduled to get my things from his place. He said that he thought I was a nice girl, and that we obviously need our space, but he still wanted to possibly reach out to me in the future and talk as friends. He asked if I wanted a hug before he left, which I declined.

So Reddit, here I am reflecting on the past year and a bit that we shared together. Though I’m sad about everything, I have learned a lot from this relationship.

In the beginning I liked hanging out and meeting his friends, though I began getting more comfortable not seeing them as often as I had been. The reasons for this was because his friends group with really close, after a certain point in the evening they would always talk about the past and this would happen a lot. This sort of sucks when you have heard the stories so many times, as well as being a plus one. So I just didn’t attend many of those anymore, not like there were many to begin with (maybe once a month? But this was pretty recent).

I had started doing more in my personal life, as he was busy with work and friends. I started going to the gym, and doing more work in my career.

Since the beginning, I’ve always been very vocal about wanting a partner to be able to communicate with me. I was vocal with things that I didn’t appreciate, for example just letting me know if he was going to be late for something, and just keeping me in the loop and general if I was a part of something. But he said he never liked being the ‘middleman’. I’ll note that I moved to the city a few years ago and I don’t really have a social group. Much of our social outings were with his friends. However, I don’t mind spending time with one person ie. him and I’m okay with being by myself. What I’m trying to say is that even though I don’t have a big social group here I do have friends that I communicate online and now that I’m in a bigger office, I have made some new friends there.

We had our ups and downs and our fights for sure, there are things that bothered me about him and vice versa. I came to view these as it is what it is he’s not a bad person for feeling those ways we just have different views. But clearly me having different views meant more to him. I just didn’t view his differences as that big of an issue. I don’t really know if any of that makes sense. If I can try and reword it again, I would say that we had our differences but I always thought that we talked and work them out. I think maybe in some things we would never agree upon but I never thought that it mattered that much. That they were just never that big of an issue.

I feel sad and that I wasn’t good enough for him. I’ve always asked for communication and he said always told me he would try his best in our relationship, but I wasn’t even good enough for him to tell me all this before. That’s what hurts the most. Not breaking up, but that I wasn’t important enough to any of this discuss with beforehand. I feel used for the past 2 months.

I think that he is a really selfish individual who doesn’t know what he wants. He had a lot of selfish tendencies. Even though I wasn’t good enough for him, I hope he learns from this and find someone who he’s happy with. He is a good guy, and I really liked him.

I felt like he was maybe he was embarrassed about me. Maybe I wasn’t attractive enough or I didn’t have an acceptable career for him. That I’m simply not good enough. I feel useless, that I have no skills, and now I’m lost and don’t really know what I want to do in my life long term.

It has almost been a week and I know I will need time. I didn’t sleep for the first two nights, and haven’t really eaten anything since. But I am getting better and have the support of my friends and family.

I have been out there rebounding, my mom is coming to visit, I’m slowly learning myself Java, and making progress with a hobby/business idea. I also opened my first TFSA!

I thank anybody who has made it this far and I’m open to any suggestions or thoughts, questions, comments, that anybody has as I continue to reflect upon this to try and help me understand.

Thanks so much for reading.