My boyfriend (16m) broke up with me (17f) after 3 months of dating because he is depressed and “not in a good place to be in a relationship”. To start off, I am mostly aromantic and have never felt love for anyone before meeting my now ex boyfriend so I really don’t want to lose him because he is one of a kind and I don’t think I could bare the thought of not being with him. I wish he could see himself the way I do, he hates himself even though he is amazing. If it’s not him I’m with I’ll likely live my life as the weird cat lady or something.
It makes me sad to see him in such a low state and I wish I could do something to help him but I don’t know how. We have decided to stay friends although I haven’t talked to him since the breakup 2 days ago. I want to respect his boundaries but also be there for him at his low points. He has gone through a lot that I won’t go into detail about but I’m really concerned for his well-being. Sorry for the bad paragraph structure because I don’t use Reddit often but I need help, how should I go about talking to my former boyfriend and what I should do?
TL;DR: My now former boyfriend just broke up with me because he is depressed. We are still friends, how should I talk to him and how can I help him?
1 comment
I’d like to start with the fact that you’re really young and you shouldn’t think you’ll end up alone if not with him. Even if you’re on the aromantic spectrum, there’s still alot of life ahead of you and there is still a large chance you’ll fall in love in the future. Right now you’re grieving your ended relationship so it’s common to feel like you’ll never love again, but it’ll get better after some time.
As for the current problem – everyone deals with depression differently so i can only write from personal experience, but i’d say write him a message saying that if he wants to talk or needs help you’re here for him as a friend, but other than that give him some space. It’s been only 2 days and breaking up is hard, especially when you love each other but are not in the right headspace to be in relationship, he should have some time to move on and work on his issues on his own terms. He will write back when he’s ready. There’s also a chance he might not want/need your help and you should also accept it, sometimes the only thing we can do to help is being there as a friend.