I (24m) broke up with my ex-girlfriend of over a year a little over a month ago. I ended the relationship mainly due to constantly feeling smothered and not being able to have a life outside of being with her. However, now I just feel empty and am always thinking about how I miss having someone around all the time to tell me they love and care about me. I can’t understand why I feel this way because I know logically that the relationship was unhealthy for me and did quite a bit of damage on my mental health. Is this just part of the healing process or is it something more serious that I should seek help for? I’ve only been in 3 serious relationships throughout my life and would love to get some insight from an outside perspective, thank you!
TL;DR: I ended an unhealthy relationship to better my quality of life and now I feel worse than I ever did before
5 comments
Even though it was a toxic relationship, you can still miss the companionship (companionship being the main word, not missing the ACTUAL person). I ended a two year relash with a guy I didn’t even like that much but it took a good year or so to get over how toxic it was
A therapist told me that a breakup can feel like a death. Its the loss of a person, your plan for the future, your day to day involved that person and now they are gone. You have to grieve. It sucks and usually nothing helps but time.
Trauma bond. Withdrawing from a toxic/abusive relationship now and literally having physical symptoms. Lookup a trauma bond.
Love is a chemical and can be like a drug. So lots of weird things happen when it’s ripped away. Also grief is painful
Break ups sucks, what you’re feeling is normal, time fixes a lot of things, sometimes you gotta do a bit of introspection and work on yourself too