After typing this all out I feel weird about turing to reddit, with my issue, but here we go!
Me (19F) and my boyfriend (20M) started dating in March 2022. We were together for 6 months. Throughout the summer we had a great time, he was my first boyfriend and i really did love him a lot. We made it official in July 2022, though before that we were exclusive too. He told me he would ask me to marry him if we weren’t so young.
He broke up with me in late August 2022. I saw it coming and it was sort of a mutual agreement, but he was definetly the one to pull the trigger. We said we would remain close friends but after a week we hadn’t seen each other even though I way trying to arrange a hangout. Next time we saw eachother was at a big party where he told me he didn’t want to talk to me. I was devastated. Any time he would show up at the pub my friends and I go to, I would just go for the tequila shots and try to not be around him.
Some time after that I decided to write him a letter about how I still wanted to be friends. I told him how important he was to me as a person and that I wanted to talk to him somewhere that wasn’t filled with cigarette smoke. At the pub he responded that eventhough there was smoke. we could talk but that never actually happened.
As time went by I found out that the night we broke up the told one of our mutual friends that he wanted to go back to my best friend Lizzy, who he went on 2 dates with months before we got together. My other best friend Kara, told me how the night of the party (when he said he didn’t want to talk to me), he confessed his love to one of his classmates. After that came up to me and told me how sorry she was about the breakup.
By then I was absolutely wrecked, since I really thought he just wanted to be with other girls and that’s why he broke up with me. I couldn’t eat for weeks, I lost about 10 kgs, but that actually kinda made me feel better since I had been wanting to lose weight for so long. I got more confident and I got on Tinder. First it was a joke but then I actually stared dating people and it was something to get my mind off him.
One night after the pub I invited him over. We started secretly hooking up. It was really fun, but I did want more than sex. After a few months he told me that it wasn’t healthy and that we should stop. He said he didn’t want a relationship with anyone. I was fine with it. We went to two festivals in the summer with friends and they were fun. We didn’t hook up but we finally were talking as friends. He got a girlfriend and though I didn’t really her, it wasn’t anything I was upset about. I was also talking to other guys.
He sent me a picture of a sleeping bag I forgot at his house aking me if it was mine. I told him yes and a few days later he said he wanted to give it back and catch up. We met up, I was telling him about soem girl beef and boy drama, how I had to reject a guy ect, ect. Then he said he was in a similar situation, he wanted to break up with her girlfriend. Why? They didn’t have sex at all. He wanted to get back together. I was happy about that. He broke up with her that day and we’ve been together since.
It’s been two months and now we’re staring to have some issues. We’ve been having some fights and I’ve been questioning if I want to be with him. The fights are stupid though, today it was about him watching history lessons without earbuds while I was trying to study and I got offended because I asked him yesterday and before not to do that. I didn’t ask him today, just went into the other room. Not really that important, but after I went home he texted me about how he feels sad because I don’t want to kiss him or pay attention to him. I called him, we fought again and it ended with me saying that I was still hung up on the past, when he broke up with me but he said he didn’t want to talk about that. I feel like it really affects me and that it should be addressed, he says I need to stop living in the past. I don’t WANT to think about it, but it sneaks up on me when we fight and I’m reminded of how we used to fight about similar things.
How can I stop worrying about the past? Should I? I told him I wasn’t gonna mention it again but what if it just eats me up? Should I end the relationship and just move on completely?
TL;DR: He broke up with me, then broke up with his girlfriend to get back with me but I’m hung up on the breakup and don’t know how to get over it.
5 comments
>he says I need to stop living in the past.
then what happened in the past needs to BE FIXED instead of just glossed over. You can’t pretend it didn’t happen. you two as a couple need to REPAIR what was broken instead of just trying to make do with a broken relationship.
like putting a teapot back together. you can put all the pieces in the right spot, but if you dont actually go back and seal the cracks, you’re not going to be able to hold tea in that thing.
You can’t promise to never bring something up again to someone if you’re not over it. Cause you’re gonna bring it up again. And there’s a difference between wanting to be over something, and actually being over it.
“Ex’s are ex’s for a reason”
As my dad always said “you wouldn’t take out the trash, then bring it back in the house a week later. Ex’s are ex’s for a reason.”
I’ve had the same issue with my one ex, who also ended up being my longest relationship. At first, I was thinking that we were truly meant for each other, like how all first relationships end up being. However, after 9 months, she cheated on me, and that ended the relationship for a while. Sadly, 4 months afterwards, I got back with her again for another year, and we just kind of had a falling out, and stopped really caring for each other. The second part of that relationship was really off and on, and I think the main thing I learned from it is that if there was a considerable reason for a break-up, no matter how insignificant it might seem to other people, it will continually have a grip on your mind for a while. When I got back with her, I always caught myself thinking if she was cheating on me, and that really didn’t help with my mental stability, and it caused me some pretty big issues later on. My final piece of advice would honestly be to try and talk to them about it, as trying to gloss over something as serious as a big break-up isn’t healthy for a long lasting relationship at all. The key to relationships is communication, and without that it is hard to have a successful relationship with someone that you love.
If you are ever getting back with an ex , you must go into it with you both healing from the past relationship. It’s a new relationship entirely. If it still is issue an issue for you, it means you never healed and honestly, it won’t work out. Not your fault, you are more than allowed to have feelings but you need to truly heal before being with anyone else.