My ex (24 M) and I (26F) broke up a few weeks ago. We had been together a year and it was simultaneously beautiful, loving, toxic and difficult, but I believe we’re both good people at heart who wanted it to work. He initiated the breakup but I had been planning on ending things with him as I just felt undervalued and easily triggered with him.
All the same, I was heartbroken when he broke up with me as it fed into this idea that he had stopped loving me. I should point out I’m way overly hyper vigilant and always thinking people hate me/are mad at me etc. so it’s hard to know if my feelings about him not truly loving me were true or just my overactive fears at work. My fears are almost always wrong, but they persist nonetheless.
He said it was nothing to do with me, it’s just something in his own life and he thinks we’ll both be happier apart. He also really wants me to go live my life, travel etc. and feels I won’t do that with him. He said he didn’t stop loving me, but to love is to let go. I don’t know if I believe him.
We still live together. It’s in separate rooms and there’s a few other people in the house but it makes things a lot tougher. He would text me the occasional time asking if I was ok but other than that, not much. I asked him to meet for a walk because I missed him a lot and there was some romantic tension there but he otherwise seemed really distant. He was going out lots with his friends and not really being in touch, so I just assumed he was a lot happier and wanted to move on from me for a while, which was hurtful to think. I should note, the day after we broke up we had a ‘goodbye’ conversation where we both cried (he rarely cries) and agreed it was for the best, but he did seem sad about it.
I was so hung up on him for the week. Some more conversations happened in between where he said my happiness was really important to him.
I decided to move back to my home country and will be leaving in a few days. I told him and he said it was really fast. That night, he came into my room drunk and he was balling his eyes out. He just kept saying he was so sorry and he doesn’t want it to be this way but we can’t be together because we keep hurting each other (which is true). He told me I was so good to him and this hurts him so much. He genuinely seemed to be in so much agony over it. I hugged him and told him it would be ok. It was hard to hear him in pain but also nice to know I wasn’t alone in suffering through this breakup.
Then he kissed me and asked to have sex with me. I told him no because I knew it would be a terrible idea and he seemed heartbroken about it. We went to sleep together without doing anything.
The next day, we spent all morning in bed together, acting like we always used to, making jokes and kissing and hugging etc. he kept trying to initiate sex and I admit, I really wanted to. But I told him I knew it would be bad for us both afterwards, but especially for me. He said he understood but kept trying to initiate again. Then we had a really beautiful conversation where we just reminisced over all the good times and we agreed our separation was the best decision for both of us and we both hope and even think we will see each other or even be together in the future again.
The conversation was so nice, felt like such a ‘goodbye’ that I thought it would be ok for us to have sex. Honestly, if this all happened the day before I moved away I think it would have been the most sublime, perfect goodbye.
But because we still have to be around each other for another week, it wasn’t so. I felt like shit after he went away. I started to get suspicious. For example, he had a condom in his pocket so he was either prepared to have sex that night with someone else (he promised he hadn’t met anyone) or he brought it, planning to ask me for sex after his apology. He probably knew I would say yes. He knows he’s in control here. But it gives me pause, because he seemed so genuinely upset and apologetic about hurting me when he was crying. So if he was using me, idk if it was with super nefarious intentions I guess.
After we had sex, he made me breakfast and we had a nice few hours together, but after he left and went back to his room I felt so empty inside – just as I knew I would. I couldn’t understand why he was able to do that and not continue doing it with me, at least until I moved away. what was the point in stopping now? He seemed in so much pain to be apart from me but i’m the one who finds it too difficult to be apart from him.
I genuinely felt like he used me as a way to absolve himself of the guilt he felt and also to get his end wet with me without consequences of needing to be in a relationship with me. However, on the other hand, he is also patient with me and does spend time with me and take his time to answer all my emotional and needy messages, so idk if he really just wanted me for sex.
I went back into him that day, and I was crying and I told him I felt so bad, just as I feared. He apologised and promised we’d do something nice together the next day. We were texting later and he told me that it’s difficult for him to be around me because then he doesn’t want to walk away from me and that confuses him.
The next day rolled around, I was excited to see him, and all of a sudden he had other plans. I expressed how heart broken I was (over text) and that this was exactly what I feared. He started being a real A-hole, saying I always have to be right and I can’t act this way just because he forgot he had other plans – this was often how he’d treat me in arguments near the end of our relationship and reminded me why I started to feel terrible in our relationship. He ended up coming to speak to me face to face and he didn’t apologise, but he was very gentle and said I was right and he cancelled his other plans and promised me he did not use me just for sex and that everything he said was genuine.
He took me out for food and a walk and it was nice but as always, I just feel empty around him because I don’t know what his true feelings or intentions are.
There’s a lot of evidence to suggest he does still care about me, genuinely did break up because he’s scared of continuing to hurt me, and does miss me. There’s also a lot of evidence to suggest he just lied to me and used tf out of me.
I think the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, and it would take too long to give every little detail.
But just from this overview, do you think he used me? Would he really keep entertaining me and being kind to me if he just wanted sex? Is it realistic that a man would be selfless enough to end a relationship he wants to be in just because he doesn’t want to hurt his girlfriend anymore or be hurt by her?
The main thing I want to know is, how should i proceed? This has opened back up a wound and I want to ask him to just continue as normal until I move away, but would that be a bad idea? Am I better than just create a distance between us?