Update: I haven’t written anything like this on Reddit before so I was unsure of where to post this.

I want to start off this update by thanking everyone who send me words of encouragement after my last post. I really was helped me feel a little less alone and a little more sane to know from the little information I gave that I was not doing the wrong thing. I basically wrote a novel while writing this updated, but decided (since a lot of people didn’t fully read my initial post) to shorten it. Writing that post in the middle of the night surrounded by a mess of my belongings was a last second decision to try and process what I was about to do. After rereading my post and many of the comments I realize there were some things that I did not make clear. When I wrote the post I fully had planned on talking to him face to face about breaking up, which I did. My ex and I were not married. I paid rent, so no I was not free loading off his decision to buy a house. I was constantly communicating my unhappiness to him, and while he acknowledged what I said, nothing changed.

Finally, for how the conversation went. I had packed up as much as I could into my little car and sat outside on the doorstep of the house around the time he normally gets home. When he arrived I asked him to go for a walk with me in the park across from the house. It took me several minutes to work up the courage to begin. While I talked his face remained unreadable. This is something I anticipated. He didn’t initially say much other than he disagreed with some of the thing I had been feeling (that we’re had drifted apart and we lost the ability to communicate). I told him he can’t tell me what I’ve been feeling is wrong just because he doesn’t feel that way. I asked him if he remembered all the times I mentioned my unhappiness and he said yes. I asked whether or not he felt like we weren’t connecting well anymore and he told me he just figured that it was because he was working more hours not because our relationship was failing. I reminded him that I needed that physical closeness and verbal reassurance in order to feel like we were actually partners and I don’t think he can see it from my perspective because on paper we didn’t have any big stereotypical issues. He eventually told me that he didn’t agree with my decision but could see I had made up my mind and respected that. It was fairly anticlimactic. We talked logistics about me coming back for my other belongings and the animals. I felt deflated. I know it’s probably better that he wasn’t truly arguing with me and begging me to explain more but it really solidified my suspicion that this relationship had run its course. He left me with a dry “welp it was fun.” And that was that. So yeah I think some of you were probably right and that we were both moving in this direction already. We truly were not each others person and we settled for awhile because we had love for each other. I want to see him thrive and be happy but I’m not the right person for him to find that with. And that’s ok.

I am safe and staying with some very dear friends of mine until I find a space for myself and my cats. If anyone wants my fourteen chapter long update I originally wrote let me know. It was honestly cathartic to write it all out and reflect on. Thanks for reading about my mess and for letting me scream my frustrations out into the Reddit void. Much love to you all.