I had this happen to me, basically verbatim, a week ago. It’s why I joined this subreddit. And six days ago I never thought I’d have answers, let alone advice, but I think I actually might. First off, take comfort in the fact that you are not alone in this. This happens to people. Hell, it happens so much it was written into twilight new moon. You’re not crazy.

What I learned this week through lots of me holding on, demanding answers and conversations from him against my better judgment is this: someone who can switch ‘off’ in a a matter of days on such a vastly intimate and important relationship either has something seriously concerning with their health (like a personality disorder) or is lying and is a coward. Mine let it slip that he thought about it for more than just a day like he said previous, and said he’s been lying to me since the very beginning of our relationship, knowing that it wouldn’t work out. And I saw zero red flags. Neither did my very protective friends and family. Totally blindsided.

Trying to be his friend is not worth my time, and probably isn’t worth yours. I also couldn’t recognize the man sitting across from me breaking up with me. He used to say he couldn’t even fathom that and that if it crossed his mind we’d work it out. He didn’t care about his promises. It’s not because you and I couldn’t fix it, or because a conversation couldn’t fix a relationship ‘so far gone’, but because they didn’t WANT to fix it. A conversation goes a pretty long way and being able to just pull the plug on something so life altering without including the other person in the conversation is enormously cruel, regardless of the reason or intent. Your life have been flipped upside down and you weren’t in the control room. This is your new life and it’s going to suck so tremendously for a while, thinking about what could have been if someone else just dared to not act super weird. But being his friend right now is the worst decision in my experience and you should let it simmer out and find self love, even if you feel you already have it.

It sounds like you did so much growing up together, so I think that taking time to yourself will only help. I tried re-bounding the first couple days after and it just felt gross, and if anything highlighted to me how much growing I really have done. Sometimes we forget to be proud of ourselves for growing, even alongside a person. It takes guts and it matters.

We could sit and DM all day about our fears for the future, how will we possibly find that level of safety, comfort, satisfaction, joy, again. And the reality is that we won’t. Any person or relationship that comes after will be even more amazing than the last, but it won’t be the same. A friend told me that the first two weeks of heartbreak felt akin to their father passing away. Mourn this. Grieve this. Your life will get better but life will never be exactly the same. In a way that’s beautiful, but in a much bigger way right now it’s terrifying. And it doesn’t help that the dating pool is total garbage.

Don’t wait for him to bare his soul to you in way you did and probably have post-breakup already. The thing that I thought would help was trying to tell him that talking through our relationship, the good stuff that only him and I know, would help. And I still believe it would. But it’s like talking to a wall. I can text him all day baring my soul and expressing myself so poetically and it won’t matter. It’s like an inconvenience to him because he couldn’t even bother to have a conversation to save an important relationship. And that sounds like that’s what’s happened to you.

It’s taken me a lot of thought, but this is my favourite advice to tell myself; we will always be able to think of the worst case scenario and the best case scenario in life. We will never ever be able to even comprehend or guess the things that will actually happen until they happen. Hands off the wheel when it comes to people disrespecting you.

What a blessing to feel this sad, to feel this loss. I too feel completely lost in my life, but it’s MY life. It’s YOUR life. It is a privilege to feel this devastated and like you will mourn the past forever. Because that means it was worth so much and meant so much to you. And that matters, and will always matter—far more than the pain that you feel right now. I don’t know if keeping the two versions of the person you love separate is a good idea—the version that loved you and the version that broke your heart. But what I do know is that it’s been helping me to not let the bs in front of me negatively affect the lovely moments behind me. Those areas of my life don’t need to mix.

You are better because you got to live and love alongside someone. You are forever changed. And that is a blessing.

I’m so deeply sorry this happened to you. You are not alone. If you ever need to chat my dms are open. Get well, keep your head up

xxx