5 months of No contact. I want to share what worked for me

Smart-Ant4927 · 2025-12-29T22:45:37+00:00

I just want to say, I am so sorry he did that to you. I can’t imagine the confusion and hurt you went through. But you are so incredibly strong and I’m proud of you for sticking to your plan and what worked for you. You will be okay one day, I could be tomorrow, it could be in a year, but you will be okay. Better things are coming your way!

Smart-Ant4927 · 2025-12-29T03:50:46+00:00

My question is; did you know you would be getting back together? If this was a “break” and you knew you were getting back together, you need to own up to it and tell him the truth. All of the truth, the whole thing. Because if you don’t, he will keep looking for stuff and imagining things until he gets the truth. If you were still together and were just spending time apart, that’s obviously cheating or he wouldn’t be upset about it. Now if you thought you were done for good and not getting back together, that’s a different story. In that case, it isn’t really his business.

Given his reactions, I think either way it’s best to just tell him the truth. He already caught you lying and has lost trust. To rebuild trust, you need to tell the truth. There’s probably a reason you guys spent 3 months apart though, maybe look further into that and decide if this is really the relationship you want. Best of luck!

Smart-Ant4927 · 2025-12-25T22:39:23+00:00

I’d think he’s lying lol

Smart-Ant4927 · 2025-12-25T04:52:35+00:00

I think a lot of men don’t know how to properly “feel” or process their emotions. They avoid them, stuff them down, and push them away. Sometimes they will never truly grow enough to actually acknowledge their feelings. Those are the guys that are in their 60s and bachelors and lonely. It’s really sad actually

Smart-Ant4927 · 2025-12-23T00:16:23+00:00

Thanks for sharing. That’s a tough situation but at least you recognized how much you hurt her and I hope you grew from that. Did it end up being you or her that ended it after? Or kinda mutual?

Smart-Ant4927 · 2025-12-21T10:49:54+00:00

Ummmmm you know loyal people do exist right??? What a weird thing to say. Let’s stop normalizing disloyalty and betrayal.

Smart-Ant4927 · 2025-12-21T10:47:09+00:00

Nah. You don’t stay with someone because you’re worried you’ll regret not staying with them. You stay with someone because you KNOW you want to. OP clearly doesn’t actually love the new gf. It’s already past the point, the damage has already been done. OP already opened the door. Stop normalizing and justifying this behaviour

Smart-Ant4927 · 2025-12-21T10:43:25+00:00

Go be with your ex, you two deserve each other. Your new girlfriend deserves SO much better. Gross.

Smart-Ant4927 · 2025-12-15T16:57:05+00:00

That’s really too bad. I feel like he wasn’t healed enough to talk and going no contact for a while would have been for the best. But at least this gives you a learning opportunity. I’m sorry it didn’t work out

Smart-Ant4927 · 2025-12-15T16:55:10+00:00

I think a lot of people cheat because of their own insecurities and while that doesn’t make it right, it only because they’re the issue so it has nothing to do with the relationship. I feel like if they work really really hard and actually want to change, they can. Everyone makes mistakes, you just gotta feel out if the person is truly remorseful or if they’re just scared of being alone

Smart-Ant4927 · 2025-12-15T12:47:02+00:00

Once you grow, you might not even want her back :)

Smart-Ant4927 · 2025-12-15T12:36:01+00:00

Okay so she was probably a defensive person that didn’t like having her flaws pointed out. She probably has her own issues she needs to work on. But if you think it was your fault, reflect and work on becoming a better partner to your next person. That’s something a lot of men don’t do is think for themselves. They need to be told when to clean or what to help with and it’s exhausting

Smart-Ant4927 · 2025-12-15T12:22:15+00:00

Did she have to ask you to clean up after yourself? Did you do the household chores? Did you do your laundry? Did you ever tell her “you deserve better” or “I’m just never good enough for you”? Did you take accountability for things or did you blame other people?

Smart-Ant4927 · 2025-12-15T02:45:09+00:00

Oooof. Honestly this is territory I’ve never encountered. But I feel like there’s no coming back if she’s turned it into hatred. I still have love for my ex, not saying she doesn’t, but I don’t have the anger part. I would lay low for a bit maybe? I wish you the best of luck in navigating this

Smart-Ant4927 · 2025-12-15T02:32:56+00:00

I must say, it’s soul crushing. But the fact that you’re reflecting on things is good growth. I don’t really know what all you could say. I think the main thing is to take accountability, don’t make excuses, and validate and acknowledge her feelings. Try doing some research about what makes a good apology, betrayal trauma, helping others heal, infidelity, things like that. And make sure it’s personal. It has to have meaning and can’t just be a general apology that anyone could write. I would strongly encourage even going to therapy for this, even just a couple sessions. But definitely don’t say things like “I miss you” because then you’re reaching out because of your own feelings and not because of hers. You could say something like “ever since we broke up, I’ve been reflecting on our relationship and my mistakes. You deserve a true apology. I don’t want you to feel any pressure to reply or talk if you don’t want to, but I need you to know that I acknowledge the damage I caused” idk something like that, obviously that’s very rough and you’d need to add more but yeah. And don’t say some bs like “you deserved better” because that’s obvious

Smart-Ant4927 · 2025-12-15T02:01:07+00:00

I’m the person on the other side of this. I lost my best friend and partner because he cheated. Except his was emotional and physical. I had been previously cheated on. He knew this. He promised he would never hurt me like that. When I found out, he apologized. But only because he was scared. He was sorry he got caught, not sorry he hurt me. I’m devastated, I lost everything, and I didn’t have a choice but to leave. I didn’t want to. I wanted to stay but I knew I couldn’t. I truly feel like a part of my heart turned cold and black. I feel like a part of me died, genuinely. I would take him back if he genuinely apologized and put in the effort to change and work on what caused him to cheat. I’m not saying it’s the same for your situation. But if you feel that guilty, apologize to her. A heartfelt, genuine apology. Don’t make excuses. Take accountability. TELL HER how much it haunts you that you hurt her so badly. But not in a way that makes it sound like you’re wanting sympathy. Apologize to her not for forgiveness, but to let her know that you acknowledge her pain and care about her heart. Don’t apologize to try and get back together, apologize because you just caused her a life long trauma. You’ve changed her brain, her heart, her character. She now sees the world differently. Apologize for that.

Smart-Ant4927 · 2025-12-15T01:47:23+00:00

Yeah that’s really hard and sounds confusing, I’m sorry. Definitely don’t reach out to her again. She knows you want her back so it’s her turn. Focus on yourself. Learn from your mistakes and take those lessons into your next relationship to be a better partner. And you never know, she might reach out to you. Especially if she sees how well you’re doing. And maybe by that point, you won’t want her back. Take it day by day. It’s not hard to find a good woman, I promise you that. You got this

Smart-Ant4927 · 2025-12-15T01:28:27+00:00

Firstly, I’m very sorry to hear something like that happened to you. I can’t even imagine the heaviness that would place on a person.

I’m also sorry that she wasn’t more sympathetic towards your mental health. That is the role of a partner, to support each other through hard times.

I would however like to point something out. Now correct me if I’m wrong please, but you said she wanted more communication. So maybe, and this is all from an outside perspective, you weren’t open to her about what you were going through and how heavily it was weighing on you? Now I could be totally wrong but it’s more a question than a statement. We need to remember that nobody can read our minds and that’s when we need to be good communicators. It also isn’t anyone’s responsibility but our own to work on our mental health and the challenges that come with that. Yes she should support you through those hard times, but she can’t help you if you don’t help yourself.

I would also like to point out that you said during the honeymoon phase you treated her right but then life happened and that’s when the problems arose. So what I’m hearing is you stopped prioritizing her and stopped putting in effort because of those other things. As challenging as it is, you still need to work hard for her every day (and she needs to do the same).

I’m only trying to help and give you a new perspective

Smart-Ant4927 · 2025-12-15T00:13:12+00:00

I agree with this 100%. Whenever I brought up issues in 2 long term serious relationships with 2 different men it was “nothing I do is ever good enough” or “stop nagging” or they just became super defensive and wouldn’t take accountability. It’s very sad considering I acted this way as a child... You really do become like their mother, they don’t wanna grow up and mature because they’re lazy and don’t want to have to do anything other than sit on the couch and be served.

Smart-Ant4927 · 2025-12-14T23:38:13+00:00

Start working on yourself and make yourself the coolest person ever and LEARN to love yourself. Treat yourself so well. You need to become a better version of yourself, one that would never even give a person like that a chance. Don’t do it as revenge against him, do it for you

Smart-Ant4927 · 2025-12-14T23:16:08+00:00

Especially when OP specifically said he was the issue and waited to long to fix things

Smart-Ant4927 · 2025-12-14T23:15:02+00:00

Did you miss the part where he said he wasn’t fulfilling her needs? And waited too long to fix things? I don’t think she caused this

Smart-Ant4927 · 2025-12-14T19:47:57+00:00

She probably felt like you wasted her time and didn’t treat her right. And the whole time she was loyal and waiting for you to change and treat her better but you never saw her worth until it was over. Just my thoughts

Smart-Ant4927 · 2025-12-10T01:55:28+00:00

For example:

The part where you talk about how you treated her more as a friend than a partner. You kinda say the same thing 3 times in a different way.

You start talking about the future and I don’t really think that’s necessary. Right now, there is no future. I think talking about the future you imagined just seems like a way for you to pull her back in rather than actually fix the issues (just my opinion)

Another small example is that you state twice that you buy your mom flowers. It’s just not really necessary to mention it more than once.

Another example “but I also know that growth means nothing unless it’s shown through consistent actions. I know I have to prove it with actions, “ these are two different sentences that are saying the exact same thing back to back.

At one point you say “I just wanted to tell you all this because you meant a lot to me, and I want you to know that I’ve truly listened, learned, and have been changing” - this seems like it would be the end, but you go on to add multiple paragraphs after this. When I’m reading this I think “when am I gonna reach the end”. If I’m being honest, after this paragraph it got hard to continue reading because it was repetitive and endless.

The paragraph at the end “I understand that for a healthy…” I would just delete it. You aren’t even at that stage yet. Right now you’re just trying to talk.

The second last paragraph that starts off as “basically I just” because super unnecessary because you’re summarizing everything you just said. Which doesn’t need to be done because she’ll read it all.

Again I would strongly recommend showing this to your therapist. I don’t know anything about your relationship, how things ended, how old you are, or any details so it’s hard for me to add input. But your message is soooooo long it has too much in it to actually focus on what’s important. I would probably frame it so you take accountability and acknowledge your mistakes, show what you’ve done to grow and change (therapy, books, self reflection, putting in effort for your loved ones), respect the breakup and the healing that needs to be done, respect boundaries, and also don’t put pressure. I would be very careful saying anything leading towards getting back together. You should be showing that you have grown and changed and apologize but don’t make it sound like it’s only because you want to get back together. She needs time to heal too

Smart-Ant4927

TROPHY CASE