I was in a two year relationship with somebody that I could genuinely see myself marrying someday. She wasn’t perfect, but nobody is. She was perfect for me. I started a first responder job around the time we moved in together five months ago and began to struggle heavily with stress, most notably some element of post traumatic stress. As a result, I became distant and was living in a fog. The past few months felt like a weird dream. She tried to tell me she wasn’t getting what she needed, but I was unable to listen or react with the calm, emotional safety that I would have otherwise. A lot of the burden of household tasks fell on her, and I stopped taking her out on dates and making her feel wanted. I got therapy and began to work on myself, and kept thinking that I had more time. I unfortunately did not, and she left me a week ago. She’s living with her parents now. Since then, I have not been doing very well. I’ve thrown myself into work. I can’t bear to be home because everything is a reminder of her, so I’ve barely been home. When I am home, I can’t even go into our bedroom and instead just sleep on the couch. Her leaving has given me immense mental clarity, it feels like the fog has lifted and I’m finally becoming the person that she initially fell in love with, but I hate that it is likely too late. I miss her more than I’ve missed anybody in my life. I don’t miss her just because of what she did for me, I miss her presence. I guess I’ve somehow gotten more attractive since initially being with her because for the first time in my adult life, women have been hitting on me since the break up. A “rebound” or whatever would theoretically be easy, but I can’t feel attraction to anybody else, even if they’re objectively attractive. Everyone else is so boring and ugly compared to her. In the past, I’ve had an easy time moving on from relationships because they didn’t have much depth and I knew that I largely wasn’t to blame, it was solely an issue of incompatibility. This time has been very hard for me, because I know for almost a fact that my actions have led to her losing feelings. We also had a beautiful level of depth and meaning to our relationship and would often talk about marriage and children. I just can’t move on. I’ve texted her a handful of times, with everything just being about how I have done so much reflection and that the door will be open to her if she changes her mind, but I’ve been left on delivered. I respect her decision and know that I need to just move on and leave her alone, but how the fuck do you do that? submitted by /u/ihatesoundsomuch
Originally posted by u/ihatesoundsomuch on r/AskMen