Dealing with chronic illness and a breakup from an avoidant ex!
I’m 36F and broke up with my avoidant ex (39M) about 2 months ago after being together for 1.5 years.
Dating him was hard in ways I kept trying to rationalize because I understood his attachment style. I’ve been in therapy for 4–5 years and have worked a lot on my own trauma and triggers, so I tried very consciously to be patient, understanding, and not reactive. I gave him space, time, and tried to let things move at his pace.
Over time we became really comfortable with each other. Most weekends were spent together and despite the challenges, I genuinely felt connected to him.
A few months before the breakup, something shifted. He became emotionally distant, detached, and oddly unbothered. It genuinely felt like his emotional energy was going somewhere else.
For context: I’ve been unemployed for about a year because of health issues, while he works full-time. Even then, I always tried to contribute equally financially and emotionally.
I didn’t think he was physically cheating, but I had this strong gut feeling that he was talking to other women in ways that crossed boundaries. I brought up how distant he’d been feeling, but he blamed work stress.
One night while staying at his place, I gave in to my anxiety and checked his phone. I know that wasn’t right, and I’m not proud of it. But what I found confirmed what I had been sensing.
He was messaging women late at night while drunk, and the conversations felt sneaky and emotionally inappropriate. He had also told me he only spoke to his ex because of her dog and that they never met otherwise but I found messages showing she had come to his office and they had met up. There were a few other women too. I took screenshots of everything.
The next day, I tried giving him a chance to be honest without revealing what I knew. I told him I strongly felt there were conversations happening that I didn’t know about. He completely denied it.
A week later I asked him directly if he was talking to women late at night while drunk. Again, denial.
Honestly, I think I let it go because I wasn’t emotionally strong enough at the time to leave the relationship.
About a month later, during another fight, I finally sent him all the screenshots. He dismissed everything, took zero accountability, and basically emotionally checked out. He just said the relationship wasn’t working anymore.
After the breakup, he would occasionally message me here and there enough to keep me emotionally attached, but never actually willing to talk about what happened.
Around the same time, I was diagnosed with a chronic and painful health condition. The breakup became so much harder to process because I was suddenly dealing with physical pain, grief, fear, and uncertainty all at once.
About 3 weeks after the breakup, he casually asked to meet. I said yes because a part of me still hoped for some kind of conversation, care, closure… something. But the meeting felt awful. No accountability, no emotional conversation, not even a hug. By the end of the night, I just shut down and we both left.
It’s now been 3 weeks of complete silence. Recently I posted something vulnerable online about my chronic illness and how hard things have been. He saw it and didn’t reach out.
And somehow, despite all of this, I still miss him.
I’m in physical pain every day now and spend most of my time in bed. Some days I just want him to come back, hold me, and make me feel less alone in all of this.
I also keep fighting the urge to message him that I miss him and at the same time, I feel deeply hurt that someone who once said they loved me knows I’m dealing with a chronic illness, sees me struggling, and still hasn’t cared enough to even check on me once.
I honestly don’t know how to process heartbreak, betrayal, chronic illness, and emotional abandonment all at once.