u/C3Liz

I (30F) always wanted to study abroad, but due to changing my major and packing my schedule during undergrad, it just didn’t happen. I’m currently located in the United States, my dream before college was to become a therapist. I managed to get pressured by family to study nursing, hated it, switched to psychology, which was what I originally wanted to do, and loved it. I interned at an outpatient mental health clinic, and worked at a behavioral health research lab at my university. I was interested in the research aspect, but I always thought the prospect of being a student and being completely responsible for your research and your time was terrifying. I got two jobs working in social services and realized quickly that I would not have the comforts I could have in a corporate role, and it would take YEARS to get to where I wanted.

Now, I’m in a corporate job managing clinical trials. I love it some days, but other days I really feel overwhelmed by pointless bureaucratic corporate tasks and pressures, and the pay was good, but now it barely covers my cost of living. So I can’t shake the urge to leave this career behind, leave my daily life behind, go back to school, study abroad, and put myself on a new path. I’ve always considered it, but would think, that’s such a waste of time…. But I’m just not content anymore. I don’t feel fulfilled like I did before. I want a career that contributes to society, and I want to experience something outside of the east coast of the United States. I love my family, but they’re not the most healthy (hence the obsession with therapy and wanting to fix everyone’s problems) so distance from them would actually be good for me.

Anyone else been in this predicament? Is it too late for me?

My ex (32m) recently unfollowed and removed me from his instagram, didn’t actually block me. I was really heartbroken, and I’m kind of spiraling about it…. I broke up with him because he took a job in the EU, closer to his family, (I’m from the US, he planned to finish school and work in the US, but the job market was impossible) but not the same country. It was completely out of left field, and I felt betrayed that he actually went through with it, expecting us to do distance, so I ended it.

I immediately regretted it, he’s the only person I’ve really connected with, we fit together so seamlessly, but the relationship was only 6months long. It’s been just over a year since the breakup, and I really haven’t gone a day without thinking of him, even though we really don’t talk. Right after the breakup, I reached out to him and wished him luck on his new endeavors, he told me he was vacationing somewhere I had been, and he was thinking about me, which was incredibly painful to hear… Then he reached out once more to wish me luck on a big event. Months later, he had randomly liked a really old post of mine, and fairly recently he liked a story.

The access to him on instagram was nice, because although he’s silent, I’d see videos he liked about loosing the only girl for you, fucking it up with the one girl so you’ll be single forever, how the universe is cruel and removes someone you have an intense connection with, or poems about loving someone geographically inconvenient…. I used to love these reminders, like he still cared…. It made me feel less crazy for still feeling an attachment to him, but now that he’s removed me (although he didn’t block) I’m loosing it feeling like this guy I have secretly hoped would come back, never will…. I guess it’s not a coincidence it happened a little over a year from the breakup…. But fuck I want to reach out to him and tell him I miss him. This whole time, I never bothered to show that I missed him or wanted him back. I think I assumed I’d move on like I had with previous relationships, but I haven’t. He’s such a sad sack, I wouldn’t expect him to see hope that he could do anything to correct it. And if I reach out and he does feel the same, what then? We’re still an ocean away.

So I’m wondering, do I text him? When I realized he removed me from his instagram, I instinctively hit the follow button because I panicked. Because of old chats, I could still see he was active, so I know he saw that, but he hasn’t accepted or removed the request. Do I just block him? I really want to text him, explain that it’s a good idea to disconnect, tell him I’ll always miss him and my doors always open, then just block him on instagram to actually disconnect. If he really wanted me gone, he would’ve blocked, right? I don’t want to remove memories from our chat, or from the l time he missed me and made sure to like eeeevery single post, which he then detailed which were his favorites… I don’t want to erase those records, but I feel sick knowing he wants to disconnect, and I just can’t. I need a full break, I need to erase him from my records, but I need him to know I don’t want that, I just don’t have a choice.

I wish I could stop feeling so much hate towards him for choosing to leave…. I’ve really tried to move on, but after every date I just think about him. It makes it so much harder to move on. So I figure, maybe if I try to say something, at least I can stop asking “what if” because I tried to correct my mistake. The typical advice is it’s over, don’t loose your dignity, but how many people have lost someone because they never said what they feel? And knowing I did nothing, honestly feels worse than putting myself out there and feeling stupid if he moved on.