My first boyfriend (ever) of 1 year broke up with me due to long distance + my sensitivity. He said that he felt it made us incompatible, and that he thinks I deserve someone who could keep up with my needs. We had problems in the past regarding my sensitivity, but I was working on myself and we were having fewer problems.
We would have issues time-to-time where I would misunderstand the tone of a message through text/over the phone (I am AuDHD for some extra context). I would try to explain to him how I felt about misunderstandings, but he would either treat me like a chore, or continuously dismiss my feelings. An example would be when I got an IUD. He was meant to show up for me and come to my appointment, but I got no response from him before the booked time, so a friend had to come with me instead. If any other women out there have gotten an IUD and are reading this, you can understand how it was such a heavily invasive, and anxiety-inducing procedure for me. I later messaged him that night asking if he could come over to give me some comfort, because I was having a lot of anxiety over my hormonal IUD (because I had had bad experiences with birth control pills in the past that I told him about). He told me he wanted to play board games with his roommates and that I was overreacting. Of course, this shattered me even further as now I was being called overreactive after just going through a procedure that was meant to help BOTH of us. He said he didn’t mean overreacting in the normal sense, but more so as a term to say that I’m being more scared and anxious since I had just gotten it. He still came to comfort me that night, and left to go play with his roommates, but this has always been something that lingered in my mind throughout our relationship.
On more of the minor side, on our first date we had taken a photo in one of those booths at an arcade. I would ask him later on in our relationship if he would want to take one, but he would always brush me off saying he doesn’t like photos, doesn’t wanna take one, etc. He wouldn’t show interests in dates I wanted to plan (going to the beach to collect seashells), because they didn’t align perfectly with his interested. However, if he wanted to go to watch a specific movie, I’d always go. If he wanted to go eat out at a specific place that I don’t enjoy, I’d always go. On our first date, he held my had back home from the arcade, and that was the first time he really ever initiated holding my hand. He told me on the first date that he really liked me, and then never said anything like that without warrant again throughout our relationship.
This was before we had gone long distance, as he moved Universities over the end of year break. He hadn’t conversed with me about moving at all, or even showed any interests in taking a course at another Uni. He told me during my work-shift on my break and I was obviously heart-broken. We continued dating for around 5-6 months through long distance, and had visited each other three times, with messaging and phone calls almost every day.
Of course, there were times where my feelings were very hurt and I would think that breaking up would be the best course of action, but this was my first relationship, and I had done all of my firsts with him (first kiss, first date, EVEN FIRST HOLDING HANDS AT 18 btw). I felt that this is also what kind of pushed me to make this relationship work, because alongside of that, I really did like him.
But two nights ago, he broke up with me out of the blue. Just a couple of minutes before this all happened, we were joking around about one of his favourite characters from a show, and earlier in the week we were planning our next trip to see each other during the break. There was no indicator, at the time he was going to break up with me. Looking back now, our past couple of conversations did feel like I was carrying them from time-to-time, but I could’ve never attributed that to him wanting to end the relationship. He never communicated to me beforehand about us being less compatible than we thought, or about his struggles with long distance. It’s similar to when he moved, he just wouldn’t communicate with me his troubles and come to sometimes irrational decisions (not saying that pursuing education is bad) without any easing into them, or any indicators that they would happen.
It feels really heartbreaking because even though he said that I was nothing but nice to him, and that it’s not my fault— I can’t help but attribute all of this to myself. I’ve had problems with my sensitivity in the past, where I’ve felt like I was too much for people and that they never really understood me, but it just hits so much more differently when it’s someone who supposedly loved you for you, and who wanted to try make things work. I would constantly watch myself, things that I said— but when there were times my feelings would hurt and I wanted to talk about them (because that’s how I find the best way to clear things up), he would show very little empathy/sympathy.
I don’t know, the past couple of days have been a mess of me just sobbing in bed, playing video-games, and looking at our old pictures and sobbing some more. I feel like I put so much effort into making it work, but it feels like he gave up in a way on us, and it’s just completely heartbreaking.
I think I’d just like some advice, or criticism/validation, because it’s hard being so far away from family, and having to deal with this alone. I don’t want to stress my friends out who are also in University, and I don’t want to stress my mother out because she has complicated stress-related health issues. I just don’t really understand what I should do with any of this information— it still feels like I did something wrong, but maybe I should’ve went with my gut feelings way earlier with the way I was being treated sometimes.
Sorry for over sharing, and if there’s any questions of confusion over any of the points, feel free to ask me🩷