u/Infamous_Source4494

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I’m curious to hear from people who have been on both sides of a breakup.

Have you ever been the one who initiated the breakup, felt certain (or at least convinced yourself) that it was the right decision, and then regretted it almost immediately, only to reach out and realize that your ex had already started moving on or no longer wanted to reconcile?

What happened afterward?

Did you eventually get back together, or did you have to accept that the relationship was over despite being the one who ended it?

I’d especially love to hear from people who genuinely loved their ex and didn’t break up because the love was gone, but because of circumstances, fear, frustration, distance, or an argument.

How did you deal with the sudden shift from being the dumper to feeling like the dumpee?

For context, I broke up two months ago with my ex, we were in a long distance relationship and the future was incertain, we were supposed to meet in september but they cancelled the trip for financial reasons but we loved each other deeply until the last minute.

3 days later, they broke no contact to check on me telling me they miss me and love me etc, I proposed to reconsider the relationship, but they told me that they were feeling "on a cloud" and it's like they felt light and liked to be in that state, but they insisted to stay friends.

Long story short, the "friendship" was disastrous, it seemed like they were moving on too fast and I asked for space two times, evertime they were "sad" to lose me and they begged me to stay, telling me that I was very important in their life and that they're grateful they knew me etc. Nonetheless there was some signs of jealousy and possessivity on their side and I had a lot of mixed signals even if they were telling me that they were trying to move on...

10 days ago I finally blocked them on whatsapp because they crossed a boundary and they didn't take it well and told me that they will never forgive me. I told myself that I'll never reach out again unless they do it first and show me that they regret and understood what they did.

Since then, I feel very bad, I miss them, I think of them every second of the day, I feel like I was the happiest in that relationship and that I lost a very important thing in my life, I remember everything good they did to me and all the times I was happy, I have a strong feeling that I want THEM, only THEM !

So here's an e-mail I wrote, I just want to know what you think about it.

"This email is probably my last attempt to reach out to you. I know you weren't convinced by why I blocked you on WhatsApp, even though I felt my reasons were pretty clear. So I'm writing this one last time to tell you exactly what's in my heart, with no filter, no pride, and maybe, finally, to get some answers from you.

Every waking second, I can't stop thinking about you. You even appeared in my dreams. The memories keep coming back and haunting me, and everything I do, think about, or imagine somehow always leads me back to you.

I also know that I'm not idealizing what we had. I'm fully aware of our flaws and of everything that made the relationship difficult. But please help me understand: was there something you never told me while we were together? Because I just can't move past that question.

When I decided to block you, I was literally five minutes away from a very important meeting. You brought up something else without warning again (your potential serious relationship) and I simply didn't have the time to respond to everything. More importantly, I never got the chance to tell you how disappointed I was that you couldn't respect the one thing I had asked of you: not to talk about our private lives for the time being. At the same time, I was fighting against every instinct telling me that staying in touch with you, knowing you no longer wanted this relationship, would only hurt me and stop me from moving on. The truth is, I kept talking to you because deep down, I didn't want to heal. I still wanted to believe.

How did we go from loving each other so deeply, caring so much about one another, and promising we'd grow old together... to this? We still looked in love until the very last minute.

I know it wasn't easy to keep hoping, especially during the hardest times. Sometimes I regret not being there for you enough, not supporting you more in your need to move forward and grow, in your financial decisions, and especially not fully committing to the project we had together. Even though my anxiety often spoke louder than I did, you know perfectly well that I would have followed you to the ends of the earth and beyond. I never wanted to be a burden; I wanted to be your equal partner. Life proved to us over and over again that we were stronger than our circumstances. Starting over from scratch wouldn't have ruined us as long as we were together, supporting each other, and loving each other sincerely.

I fully accept my share of responsibility for everything that happened, both before and after the breakup. I know the challenges were enormous, the pressure, the tension, the sadness of being apart, the longing, the frustration, the uncertainty about the future, the financial sacrifices... But I still can't get past the idea that you seemed to accept the situation so easily and so quickly.

I also struggle with the fact that you're trying to force a friendship that simply can't exist while you know the other person is still in love with you, and not as a friend. The idea of just accepting things, maintaining a friendship, and loving each other like friends drives me crazy in this specific situation. It feels like we're living in two completely different realities where time moves differently, and somehow you're ten years ahead of me. No matter how I look at it, it doesn't feel normal. Just tell me that you know I still love you, that you're aware of it, and that you believe I'll somehow be able to handle it.

I know the future of this relationship doesn't depend on me alone. It takes two people wanting it to continue. When it comes to you, though, I keep getting mixed signals. You seem like you genuinely want to move on, and you've told me that you're making progress. But at the same time, I still feel that there's a deep love there. I also felt moments where you still wanted to hope, or maybe even regretted the way our story ended.

As for me, maybe I wasn't clear enough. I lied to myself at times. I tried to accept reality for what it was. But in the end, I always choose you, not because I'm afraid of ending up alone, but because it's what I truly want.

Maybe what I really need from this email is to hear the unfiltered truth, even if it hurts. I'd rather face that pain than spend the rest of my life wondering what if.

On my side, I never doubted you, not for a second. I never doubted your love for me or the admiration we always had for each other. I understand that we could both feel lonely, frustrated, even trapped at times. But it was always supposed to be temporary. At some point we panicked about time passing, about uncertainty, about getting older, but we never got to see what was waiting for us at the end of the tunnel.

There are so many experiences I still wish I could share with you. So many moments I dreamed of living together. I wanted to be proud of the people we would become, proud of you and everything you achieved, proud to look back at our old pictures and say, "We're still here. We're still together. Look where we are now." And above all, I dreamed of dying in your arms.

I'm sending this email like a message in a bottle. I have no idea how you'll receive it. I'm just tired of living with regret and uncertainty. Everything tells me you've made your choice, and yet everything still brings me back to you.

I'm sorry if I'm disrupting your life or your progress. Maybe you've realized that being single is what's best for you. I don't even know if you still love me, you are the only one who truly knows that. But I do love you, and I've come to realize what I've lost. That's my truth, and all I can do is own it."

Is anyone using Spotify premium and paying with dahabia card? Any trusted recommendation?

I blocked you three days ago because you hurt me again even though you promised to protect my feelings.

You want us to stay friends and say I'm precious to you, that you don't want to lose me again, but the fact is I still love you from the bottom of my heart.

I still want to write you another long letter where I'll tell you how much I'm hurt, how much seeing you moving on so quickly is breaking me into pieces, I still see your pictures and videos from years ago when we were younger and happier, I'm in love with your laugh, I see the way you used to look at me with love and I cry everytime, I still talk to you like you are here with me, begging you to come back, i miss you so bad, my soul hurts.

I just don't undertsand why you're doing this to me if you say that you love me? Why are you so cold? Why do you want me to know about your adventures and your new person, whom I know is living the life I always dreamed to have with you?

Every weekend, I feel completely shattered, heartbroken and overwhelmed with sadness, imagining that you're spending it with that person. It brings back all the weekends we shared together, memories that I'll cherish for the rest of my life.

I know that if you'll read that, you'd think that I'm weak and pathetic, that's why I don't have the courage anymore to express my feelings to you.

Please, don't forget about what we had, I hope you still love me and that you still think of me as my mind is constantly occupied by thoughts of you.

I'll love you forever.

Hi, I'm going through a very hard breakup, I need to get different perspectives especially if you experienced a rebound. If someone is available, dm me please, thank you !

Guys, please, for your own mental health, don't break no contact under any circumstances.

I'm two months after the end of my 5.5-year relationship, my ex insisted that we stay in touch after only 3 days of no contact. He wanted us to remain friends, kept telling me he never wanted me to disappear from his life, and that I would always have a special place in his heart.

As we kept talking, I started noticing a pattern.

Whenever I seemed to be doing better, he would send me sad songs, songs about love and regret, or things that made me wonder if he was starting to regret the breakup. Little by little, I found myself hoping again. I genuinely started believing that maybe one day we'd talk about getting back together and finding another way to build a future.

Then everything came crashing down.

Out of nowhere, he decided to tell me everything he had done after the breakup. Barely one or two weeks after we split, he had already hooked up with multiple people, and he described it to me in painful detail.

I completely fell apart.

It honestly felt traumatic.

When I told him how much it hurt, he minimized my feelings. He said that if our roles were reversed, he would be happy for me because he'd want to see me move on and be happy. That somehow made me feel like I was the irrational one.

Despite that, he convinced me to keep talking to him. The only condition I asked for was simple: no more discussions about our private or dating lives.

I literally begged him not to hurt me like that again. He knew me better than anyone. He knew exactly what would destroy me.

After that, he reassured me. He told me that hookups meant absolutely nothing compared to what we had together. He said I should never compare myself to that. He admitted that he sometimes regretted the way the breakup happened and that he wouldn't be surprised if he kept regretting it for a long time.

Without even realizing it, I started hoping again.

I thought maybe, just maybe, there was still a chance that one day we'd revisit the relationship and try to make it work.

Then I made another mistake.

I watched one of his Instagram stories and discovered that he had a Close Friends list. I asked him to hide his stories from me because I couldn't stop myself from looking. Since we were still talking every day, curiosity always won.

He didn't understand.

Instead, he told me that he was moving on and that I should stop obsessing over his life and overanalyzing everything he did.

The very next day, I posted a gym story.

He immediately messaged me to say that he had blocked me on Instagram because he realized I was following one of his former hookups. Ironically, he admitted that I had been right about blocking each other on Instagram, but still wanted to keep talking on WhatsApp.

That same day, he kept reaching out to me. He sent me a love song, a post about long-distance friendships, and overall gave me the impression that he was feeling emotional.

This time, I refused to fall into the same trap.

I ignored all those mixed signals and told myself that he had made his choice and that I deserved better.

Then today happened.

He messaged me again on WhatsApp.

First, he sent me someone's Instagram profile and told me they were "perfect."

Then he told me that he had absolutely no regrets about his life, that he had never felt so free and fulfilled, and that he'd been seeing someone for the past two or three weeks. He even said he wanted to focus on that relationship and see where it could go.

The worst part?

He already knew that I had asked him not to tell me anything about his dating life because it was preventing me from healing.

I finally blocked him.

He told me I was running away and that if I had truly moved on, I wouldn't react like this, even though he himself had blocked me on Instagram the day before. He said he had blocked me "for my own good" and that he would never forgive me for blocking him.

For the first time since the breakup, I'm completely sure I made the right decision.

Continuing to talk to my ex was one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made.

If I can give one piece of advice to anyone going through a breakup, it's this:

Protect yourself.

No one else is going to protect your peace for you.

Even if you're heartbroken, even if you miss them every day, don't keep reopening the wound by staying in contact.

Sometimes the kindest thing you can do for yourself is to walk away completely.

Because, at least in my case, absolutely nothing good came from staying in touch.

I've realized something about myself since my breakup: I don't really know how to be alone.

For the past 10 years, I've almost always been in a relationship. My identity became deeply tied to having a partner, sharing my life with someone, planning together, texting throughout the day, and feeling emotionally connected.

Now that I'm single, I'm struggling with something that seems so natural to other people: focusing on myself and genuinely feeling like I'm enough.

I don't mean distracting myself with hobbies or going to the gym. I already do those things. I mean that deep feeling of being complete even when no one is there. That inner peace where your happiness isn't constantly measured by whether someone loves you or wants you.

I think I've become someone who forms very strong emotional attachments. Once I love someone, they become a huge part of my emotional world. When they're gone, it feels like part of me disappears too. It's as if I outsource my sense of security and fulfillment to the relationship.

I'm trying to change that, but I honestly don't know how.

How do you stop looking outward for validation and start feeling sufficient on your own?

I'd really like to hear from people who used to be highly attached and eventually learned to enjoy their own company without feeling like something was missing.

Maybe the deepest pain of love is realizing that, eventually, you'll stop being the center of their world, and life will keep giving them reasons to smile without you.

I'm really struggling right now, and I don't know if I'm overreacting or if my feelings are normal.

My ex and I broke up about a month and a half ago. After the breakup, we went no contact for only three days before we slowly started talking again. At first, it actually felt good. We were texting regularly, and I thought we were building a healthy friendship.

However, I noticed that he would often try to casually drop little hints about his private life into our conversations. It almost felt like he wanted me to know that things were happening, even if he wasn't saying everything outright.

Yesterday, we had a long phone call. During the conversation, he told me that after we broke up, he went through a "wild" phase that lasted about two or three weeks. He said he hooked up a lot, had a lot of sex, and that he really enjoyed it. And now he's seeing someone regularly. (There was a lot of details about his sexual adventures).

He also told me that it's important to him that we stay friends and that we can tell each other everything, like close friends.

I asked questions because I wanted to understand, but I wasn't prepared for how much it would hurt.

At the time, I tried to stay calm, but after hanging up, everything hit me.

Last night, I only slept about three hours. I woke up crying. Since then, I can't stop replaying everything he told me in my head. I keep getting intrusive mental images of him with other people. It's like my brain is torturing me.

I know we're not together anymore, and I know he had every right to do whatever he wanted. Rationally, I understand that. But emotionally... I feel completely shattered.

The worst part is that I don't even know if staying friends is healthy for me anymore. He begged me to stay and told me that he loves me and want me in his life forever. I care about him, and I don't want to lose him completely, but hearing intimate details about his sex life feels unbearable.

I know I didn't heal completely even if I felt better at times, but it seems like he's dealing with the breakup way better than me and told me that even if I did the same he wouldn't mind and be happy for me as a friend, I don't know what to think about it.....

Has anyone else been through something similar?

How did you stop obsessing over the mental images? And is it actually possible to stay friends with an ex when hearing about their romantic or sexual life hurts this much?