u/New_Adeptness_1622

My boyfriend (23M) and I (23F) have been together for 3.5 years. We met in college and had a genuinely happy relationship. We come from different religions (he’s Muslim, I’m Hindu), but that was never a major issue between us. We’ve both met each other’s families multiple times, and everyone has always been kind and welcoming.

About a year ago, a serious family dispute happened on his side. He’s the only son, and he took on a huge amount of responsibility. Since then, he’s thrown himself completely into work and family obligations. He stopped socializing, barely talks to friends, rarely uses social media, and has isolated himself from almost everyone.

The biggest problem is that he also withdrew from our relationship.

He rarely answers calls or messages. Months can go by with very little contact. When I finally did get to speak to him, instead of talking about us, he told me to take care of myself, that I’m bright and strong, and that I deserve someone better. He said he feels undeserving of me and believes I would never truly be comfortable with his family situation or some of the religious and cultural differences between us.

The thing is, I never wanted to leave. I’ve repeatedly told him that I wanted to work through those challenges together.

At one point earlier in our relationship, I told him I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of living in a joint family household because I value privacy and had watched my own mother struggle in that environment.

I think that conversation affected him deeply. Later, after thinking about it for a long time, I realized I was willing to compromise and adjust because I loved him more than I feared the situation, but I never got the chance to fully communicate that before he started pulling away.

What hurts most is that he never actually broke up with me.
There was no goodbye.
No “I don’t love you.”
No cheating.
No major fight.
Just distance.
One of the last things he told me was:
“I wish I had never met you.”
Not because he hated me, but because he believes he has hurt me and that my life would have been better without him.
I know he’s struggling. Mutual friends have confirmed that his family situation has gotten worse, and from everything I can see, he’s exhausted and carrying more than he can handle.
But I’ve been waiting for almost a year.

I’ve cried myself to sleep.
I’ve lost motivation.
I’ve isolated myself.
I’ve even developed unhealthy eating habits because this situation has affected me so deeply.
I still love him.
I still believe he’s a good person.
I still believe part of him loves me too.

But I don’t know if I’m supporting someone through a difficult chapter of life or holding on to someone

who has already emotionally left the relationship.
Has anyone experienced something similar?

How do you know when someone is genuinely overwhelmed and needs time versus when they’re quietly ending the relationship without saying it?

Missed my interview today because my anxiety completely took over at the last minute and I genuinely feel horrible about it.

What makes it worse is that I was actually prepared for it. I spent 3 days preparing, researched the company, practiced answers, understood the role properly and this wasn’t even some random opportunity. It was for an HR/recruitment role and could’ve genuinely been the start of my switch from tech into recruitment, which I’ve been seriously trying to move into. I’m already doing a recruitment internship right now too.

And then literally right before the interview my brain just spiraled into:
“What if I blank out?”
“What if I sound stupid?”
“What if I ruin it?”
“What if they realize I’m not good enough?”

And instead of joining normally like a sane person, I froze, delayed it, panicked more and by the time I joined I was late and the interviewer had already left.

The embarrassing part is knowing I was qualified enough for it. That’s what’s eating me alive right now. It feels like I sabotaged myself before anyone else even got the chance to reject me.

Now I’m sitting here feeling ashamed because missing an interview over fear sounds so stupid when I say it out loud, especially after wanting the opportunity this badly and there are PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO WOULD WANT THIS TOO AND NOT END UP BEING A CHICKEN LIKE ME...

And to top it off, I think part of what messed me up is that I’ve gotten so comfortable being on the other side of the process now.

In my current recruitment internship, I handle screening calls and candidate coordination, so I’m usually the one asking questions, observing people, understanding how they think, calming their uncertainty, etc. I can genuinely picture myself growing in recruitment and I KNOW I’m capable in that space.

But the moment I had to sit in front of the interviewer again as the candidate, something in me just shut down completely. Which is weird because I was never THIS bad during my first internship interview after switching from tech.

Now it almost feels like the more this opportunity mattered to me, the more terrified I became of messing it up and I ended up doing exactly that before the interview even started.

Have any of you genuinely gone through this before? Like fully dipping or freezing right before an interview you actually wanted badly? How did you get over this cycle?

And please tell me this isn’t something that’s going to permanently mess up my confidence because right now I genuinely feel so embarrassed and disappointed in myself 😭