u/NothingStrange5648

tl:dr 7y relationship, engaged, blindsided, ex fiance started getting commitment issues, possible emotional cheating (context in my other posts)

Getting along these days, after getting closure I felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. It's surprising how it has only been 6 weeks but the purgatory I've gone on make them feel like a whole season.

She told me that she loved and still does, but that she slowly detached after I asked her for marriage (at her request), I think that it's more of a needing to figure out things for herself and what she wants in life. The fact that the tipping point was her catching feelings for someone else hurts a lot. A lot. But I don't know if I can consider it full on emotional cheating. She loved me till the last day, we were intimate, it was a very sudden decision on her part after months of stewing thoughts without telling me anything. A very immature way of ending and fleeing from our stable relationship. I am deeply hurt and very confused, but I know I will be better in the long run. Her, not so much, having all these unresolved issues and still choosing to flee to more unstable waters.

Knowing that she constantly checks our chat to see if I'm online or sending her anything surprised me; I went cold turkey into NC from day one, as it was her decision to leave. The nightmares and anxiety are subsiding. I still get bad dreams but I can sleep a bit longer each day.

It's so strange, feeling that love lingering in me but slowly coming to terms that she wasn't at the level I deserved or expected. That she kept going along and loving me but also questioning constantly what she wanted or needed. She didn't resolve her internal issues and sabotaged the relationship.

I still feel grief for our shared life, possible future together. I really do love her with all my heart. But these days I don't cry anymore, the anxiety and tightness in my chest have subsided a lot. I feel sad at the fact she did it, and I think she won't resolve anything nor be happy in the future. I would have liked to help her, to work together like a couple on these question she had. We could have worked something out. But I rest easier knowing nothing I did or didn't do could change it.

I'm in a strange space regarding the future. On one hand I know that realistically, she isn't coming back. I also don't want to be friends, it's either 100% or nothing for me. I wanted to marry her and have kids together, I don't want to see her with someone else. On the other, I told her that perhaps in some time, she could work on herself, and consider what we had and how strong and beautiful our connection was. That perhaps we could talk, go to therapy, rebuild a lifelong relationship. Told her that, to me, the engagement was a life commitment, that it still was. But that it was her decision to leave and it would have to be her decision to return. I'm making peace with that moving forward.

We were together for seven years, almost eight. We both are 30m (me) and 30f (her). Going through the motions. We had moved in together six years ago. She always remarked how easy it was to live with me, how she felt so safe, how our relationship felt like it had lasted a lifetime and not just some years. That she had never wanted to be with someone forever until she met me. I felt accepted, understood, loved. We had our together spaces and our own interests apart, which is healthy. I am secure and never had mistrust, confidence or doubts. We talked everything, we fixed everything. Zero arguments or fights. From early on, my goal has always been to live in my hometown, with a quiet house where we could read and grow old without annoying neighbours and having some dogs and chickens. She has always been ecstatic and we were always talking about it. It was the goal moving forward for us, to be together in a quiet place surrounded by nature.

For the past year things were finally stable, generally going with the flow and the inertia of routine life. Some would say we stagnated a bit, but in time it's inevitable and you can't always keep making big sweeping changes to your life. Friends, family, couple, weekend activities. Not a bad life at all. She's a good person and has never done anything in malice.

We had our beautiful moments, I felt like our connection was just deepening and becoming more safe. We had our seven-year-old in-jokes. We had allotted "couple slop watching time" where we checked pictures of small animals we collected and sent to each other, but waited till we were together to check them. We read the same book at the same time to talk about it. We read in bed together and sometimes stopped to read aloud a good paragraph or page to each other. Fuck. Life was so good.

The past year she kept remarking how we "we were already married" and how our life was a married happy life. She gently let drop that she would like to get engaged. We had our lifelong trip to Japan in October, and I asked her there. She said yes. We returned and started planning a light, rural marriage ceremony with our friends and family. She started taking japanese classes with the aims to return there with better knowledge of the language.

About a month and a half ago (an eternity) by monday morning, she just made coffee and told me we had to talk. That she had to leave. That the feelings were gone. That she had this instinct to leave. I was shattered, devastated. She left out the door and went one month silent. I'm a stable person and I've had this abyss open before me. Dark thoughts, anxiety, panic attacks, sleeping 3h a night, ideas of harming myself. Therapy, talking to friends, whatever. After a month I asked to meet and at least TALK to me. She still needed more time. A couple days ago we could finally have our closure talk. She arrived tear-eyed, hugged me, said that she's so sorry, that she couldn't do it any other way. That she was so sorry and feeling so guilty for the pain she caused me. We spoke for four hours in a forest meadow whilst reminscing of our life together. We still felt so good, she was still affectionate to me and told me she still loved me. That fucked up, bad.

Unberknownst to me she had been slowly detaching from our relationship ever since we went to Japan and asked her to marry me (at her request). Once she had the compromise in front of her, she started getting this nagging feeling of it not being right. I have given her a stable life, a safe home (which she never had before) and a loving family. We have a deep connection and chemistry. I really tried to be my best with her. Turns out she just kept harboring these feelings without communicating them, just kept letting the relationship die on her end whilst I was just as happy as always. She didn't want the same goal any longer, she didn't know what the fuck she wanted in life but not this. After I had made the decision of marriage, after I started looking for a piece of land.

More reasons she told herself: she didn't vibe or connect with the people around us, where we have lived for 6 years. She's was not in the same wavelenght as my friends. She didn't really try to make friends for herself, she just was accepted into a friend group by a mutual. Constantly changed hobbies, aspirations, goals. She liked the idea of travelling but hated actually doing it. Now that she had started going to japanese classes, there was this younger nerd of a guy that lasted three classes as a teacher and was kicked out due to ineptitude. So you see where this is going, yeah. She brought him along with other people from the japanese academy to some friend hikes, dinner at our apartment. I'm happy to know my partner's friends and become friends with them. I have never had mistrust. In our closure talk, she told me she didn't have feelings for him when she brought him along, that it was just part of the friend group. I don't know.

The saturday before leaving turns out that she broke down, told me she confessed her interest in this poor sod, then told her girl friends who she was meeting everything she had been harboring inside. Come monday she broke with me without explanation, emptied our apartment of her things, came back to live with her narcissitic father and somehow I fucking guess replaced me. She needed a month and a half to process it all and tell me whilst I was thinking of killing myself. She told me that the relationship was fine, perfect, that I didn't do anything wrong or ignored her needs. Then, why the fuck end it? She thought that if she stayed longer now that the relationship was at its peak, the relationship would go bad and she would take it on me without me being at fault. Yeah, really reassuring. She told me that now she feels so relieved and that she can finally decide what she wants going forward. As if I ever imposed anything or prevented her from doing anything she wanted. She expressed that maybe she'll try to go and live to Japan, as if that is somehow the fix to all her problems. I don't know. She doesn't know what the fuck she wants in life, and she has ruined mine as a collateral.

Now I'm supposed to just accept it all. That she ended everything without talk, without therapy, without considering me in the picture. The person I've most deeply cared for and loved in my life, gone like that. For a feeling and some excuses. She asked if, in some time, and if I genuinely want, we could keep being friends. I told her that not now, maybe in the future. It was too harsh for me to just tell her no, to disappear from my life. I'm a sensitive guy, I still love her. But I don't know what to do. She has fucking replaced me with a downgrade, pathetic guy for a whimsy feeling. I fucking hate her for it.

In a moment of weakness (forgive me, this has been the worst month of my life) I told her that maybe things could work out, in some time, if she actually realized what she wanted, and we could be together forever. She said that yes, that if that happened, she would like it. But that we had to live our own lives and go our own ways. Fate will decide.

We went in peace. But the pain continues whilst she's out there "living" and trying to find herself, whilst I curl in bed and try not to die of grief and loss. I go through my days without color or the will to go on. I feel so profoundly betrayed. I tried to go to our closure in peace and serenity. I am still so in love with her. I understood her and just wanted her to take me back. I find myself now in intermittent times of grief and intense red-hot anger. How could she? How dared she

It's so incomprehensible. It's so unfair. I did my best and she hid it from me. Why me? Why us. I'm afraid I'll never share what I had with her with anybody else. How could I? I feel she's irreplaceable and at the same time that she has betrayed in an unforgivable way.

We were together for seven years, almost eight. We both are 30m (me) and 30f (her). Going through the motions. We had moved in together six years ago. She always remarked how easy it was to live with me, how she felt so safe, how our relationship felt like it had lasted a lifetime and not just some years. That she had never wanted to be with someone forever until she met me. I felt accepted, understood, loved. We had our together spaces and our own interests apart, which is healthy. I am secure and never had trust, confidence or doubts. We talked everything, we fixed everything. Zero arguments or fights. From early on, my goal has always been to live in my hometown, with a quiet house where we could read and grow old without annoying neighbours and having some dogs and chickens. She has always been ecstatic and we were always talking about it. It was the goal moving forward for us, to be together in a quiet place surrounded by nature.

For the past year things were finally stable, generally going with the flow and the inertia of routine life. Some would say we stagnated a bit, but in time it's inevitable and you can't always keep making big sweeping changes to your life. Friends, family, couple, weekend activities. Not a bad life at all. She's a good person and has never done anything in malice.

We had our beautiful moments, I felt like our connection was just deepening and becoming more safe. We had our seven-year-old in-jokes. We had allotted "couple slop watching time" where we checked pictures of small animals we collected and sent to each other, but waited till we were together to check them. We read the same book at the same time to talk about it. We read in bed together and sometimes stopped to read aloud a good paragraph or page to each other. Fuck. Life was so good.

The past year she kept remarking how we "we were already married" and how our life was a married happy life. She gently let drop that she would like to get engaged. We had our lifelong trip to Japan in October, and I asked her there. She said yes. We returned and started planning a light, rural marriage ceremony with our friends and family. She started taking japanese classes with the aims to return there with better knowledge of the language.

About a month and a half ago (an eternity) by monday morning, she just made coffee and told me we had to talk. That she had to leave. That the feelings were gone. That she had this instinct to leave. I was shattered, devastated. She left out the door and went one month silent. I'm a stable person and I've had this abyss open before me. Dark thoughts, anxiety, panic attacks, sleeping 3h a night, ideas of harming myself. Therapy, talking to friends, whatever. After a month I asked to meet and at least TALK to me. She still needed more time. A couple days ago we could finally have our closure talk. She arrived tear-eyed, hugged me, said that she's so sorry, that she couldn't do it any other way. That she was so sorry and feeling so guilty for the pain she caused me. We spoke for four hours in a forest meadow whilst reminscing of our life together. We still felt so good, she was still affectionate to me and told me she still loved me. That fucked up, bad.

Unberknownst to me she had been slowly detaching from our relationship ever since we went to Japan and asked her to marry me (at her request). Once she had the compromise in front of her, she started getting this nagging feeling of it not being right or whatever. I have given her a stable life, a safe home (which she never had before) and a loving family. We have a deep connection and chemistry. I really tried to be my best with her. Turns out she just kept harboring these feelings without communicating them, just kept letting the relationship die on her end whilst I was just as happy as always. She didn't want the same goal any longer, she didn't know what the fuck she wanted in life but not this. After I had made the decision of marriage, after I started looking for a piece of land.

More reasons she told herself: she didn't vibe or connect with the people around us, where we have lived for 6 years. She's was not in the same wavelenght as my friends or whatever. She didn't really try to make friends for herself, she just was accepted into a friend group by a mutual. Constantly changed hobbies, aspirations, goals, whatever. She liked the idea of travelling but hated actually doing it. Now that she had started going to japanese classes, there was this younger nerd of a guy that lasted three classes as a teacher and was kicked out due to ineptitude. So you see where this is going, yeah. She brought him along with other people from the japanese academy to some friend hikes, dinner at our apartment. I'm happy to know my partner's friends and become friends with them. I have never had mistrust. In our closure talk, she told me she didn't have feelings for him when she brought him along, that it was just part of the friend group. I don't know.

The saturday before leaving turns out that she broke down, told me she confessed her interest in this poor sod, then told her girl friends who she was meeting everything she had been harboring inside. Come monday she broke with me without explanation, emptied our apartment of her things, came back to live with her narcissitic father and somehow I fucking guess replaced me. She needed a month and a half to process it all and tell me whilst I was thinking of killing myself. She told me that the relationship was fine, perfect, that I didn't do anything wrong or ignored her needs. Then, why the fuck end it? She thought that if she stayed longer now that the relationship was at its peak, the relationship would go bad and she would take it on me without me being at fault. Yeah, really reassuring. She told me that now she feels so relieved and that she can finally decide what she wants going forward. As if I ever imposed anything or prevented her from doing anything she wanted. She expressed that maybe she'll try to go and live to Japan, as if that is somehow the fix to all her problems. I don't know. She doesn't know what the fuck she wants in life, and she has ruined mine as a collateral.

Now I'm supposed to just accept it all. That she ended everything without talk, without therapy, without considering me in the picture. The person I've most deeply cared for and loved in my life, gone like that. For a feeling and some excuses. She asked if, in some time, and if I genuinely want, we could keep being friends. I told her that not now, maybe in the future. It was too harsh for me to just tell her no, to disappear from my life. I'm a sensitive guy, I still love her. But I don't know what to do. She has fucking replaced me with a downgrade, pathetic guy for a whimsy feeling. I fucking hate her for it.

In a moment of weakness (forgive me, this has been the worst month of my life) I told her that maybe things could out, in some time, if she actually realized what she wanted. She said that yes, that if that happened, she would like it. But that we had to live our own lives and go our own ways. Fate will decide.

We went in peace. But the pain continues whilst she's out there "living" and trying to find herself, whilst I curl in bed and try not to die of grief and loss. I go through my days without color or the will to go on. I feel so profoundly betrayed. I tried to go to our closure in peace and serenity. I am still so in love with her. I understood her and just wanted her to take me back. I find myself now in intermittent times of grief and intense red-hot anger. How could she? How dared she

It's so incomprehensible. It's so unfair. I did my best and she hid it from me. Why me? Why us. I'm afraid I'll never share what I had with her with anybody else. How could I? I feel she's irreplaceable and at the same time that she has betrayed in an unforgivable way.