u/RenaudQuatrelle

Salut les amis,

Alors voilà, je (32M) sors d'une longue période de couple (depuis que j'ai 19 ans en gros) donc j'ai absolument aucune expérience de dating/rencontre etc.

J'ai installé une app de rencontre et je commence à avoir doucement quelques matchs etc.

J'ai pas encore daté pour le moment, mais en gros mon problème s'est déjà posé en soirée : je dirais que je suis B tier en terme de physique, plutôt fit, mais surtout je suis très avenant, mes potes me considèrent comme le clown de service, donc j'ai pas de problème pour faire une rire une femme, faire durer une discussion, m'intéresser à elle etc.

Mon problème je crois c'est que j'ai du mal à sortir de ce rôle d'amuser en fait.

Et à chaque fois que le courant passe avec une femme, bah chacun finit toujours par rentrer chez soi ahah.

Donc en gros je pense pas que le problème vienne du physique (peut être pour certaines évidemment, mais je pense pas que ça soit systématique), ni de la conversation, mais il y a forcément un souci quelque part !

C'est quoi votre technique secrète pour passer la deux et enclencher vers "viens on rentre chez toi et on boit des gin to"?

Merci beaucoup! 🙏

Hi everyone,

Disclaimer : This might be a very long read, I need your advice but I think I also need to share certain things I don’t share with my friends. I’ll add a TL ;DR at the end if I think about it. Also, English is not my native language. No AI will be used. A child is involved, I won’t use any pronouns. Thanks to the ones who will go through this.

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So, I (32M) have been in a relationship for 11 years until early last year. This was my first true sexual experience and it’s been overall a very « quiet » relationship, very vanilla sex, we’ve grown together but we actually shared less and less, didn’t communicate as we should, and for the last 3 years, I was basically exhausted by this relationship but didn’t dare to leave her because she was very emotionally unstable, and as a guy who always flee conflictual situations, I was way too afraid of her potential reaction.

About 6 years into this relationship, we met a couple (our neighbors at that time) with who we became quickly very close friends, they later had a baby.

Fast forward to early 2025, the guy from this couple announces to his wife that he’d been cheating on her with a guy for the past 6 months and that he leaves her for him. Their relationship lasted 14 years.

Her reaction was astoundingly mature, basically « if you’re happier, then our child will be happier and that’s all that matters to me » and « after all, we’re only 30, we still have everything to explore »

That shook me a lot. I mean A LOT. For them of course, but also for my own relationship.

I put an end to it a few days afterwards. She took it also pretty well, maybe because she was shocked. Maybe because our friend took it so well a few days before, I don’t know and never will.

And that’s when the trouble happens.

A few months go by, and the 4 of us see each other, sometimes only 2, sometimes 3, sometimes 4.

One day I spend the night at their house (they were still living under the same roof even though they were separated and the guy was at his boyfriend place) because she would drop me at the train station the day after.

We drink a lot, laugh a lot and each one goes to bed. The next day, she drops me at the train station as promised. I send her a text to thank her and I’ll never know why, but she answers to it, and I answer back and so on.

I was away for the week-end but we kept talking, to the point we even sexted at the end. I was feeling guilty, like really guilty.

But in the end the attraction was too powerful, we tried everything, no contact, going far away from each other, everything was sending us back to each other. We eventually had sex and it really was on another planet. We kept doing so for a few months, until we were busted by the guy.

No need to go deep into the details here, but that was a hell of a ride. Of course, we knew we’d broken them (the guy and my ex), it was a really tough moment. Lost lots of common friends, but I knew I f*cked up big and I deserved that. I was the bastard for everyone and I knew I deserved it. I am a pretty social guy who never did anything wrong in his life, so I was pretty consensual all my life, and I discovered that day everything changed. Very tough, but very deserved.

As things were not defined between us yet, she had sex with a guy a few days later, which was a hurtful moment for me that I took as some karma type of sh*t. She expressed a lot of regrets and told me I was everything she wanted.

Then we basically spent the summer together. It was just wonderful. What a woman. Absolutely gorgeous, very funny, very knowledgeable, always down for anything to do, and OH MY GOD THE SEX. It basically made me think I was a virgin before that.

Fast forward to late 2025, she wants our relationship to end because she says she never experienced loneliness (her previous relationship started when she was 15 years old). I am devastated because of “all this mess just for that? We didn’t even try anything together”. I think it was out of hormones, but a few days go by and she completely changes her mind and tells me that I am the one.

-I think this is the great time to explain something here: what I loved with her was the fact that she is a very mature person, down to earth, who you can talk very easily without her making a fuss etc (she also despises conflict just like me). We really have a matching “software” if I can say that-

And few weeks later, we both have to move from our current place, and we do not have tons of money so we decide to get a flat together (with her 3 years old child 50% of the time, who of course already knows me since birth).

Things go (very) well for a few months (I take care of her child as best as I can, bring to school, prepare breakfast) I become a boyfriend AND a step-dad, very new life, which is demanding but also very rewarding. I introduce her to the motorbike world, we ride my bike for 1000s of kilometers.

Then she slowly starts to become distant, so I ask her what’s going on. And basically, the same stuff from a few months ago comes back: she never experienced life on her own + she doesn’t feel like we were compatible in the day-to-day life, we do not have the same daily rhythm (I am an entrepreneur working from home and I kinda like to oversleep a bit). I tell her that I find her pretty rough on me, I changed A LOT to fit to our new life. But I also understand her position. Life’s been tough to her too, all that she had to go through with what her ex-husband did etc. So we decide to break-up. I find a flat to move but it’s only available like 1.5 months later.

So, we basically still live like a couple (we told each other that we do not owe anything to the other one anymore from the breakup, but no relations as long as we live together).

We still ride the bike, still have sex, so I don’t really see it coming at this time.

Then I move to my new flat (early June of this year) and the day-to-day constraints disappear, so it’s like we’re back at the beginning of our relationship, we still share lots of moments together, still ride the bike, still have sex etc.

However, the time comes where she tells me we need to address this. That it cannot goes on forever. We try no contact but fail and everything starts again, 2 times. I tell her I chat with a girl, but nothing happened eventually. Hurts her.

Then she goes to a colleague retirement party and meets a guy. Hurts me.

-another thing is worth saying here: as we both suffered of lack of communication in our previous relationships, we really shared everything, but even after our break-up, which was not a good idea, but we didn’t know back then-

Goes to the date (horrible night for me of course), they spend a great night together and end up having sex.

-yet another thing: I am really worried because she is really naive, as she only had relationships with two men who were not disrespectful to say the least. She told me the night before “never going to sleep at a random guy’s place”. 3 beers later, she does. That particular guy seems like a good guy but it makes me sick that someone could hurt her somehow-

We see each other the next day, and to prevent my brain from making impossible scenarios, also to act as we were friends casually talking about their date, and also out of curiosity I guess, I ask her to tell me everything. She does, she tells me it was bad and she thought about me all the way through.

Hurts to hear but also kind of relieving somehow.

This was 2 weeks ago. We both decide to spend a last day together (of course we have sex one last time where she makes me promise it’s not the last time we do) and then to go for a no contact period at least early September (if one of us is not ready, we can still postpone).

And here I am. Life is hard ever since. I really didn’t gauge what life without her meant. I feel stuck, while she’s out there, in holiday, dating guys probably. Next week she’ll be with her best friend who like to party a lot, I know exactly what is going to happen.

And I feel completely unable to have sex, or even meet another woman.

I don’t even know what to think about September, but I just can’t consider never seeing her again. And also, her child, who I’ve known since birth and contributed a bit to educate, I just can’t imagine not seeing again.

I am not even sure if she just wants to date a few guys or if she wants to be alone for a long time. I really think I brought her lots of security, lots of love, I don’t see where I could have f*cked up. I mean I am far from perfect, but I’ve given pretty much everything to her. I don’t see how can I even be a better version of who I was with her. I have the feeling that we’re kind of rookies about this kind of situations, all my friends have broken up like 10 times already, so we don’t really know what to do.

The last day we spent together, I asked her what I failed to do in our relationship. She answered “you have been absolutely perfect, with me and with [my child]“.

We both cried a lot, she said “I love you” a lot.

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Thank you so much to anyone who’ve read this far.

TL;DR: I dated a former friend in a very rough context, now she wants to live on her own and I feel awful.

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