my ex dumped me after 4 years of relationship and i dont know what to do
i’m 24m and my girlfriend and i broke up on 30th august after almost 4 years together.
i honestly still don’t know how to process the whole thing.
she was a massive part of my life. i don’t want to sit here and act like she was a horrible girlfriend or that the entire relationship was toxic because that simply isn’t true. she stood by me through a lot, we had a lot of genuinely happy memories and for a long time i was convinced i was going to marry her.
the last 6 months of the relationship were pretty bad for me mentally. i started having severe anxiety and panic attacks, mostly related to my health, and i was constantly worried and overwhelmed. i know that affected me as a person and definitely affected the relationship too.
on top of that my business/career and finances were stressing me out badly.
there was also some financial pressure within the relationship that i don’t think i really acknowledged while i was in it. sometimes i felt like there were expectations around spending, gifts, going out, lifestyle etc that i was struggling to keep up with while already dealing with financial pressure.
i’m not saying she was with me for money or anything like that. that wouldn’t be fair at all. but i did sometimes feel pressure to provide or spend in a way that was difficult for me at the time.
and i’ll admit that instead of communicating that properly, i would sometimes bottle it up, get frustrated and react badly.
we had other issues too. we fought a lot at times. there were unhealthy patterns from both sides. she says she felt pressured and that she lost herself in the relationship.
i can accept that i made mistakes. there are definitely things i did that i regret. there were times i was controlling, reactive and difficult.
i’m actually trying to work on those things now.
but one thing that has been really difficult for me after the breakup is that it feels like the entire relationship has now been turned into something where everything was my fault.
like the story now is basically:
i was the problem, she tolerated me for years and finally had enough.
and i don’t really think that’s fair either.
there were things that hurt me too. there were breakup threats during fights. there were financial pressures. there were times i felt dismissed. there were things i put up with because i was terrified of losing her.
i’m not saying this to avoid responsibility.
i know i hurt her in some ways.
but she hurt me in some ways too.
i don’t think a relationship of almost 4 years falls apart completely because of one person.
another thing that is really difficult for me is our different ideas of commitment.
whenever my career or business was struggling, whenever money was stressful, even during the last 6 months when i was having really bad anxiety attacks, she was still non-negotiable for me.
i never thought “my life is difficult right now so maybe i should get rid of the relationship.”
if anything, she was the person i wanted beside me while everything else was going wrong.
but when her own life started becoming really difficult, it felt like the relationship was one of the first things she dropped.
i know that sounds harsh and maybe she sees it completely differently. maybe from her perspective the relationship itself had become one of the things making her life worse.
but emotionally it feels like:
when my life was falling apart, i still chose us. when her life started falling apart, us was something she could let go of.
that really hurts me and makes me question whether we understood commitment the same way.
after we broke up on august 30th, things became even more confusing.
there were moments where she was still warm with me. at one point she told me she hadn’t completely moved on. she said maybe if we were meant to be together we would meet again someday as better versions of ourselves.
she even told me i could text her whenever i felt low.
obviously i took that as some kind of hope.
then over the next few weeks she became much colder.
eventually i directly asked if there was any hope for us at all and she told me no.
she even said there wasn’t even 1% space left for me in her heart.
that sentence honestly destroyed me.
i tried going no contact after the breakup but i’ve broken it three times.
each time it’s basically the same thing.
i miss her, start overthinking, convince myself that one conversation will make me feel better or give me some clarity, contact her and then somehow feel 10x worse afterwards.
i’m starting to realise that no contact can’t be some strategy where i secretly hope she notices my absence and comes back.
i actually need to do it because i’m hurting myself by constantly going back.
i’ve now stopped sending snapchat streaks too and i’m trying to stop checking her stories/posts because even that sends me into a spiral.
another thing i’m really struggling with is how unaffected she looks.
i know social media is fake and i obviously don’t know what she feels privately.
but she looks like she’s just living her life normally.
meanwhile i’ve cried in front of my parents, had anxiety, checked my archived chats constantly to see if she messaged, reread old conversations and analysed every tiny thing she says or posts.
sometimes i miss her like crazy.
sometimes i’m angry at her.
sometimes i think about all the fights, the financial pressure, the breakup threats and the way it feels like everything has been blamed on me and i get really bitter.
then i remember how much she did for me over the years and all the times she actually stood by me and i feel guilty for even being angry with her.
my mind keeps bouncing between:
“maybe i ruined everything”
and
“why am i carrying all the blame for something that clearly had problems on both sides?”
i also keep thinking stupid things like what will everyone think about me now, what if she was the only person i’ll ever love like this, what if i never find anyone else, what if she moves on completely and i’m still stuck here.
my family has been really supportive. my sister basically keeps telling me that i need to stop reacting to every little thing my ex does and start accepting that it’s over.
and honestly i know she’s probably right.
i’m also slowly realising that i don’t need to convince myself that my ex was a horrible person in order to move on.
she wasn’t.
she loved me. she stayed through some really difficult parts of my life. we had something real.
but at the same time i don’t think i should ignore the things that hurt me either just because i still love her.
maybe the relationship was genuinely good and loving for years and still became unhealthy towards the end.
maybe both things can be true.
i think that’s the hardest thing for me to accept.
something can be real, meaningful and full of love and still end.
it’s only been a little over a month since the breakup so maybe i’m expecting myself to be okay way too quickly.
for anyone who has been through a long relationship ending, how did you stop waiting for them to come back?
how did you stop checking if they missed you?
how did you deal with breaking no contact and restarting again?
did you also start noticing things after the breakup that you had been ignoring during the relationship?
and has anyone else struggled with this feeling of:
“when i was at my worst, you were still non-negotiable to me. when you were at your worst, i became something you could let go of.”
how do you make peace with that?
i’m not really looking for ways to make her miss me anymore.
i just want to reach a point where my life doesn’t revolve around whether she does.