u/SadNarwhal7

So I have ADHD and this discard has been extra difficult for me. He and I weren’t even together that long, but just due to the fact that our time together was so intermittent and the actual time together was very exciting and full of dopamine, I got extremely attached somehow. This totally would have been fine in a normal relationship, but with an avoidant, he kinda left me at the exact moment I was at the height of it all and very interested/invested in him and fully attached. For me, the beginning part of a relationship can feel like an addiction.

I’ve successfully made it through a month of no contact and I’m continuing to push through it every day. I just find myself going through never ending thought loops. It’s like I’m still talking to him even though he’s not around. We aren’t even friends on social media. I’m trying to force myself to think about other things or read books or ANYTHING ELSE, but nothing is helping. I’m coming to realize that I’m probably going to be grieving this relationship for like 6x longer than it even lasted. I was in my car crying today because it feels like my brain is kinda torturing itself unnecessarily.

I guess the solution is just time, I’m just wondering if anyone else can relate to the extra layer of dealing with a breakup/discard by an avoidant partner while having ADHD. :/ I feel like I’m going through withdrawal.

Is it not responding at all / leaving them on read? Responding but not entertaining the idea of rekindling anything? Honesty without opening the door again?

Mine hasn’t reached back out and probably never will, I’m just curious.

I love going out to new restaurants, city walks, attending random events, grabbing coffee or baked goods, trips to Powell’s, etc.

For some quick context, I don’t know for a fact that he has ROCD, but he told me he was diagnosed with OCD. He’s in his 30s and told me that his longest relationship was 9 months, and then the way things ended between us made me wonder more about it being ROCD. That’s why I’m here.

So I was seeing a guy for a month and I really liked him. I told him as much and honestly treated him like a king. I cooked for him, showered him in compliments, love, kisses, hugs, you name it. It was early on and I was trying to impress him I guess. I felt very strongly about him, but I was also trying to ease into it with him and not overwhelm him.

Sometimes he seemed really into it and he seemed like he really liked me. He was the one who pursued me in the first place and asked for my number. Then randomly, sometimes we’d be hanging out and it was almost like he’d shut completely down and I didn’t know if something was on his mind or what was going on.

Finally, flash forward a month later, I notice the same thing is happening one morning after a truly magnificent night together. I make a comment about how it’s sometimes hard for me to understand him. I didn’t say this to be mean, I didn’t yell or say it dramatically at all in my opinion. Then we had to say goodbye a few minutes later, so we hugged and he left.

I asked him two days later if I could see him again. He schedules a call with me, then on the call he says that I seemed furious and that the hug I gave him was stiff and cold. For the record, I thought it was a normal hug. He said he’d been ruminating about it and feeling guilty and that we needed to end things. Then he said that our relationship didn’t seem like it could grow into more than just a physical one… which hurt. And also confused me because I really thought we had a strong emotional connection too.

I know I need to get over it, and rejection is part of life. It just shocked me so much and I’m still not over it. It was so fast and happened over something that felt so small to me. Seeing it as ROCD is helping, but I guess my question for this community is about regret.

Have you ended something out of compulsion only to realize that you made a mistake? How long did it take to realize it? Have you ever cited something as a reason for it needing to end that wasn’t really true for you? (I’m super stuck on him saying that I didn’t seem like someone he could develop more than a physical relationship with 😭 that’s crushing me).

Any thoughts, advice, or kind words would really be appreciated. I would have done anything to make him happy and feel comfortable and now I just feel like a fool.

I recently got out of a 10 year relationship and it was horrible to go through the waves of grief after something like that. I saw a life with him and a forever at one point. We weren’t married but called each other husband and wife. But things went sour due to his alcoholism and addiction issues and I was put in a position where I had no other choice but to leave.

I grieved very hard, and then things started to look up. I started to feel happy again. And then immediately a new guy appeared in my life, asked for my number, and things started up with him very quickly. I recognized that it was maybe too soon, and early into the process, but his entry into my life felt like a sign that I needed to follow.

A month later, the new guy breaks up with me. We weren’t even fighting, and the last time we saw each other he told me he just doesn’t have time to give me what I deserve. Perhaps he’s sincere in that. It’s just hard for me not to take it personally.

I didn’t even know him all that well. It was just one month. But now I feel plopped right back onto the embers of grief and I’m feeling pretty gutted. I hate this feeling. I’m losing hope in a decent future out there for myself. Sometimes it just feels like I’ll die alone. :/

Sorry for the emo post, but that’s just how I’m feeling. Anyone else?

You weren’t violent. You weren’t cruel. You never hit me or screamed at me. So I asked myself, over and over, why I was so unhappy. I wondered if I was the problem. If I expected too much. If maybe it was all my fault.

You stopped coming to bed. Every night, you chose the couch instead. You said it was “more comfortable.”

You didn’t want the meals I cooked. You wanted fast food at 1:00 a.m., when you were at your drunkest. You’d hide the leftovers all over the house and forget about them by morning because you couldn’t remember where you’d put them. Sometimes you’d order a pizza and pass out before answering the door, leaving me to find it sitting outside the next morning, delivered hours earlier.

You stopped wanting to walk with me. Unless you had run out of alcohol. Then you’d invite me out for a walk… to the liquor store.

There’s intimacy, and then there’s what we became, which was squeezed to death until we no longer had the smallest intimacy of sharing a meal together. We stopped holding hands. We stopped kissing. We stopped saying, “I love you.”

Little by little, you disappeared. And I dissolved into my loneliness.

I kept asking myself: If you are always here, why have I never felt so alone?

And then one day, it finally dawned on me. I wasn’t in a relationship with you anymore. How could I have been, when your heart belonged to something else? Your addiction. It had taken you long before I realized you were gone.

Until I realized I hadn’t been talking to you at all, but myself with your ghost in the corner.

Mine wasn’t violent. Mine wasn’t cruel. Mine never hit me or screamed at me. So I asked myself, over and over, why I was so unhappy. I wondered if I was the problem. If I expected too much. If maybe it was all my fault.

Mine stopped coming to bed. Every night, he chose the couch instead. He said it was “more comfortable.” More comfortable than our bed?

Mine didn’t want the meals I cooked. Mine wanted fast food at 1:00 a.m., when he was at his drunkest. He’d hide the leftovers all over the house and forget about them by morning because he couldn’t remember where he’d put them. Sometimes he’d order a pizza and pass out before answering the door, leaving me to find it sitting outside the next morning, delivered hours earlier.

Mine stopped wanting to walk with me. Unless he had run out of alcohol. Then he’d ask me to go for a walk… to the liquor store.

There’s intimacy, and then there’s what we became, which was squeezed to death until we no longer had the smallest intimacy of sharing a meal together. We stopped holding hands. We stopped kissing. We stopped saying, “I love you.”

Little by little, he disappeared. And I dissolved into my loneliness.

I kept asking myself: If this man is always here, why have I never felt so alone?

And then one day, it finally dawned on me. I wasn’t in a relationship with him anymore. How could I have been, when his heart belonged to something else? His addiction. It had taken him long before I realized he was gone.

He was never really mine at all.

Curious if anyone has ever done delivery directly from Walgreens. I’m not purchasing any OTC items. I’ve found that instacart is really unreliable. Tried to have menstrual pads delivered once from a local pharmacy and the instacart driver claimed that the pharmacy was all out of them. 😅

I hate it here lol, and just trying to find words from someone who understands. I generally like memoirs more than self help but open to anything.

How long did it take you? We were together for almost 10 years and went no contact about 2 weeks ago, which I realize is not much time at all. However, I’m really struggling right now. Some days seem to be better than others but then I have a thought or memory that takes me back and it’s so painful. For very longterm relationship breakups, how long did it take you to recover and move on?

I’m sorry I lost my temper the other day. I got frustrated because I felt like you were ignoring me all week and wouldn’t get on the phone with me because you didn’t want to tell me that you’d made the decision to live with your parents this summer instead of me. I wanted to talk about that, at least to be on the same page about what it all meant for us, and I never got the opportunity. I kind of figured that’s what was going on by Friday but I was hoping you’d just tell me. When you didn’t, my anger got the best of me and I realized that your parents knew more than I did. In all honesty, I just felt left out of the conversation and embarrassed.

I’m writing this message to say that I’m sorry. After 10 years, you deserve a better goodbye than that. I really love you still and I care about you a lot, and I’m really hurting deeply right now. It stinks when you go through something like this and the whole thing starts playing back like a sad movie. That said, I think you made the decisions that you made because you wanted some space from me and you weren’t happy. You deserve to be happy.

I want you to know that you mean the world to me, and although I had an outburst the other day, I’m not mad at you. I just wish that things could have been different. I have a lot of regrets. More than anything, I wish I could go back in time and fix it all, but I can’t do that anymore. All I can do right now is tell you how sorry I am for everything and tell you how much I hope you get better.

I guess all is said and done, but I want you to know that when you find your footing again, if you ever want to reach out, I’ll be here.

I guess my loneliness journey starts with giving my heart to the wrong person and being with them for 9 years. The past few years of our relationship has involved moving to different cities, which sounded interesting to me, but as a result I lost all of my friend groups in the places I left and was never able to build a sense of community. Things are ending with my relationship, we are no longer living together and I haven’t seen him in 5 months (long story). Now I’m back to a place I lived 4 years ago and most of my old friends here have moved away. I’m in a new city with no one. And yeah, although I have some friends, I’m an introvert and as a result I have probably spoken like 50 words or less in the last week.

I am not young, but I’m 33. I still full of life and full of love. I’m sad that this is where I am right now. At the end of the day, I just feel so so so alone. It’s like I’m in an echo chamber. I just want a hug and someone to watch a movie with.