u/babysprites

We were together for almost 10 years (ages 16-25 for me) and lived together for 2 years, until I reached my lowest low, and the relationship, already under strain, did not survive. I still don’t understand why I acted in the way that I did, and I’m not sure that I will ever forgive myself. I tried my best to grow since the break up, to show that I’ve changed and healed, but it was too late.

At the time, I wanted to escape even the relationship, which before we lived together, was my escape from life. It became sort of a cocoon. He was the light of my life and a sort of psychological container for me. He saw me and mirrored me and was the only person I felt completely safe with.

He moved a few states away after we broke up. It’s been 2.5 years since the break up, and I’m still processing it. It was too painful to process all at once. Despite my mistakes, he said he wanted me in his life still because he adores me as a person and my personality. We maintained some level of connection in these 2.5 years, sending each other music or memes. FaceTiming here and there. I feel like I’ve essentially watched him detach from me in real time, which felt like slow torture.

I arrived at this level of awareness a little too late. The relationship is done yet I am still holding onto it. He has a girlfriend now. My ego is completely flaring up over it. At first, I felt like I was detaching from him too when he told me this. But it seems my ego has only clung harder as time has passed. I can hold two realities at once, that I am in pain, but I also want him to be happy. I respect their relationship and have kept my feelings to myself.

That’s what’s also so painful about all of this. The one person I never had to mask for, I can now only interact with while masking.

The connection just exists digitally now, and we rarely talk. I feel erased. It’s difficult to have a casual connection with someone who once knew you deeply. It makes me genuinely feel insane, like I’m in a bad dream. I feel like I’m drowning.

I have the impulse to completely cut it off, but something is stopping me. I can’t fully let him go. I want to be mature. I still care about him as a person too. I don’t want to sever the bond and act like it never existed, which is what it seems my mind wants to do. I’m trying to see this impulse as a reflection of my own life, that I need to get busy and meet new people and so on. But I feel so depressed. And I really can’t connect with anyone on the same level.

I think I’m just going to completely back off from him now, but with him still on my friends list, my immature brain still tortures me with glimpses of hope and fantasy. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I feel so lame and childish.