r/BreakUps

My ex and I broke up and agreed to take a week apart. After that week, he decided that our relationship wasn’t good for either of us anymore. He told me he loved me and would think about me every day for the rest of his life, but then he blocked me on every platform without even giving me a chance to respond or have one final conversation.
What confuses me is that, in the past, he was the one who begged me several times to work things out when we had problems. So when I tried to reach out to him this time, I didn’t see it as a matter of pride. I saw it as mutual effort. If he had fought for me before, I wanted to show him that I was willing to fight for us too.
I realized he hadn’t blocked me on Spotify, so I messaged him there, hoping we could work things out. I also asked my cousin, whom he still followed on Instagram, to tell him to check his Spotify messages. They rarely talked, except when he asked her about me. After that, he blocked me on Spotify too and told my cousin that “sometimes loving someone means letting them go.” He didn’t block her or unfollow her.
A week later, I realized I still had him on Snapchat. He was watching my stories, so I thought nothing of it. Today, after two weeks of not talking and one week since he made the breakup final, I felt calmer and decided to send him a simple “Hey, how are you?” I wasn’t trying to beg him to come back. I just didn’t understand why he had cut me off everywhere without allowing us to have a proper conversation and end things on better terms. He ended up removing me from Snapchat too.
I genuinely don’t understand how someone can tell you they love you and will think about you for the rest of their life, then suddenly treat you like a complete stranger. Can you love someone that much and still block them everywhere? Do you think he did it because he still has feelings and needs distance to move on, because he’s completely done with the relationship, or for some other reason? And did watching my Snapchat stories mean anything, or was it probably meaningless?
I know nobody can know exactly what’s going through his mind, but I’d really appreciate honest opinions, especially from people who have been in a similar situation or have been the ones to end a relationship this way. I’m not necessarily hoping he’ll come back; I just want to understand the contradiction between what he told me and how he chose to leave. Why say you’ll love someone forever, then cut them out of your life as if they never mattered?

TLDR -- I had a relationship last year that only lasted a few months last year, but left a profound impact on me. It was an all-consuming love for me from the first date. He was the first guy that I really liked, and I consider him my first love in many ways. I didn't realize how much, or how deeply, I could love until I met him. I was willing to move or change many plans or ideas of my future to align with the future that he wanted, and think long-term. I wanted long-term with him. I'd never experienced that before.

But it became long distance, it was hard, and we broke up. And the past year has been fine, I was I was in a really good spot until recently when I learned he has a new girlfriend. A girl who seems like an upgraded version of me. And he's doing long distance for.

Much of our time together, I was insecure that maybe I wasn't good enough for him. It made me anxious and hesitant to share things about myself, anxious about being burdensome and reach out to him. I feel like I ruined things, and chased away someone good. He feels like a great guy, and I fear that I lost someone really great because I wasn't able to be good enough, both in who I was and the way I acted. Seeing him with a new girl makes me feel like it was just me — I wasn’t good enough for him.

I have yet to meet anyone that I feel about like that again, or anyone near that. I feel like I was previously anxiously-attached, and now I'm so avoidant. I find people cute and can flirt, but any sign of anything more serious and I want to run away. I can't imagine getting into anything serious after this, can't imagine ever being able to feel like that again.

And I'm a little scared of how much I was willing to re-format my life around another person, and I'm scared I will feel like that again. But at the same time, if I don't feel that height or depth of love again, do I really want it? Is that even love, or just someone I like enough to be my companion?

I feel like I'm backsliding, and I'm emotionally stuck. I want to move forward and I do want to find love again. but it's hard.

My friend told me that you will feel like this many times in your life, and it's only because this is the first time I've felt this, it's why I fear I'll never find it again. I've many people this year, and I can't help but fear that it won't happen again.

Yep. They always come back. And when they do, your job is to make sure you don’t let them back in.
Don’t fall for all those sweet words and promises. Sometimes they’re just checking if you’re still stupid enough to welcome them back. 😂
Never again. You already gave them a chance. They chose to walk away so let them stay gone.

I learned this lesson the hard way. Four years ago, he left me. Months later, he came back, and I accepted him because I loved him and believed things would be different. Four years later, he left me again right when we were about to celebrate one year of being engaged. And now he’s coming back again. But this time, I’m not repeating the same mistake. I’m finally choosing myself and stopping the cycle. I’m done wasting years waiting for someone who can’t make up his mind about me. He already had his chance. He came back once, I welcomed him, and I gave him four more years. That should have been enough. This time, coming back doesn’t mean getting me back. I learned the lesson. And I’m not wasting another year learning it again.

i loved you in the smallest ways. in the calls that lasted too long, in the nights I fell asleep knowing you were still there, in the shows we watched until they became yours even when you weren’t beside me. i loved you in your ordinary days the tired ones, the quiet ones, the days when you didn’t feel like yourself. for three years, you were more than someone i loved. you were home. and maybe that’s why i held on so tightly when home started feeling a little farther away.
you said you needed space. you said you wanted to find yourself. and i tried to understand while a part of me was screaming, please don’t forget to find your way back to me. i wanted reassurance. you wanted room to breathe. i reached for you. you pulled away. and somewhere between the things i needed and the things you couldn’t give, we stopped being us against the problem and became you against me, me against you, both of us forgetting that neither of us was supposed to be the enemy. i don’t think you stopped loving me all at once. i think sometimes love gets quieter before you realize it’s leaving. and i think that’s what hurts most. because i know you loved me. i know i loved you. and somehow those two things weren’t enough. you told me you were numb. you told me you didn’t know
how to fix it. and i heard you, even when every part of me wanted to say, i’ll wait. i’ll try harder. i’ll love you enough for both of us. but i finally learned that i can’t carry a relationship for two people. so here i am,
three years of memories in a life that suddenly has an empty space in it. i still hear you in songs you used to play. i still see you in the things we made routine. sometimes i even dream that you came back and everything is easy again. in those dreams, there is no distance. no numbness.
no breakup. just us. and waking up is its own kind of heartbreak. but i don’t want to remember us only for how we ended.
because before the ending, there was laughter. there was comfort. there were nights i felt completely loved. there was a boy who knew things about me i thought id never tell anyone. there was a girl who believed in him even when he couldn’t believe in himself. there was an entire life
we thought we’d have. and maybe that’s what grief is: not just missing a person,
but mourning the future you thought you were going to live together. i don’t know
if our story ends here. maybe someday our paths find each other again. maybe they don’t. but i hope wherever life takes you, you become the person you always wanted to be. and i hope i become someone who no longer has to beg to feel chosen. because i will always love the version of us that existed. but i am learning that loving what we were doesn’t mean i have to keep waiting for what we could have been. you were my home for three years. and now, I’m learning how to come home to myself.

Alright, so you want the best advice possible for getting your ex back, and I am going to tell you what that is. Unfortunately, you're really going to hate me for telling you this: you need to NEVER contact this person again.

That is the no-contact rule that you've heard so much about, but the difference is that it's not 30 days. It's FOREVER. It's as long as it takes for this person to message or call you.

The reason you need this to happen is twofold. Number one, you need to demonstrate that you have too much dignity to chase someone that's okay with ditching you. Basically, you have to remember this person has proven themselves to be a bad boyfriend or girlfriend to the point that they have broken up with you. That's not really the type of person you want to go out with. And if they've broken up with you, they probably need a lot of time and space away from you. The worst thing you could do is chase them and smother them and cement the idea in their head that they can do better than you, which is not true.

If they were happy enough to get into the relationship and there was no huge, overwhelming reason to break up, then you're still equal to them. You can still come back into this relationship if you follow what I'm saying.

Otherwise, let me say, if you followed the 30-day no-contact rule that all of these people are advising you on YouTube right now-and don't forget to buy their action plan or sign up for their coaching-the reason that's bad advice is that they basically say to you: you need to walk away and become attractive and demonstrate your strength, dignity, and self-respect. This is all true. Then day 30 comes along, and they say, "Now I want you to undo all of that and go back to begging, pretty much."

Anything you do at this point is begging in a way. Obviously, there are degrees of how badly you can do it, but by reaching out to this person, you're still showing that you need them and that you want them back. You cannot let this person think that right now. Thirty days means nothing. It's not long enough. You need to leave this person forever and make them doubt the decision.

If you've done nothing ever since the breakup- not contacted them once- even better. Now they're stuck alone wondering what you're doing. Did they make the right choice? How are you this strong? You seem very attractive because now they know they shouldn't be contacting you. The longer it is, even more so. They're thinking, “I really shouldn't reach out at this point, but I'm so curious. What are they doing?”

And anyone they're seeing in the meantime is actually good news for you. It doesn't feel like it, unless you were dumped specifically for this person. But if they are dating someone new, you're just going to be compared to this new person. And then when they break up with this new person—because that's often what happens after a relationship; the quickest one afterwards just doesn't work out because they're not really ready to open their heart and soul to a new person—that new person may get dumped in a kind of irrational way. Then they'll act very crazy afterwards because they'll be thinking, “What the hell is with this? There was no rational reason. I deserve a rational reason.”

The more crazy they act, the better you look. That just cements the idea in your ex's head that you are a very strong, mature person. Now they're extra curious about what you're doing. Did you just go find someone else? Probably, is what they're thinking. Then, if they start imagining that you've probably got someone else, that's them thinking you're a very attractive person.

But if you chase after them and keep contacting them, they're not really going to think you found someone else because they know you're still on the bench waiting for them.

Everything you do in the meantime, if you contact them, communicates that you're on the bench waiting. You're not going to find someone else, you're not falling in love; you're just waiting for their attention to come back to you. That's a big mistake.

You need this person to sit down, search within themselves, and eventually feel desperate enough to contact you. That's right: desperate enough. If they do contact you, they want to see you. They need to know. They're like a drug addict bouncing off the walls in their head. They need to see you; they need to know what's going on. They're going crazy. It wasn't a spontaneous message of, “I wonder what my ex is up to. Seems like enough time has passed.” No. They have been thinking about you a lot, and you need that to happen.

Because if you follow this 30-day rule and it works—and maybe it will work to get them back initially—what happens is your ex's eyes have already wandered. They wanted to see if the grass was greener somewhere else. Then they were like, “Oh, this isn't ideal,” and you came back. They think, “Okay, that is the easiest option. Maybe I was being irrational.” But they didn't have to earn you back.

You have to remember you are a high-value person who needs to be earned. There has to be a price for this person walking away. They have to make a gesture to you. It's not about what massive gesture you can make; it's about what gesture they need to make to communicate to you that they are worth getting back with. Do not doubt your own value and power in this situation.

Now here's the second reason. Let's say you win this person back and you're in the relationship again after your 30 days or whatever it is. If you just begged and pleaded and got it back, now you are going into this relationship with a huge amount of insecurity. You're terrified this person is going to leave again. They left once, and now you're not acting like yourself. You're no longer authentic.

If you've been following some 30-day no-contact rule program, then you feel as if you need to follow this other person's advice. You're no longer yourself in this relationship. You're scared they're going to leave. And they're also thinking, “I didn't have to earn you back.” That is not the formula for a winning relationship, and you know it isn't.

So your best option—the best advice you can get for getting your ex back—is to do no contact. Make them doubt it, and do it as long as it takes. It doesn't mean, “Oh, it's been three months, four months, five months; now it should be okay for me to reach out.” No. This person has no value to you unless they reach out to you. They determine their value to your life by whether or not they contact you. Do not forget that.

You need to remember that you have value. If this person doesn't want to see you—which is probably the case if they're not contacting you—then to hell with them. You just keep moving on. You date more people. You get your own strength back and realize that you're a great person to be around. You don't mind being alone. You have a great time dating other people. You have a great time working on yourself and working on your career. This person was just the cherry on top, and that will become clear when you start getting perspective.

If they do contact you, then you'll know they want you back. If they don't, then you know they don't want you back. But the good news is that by engaging in no contact, they're going to contact you. It might take a long time, but they're going to contact you if you don't embarrass yourself and don't give them a reason to feel scared to contact you. They're going to be so curious about how the hell you walked away.

Especially if they're a very attractive person who's used to having messy breakups where the ex never leaves them alone and is always reaching out, that's even better. Now you're proving you're different, and it's going to get to them. They're going to doubt their decision, and you're going to seem more and more attractive in their eyes because, how the hell have you just walked away and never looked back? That means you must be equal to them—or better than them. That's what they're thinking.

So don't worry. They're going to suffer from this breakup too, but it's going to be different. Your suffering was up front; theirs is later, when the doubt comes and they start thinking about you more. But that will not happen if you keep contacting them.

If you keep contacting them, they're going to stay in the same position of power. They're never going to doubt their decision. They're just going to start feeling bad for you, and feeling sorry for someone is not attractive. You're going to look like a homeless person begging or pleading. Does it ever look like, “Wow, I need to engage with this person”? No. It's not an attractive position.

I know that sounded harsh, but you need to show this person that you're strong and capable, that you're attractive, and that you know you're going to be fine without them—because you were fine before.

That is the way they'll come back. They know you. They know you loved them. They're going to wonder if you still do. They know the relationship can work unless there's a huge reason that it can't, like if you went off and cheated or something like that—in which case you need to reflect on whether or not you're ready to be in a relationship, frankly.

But in the meantime, just stay strong. Do nothing. Don't wait for the text or the call. It will come when you least expect it, when they're going fully crazy. Once they lose the ability to expect you to contact them, they're going to want to even more.

But in the freak occurrence that they just don't—and I'd say this works about 70% of the time—then you need to be aware that there was nothing you could do. Contacting this person was never going to help. They're actually okay with never seeing you again. Think about that. Why do you want that person back if they don't even want to talk to you or ask how you're doing? Why would you want this person back? They're useless to your life.

Surround yourself with people who love you. Demonstrate self-love, and soon enough you won't care about these petty things that have happened. If this person isn't contacting you, they're not worth contacting.

The relationship will only work if they contact you. That way, you can feel as if they had to come back with their tail between their legs and that you demonstrated you're capable—not only to them, but to yourself—of living your life, being okay on your own, and finding other people, which you definitely can do.

So don't worry. Either way, it's never fully over unless they're married, I suppose, or we're dead. Once that door has been opened, it might be closed now, but it can always be reopened. Don't doubt it.

That person will contact you, and when they do, you have to be aware that they're not contacting you for no reason. You are not a random friend. You are not a stranger. They're contacting you because you have a romantic history together and they want to see you, so don't panic. It's all going to be fine.

But for the moment, don't even waste your time thinking about them. As I said, they currently have no value to your life, and if they want some value, they can contact you. In the meantime, go back to being your beautiful, brave, confident self, and everything will fall into place. Trust me on that.

Letting go of someone you fucking love and telling yourself to “cherish the good moments” is the biggest, fattest fucking gaslight you can feed yourself.

Don’t dress up the loss just to make it easier to swallow. Don’t tell yourself it’s beautiful. Don’t tell yourself it’s not really a loss because you still have the memories. That’s bullshit.

The reality is much uglier "someone you love is no longer choosing you". They walked away and you have no fucking say in it. You don’t get to keep them around just because you still love them. You’re forced to let go of someone you would have chosen to keep.

Yes, the good moments happened. Yes, they meant something. But stop pretending those memories somehow cancel out the fucking devastation of losing the person who made those memories with you. You can cherish them and still fucking grieve. One does not erase the other.

People love saying, “It’s okay to let go.” “Be grateful for what you had.” “You’ll find someone else.” “It’s not a loss because you’ll always have the memories.” "You guys did truly loved each other".

No. That’s just putting fucking wrapping paper around a loss and pretending it’s a gift.

You lost someone you loved. That is a loss. It fucking hurts. It’s devastating. And you don’t get to decide one morning that you’re done hurting just because everyone else thinks you should be moving on.

Think about it. All the memories you made together eventually become one big fucking lesson. Yes, a lesson. Not something you look back on and think, “Wow, that was fun!” No. It becomes a fucking lesson you carry for the rest of your life, reminding you that you lost someone special because you didn’t do better when you had the chance.

You can’t fucking gaslight yourself into healing.

All you can do is keep fucking going until time does what you’re incapable of doing right now. Because eventually time dulls it. Eventually, the memories fade. Eventually, you forget enough to breathe without feeling like you’re being ripped apart.

That’s the fucking truth.

Eat it.

In January, my partner broke up with me. Since then, it’s been about 8 months of ups and downs, tough moments, and better ones... But if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that not a single day has gone by where I haven't thought about her. Not necessarily thinking about getting back together—she simply popped into my head. During all this time, I always carried one specific fear: running into her. Ever since the breakup, we maintained strict zero contact. In my case, I unfollowed her, her friends, her family... just to make sure I wouldn't see anything related to her.

However, a week ago, while I was out with some friends, I ran into her. I went over to say hello, we hugged, and she asked if we could talk somewhere quiet. We spent 5 hours alone together, talking for the first time since the breakup. We talked about everything: what we’d been up to, how we were coping with the breakup... It was a really beautiful, deep conversation between two people who shared a very meaningful part of their lives. We came to the realization that both of us were still struggling, that people around us assumed we should be completely fine by now, but that breakups have their own timeline... Things that many of you in this forum already know. Finally, I drove her home, we hugged goodbye, she cried, she apologized, and I told her not to worry—that she had done what she felt was best at the time. Then I left. We haven't spoken since.

Why am I sharing this? Because ever since we met, I feel so much better. For a few reasons. First of all—and this probably happens to many of you without even realizing it—throughout all this time, I had been unconsciously idealizing her to an extreme level. When I saw her again, I realized this. I had imagined she’d be fully recovered, that she’d almost forgotten about me, about who I am, about our relationship, and that she was doing better than ever without me... Seeing that she, just like me, had bad days, bad weeks, and needed help from her friends, made me realize the whole movie I had created in my head.

On the other hand, after so much time, I was really surprised by my body's reaction. At no point did I feel the impulse to look for intimacy, kisses, physical contact... You know what I mean. I simply wanted to talk to her, see how she was doing, and hope everything was going well for her. It wasn't until running into her and talking that I realized all the work I had put in over these past months was actually paying off.

I’m sharing this because I find it interesting how I thought I was nowhere near getting over her, yet an event as potentially traumatic as running into the person who dumped you—and for whom you’re still hurting—turned out to be the exact turning point of my healing process. This doesn't mean I'm 100% recovered. I still have moments where I think "What if...", I still miss her, and I still wish I could get a hug from her during tough times... But time, combined with the work you put into yourself, definitely shows its results when you least expect it. Healing isn't a linear process, it's not the same for everyone, and I hope reading this can help you find that faith and hope if you're currently going through a rough patch.

No contact gives your ex what they want

And gives you the best chances of making them come back

Breaking no contact should only take place under very specific circumstances

And relying on your self judgement while your emotions are so high is your biggest risk

i’m going through a bad breakup, it’s been about 6 weeks, no contact.

i definitely feel better, but that feeling of ‘did i lose the love of my life?’ won’t go away. i did have a similar situation with a guy when i was 17, we didn’t even end up dating we were just in a ‘situationship’ for 3 months. it took me about a year to get over it and i honestly didn’t think id find anyone else attractive ever again… but i did.

i keep asking because this is different. this was a 2 year relationship with someone who i was happy to spend the rest of my life with.

so people who have went through similar things, did you eventually realise they weren’t the love of your life? did you move on, find someone who was? are you able to think about them and not feel a thing?

Hey everyone
Just wanted to say im in a whatsapp group chat that's for people who are broken up and following or trying to follow no contact. We're around 30 people and it's very active. Personally it helped me a lot during tough times. If anyone wants to join send me a dm. Most members are 22yo minimum and are from the uk but everyone is welcome

Do man value when a lady fight for the relationship or just listen to them when they decided to move on?

I moved into my own place after leaving my partner of over three years and tonight I feel absolutely heartbroken.
I still love him. That’s probably the hardest part.
We didn’t break up because the love disappeared. We broke up because our relationship had become unhealthy. There had been so much arguing, resentment, hurt, poor communication and emotional reactivity from both of us. I got to a point where I knew something had to change because neither of us seemed capable of changing the dynamic while we were still living in it.
So I moved out.
We’re planning on having a period of no contact once everything with our shared house is sorted. We’re technically single, but we’ve also talked about using this time to work on ourselves and not immediately move on from each other.
Part of me feels strong and knows I needed to do this.
Then there are nights like tonight.
I’m sitting in my new home and I have this horrible deep sadness that I can physically feel in my throat. I miss him. I miss our home. I miss having my person there. And more than anything, I think I’m grieving what I wanted our relationship to become.
It’s such a strange feeling knowing you can love somebody deeply and still know that the relationship you had with them wasn’t okay anymore.
Has anyone else walked away while they were still completely in love?
How did you cope with those first nights alone?
And did the space eventually give you clarity about whether you actually wanted the person back, or whether you were grieving the life and familiarity you had with them?

I see so many posts here from people looking for any "logical" excuse to break "No Contact". You miss them, your anxiety is through the roof, and your brain invents a perfect, casual reason to text. A text about a book, a matching item, or a "safe" question. You convince yourself that you just want closure, or that a casual text won’t hurt.

Please, put your phone down and listen to me.

I am naturally an anxious attacher. I know exactly how that burning urge feels. But a while ago, I found myself in the avoidant's shoes with a guy. I was emotionally burnt out and explicitly asked him to leave me alone for a while and give me space. I needed to breathe. But his anxiety couldn't handle it. He kept finding "innocent" excuses to reach out anyway.

Do you really think I didn’t realize that all those excuses were made up? When he would text me things like, "Hey, I drew this for you," or "Hey, look at this funny meme, this is so us," it didn't make me smile. It just brought a massive feeling of suffocation right back to my soul. It made me feel a heavy sense of pressure. Every time his name popped up with a "harmless" message, it made me want to run even further away and hide deeper in my bunker. It completely killed any desire to talk to him, even though I knew he craved it and honestly deserved a conversation. His constant bids for attention only proved to me that he hadn't changed and still didn't respect my boundaries.

Now, look at your situation. If your ex asked for space, or if they walked away because of emotional burnout, your "casual" text about your feelings, or asking for advice is not going to look casual to them. Their avoidant radar will instantly see right through it. They will read it and think, "She/He hasn't changed. She/He is just using this as a tool to pull me back." It will only trigger that same feeling of suffocation, and they will go completely silent, leaving you ignored and broken all over again.

If you want them to realize that life is emptier without you, you have to let them experience your absolute, freezing absence. You cannot feed their ego with crumbs of your panic.

Take it from someone who has been on the receiving end of that anxious pressure: your silence is your only power. Let them sit in the quiet room they chose, and let them wonder about you without your help.

I wrote this two days ago... that was when I knew it was the end of us. I'm not looking for help or judgement, I just wanted to share and write my emotions somewhere... In a place where some might feel the same way, maybe… or maybe not…

Today, i've felt the loneliest i could ever feel in my life, I never knew we could feel this way, but i guess  that's what happen when your whole universe turns around one person, and one person only. This is what happen when this person decide to leave you without telling you that it was the end.

The colors in the book you drew together faded, the loud love songs you made together turned down, the basket full of words, attention and love you shared just emptied. That's how I felt when I knew, this is where our story ends...

Today I'm sad, … Wanting to cry and not being able to is a type of pain I never knew existed. My chest hurts, my heart feels heavy, … My mind feels lost and broken… I’m just tired, and so sad… I feel the need to cry, I feel the tears behind my eyes, asking to be freed, but just can't yet let it go… I feel  like a broken music box. The music isn't playing anymore, the small dancer is still there, but just standing, unable to move, stuck into its own body… And in my case, mind.  

I know one day it will pass, but for now, I just feel like my whole world shattered. Everything I know and feel are all over the place, my mind lost the plot at some point. But I know deep inside me that it is the end of us. I saw the glimmer in your eyes that was saying you wanted to leave, just like sombr wrote in his own story haha. And I will probably end up seeing the eyes I fell for into the children you will have with another woman. 

We used to fight over who loved the other the most, and today, I think I won…  I never knew this victory would be the most painful experience of my life. I love you, and I will continue loving you for a long time. It's just painful to know I'm the only one left in this story we started together. 

Now I must be honest, you are the love of my life, the one i wrote my story with, i’m just not the one you wrote your real story with… You used to say I was yours everyday, and I was genuinely yours,... But you were never entirely mine, even if you used to say you were and I tried my hardest to believe you were. You were not. You are not, and you never will...

This is where my chapter ends. I don't know when I will write again, but I will. 

The end of us starts now…

I miss you. That’s really what I wanted to say to you.

I know that saying that doesn’t change anything. I know we’re not going to go back to before this happened, and I know that even if we could, I don’t know if I would want to go back to exactly what we had, knowing everything I know now.

But I still miss you.

I miss you despite everything. I miss the person you were to me, and I miss the life we had. I miss having you as my person. I miss the stupid everyday things. I miss having something happen and instinctively wanting to tell you.

And I’m angry.

I’m angry that we can’t go back and try again. I’m angry that you decided that leaving was better for you than trying. I know you thought you were doing the right thing, and I know you didn’t make the decision lightly. But I wanted you to try harder. I wanted you to want it enough.

I wanted you to believe in us like I did.

The hardest thing for me is that I would have kept going. I would have tried to fix the things that weren’t working. I would have adapted. I would have accepted that we weren’t perfect and thought that what we had was worth working for.

And maybe that was the difference between us.

You reached a point where you decided that we were incompatible. I reached a point where I thought we had things we needed to work on, but that the good we had was worth it.

I don’t know whether either of us was objectively right.

Maybe there were things you needed from me that I didn’t understand quickly enough. Maybe I made things harder than they needed to be. Maybe some of my reactions made you feel like you were constantly waiting for the next thing you’d done wrong.

But I also think there were things I needed from you that I didn’t fully understand while we were together.

I wanted to feel considered without always having to explain why something mattered to me. I wanted more of that natural thoughtfulness and intentionality. I wanted to feel like you were thinking about me in the little things, rather than me having to tell you what those little things meant.

And maybe you were trying. Maybe you did adapt. Maybe I didn’t always recognise that.

Maybe two people can love each other and genuinely try, and still not quite manage to make each other feel understood in the way they need.

That’s the part I hate.

Because I don’t want to turn you into a bad person just so I can get over you.

You weren’t.

You were someone I loved enormously. You made me happy. We had so much that was good. I felt loved by you. We laughed. We had fun. We made plans. We built a life together. There are so many memories that I don’t want to rewrite just because the ending hurts.

And then you walked away.

That’s the part I still can’t quite get my head around.

I keep thinking about the version of you from the beginning. The person who booked dinners, bought me little things, got excited about seeing me, made plans, and seemed so certain about us.

And then somehow we got here.

I wish I’d understood sooner that you were becoming unhappy. I wish I’d understood what was happening underneath all the little things we argued about. Maybe if I had, I could have done something differently.

But maybe I couldn’t.

Maybe you had already reached a conclusion I couldn’t have talked you out of.

And that’s what I have to accept.

I wish I knew what you think about now. I wish I knew whether you ever wonder if you made the right decision. I wish I knew whether you miss me in the way that I miss you.

But I can’t know.

And I can’t keep trying to get those answers from you.

So this is the part where I have to let you go, even though some part of me still desperately wants you to turn around.

I still hope that one day you understand what I was trying to say. I hope you understand that the things I reacted to weren’t always about the thing itself. Sometimes I was trying, badly, to tell you that I wanted to feel considered and understood.

And maybe I should have known how to say that better.

I hope you find happiness.

I genuinely do.

And if I’m being completely honest, there is still a small, selfish part of me that hopes one day you look back and wonder whether you gave up too soon.

Maybe you will.

Maybe you won’t.

But I can’t live waiting for you to change your mind.

You made your decision.

I didn’t get to make it with you, and I didn’t agree with it, but I have to live with it.

I wish I didn’t miss you.

I wish I could look at everything that happened and simply decide that you weren’t my person.

But that’s not where I am yet.

Right now, I just know that I loved you.

I still love you.

And I miss you

I posted here earlier about my ex suddenly unblocking me everywhere and asked whether I should contact her. Most people told me not to. I genuinely tried not to, but eventually my emotions got the better of me and I contacted her.

We ended up talking on the phone for almost 4 hours in total over two days.

I don’t even know exactly what I’m looking for by posting this. Maybe I just need to get everything out somewhere because yesterday I cried like hell and right now I’m finding it extremely difficult to accept everything.

For context, we were friends from around December 2021 and got into a relationship in March 2022. She was my first serious relationship and my first love.
We were together for around 3.5 years and finally broke up in September 2025.

After the breakup, we had around two months of no contact. Then we started talking again around November 2025.

November, December, January and most of February were relatively normal. We weren’t back together, but we were talking. At one point in February, our conversations even became romantic again, which obviously gave me some hope that maybe there was still something between us.

Then everything changed again.
During March and April, she started pushing me away really hard. At times she literally told me things like “I hate you” and “I don’t want to talk to you.”
It was incredibly confusing because not long before that, we had been talking normally and even romantically.
Then around May, I came to understand that she was with someone else.

After that, especially during June, I tried not to interfere with her life.
Eventually she blocked me. Later, around the time of our birthdays and after her birthday on September 22 ,she suddenly unblocked me again.

That’s what led to my previous Reddit post.
Everyone basically told me: Don’t read into the unblock. Don’t contact her. If she wants to talk, let her contact you.

I know you guys were probably right.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Eventually I contacted her.
During these calls, I finally directly asked her why she had unblocked me.

She told me that I had been running through her mind.
Hearing that obviously affected me because I still have feelings for her. But our conversation also made me realize how differently both of us see our relationship.

She told me that she had to push me away because she was suffering in the relationship.

And I want to be fair here.
I know I made mistakes.
I could be reactive sometimes. There were situations I handled badly, things I should have approached differently, and things I genuinely regret.

I’ve apologized to her for those things. If I had to look at our relationship honestly, I would say I probably contributed around half, maybe slightly more, to what went wrong.

I’m not trying to escape responsibility for that.
But what hurts me is that whenever we talk about our relationship, I feel like everything gets placed on me.
From her perspective, it sometimes feels like I was the reason everything went wrong and she was simply suffering because of me.

That’s difficult for me to accept because I remember things that hurt me too. I remember her mistakes too. I don’t think either of us was perfect.

Maybe that’s something I need to stop trying to resolve.
Maybe I don’t need her to agree with my version of the relationship.

Maybe she experienced our relationship one way and I experienced it another way, and we’re never going to completely agree about who was responsible for what.
After these four hours of conversations, I think something finally hit me:

I can’t keep living my life waiting for her.
Yes, she told me I was running through her mind.
Yes, she unblocked me.
Yes, we managed to talk for hours.
And yes, there are couples who break up, date other people, grow individually and somehow reconnect years later.

But I can’t build my life around the possibility that we’ll be one of those couples.
Right now, I’m single.
Right now, we aren’t together.
And right now, I need to learn how to live without constantly asking myself whether she’ll come back someday.

If life somehow brings us together again years from now, that’s something future me can deal with.
But present me needs to move on.
And honestly, I don’t know how.

I spent years loving this person. She was my first relationship. I pictured a future with her. Even after our breakup, because we kept talking on and off, I don’t think my brain ever completely accepted that the relationship was actually finished.

Every small thing kept restarting my hope.
She talks nicely → hope.
She becomes romantic in February → hope.
She pushes me away → heartbreak.
I find out there’s someone else → heartbreak.
She blocks me → heartbreak.
She unblocks me → hope again.
She says I was running through her mind → hope again.

I’m exhausted by this cycle.
Yesterday I cried so much.

I genuinely feel very low right now. I’m trying to build my career, I’m living abroad, and objectively I know I have an entire life ahead of me. But emotionally, part of me still feels stuck with the girl I fell in love with years ago.

I also know that immediately finding another girl isn’t magically going to fix me. I eventually want to date again and experience love again, but I don’t want to enter another relationship while secretly waiting for my ex.

So I’m asking this community for something different this time.

Please help me move on.
Not “How do I get her back?”
Not “Does her unblocking me mean she still loves me?”
Not “Will we reconnect someday?”
I’m tired of trying to decode everything she does.

For those of you who genuinely loved someone, spent years with them, broke up, kept going back and forth for months, and eventually managed to let go:
How did you finally accept that it was over?
How did you stop checking their socials?
How did you stop imagining that every little action meant they might come back?
How did you start dating again without comparing everyone to your ex?

And how did you forgive yourself for the mistakes you made in your first relationship without spending years thinking, “If only I had behaved differently, maybe we’d still be together”?

I know healing isn’t going to happen because of one Reddit post.
But right now I’m hurting badly, and I could genuinely use advice from people who have been on the other side of this.

I don’t want to hate her.
I don’t want to prove that she was wrong or that I was right.
I don’t even want to keep figuring out who was responsible for 50% or 60% of the breakup anymore.
I just want to reach a point where remembering her doesn’t destroy my day.

She Went into new relationship in March 26, after wishing me valentines day and romantic conversations.

She says she has been talking to him since November 25, but also she was saying she missed me in November.

She is saying her relationship is not a rebound.

Getting Your Ex From No Contact to Meeting Up

There are a lot of people whose exes have reached out, which is always a positive step, and they're wondering, "What should I say? What should I do?" and of course, "Have I already done the wrong thing?"

Before we proceed, please make sure to read Part 1 here : https://www.reddit.com/r/BreakUps/s/wkIyTiOZgw

So, we're gonna cover how to get your ex from no contact to meeting up.

First off, let me establish that your ex must initiate contact with you, if they are the ones who broke up with you. A lot of people will make the argument that if you don't contact your ex, then they're just gonna move on and forget about you. Well, this is a fear-based argument, and in reality, you wouldn't be satisfied in a relationship in which your ex had to contribute, I don't know, the bare bloody minimum. I mean, getting a text from your ex, having them initiate any sort of contact, is the bare minimum you could possibly expect from someone else. But a lot of people will suggest that you couldn't even expect that.

The reality is that you would be a lot more anxious in a relationship in which you just chased and pursued and manipulated your way back into. You need the other person to contact you because that way it rebalances the power and interest levels, and it psychologically demonstrates that they are open to conversation, which a lot of the time they're not going to be if you start approaching them. They're going to resist any sort of contact that you push onto them because they're the one that asked to end the relationship.

So, you need them to contact you, not just for them, but for you to be satisfied moving forward. Because otherwise, you're quite simply not going to accept that that's not a good enough standard for you to still pursue someone, them not even contacting you once after kicking you out of their life? Not good enough for you!

The mindset you need to have before your ex contacts you essentially is the reminder that the joy and happiness you felt in that relationship came from inside you, not from them. You do not need your ex; they are just an option in your future, not a priority. You need to tell yourself that you are dissatisfied with what has just happened and that, either way, you deserve better in the future. That way, either your ex returns as a better option and you get a better relationship, or you're going to find someone better, in which case you get a better relationship in the future. But this whole situation, this anxiety spiral at this breakup, this is not good enough for you. So, you are very content to move forward safe in the knowledge that your life is going to get better one way or the other.

Now then, after a period of no contact: tada! It's amazing, you've suddenly got this text! They're asking how you are or something about a mutual friend—who knows what it is. The point is, they're reaching out to you. They're fully aware they haven't contacted you in however long it's been, and you used to be in contact all the time. It wasn't a mistake. They're aware they're in communication with you, and they're anxious about how it's going to go.

So in this case, there are two things that you need to avoid: the past and pressure.

1. The Past

A lot of the time, people hear from their ex and they instantly resort to talking about the past. But the past is your enemy in these situations, because in the past, there is a failed relationship, there is a breakup back there. There is no need for you to talk about the past. This goes double for when people bring up the breakup. It's like, wow, you've had all this time apart to gain perspective and reflect on what's happened and grow as two individuals, and the moment that you get back in contact, what do you do? "Hey, let's continue that breakup argument! I was loving it!"

My friends, you need to stay away from the past; it is not your friend. You want to be talking in the present and future tense, and that way the past will seem more irrelevant when you're living in the moving present tense. So, by talking in this tense, you are demonstrating that is the tense that you are living in. A lot of us struggle to communicate with different individuals based on the tense they live in. You could probably apply this to even friends of yours- you can think about what tense people live in. Some people live in the present.

Well, in this case, you want your ex to be joining in on living in the present tense, because the present and the future are the only things that matter for your relationship together anymore. You're going to talk about what's happening to you currently in your life and what the great things that are coming up in your life that you're excited about are. But you don't go back and start rehashing the past, or talking about old memories, or how sad you've been, or anything that sounds like it's reading from the same script as the breakup. Otherwise, they will reprise the role of the breaker-upper, and they will get used to that dynamic and it will cement them in that position. You want all that dialogue from that breakup to seem forgotten, brushed under the rug of the hysteria of the breakup.

2. Pressure

Now, what do I mean by pressure? Well, a lot of the time when people are in conversations with their ex, they want to instantly start talking about getting back together. When people do this, what they're doing is they're projecting their anxieties onto their ex. They're thinking, "I know what I want. I don't like us being apart. I want us to get back to a relationship." But you have to remember, this other person has walked away from that relationship, which by definition means that they needed space from that relationship. They needed more distance, so they want to be free and independent.

And here you are trying to lock them down back into a commitment. And if you're not trying to lock them into a commitment, a lot of people get very pushy about meeting up, and that's gonna add more pressure and they're gonna pull away from that. It's gonna be their natural instinct to pull away if you start applying pressure, and they'll also leave that exchange thinking it was a mistake to contact you. "You're still living in the past, you're still trying to lock me down," and it's less likely they're going to contact you again, because that way they're associating every time they contact you with delving back into that past and experiencing the breakup again, which is painful for everyone involved.

So, you don't want to apply pressure to the situation because you have to remember, as we said, you don't need your ex. You have many options out there, so you should be totally unfazed.

What to do instead:

Anyway, they've now contacted you, so what do you do? Well, you keep the conversation light and entertaining, you talk in the present and future tense, and you exchange little inside jokes together until the conversation hits a peak. So that's what you need to do: you need to gauge the temperature of the conversation, and when it's at its peak and everyone seems satisfied, that's when you ask them to meet up in person.

A lot of the mistakes I see are when people start getting anxious in the exchange. Let's say you're having an interaction with your ex and it's going averagely - they're kind of pulling away a little bit, and then what do you do? You panic, you get anxious, and you go, "Oh, time to just go all-in and ask them, 'Hey, do you want to meet up for drinks?'" Okay, well, this is obviously not the time to do that, because the conversation is already dying, or it's cold, or else it's only starting.

By the way, if the conversation isn't at a hot temperature and doesn't feel like both people are having a positive interaction, that is not the moment to ask them out. Because basically, what you're communicating that way is, "Hey, I know that we've run out of conversation, but want to meet up and run out of conversation in person?" Of course not!

So this way, if it's at a peak, it seems more like, "Hey, this is a lot of fun, why aren't we doing it in person?" and they're far more likely to say yes.

Assuming everything has gone well, they'll just meet up with you and there'll be no questions asked, and you can have a fun, positive interaction and see how you both feel. You have to remember, you're not going into this exchange with the hopes of winning your ex back. That's an unbalanced way of looking at the situation. You're going in to have a fun, positive exchange and see how you feel, because maybe the feeling's still there for both of you, but maybe one of you has lost feelings, and maybe that person is you. You don't know yet. You might be the person that ends up walking away from the situation not interested. And if you go in with that mindset, you're actually far more likely to have a positive interaction because you don't have high stakes or pressure on the situation for yourself either, which will lower your anxiety.

But a lot of the time, an ex will push back a little bit. Even if the conversation is going well, they're gonna test around a little bit and see where you are mentally. So usually, the first thing they'll ask is, "Are we meeting up just as friends?"

Now, a lot of people will refer back to when I say or other people say that you shouldn't accept friendship, and they'll instantly respond, "No, we'll never just be friends." And while I agree that rejecting friendship is the right move, for this moment, when they ask you if you're going just as friends, you need to create a little gray area in which you say, "Well look, we have too much chemistry to just be friends, but it would be great to catch up anyway."

Now, the reason that you say something like that in your own words is that way you're not accepting friendship-you're reminding them that the reason you're not accepting friendship is because you both get along too well, so that's still a positive interaction that you would be having—and then you're suggesting that what you're doing isn't a date; you're catching up.

And that will often be the follow-up question they'll ask you: "Are we meeting just as friends, and is this a date?" Now, a lot of people will start applying pressure in those moments, and they'll want to confirm that, "Yes, this is a date, and yes, I want there to be romance here, and yes, I want us to get back together." These are all pressurized mistakes proving that you're living in the past.

You need to apply no pressure whatsoever. This meetup is happening in a gray area. It's somewhere between a date and just friends hanging out, because the reality is, you don't know how you feel either. So that way, you're gonna put their mind at ease and they're far more likely to meet up with you, having already confirmed that you're not just friends because you have too much chemistry, but you're also not going on a date, because a date is too serious for two people that aren't really sure how they feel and are now meeting up kind of just to test the water and see how it goes.

So anyway, that's getting your ex from no contact to meeting up. The key is:

Do not bring up the breakup.

Talk in the present and future tense. Your life is a moving train that they can hop onboard.

Keep the conversation light and fun, and when it's at a peak, you ask them out.

If they push back at all, put their mind at ease. Confirm that you're never gonna just be friends, but that it's just going to be a fun meetup. Everyone can relax, and then when you get there, you can see how it feels.

At the end of the day, you are two people who used to be highly romantically linked, and now you're hanging out together, just the two of you, so anything could happen in that situation. But you don't want to make it seem as if you're forcing it to happen from a cold position, or that you think that you can negotiate something happening off the back of a breakup. If they've contacted you, the power is rebalanced. You can go into that exchange and see how you feel.

But in the meantime, just relax, remember you don't actually need your ex, and your life is going to be amazing with or without them. You don't need this person, and as long as you believe that, you won't act out of anxiety and you're going to perform a lot better in these situations.

Over and out

Just recently got out of a relationship & the best advice iI can give is once someone stops liking you, leave them alone.

You don't have to beg for love, time, attention, reassurance, communication, basic respect, etc!

YOU NATURALLY DO THOSE THINGS FOR PEOPLE YOU LIKE!

Ever had a crush? Think of allll the ways you can't wait to talk to them. See them. Answer alllll their questions, laugh at allll the stupid jokes & try to aid and help with all of their problems .

Why would you stay in a RELATIONSHIP with someone who no longer has an urgency about you?

Let alone, get out of one & then let them LINGER AROUND ...

We tried to be "fuck buddies" cause who wants to sleep around ... I even let this fool tell me "let's take it slow" .. b*tch, we were literally talking about marriage. Now you want to demote me to your sneaky link while bread crumbing me hope that you'll randomly one day start back pursuing me like you used to?

I had to snap out of it.

Whoever you are that's reading this... FUCK YO EX!

NEVER GO BACK!

YOU DESERVE BETTER!

Cut that shit off & stop worrying about the what's ifs cause if it was supposed to be - IT WOULD JUST BE!

LOVE IS NOT COMPLICATED, PEOPLE ARE JUST SHITTY & WANT TO SAVE YOU AS AN OPTION WHILE THEY EXPLORE THE WORLDDDDD

LET THEM!

BUT DO NOT STILL BE SITTING THERE WHEN THEY COME BACK....

cause trust me... THEY ALWAYS COME BACK.