Thank you for sharing your story.
Also gone through a similar situation to you. My ex hated showing love and emotion, and told me it was difficult to love me towards the end of the breakup because he hates himself therefore how can he love someone else if he hates himself?
It’s been a month since the breakup, and I already feel like I’m ready to move on.
Can I ask, do you think he will move on quickly after our breakup?
I’m so sorry you went through that as well. It really sucks when all you want to do is be there for them when they are feeling that way about themselves.
It’s impossible to know. Your ex partner sounds much more able to communicate and has more emotional intelligence about how he is feeling and why.
If he does (big if, we can’t know!) - I weirdly found him moving on as almost a freedom for me to really let go. I originally felt more worry and sadness initially after the break up - no anger or resentment. Him moving on enabled me to feel anger and reality that this person wasn’t for me. It’s one thing for someone to feel like they need to work on themselves on their own, another to move on so quickly - whether that be because of grief or another reason.
But that new person is there for them - which is a key for independence from being in limbo of the grief they feel and how that may change after your breakup. Whatever the reason or scenario, at the end of the day, you are number 1 priority.
However, it really is impossible to know - so please don’t get hung up on the thought! I think the most important thing I learned was to turn the love and support you want to give them to yourself. I wish I had done this more right from the start of the break up as I think I’d be much further down the line of moving on.
I need some help.
I know deep down I was supportive towards my ex but I just feel so guilty for getting upset and angry at him for cancelling plans with me, excluding me from his grieving process, getting angry at him for little communication and lack of initiation of plans.
I feel like a bitch for doing that, because I didn’t know the depth of his depression.
I’m so ready to move on because I don’t know how long it will take for him to get better and I know the person he has become is not the person I first fell in love with. He has become angry, rude, and even aggressive pushing me physically.
Do you think he will ever change to a good man?
I completely understand how you are feeling, I feel really guilty at times too for asking for reassurance from him because I know he just didn’t have it in him to give me anything.
However, looking back on last year before his mum died, I was still wanting more from him. The first year we were together was the best time of my life, I truly felt like I’d met my person, he was extremely reassuring and loving and said he can’t wait to marry me and for the life we would have together. He said so many beautiful things that made me fall in love with him and I felt safe enough to give him my heart (which I haven’t given to anyone before, I’ve never been in a relationship as for me there hasn’t been a point if I didn’t see my whole life with them & I was also terrified of heartbreak. We moved in together after just 6 months because we were both so sure of eachother. A year into the relationship he clearly just started to feel “comfortable” and didn’t do much to make me feel loved or special. I was chasing and it wasn’t a 50/50 effort it was more like me giving 90 and him 10. I was constantly comparing him/us to how we used to be and hoping that we would eventually find our way back as he told me he was stressed with work and hated his job etc and was just not in a great place. Fast forward another year and his mum passed away and now he just can’t give me even 10% it’s 0%. The only hope I have of us maybe one day coming together again is that he is seeing a therapist and working on himself. I would have to decide though whether I would want to risk it and put my heart on the line again.
I keep feeling guilty and then I get angry and then I get sad. I feel like my love had been taken for granted and it breaks me now. I feel like it wasn’t worth holding on so hard if he’s just gonna turn around and leave me. At the same time maybe I’ll be better off without him? I don’t know. All I know is I find it REALLY difficult to open up and give my heart to people, and I might never find someone again who will make me feel safe enough to do so.
To answer your question if he’ll ever change… that is up to him. I don’t think he will if he never gets the help. If he doesn’t start to put in the work and seek therapy then of course he will be able to change. Maybe when he has you’ll find your way back to each other, or maybe you will move on and find someone much better suited for you and he will move on too.
What helps me is trying to put all my faith in the universe, that what is meant for you won’t pass you by, and the hard times are there to make you grow and put you on the right path (even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time).
If they don’t want to be with us anymore there isn’t much we can do other than move on. I know my ex has people in his life he can talk to if he needs someone, and hopefully your ex does too. It doesn’t all have to fall on us.
It is so hard though… I have to go back to London to talk to him in a week, and then probably have to stay at a friends for a while whilst going back and forth to pack up all my stuff. It’s really made my life feel so uncertain and weird, I’m almost being dragged into his state of “not knowing what I want” anymore. My whole future I pictured with this man. Now I need to start again, love myself, put myself first… It is so weird. The thought of being with anyone else literally makes me feel sick, the thought of him being with someone else makes me feel sick too. Hopefully with time I won’t feel like that anymore 
So sorry to be reading this you have been to hell and back being so supportive didn’t get back the simple things in life
Self love and time for you there’s someone out there for everyone do t hold back live life to the fullest I have been were you are now it’s hard keep
Going
If you don’t mind, can you talk about the experience you went through of being someone who was grieving?
It was the opposite side my mum past away last year so suddly my partner would disappear not be very supportive as much as I tried to be there for him he would ignore me for weeks at a time the relationship had to end he ended things then he tried to love bomb me with fake relationship empty promises I don’t the narsistic course found out he was a narsistic person.i had my children to think about grieve for me mam it was actually my aunty who was there for me my mams sister
@LA123 and @hellogoodbye1. Your experiences sounds really similar to mine. My partner and i we’re only together 4 months before his son died unexpectedly. We lasted another 4 months before he ended things with me. We were so in love, we had a great connection, chemistry, and we had spoken about marriage and buying a house together. I don’t understand where that love went. Its now been 10 weeks and if i dont contact him, there is no communication. Ive gone a month of no contact but its hard to move on when I saw a future with this person and our time together, even after his son’s death always felt good. When we were apart though, it was really hard and he eventually stopped talking about a future with me and didn’t make as much effort to spend time with me or text and call. Sometimes i only saw him once a week and I felt really anxious and insecure. Then he brokeup with my phone. He said he still loves me but cant commit to a relationship and worrying about me was just another stress and he is too fragile. Its so sad as i thought being with him would bring him comfort and i could support him but he seems to be better off without me and its hard to accept. I know losing a child is the worst pain but i was there through it all and now i have to grieve the loss of our relationship.
So sorry to hear the loss of your child it’s heart breaking unfortanly your too good for this person it’s hard letting them go as it feels like your grieving your relationship go through the stages you’ll be a bran new person focus on you a lot of self care think about you for a change I’m not kidding you I did that I don’t rely on a man at all
None of you guys did anything wrong. Please please please don’t blame your selfs. Looks like we all went through the same thing. I’m going to be honest, I find this behaviour very selfish. Pushing away the one person who’s been there through out the worst of times. And it’s that selfish behaviour that helps me move on. I personally would never push my partner away if my mother or father passed away. I still think about it till this day if I did anything wrong but i didn’t. Unfortunately one day they will realize or they might not even ever realize that they lost someone good. We all did everything we could. And I’m sure you did your best snowy. I pray you find someone who deserves you. I know it sucks because we imagine spending the rest of our lives with this one person. Trust me. I know. I would dream of marrying my ex. If her mom were able to communicate with her if that were possible she would literally call her an idiot. I hope we all find someone as good or better one day. Please love your self guys. We were not in the wrong. Everyone will say you won’t understand what their going through. Tell them to go kick rocks. If you guys ever need to vent or talk you guys can always PM me. Talking helped me but don’t talk to much about the topic because then you’ll have a hard time moving on.
Thanks @Charyll and @Pilot123. It wasn’t my son that died but it was still a terribly hard thing to experience and I obviously feel very badly for the family having to lose someone so young and special. I really let myself open up to my ex which i don’t do easily and even in feb we spoke about getting married but then he ended things end of March. Its been very confusing and hard to wrap my head around. I feel like their grief just takes over everything and they can no longer care about maintaining a relationship but like you said @Pilot123 i cant imagine letting go of someone i loved even after experiencing a loss. Love is supposed to for the good and bad. Anyway its nice to know im not alone in this and i too am now tryint to move on with my life. I haven’t read any success stories about the person coming back unfortunately
I learnt not to take things for granted in life I have a very small circle for my kids my aunty who has been brilliant I’m now looking after my dad I’ve choose not to date I was told I wasn’t worth marrying no one would want me he was so wrong he was actually paranoid about himself I’ve had 4 children as long as there ok I’m fine it is hard though
@Charyll he didn’t deserve you by the sounds of it. Im sorry the person you shouldve been able to rely on the most ended up being a jerk during such a hard time. Im glad you have your Aunty and kids to help you through it. I wouldve done anything to be there for my ex but he obviously needs to do this grief journey on his own or without me atleast. Love can be cruel that’s for sure
Hi - not sure if this is any use but i listen to a grief podcast and they recently featured an episode discussing attachment styles in relationships. It doesnt specifically cover couples breaking up following a bereavement but i found the discussion around “avoidant” attachment style interesting. Theres some general chat at the start - if you want to jump to the interview it starts approx 6 minutes in https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzYwN2ZlMzIwYjM5NmFiNGRjN2RhYmIyOA/episode/NjY0MzBkYTYxN2ZmMTIwMDEyZTc5MzYz?ep=14
I completely understand what you are going through, I’m going through the exact same thing right now. My ex says he still loves me, but he can’t give me what I need and what I deserve. I his guilt has taken over, and he feels really bad that he can’t love me the way I should be loved. It’s absolutely horrible. I think he needs space to work on himself and I know that’s what he’s doing. If he really is my soulmate like I thought, he will come back to me when he is ready to love again. If he isn’t my soulmate he will hopefully heal and find the right person for him, and I will find the right person for me. I truly believe we go through these hard times to put us on the right path. Putting all my faith in the universe right now that I will be better off and grow from this whole experience.
I know he came into my life for me to learn how to love, for me to fully let someone in. There are still things I struggled with because I’d never let someone in to the extent before, the feelings of really ‘‘needing’’ someone were completely alien to me as I’ve always been independent and good on my own. I was absolutely petrified of losing him, which made me a bit anxious at times and maybe even a little bit controlling. I’ve learnt from it now, and I’m experiencing the heartbreak I was so scared of, and I know that I will fight through this and grow from it. I think I needed this to happen. I just still hope we find our way back though in the future, because the first year of us being together was the most magical time of my life…
If someone wants to let you go, you have to let them. It will never work out trying to convince someone of how you are worth fighting for, and if someone doesn’t see your worth… why are you fighting for them? This is also something I’m trying to remind myself of. I deserve someone who will fight like hell for me, someone who won’t give up when times get hard.
Life is too short the day I lost my mam last year was when a piece of me died with her it changed me a lot I was still there cooking cleaning I know my self worth I will never be love bombed by another man again I actually done a course on narsisitic men it taught me a lot about red flags
Thank you for sharing your story.
A part of me feels like my ex was only with me because 1) he needed a distraction from his parent being ill and 2) his parent’s last wish for his son was that he gets married.
Before their parent passed, my ex told me he wanted to get married but how can you tell someone you want to get married to them after three months of knowing them? I feel like he only said that because he wanted to show his dying parent that he would get married, even though it wouldn’t realistically be with me.
It’s so unfair. My ex put me through so much misery and even told me if I wanted to be with him, I would have to convert to his faith. I told him no, and he started becoming resentful towards me.
I feel so annoyed at myself for giving my all, and then I got nothing in return.
I personally don’t want to get back with this person if they ever came back to me.
This ex, whilst he was with me, became a surrogate spouse to their only parent left. How can I be with someone who doesn’t put their partner first, but puts their only parent left first?
I understand that the grief takes over but you don’t hear married couples doing this. Yeah I haven’t heard any good stories from these kind of situations as well.
In your honest opinion, why do you think my ex broke up with me even though they claim they didn’t want to but are saying they have to focus on themselves and their healing?
This person says they are still in love with me.
So confused