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How to deal with splitting up with your "soulmate"?
Former Member
Posts: 1,875,648 The Mix Honorary Guru
This turned out really long, so I'll apologise in advance, I just needed to get it all out:
I was with my ex for 7 years. We had the kind of ridiculously fierce, passionate, unconditional love you read about in mushy YA novels. We went through some massive things together and were closer than many people who've been married a million years. For both of us, it was an absolute certainty that we would spend our whole lives together. We were engaged, had plans for the future, kids names picked out and everything. And you can call it naive but we both knew that it was real and there was nobody else in the world who could ever mean as much to us as each other.
Trouble is, he doesn't feel that any more. In December he was struggling with his mental health and he started to feel a bit wobbly about us. Instead of telling me this and allowing us a chance to work through things together, he withdrew so I couldn't support him. Feeling really lonely, he went online looking for a random stranger to talk to. He says he was literally only looking for someone to chat to about nothing for an hour, but they spoke more and more, got really close and he fell in love with her.
Anyway, we broke up in January and immediately afterwards he was in a relationship with this other girl. (She's five years younger and lives as far away from us as you can live and still be in England, so it's not exactly straightforward, but trust me they're serious.) We talked about it a lot, and when we broke up we kind of came to the decision together as if it was a mutual thing (even though it was the farthest thing in the world from what I wanted) because I recognised that he'd let his mind do so much of the thinking on his own before coming to me that he was pretty set on how he felt now and there was no chance that my fighting for us would actually work. I felt that dragging the conversations on would just damage our relationship even more, and we both felt that what we had was so valuable it didn't make sense to lose our friendship as well. So we decided to keep on living together and be best friends.
We've been plodding along that way for 6 months now, but it's absolutely torturing me. 'Cause the problem is the way I felt about him never changed. He's still the most important person in the world to me, which is why I keep going on this way even though it's hell - because I know I can't live without him, so it feels less painful to have this pathetic compromise than to lose him altogether, and I know he still wants me as his best friend so I'll gladly put myself through whatever crap I'm faced with to make him happy. Also, I keep supporting his relationship with this new girl because I know it's what he wants and I love him and want him to be happy, but it kills me. How am I supposed to accept that everything he said he felt about me, he now feels about someone else? I used to be the person he put first in everything and now suddenly, she is. If I can't accept his relationship with her and make this friendship work, he'll choose her over me without even having to think about it, because even though he didn't used to be able to imagine life without me, now things have shifted and he can't live without her instead. (No I'm not exaggerating or assuming here, he's told me explicitly.) I know this situation is difficult for everybody (me, him and the other girl) but I feel like I just get the short straw on absolutely everything. At least they have each other, they both got what they wanted out of this situation, whereas I have absolutely nothing. I have to keep compromising on my feelings while he just gets to float along with everything going his way.
Also, he didn't tell me the truth about how he really met her until a few weeks ago. When we first split up, he told me that she was a friend of friends that he'd been introduced to on Facebook and they were going down to her hometown as a group to all meet up together. I even encouraged this trip 'cause I knew how down and lonely he was, but then I found out recently that none of that was true, he'd gone on his own to meet her and none of his friends even knew her, she was just this person he'd found to talk to online. Until a few weeks ago it was slightly easier to deal with his relationship with her, because I felt like if how he felt about us had changed then it was sad but unavoidable and nobody's fault, and she wasn't the reason we'd split up, it was just how he felt anyway and an unlucky coincidence that he developed feelings for someone else so quickly. But knowing that he sought out somebody else's support when he was so vulnerable changes things for me. I feel like if he'd spoken to me when he first felt wobbly, we'd have had a chance, but when you're that vulnerable and confused, it's natural that you'd feel a connection to the one person who helps things make sense, so I feel like he walked right into falling in love with this other girl and that is his fault. Also whilst he's explained why he lied to me about it and I do understand and pretty much forgive him and everything, the fact the he did is still a huge deal. I didn't think we did that with each other, and it's created a massive question mark over how I can continue to trust him.
I just don't know how I can go on being friends - and particularly living - with someone who cause me this much pain, and a big part of me does feel like it would be healthier for everyone if we just cut our ties and I tried to move on from us, like he already has. But at the same time, I don't feel like I can ever move on from him and with my mental health being fragile right now anyway, I honestly don't think I can live without him in my life, especially if I have to be the one to make that decision because I know I'll just punish myself for letting him go. It feels like this relationship is slowly getting more toxic, but it's also literally the only thing in my life keeping me here right now. I'm suicidal without all this extra relationship crap and the only thing that ever makes me remotely happy is him, but he's also one of the things that makes me feel worst. How do you deal with that? :crying:
I was with my ex for 7 years. We had the kind of ridiculously fierce, passionate, unconditional love you read about in mushy YA novels. We went through some massive things together and were closer than many people who've been married a million years. For both of us, it was an absolute certainty that we would spend our whole lives together. We were engaged, had plans for the future, kids names picked out and everything. And you can call it naive but we both knew that it was real and there was nobody else in the world who could ever mean as much to us as each other.
Trouble is, he doesn't feel that any more. In December he was struggling with his mental health and he started to feel a bit wobbly about us. Instead of telling me this and allowing us a chance to work through things together, he withdrew so I couldn't support him. Feeling really lonely, he went online looking for a random stranger to talk to. He says he was literally only looking for someone to chat to about nothing for an hour, but they spoke more and more, got really close and he fell in love with her.
Anyway, we broke up in January and immediately afterwards he was in a relationship with this other girl. (She's five years younger and lives as far away from us as you can live and still be in England, so it's not exactly straightforward, but trust me they're serious.) We talked about it a lot, and when we broke up we kind of came to the decision together as if it was a mutual thing (even though it was the farthest thing in the world from what I wanted) because I recognised that he'd let his mind do so much of the thinking on his own before coming to me that he was pretty set on how he felt now and there was no chance that my fighting for us would actually work. I felt that dragging the conversations on would just damage our relationship even more, and we both felt that what we had was so valuable it didn't make sense to lose our friendship as well. So we decided to keep on living together and be best friends.
We've been plodding along that way for 6 months now, but it's absolutely torturing me. 'Cause the problem is the way I felt about him never changed. He's still the most important person in the world to me, which is why I keep going on this way even though it's hell - because I know I can't live without him, so it feels less painful to have this pathetic compromise than to lose him altogether, and I know he still wants me as his best friend so I'll gladly put myself through whatever crap I'm faced with to make him happy. Also, I keep supporting his relationship with this new girl because I know it's what he wants and I love him and want him to be happy, but it kills me. How am I supposed to accept that everything he said he felt about me, he now feels about someone else? I used to be the person he put first in everything and now suddenly, she is. If I can't accept his relationship with her and make this friendship work, he'll choose her over me without even having to think about it, because even though he didn't used to be able to imagine life without me, now things have shifted and he can't live without her instead. (No I'm not exaggerating or assuming here, he's told me explicitly.) I know this situation is difficult for everybody (me, him and the other girl) but I feel like I just get the short straw on absolutely everything. At least they have each other, they both got what they wanted out of this situation, whereas I have absolutely nothing. I have to keep compromising on my feelings while he just gets to float along with everything going his way.
Also, he didn't tell me the truth about how he really met her until a few weeks ago. When we first split up, he told me that she was a friend of friends that he'd been introduced to on Facebook and they were going down to her hometown as a group to all meet up together. I even encouraged this trip 'cause I knew how down and lonely he was, but then I found out recently that none of that was true, he'd gone on his own to meet her and none of his friends even knew her, she was just this person he'd found to talk to online. Until a few weeks ago it was slightly easier to deal with his relationship with her, because I felt like if how he felt about us had changed then it was sad but unavoidable and nobody's fault, and she wasn't the reason we'd split up, it was just how he felt anyway and an unlucky coincidence that he developed feelings for someone else so quickly. But knowing that he sought out somebody else's support when he was so vulnerable changes things for me. I feel like if he'd spoken to me when he first felt wobbly, we'd have had a chance, but when you're that vulnerable and confused, it's natural that you'd feel a connection to the one person who helps things make sense, so I feel like he walked right into falling in love with this other girl and that is his fault. Also whilst he's explained why he lied to me about it and I do understand and pretty much forgive him and everything, the fact the he did is still a huge deal. I didn't think we did that with each other, and it's created a massive question mark over how I can continue to trust him.
I just don't know how I can go on being friends - and particularly living - with someone who cause me this much pain, and a big part of me does feel like it would be healthier for everyone if we just cut our ties and I tried to move on from us, like he already has. But at the same time, I don't feel like I can ever move on from him and with my mental health being fragile right now anyway, I honestly don't think I can live without him in my life, especially if I have to be the one to make that decision because I know I'll just punish myself for letting him go. It feels like this relationship is slowly getting more toxic, but it's also literally the only thing in my life keeping me here right now. I'm suicidal without all this extra relationship crap and the only thing that ever makes me remotely happy is him, but he's also one of the things that makes me feel worst. How do you deal with that? :crying:
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Comments
Welcome to the boards and thanks for your post. Sounds like as you said you were able to get a lot off your chest by posting this message. Thanks for sharing your story and experiences here, it's sounds like things are tough at the moment but its really positive that you're looking for some help with how to deal with everything that's going on.
You were saying in your post that a big part of you feels like it would be healthier if you cut ties and you tried to move on like he has but at the same time you don't feel like you can ever move on from him. What's making you feel like you can't move on from him? Have you been able to talk to anyone else about from writing on here about what's going on?
There's an article here about dealing with a break up which might be useful to have a look at. :chin:
Also just to let you know that we have live group support chats that run from 8pm - 9.30pm Sunday to Thursday if you'd like to come along to one you can find out more here. It's safe, confidential place to give or receive support peer to peer.
Do keep posting more if you feel like it's helping to write things down.
We're here for you *hug*