Over All At Once

[eannotian]

I’m 48. My boyfriend was 24. We were together almost 4 years, lived together, worked together and spent every moment together for over a year before I found another job, and always seemed to put one another first.

When we started dating, I was dealing with the death of my little brother. I weighed 230 lbs (up 30 from grief) but was still very fit.

He was dealing with the end of his first serious relationship to a drug addict who manipulated him, took his money, and abused him. But he didn’t make a clean break due to codependency issues but allowed us to think we were both the only one. I found out, demanded that he choose, and he chose me for a monogamous sexual relationship.

The problem was that he never exhibited any sexual attraction for me and was too nice to say that he felt it never would. But we clicked and made each other happy in many other ways.

I never needed a monogamous situation. I don’t even equate sex with love. Sex has always just been fun for me. I don’t have a lot of hang ups regarding it. He could always have renegotiated that aspect but always insisted it was what he wanted.

So, I kept bringing it up. Asking if he’d figured it out. Asking if he was open to just playing around until it felt natural or trying to build intimacy in other ways. I made it a huge obstacle to my happiness because I felt he was enforcing celibacy on me if I wanted to maintain his love.

In the meantime, I gave up on my own self care and continued eating my grief and focusing my life solely on him in an effort to show him that he was the most important person in the world to me. I went from 230 to 396. He went from 180 to 235.

My self neglect and unhappiness created a feeling within him that he was holding me back and hurting me. I would have told him that it was always my own responsibility and no fault of his own. But he made the call on his own judgment without one warning shot and broke up with me last Friday after moving most of his stuff out while I was at work. He has only answered one call since then and either blocked me or turned off read receipts on his phone and other chats.

The breakup and betrayal would hurt bad enough at any time. But he knows that this is the time of year I suffer most with my birthday next Monday also being the day my little brother died in 2018 before we got together. And he also knows that we both suffer heavily from anxiety and depression.

Losing my partner and best friend, my sole support on most days, has wrecked my mind over the past week. I haven’t slept more than three hours a night. I can’t focus. I break down. It gets hard to breathe. I went to the ER this morning just to get something to help me sleep tonight and was prescribed hydroxyzine. I feel abandoned and dismissed after four years of providing for his every need…right up to the last night! And I feel confused because even as he was packing to leave he must have stopped and filled the water in my cpap machine because it was filled when I went to do it that night…so he still cared!

I have had other breakups in my life but this one takes them all and was just so unexpected.

[Sep Paro]

On 6/10/2022 at 1:52 AM, eannotian said:

I’m 48. My boyfriend was 24. We were together almost 4 years, lived together, worked together and spent every moment together for over a year before I found another job, and always seemed to put one another first.

When we started dating, I was dealing with the death of my little brother. I weighed 230 lbs (up 30 from grief) but was still very fit.

He was dealing with the end of his first serious relationship to a drug addict who manipulated him, took his money, and abused him. But he didn’t make a clean break due to codependency issues but allowed us to think we were both the only one. I found out, demanded that he choose, and he chose me for a monogamous sexual relationship.

The problem was that he never exhibited any sexual attraction for me and was too nice to say that he felt it never would. But we clicked and made each other happy in many other ways.

I never needed a monogamous situation. I don’t even equate sex with love. Sex has always just been fun for me. I don’t have a lot of hang ups regarding it. He could always have renegotiated that aspect but always insisted it was what he wanted.

So, I kept bringing it up. Asking if he’d figured it out. Asking if he was open to just playing around until it felt natural or trying to build intimacy in other ways. I made it a huge obstacle to my happiness because I felt he was enforcing celibacy on me if I wanted to maintain his love.

In the meantime, I gave up on my own self care and continued eating my grief and focusing my life solely on him in an effort to show him that he was the most important person in the world to me. I went from 230 to 396. He went from 180 to 235.

My self neglect and unhappiness created a feeling within him that he was holding me back and hurting me. I would have told him that it was always my own responsibility and no fault of his own. But he made the call on his own judgment without one warning shot and broke up with me last Friday after moving most of his stuff out while I was at work. He has only answered one call since then and either blocked me or turned off read receipts on his phone and other chats.

The breakup and betrayal would hurt bad enough at any time. But he knows that this is the time of year I suffer most with my birthday next Monday also being the day my little brother died in 2018 before we got together. And he also knows that we both suffer heavily from anxiety and depression.

Losing my partner and best friend, my sole support on most days, has wrecked my mind over the past week. I haven’t slept more than three hours a night. I can’t focus. I break down. It gets hard to breathe. I went to the ER this morning just to get something to help me sleep tonight and was prescribed hydroxyzine. I feel abandoned and dismissed after four years of providing for his every need…right up to the last night! And I feel confused because even as he was packing to leave he must have stopped and filled the water in my cpap machine because it was filled when I went to do it that night…so he still cared!

I have had other breakups in my life but this one takes them all and was just so unexpected.

@eannotian i am sorry you are going though this hard time. His decision must have been in his head for a while and somehow he couldn't even talk to you about it face to face. You are still young and you must look after yourself, you dont need anyone. Healing is a process and like any  process there are steps. If you have audible (an APP  where books are read to you) You should try a book called « Exaholics ». It helped me to understand and apply some technics to go through the pain and to the healing side.  You are not alone, many ppl have to learn to live without our loved one and you will too. I know you can, we all have the strength. X