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After my post the other day, I made the decision to tell my ex that I couldn't be friends, not with her, or her family, that it would be too painful for me, that I would always be trying to be more than what it could be.

But today my mom came in throwing some curveballs. She says that my ex still loves me. The only reason I'm not disregarding this is because her and my ex were close. My mom misses her, maybe not as much as i, but like I do.

She says I shouldn't give up just yet, and if friends is all we can be then that's fine, but keeps urging me to take her to hangout. A detail I left out is that, the week prior to her telling me that romance wasn't an option, she rested her head on my shoulder, but I can't tell what she's saying by that. She even continued doing it after she told me no romance. Maybe I misunderstood her in that she meant no romance right now, my head is a mess, I thought writing this out would make it make more sense.

I came here first to write but I'm about to go ask some of my friends, so don't worry about me using Lemmy too much

Everyone knows relationships are hard work. Everyone knows that relationships hit roadblocks and whatever the fuck else. Fucking why. What's the point? Be with a person that you mostly tolerate most of the days that you exist? And even then, they still might betray you in a horrible way. I've dealt with a lot of pain and stress and loss in my life, and when the happy shit gets sour, I just don't fucking get it. Why not just live my life fucking off and dying eventually.

So my partner and I had always had really good communication. Anytime there were fears, doubts, hard life stuff, etc. We always managed to talk through it in a really healthy way. She was my rock.

About 6-8 months ago she says she's unhappy with her job and her grandfather is really sick so she wants to be close to him before he dies. I say ok I fully support you, let's move out there. I dont want to give too much info but the area is 24 hours of driving from where I have spent my life. I have never been anywhere near there.

So she got a 3 month temp job in the new location that she wanted to use as a networking oportunity. But I couldnt go because we could not affort to break our lease. We texted every day, called on the weekends when she had cell phone service.

I got a promotion with a sweet little relocation package to the new area. So know I knew how much we could spend on housing even if she wasnt working. This is in hindsight where the first red flag was raised. She was completely non commital on any places I showed her.

The plan was for her to come back on the 19th of August and then we'd move together. She hadnt bought a plane ticket. I already have a start date and I have to be in person for my job. She suggested that I just go, then her dad will come and they'll drive out together. Ok whatever. If that's how she wants to do it, then we'll do it. Surely nothing can go wrong here because our relationship was so solid.

I forgot to mention that we talked about staying in a relative's basement as a back up plan. So I ask, "have you talked to them about me staying there? Things are getting down to the wire".

She suggests I reach out to my new manager and ask if there's anybody at work I can stay with... This was the "wtf, is my life about to collapse" moment, or is she just in lala land?

Anyway skipping a head a bit she ends that convo with something along the lines of "we need to talk"

So she calls me and says "Sooo, and maybe you've know this for some time, but I like girls." (I did not know this at all btw. I've never seen her even look at another girl that way). I say "ok, and are we moving together?" She says no, she wants to stay here to "figure things out"

I told her "had you told me this a year ago or even a month ago I would have been your biggest supporter. But you waited until the point where its extremely desctructive to what we have together and to my life in general"

She just said she was sorry over and over. I dont really remember much more.

I'm not even sure if I'm asking for advice here. But moreso wondering if anybody has heard of such a thing before.

I didn't think a relationship with such good communication could ever just be gone so fast with no warning. And we're in our 30s, we're not kids. I can't beleive that she would put me in this situation and now have to move to a place I dont know, with any support I have thousands of miles away. I'm just dumbfounded

Edit: Thank you all so much for your responses. I appreciate all of your perspectives and the effort put into your reponses. It's incredibly helpful to know that I am not alone in this experience. I love you all.

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I know that what I'm about to say might be just something that's wrong with me, and I understand that, but here goes.

Back at the end of April, I had my first breakup, she broke it off cause I was being stupid (I'm sure if someone wants to know the story, I have it somewhere in my profile) and I went from blaming myself, to being angry, to numb, to now that she talked to me again a few weeks ago, i feel guilty and just generally, I despise myself (but that's a separate issue and I'm trying to get depression medication) She said she wanted to be friends again cause I'm a "really fun person to hang out with" and for a second I was happy.

Fast forward to a week ago while working with her brother while helping a family friend, he invited me over to their place to swim and I accepted, she wasn't there but I was good friends with her family and I wanted to rekindle that, except the whole time I felt guilty and had panic attacks, but I tried my best to hang out.

Yesterday, at our martial arts class, which is where we see each other each week, I asked if she wanted to hang out, she accepted, but also said that there wasn't a chance at romance. I wasn't trying to consider that again right now, and just wanted to be friends again for the moment, but it's been bothering me.

How can I promise myself that I won't feel pain each time we hang out, that I won't try and be more and end up pushing her away again. How do I keep sane when I know I'm going to be an idiot and try to be close to her again, while also knowing I won't get that.

Maybe it's the depression, I can't really decide on what I want, I don't know where to go.

Every time I go outside to my yard, my elderly neighbor comes out and tries to talk with me. Every. Single. Time. Without fail. I go out to relax and do gardening and yard work, and his presence makes me increasingly anxious & leaves me feeling particularly uncomfortable/unsafe.

He is dealing with dementia, and has become increasingly vulgar and outspoken, and even made some vastly inappropriate remarks about his wife & my other neighbor while my child was right there.

His wife is tired. I know this. Christ, I would be, too. He was kind of insufferable even before the dementia got bad (think him talking about his shitty political views), but, god.. I am so tired of babysitting him while I try to unwind in my own yard. He'll talk over the fence or simply waltz past it and follow me around while I try to do stuff or as I'm trying to talk to my kid.

One thing I know is this: do not piss off your neighbors, because, chances are, you will probably be living next to them for a looooong time.

What can I do? I just want peace without feeling like I'm being accosted.

Following up on this post https://lemmy.ml/post/18558315 I made not too long ago.

I went on a few more dates with him and I just was feeling similarly unsure. And I’ve felt like I’ve wanted to possibly end things because I was scared about things escalating, like if he asked to be my boyfriend or if we became more intimate. And I did keep feeling like I need to end things.

So I broke it off with him today, and I just broke down crying for like 30 minutes. I’ve never cried over a guy before and I feel like maybe I made a mistake. I didn’t realize my feelings were strong enough to make me cry. But in the moment when I am with him it hasn’t felt like I was feeling much of anything.

I guess I’m just looking for advice on how can I better understand my own feelings in these situations and not be so uncertain. I really feel like I don’t understand my feelings and don’t know what to do based off of that so any advice on how to be more in-tune with my feelings would be appreciated.

Before I get into it, I apologise if this is the wrong instance for this post, I'm pretty new to Lemmy and I haven't managed to find something for break-ups.

For a bit of context, we met in February of this year on OK Cupid. We hit it off, chatted for a few weeks, then met up for a date. Things have been lovely with her. She is smart, funny, caring, compassionate, gentle, pretty, coquette, witty, and the list can go on. Bottom line, I really liked this girl and it wasn't at all hard to begin to fall in love with her right from the start.

I'm in my mid 30s, she's in her late 20s (6 year gap between us), we've had some minor moments of misunderstanding, we discussed things calmly and openly each time and reached mutually beneficial solutions, it was great overall. The only major aspect was the fact that she'd been sexually assaulted by past boyfriends. But we discussed this relatively early on as well, I told her I have no problem with waiting and I meant it, and we agreed to take it slow and just get to know each other. We went on to date at least once a week ever since. I had an awesome time with her, every date was enjoyable and I could feel us becoming really comfortable around one another.

But something started feeling off 3 months in. The dates were still awesome, I still enjoyed spending my time with her, but I started feeling awkward when kissing her, like I didn't really want to. I chalked it up to a rough patch in my own life which left me pretty tired and decided to try to fix things on my end before acting on it in the relationship. I tried to play it cool because I didn't want to worry her. A couple of months passed, I started getting back on track with things, but the awkwardness persisted. It got worse when we decided to go on a vacation together later this year and I realised while buying the plane tickets a week ago that this may be when she'll want to open up physically and that I feel the same kind of awkwardness. A couple of days ago I understood that I loved her deeply, but as a friend, a sister. I don't understand why this shift happened, as I was attracted to her at the start. I thought it may have been because I imposed it upon myself to not give off sex vibes around her so that she won't feel pressured in any way. I just wanted her to be able to feel safe and comfortable around me. 

I realised it would be unfair to her as I would basically be stringing her along in the hopes that something may be reignited, and she deserves much better than that. We had the talk yesterday, she was a bit blindsided by it, even though she said she felt that things were turning platonic, too, but didn't say anything, and that she had this happen before in past relationships, but was as sweet and kind about it as ever. My heart was breaking as I was breaking hers. We both cried a lot, she asked me if I was sure just once, I told her yes, hugged her tightly, and left. 

I feel like a monster. I feel that I've messed up both a great relationship and a wonderful person. I can't even express the remorse I feel about hurting her, I haven't stopped crying since. I am so sorry I hurt her, but I really don't know what else I could have done.

Is there anything I should or could have done differently? Is there anything I could do to make it better now? In the past, every breakup came with a solid reason, like abuse, major lifestyle differences, things like that. But this time it was just breaking a wonderful person's heart because things died down in me for whatever reason. I hate myself because of this...

I’ve gone on 6 dates with this guy and I really like who he is and we have a lot of shared values and similar interests. He’s not the typical type of guy I go for though. But I felt like maybe I’ll just go with what my body is telling me and I want to kiss him and hold hands and stuff, which we have done. But I feel like I’m not sure.

I went over to his apartment yesterday and we were making out on his bed and I was thinking in my head that I hope this doesn’t escalate beyond this. I was scared that I wouldn’t like what I see if he took of his shirt. Or I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to perform if I wasn’t sure how attracted I was to him. It could also be just anxiety because I have not had sex in years (by choice) and I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I also don’t have much dating experience outside of first and second dates.

Towards the end of our date I did feel like I just wanted to home, but I’m not sure if it’s because I don’t like him as much as I thought or because I barely got any sleep the night before and we just spent a lot of time walking around.

I previously kept seeing him because of everything I like in him and I thought maybe I don’t have the infatuation sort of feeling but maybe I can develop a slow love over time that might be stronger. I would like to keep seeing him to see how things go going forward, but I don’t want to be leading him on if it’s not going to work.

I was thinking maybe I could communicate how I’m feeling and see if he wants to keep trying or idk. I’m just lost.

/

Is this a big deal or I'm just over thinking it and its normal I'm fine. Their relationship lasted about a year so she's having sex at the age of 13 through her 14. After her ex she's doesn't have any encounter until we met at Freshman of college. She's 18 and I'm 19 at that time. So in summary she have two body counts one on her ex at 13-14 years of age second is me at 18.

x

My fiance's best friend sends him nudes of all the girls he's sleeps with. I find this very disrespectful to our relationship. How do address this before I lose it.

I've known Jack for a couple of years. He's kind of a loner but we always got along as we both have some geeky interests. We're both introverts but I'm somewhat more social.

My girlfriend is also an introvert and when I introduced them, years ago, it was awkward at first but they got along pretty well. We hang out occasionally the three of us.

Mostly we talk in a Facebook group, and I talk to him in private messages. A few times, when he went through a family problem, I knew (from my girlfriend) that he vented to her in a private messages. She was happy to help but felt the need to tell me and I was OK with it.

When we do something at my house, I always invite him but he always refuses. The few times he aquiesced was because my girlfriend convinced him. Sometimes he disables all his social media and we loose all contact.

The latest one has been going for a while. I tried to call him multiple times but he never answers. When my girlfriend messages him he answers immediately. We actually tested that when we were together.

Lately he's been sending her messages trying to chit chat and being somewhat insistent. She felt it was very weird, specially after her seeing he never answer my calls. This latest time she actually confronted him about it and point blank asked him if he was mad at me and that it was all very weird.

You know what I'm thinking...but I'd like to know your perspective.

I go with my gf to her grandmas lake house every year, and while its relaxing and fun, I absolutely notice a change in her demeanor, I find I have to walk on eggshells around her and every other thing I say or do seems to be wrong and warrants nagging. I have confronted her about this but she seems to deny any change in behaviour is happening and just retorts with "well I told you xxx!"

Obviously her family is stressing her out but it kills me that she won't acknowledge that, especially since I'm such a straightforward person who likes to discuss what's going on. And that shes such a family girl on top of that. I'm planning on marrying her but i m just not sure how to discuss this particular point of contention with her first, because it's one of the few things she'll get actually defensive about

I don't have any issue talking to girls when the intent is not romantic/sexual. OK I have met someone, first few conversations went alright, how do I transition to something else without being embarrassed and feeling like a dick? Like, if I want to say something technical or communicate for something else, everything is fine. Otherwise, I feel very embarrassed and feel like I will be disgusting to her if I said something... I guess it is me trying to be OK with everyone and not have more people hate me... I don't know if I can take any more people hating me... makes me feel worthless...

so I have a very bad experience with girl best friend situations from my ex boyfriend. Which was also one of the many reasons why I broke up with him. Basically putting her first, her calling in the middle of the night to ask him to drive her home from the city (which he did) and much more. It just left a really bad taste in my mouth.

Fast forward to my now boyfriend who I adore a lot. He’s a sweetheart and treats me very well. We live in different countries which is a 5 hour train ride to see each other. We started texting through Tinder and have been together for a year and three months now. I knew from the beginning that he has a girl friend who is also his ex. She was a very big problem at the beginning and had a lot of fights because of my bad experience. They would text all the time, had two trips booked when we weren’t together yet, she also tried to call in the middle of the night cause she had a bad high, she would send almost 3 minute long audios, etc. She lives in my home country and when they used to be together they wouldn’t see each other often cause the travel there would take around 12 hours. We see each other almost every weekend. Last time they’ve seen each other was in December 2023 cause I was okay with them meeting somewhere in the middle for a few hours while he was at my place for New Years. He really wanted me to come with him but I had already made plans with friends at the time. The situation got a lot better now and I feel more confident in our relationship. He would be happy if we could meet up together at some point and I’m a bit nervous about it. They have been close friends and have a lot in common. Do you guys have any tips on how to handle this situation when it’s time for meeting her, what to do and not to do,….. how do I handle this?

I'm conflicted. I have a parent who's dying. I feel the void of the parenting I was supposed to receive. They never fulfilled any of the obligations I consider appropriate. I'm a parent, now. They did none of the things I'm doing for my kids.

On some level, I know the expectation is that I should feel sad. There's literally no realistic expectation that they'll turn a new leaf in their 70's and suddenly become a decent human being. Maybe there's a 1 in a million chance, but when they die, that's definitively 0. I want them to turn a new leaf, but I know it's unrealistic. I get jealous (and keep it to myself) when my friends and family have their parents in their lives.

On the other hand, they are literally the worst person in my life. I've never had anyone treat me as badly and fail me so hard as they have. I haven't spoken to them in years. They literally don't understand why, because they're a narcissist. Very "missing, missing reasons" kind of person.

So I'm conflicted. I have tons of evidence that they suck, but there's still a part of me that craves a parent actually being there. Part of me thinks I should feel bad when anyone suffers and passes away, but another part of me is borderline relieved.

I typically don't care about things like hairstyle, makeup or clothes. But my wife has started giving herself a buzz cut and I simply hate it. I told her and she grew it out for a while, but she said longer hair was making her depressed and it needed to be a buzz cut. She said it just looks like her when she sees it. Part of me thinks that's gender euphoria and she's just around the corner from realising that she's trans. I would not be comfortable continuing the relationship in that case. (She has said she feels a-gender but not male).

I've tried to tolerate it, but I dislike looking at her now and it's contributing to me being depressed now. I don't want these feelings every time I look at my wife.

We've generally had a good relationship over about one and a half decades, with two young children. We're also codependent and own a house together.

It would make things difficult if we separate. I really don't want to separate just because of a haircut, but I've definitely been thinking about it. I just don't know what to do.

So I'm not sure if I can or should continue my relationship with my fiance or try to fix things. We've been together for two years now. When we first started dating they said that they were working on finishing their masters degree but they have not done so. They also said they'd be going back to work after they finished their degree. They have just been running through their savings and staying at home. They do most of the chores but the house is often a bit of a mess. Now they're saying that they want to wait until after kids to go back to work. My family also thinks it is a bad idea to marry them.

My husband is clearly depressed. He is also a proud man, and some degree of old-fashioned. I am 4 years younger than him, and am far more open to the idea of therapy and medication.

For context, he has dealt with his dad (whom he was close with) committing suicide when he was a teenager, a long-term girlfriend (whom he really wanted to marry) cheating on him with multiple men (including a good friend at the time) for years, and his best friend of 10 years (my brother) dying in a rafting accident that we were both part of. I've been struggling personally myself, but I have a few different things I'm trying, including therapy. He is unwilling to try therapy or medication, but isn't getting better, cause holy shit, that's a lot of unprocessed shit to deal with.

It's manifesting in really nasty ways, and hurting both of us. I don't think he means the things he says; I think he's hurting a lot and doesn't know what to do.

For what it's worth, I really have not been great to him or myself. I've been dealing with my own emotional baggage, but I'm not going to get into that. I'm working on it, and feel like after many years of work, have come through a breakthrough where I understand that I do in fact want this person in my life.

How can I help guide him to anything that will help him? Doesn't need to be therapy, medication, or a psychiatrist. Those do seem like the obvious answers, but I'm open to virtually any suggestions.

This man is amazing and a wonderful person, but he's really struggling and doesn't seem to want help, but at the same time, seems like he needs/wants help. Any thoughts?

Edit: I'm really touched by all of the thoughtful responses I've received. I don't like to talk about my marital issues with people in my life, and I know my husband wouldn't want others to know what he's struggling with. This is a great community.

I'm slowly working my way through each response. Seriously - thank you all.

Hi, I am (22M) in a long term relationship with (22F) that has been going on for 3 years as of now.

Around the start of the relationship (2-3 months in) I went to a party without her and got drunk. I did all kinds of things that would be considered "dealbreakers". (Kissing multiple people, laying down with another girl during down time) We did not discuss things like that prior to the party. But after it, I felt extremely guilty, because I myself wouldn't have approved of such things. So I told her almost all of it (and it was very painfull for us). Except the fact that I proposed in a separate room to engage in sexual stuff with a couple. They refused but I still did propose. (This feels very very wrong for me)

Now, after this, we rebuilt our relationship and until now it's been going very very great. We are following the same studies and are pulling each others up. Celebrating successes together. Going on exchange trips together. Etc etc.. She loves me from all her heart (her words) and I do too.

Except lately there's been a little too much down time for the things filling my brain. As a result, that memory came back and now, I have a choice. Either I tell her, relationship takes a huge hit on trust and I cause her harm. Either I bite the bullet and live with this guilt but that may come back even strongly (she might notice it since it's affecting me physically)

If you are suggesting the first option, how would you approach it? She seems to be living the dream with me right now so I want to make the landing soft enough for her.

I am beginning the process of divorce. There was no history of anything bad, just general lack of compatibility. We've been together 13 years, and at least the past 3-4 we've been shells of who we were.

Though we both care deeply, we both know we want to be loved differently.

Right now I'm still going between the depression/despair and some irrational nostalgic notion that maybe things could be the way I thought they were (in my mind I know that these are rose tinted memories)

How do former couples get along usually? I'm a child of divorce, where my Mom moved two states away and I went with her. My parents were cordial, I think.

My ex thinks that we should remain friends, but I think that will make the grieving process harder for me. I wonder if this desire to remain friends is a way for her to not fully have to let go. But if you want the milk, you buy the cow.

Should I be wary, or should I be grateful here? How do I protect myself from catching feelings some days and dragging my healing for to long