I feel the exact same as you...my life changed on June 5th when my boyfriend of 5 years dropped the bomb on me. Days I am numb and I can be strong and talk about it and then there are days where I am consumed by grief and don't know what to do....weekends and social events are so hard for me :( I feel your pain.

Exactly. I'm like a fish on the dock desperately thrashing about trying to find a cool comfort where none is to be had. I've stopped talking about it except to my therapist. This relationship ending (after 14 months) is on the heels of a soul-shattering divorce after 11 years, loss of employment, a major health event and is accompanied by the demoralizing process of searching for employment. I can't catch a break to save my life and I'm REALLY having a hard time interpreting what the Universe is trying to tell me. I'm willing to listen and learn but my anguish eclipses most rational thought. When will I stop staggering through my days like the grim survivor of a nuclear holocaust and regain some semblance of normalcy??

I know what that feels like...it's like everything bad has to happen all at once to really challenge us and see how strong we are but why ?? Why can't we be given some grace in some small fragment of our lives where something good can be happening...and the one person you relied on when times got hard is the one you can't turn to anymore...I just want to feel at peace and feel happiness but I just feel emptiness and sadness. He wanted this and I didn't so I feel so alone in my feelings like I didn't have any say in it ending and I'm really struggling without that closure

He was so generous, affectionate and loving when he came into my life. I tried to keep my distance because he was in the final stages of his divorce and I knew I was in such a state of transition but he was very persistent and it had been a very long time since I'd felt anything good. I really thought, ok, maybe THIS is my reprieve, it's ok to feel some joy again. I loved with all my heart and he told me the same. It was super intense. I still had work to do to be whole, but instead I refocused all my energy on him. My mistake. He became my one source of comfort, safety, happiness, sanity and I guess it was too much. He broke up with me saying he wasn't ready for a long term relationship after all. I begged, pleaded, wept. My two attempts to reach out to him since were met by coldness and requests to leave him be. Now I am left to face myself with new shame, an incredible sense of loss, back in the same black pit of despair as the one I was dropped into when my ex-husband abandoned me.

And there is no closure. Not when you didn't want to break up or divorce. When you are left with a unilateral decision and zero communication thereafter, you cannot receive closure. Somehow with time I suppose you give that to yourself. Until then, your questions go unanswered.

bridgie101 you're right but he'd been dating for a year before I met him, couple of different women. And I asked him several times whether he was sure he wanted a relationship because I did not want to get played. We bonded very quickly and very strongly, but I was still picking myself back up, admittedly. My self confidence was very low and I know I needed him more than he needed me. In the end he said he never wanted to hurt me so he stayed in it longer than he should have. That hurt worse than just about anything else - made me doubt whether he loved me at all, or if he'd lied the entire time. All that context aside, I love the hell out of him and I don't know what to do with that love. I can't bear the idea of hurting like this for many more months, I don't know if I can take it.

2 YEARS my God you must the resolve of a Buddhist monk. How the hell did you manage to get through 2 years of heartbreak? At the moment it is all I can do to grit my teeth through an hour without bursting into tears while resisting the near-maniacal urge to text, email, call or write. I've made the mistake of looking on FB twice and both instances sent me into hysterics. The real kicker is that he is a good man. He didn't cheat on me or abuse me, didn't treat me poorly at all, loved me the best he could. I feel like I totally messed it up just because I couldn't keep my shit together, couldn't just relax into it and enjoy his company, enjoy the companionship and just let it breathe. I had abandonment issues that I carried forward. I had a shot at a real grown-up love if I'd only kept my wits about me.

I know how you feel. You're not alone. I'm feeling the same way right now- especially with the no friends around thing. I just got broken up with two weeks ago, and it's been the hardest thing I've ever gone through in my entire life. I have felt how you feel- crying constantly, sleepless nights, not being able to eat, and then for a moment I'm distracted and not thinking about it but it can all come crashing down when I remember what I'm going through. Not being able to reach out and talk to him (he told me not to) has been excruciating. This is the person that told me he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me, have kids, have a life together. We worked together, and I ended up taking another job because he felt like we would have a stronger relationship after not working together (we were management together at a very stressful company, and fought a lot at work because of that), and he promised he would stay by me through my job transition. I was worried about being lonely after leaving my previous workplace. And then shortly after I left, he left me. I am feeling so empty and alone. I never would have left if I knew he would do this- I had people around me constantly at the old work place and could feel support and distraction when things were hard, and this new job is a lot more lonely and isolated. He also was friends with everyone at the old workplace and so I feel like I've been cut off from my job, my friends, my support system, and now him. I am feeling lost and alone. He was my best friend in the entire world, and in an instant my life changed completely when he left me so suddenly during a fight. I'm hoping and praying for healing.

I forgot to reference the holiday and weekend thing in my previous reply- this is very real. Feeling depressed and lonely in extra amounts during these times is so true for me, and it sounds like you too. It's a time when everyone is posting photos with their significant others and friends, and it's hard not to feel lonely, restless, isolated, sad, depressed, and anxious. I pray this will get easier for you, for others going through the same thing, and for me.

Hello paigemc92, I am so so sorry. There is so much heartbreak here, and how we can turn ourselves inside out for love. After my marriage ended (prior to this relationship) I pretty much had a nervous breakdown in slow motion. I had a high-stress corporate job at the time and I could barely function. I basically came to work, shut my office door and cried in between meetings. A few understanding and wise ladies in the office who'd been through divorces of their own would bring me food because they knew I was not taking care of myself. But I left that job during my meltdown, I basically just stopped existing. Even when I was surrounded by people I felt utterly disconnected. Inside my head I would be screaming, doesn't anyone see that I am a dead person, a corpse amongst you? But take a tiny bit of solace that you have a job and a place to go each day. Do everything you can to protect that asset. Don't let yourself become so overwhelmed that you lose your job. I thoroughly underestimated how much more difficult and unbearable life would be after I quit. Never mind the additional stress, worry and anxiety; I suddenly had a TON of extra time on my hands to really dig my own ditches of self-loathing and regret. All the time in the world to castigate myself and truly perfect the art of negative self-talk. I had only gained a year and six months' worth of distance between me and my separation when I met my boyfriend. I fell hard, turned myself inside out to be with him while I should have been looking for work, and now the Universe has dropped me right back in the same self-made ditches I dug originally, broken-hearted and mourning yet another loss, again. Whatever you have to do: keep working even though you don't have that familiarity and be grateful that you don't have to go through this harrowing time while still working with him! This is a minor blessing though it may not feel that way. I don't know how anyone doesn't lose their shit having to work with their exes.

I don't look at any social media anymore, it adds to my alienation, it encourages me to physically isolate myself from everything and everyone. Spare yourself that most damaging of fallacies, it's all prevarication anyway. No one ever posts, hey, Happy Fourth of July, does anyone else out there want to die? No? Just me, then? Well, fucking party on, compadres! Like bridge101 says, I'm gonna hunker down and hang onto my sanity with white knuckles until the festivities pass and I can go back to the grocery store without being mocked by brightly festooned pies and cookies and everything needed for that fun-filled backyard gathering of all the happy smiley people.

The first year is the toughest..just gotta go through the motions. It does get better. Stay absolute no contact and you can't help but heal

gummybears, thank you so much for your reply and encouraging words. Did I mention this is all on the heels of a separation and divorce with an abusive husband? I don't talk much about that because it was so hard for three years. In the midst of the separation, I did allow this relationship to happen. That's what makes it even harder- that I fell hard for this person, and right when my separation/divorce got into full swing, my best friend in the world and boyfriend left. It almost sounds shameful when I write it onto this support group. I had a relationship after going through such a terrible time with my marriage, and then lost everything all at once. At least that's how it feels, doesn't it? It seems like your and my stories are very similar in some ways.

I'm so sorry about the difficulty after quitting your job. I completely understand how desperate a feeling it can be to need to get out of a job when you're feeling like you've been shattered into a million pieces. It can be impossible to get out of bed and go to work every day, let alone feed yourself and manage to get any work done at all. My first few days after he left me, I couldn't function at work. I sat there, anxious, holding tears back from rolling down my face and feeling like the smallest most helpless creature. It can be such a crippling feeling when we were meant to achieve so much and be amazing. I can be such a hard thing to figure out who to talk to in these situations. It's almost like learning to walk again, stumbling along the way until you start to find your balance.

You've made me realize it's very important to be thankful for my job, and even though I miss my old workplace desperately, it was a toxic environment and somewhere that I may have not been able to heal. Sometimes I think if I hadn't left, he wouldn't have left me since we would be together everyday at work. But maybe if I had stayed, I wouldn't have been forced to find my own way and be independent quite so much.

I pray that you and I can find peace in these terrible times. I'm so so sorry for what you are going through. Keep me updated on how you're doing. After all, that's why we're here!

Yes weekends and holiday weekends are hard. This weekend has been emotional for me as I was supposed to be away with him, but instead I came home to see family with my time off. Its hard because I know he is still on that trip, just without me, probably having a great time and I came home just to fill my time. Normal weekends are hard because I still think of certain weekends we had planned to do something. I don't think I will feel normal until I get to the end of 2017 as we had a lot of plans up until the end of year. Sundays have been especially hard because I ruminate on times where we woke up and made breakfast and went on walks at the beach, which were special moments for me.

I totally understand. I feel that same way. Did you give your best? If so, then keep reminding yourself there is nothing more that can be done. If you feel like you didn't give your best, then next time will be different. There will be another relationship, especially if you are open to that. Yesterday, I did nothing but lay around feeling sad. I texted him and got some crazy response. Today I decided to block calls and text messages. I gave my best. There isn't anything more that could be done. The guy I was seeing has cancer and as cancer worsen he pulled away. This was our second chance and the second chance is over. No more chances. Instead of the relationship ending at death, it will be ending before death and not on a positive note. This is what he wants and I need to give him what he wants.