I’m in my late 20s now and I feel so much despair.
I think a huge factor that shaped my world is my breakup almost 3 years ago. I had dated several people, actually more than several, before then.
I feel like people think I am delusional when I say this, but he was genuinely the nicest person I’ve ever met in my life. I don’t understand how it’s possible for someone to have actually cared about me to the extent he did. At times I felt like he actually cared about me more than my own mom did. It wasn’t just that, he was intelligent and hilarious too and we had a lot in common.
Unfortunately I wasn’t good enough for him and he didn’t want to continue the relationship. This basically fundamentally broke me.
I had my share of heartbreaks before, but even when I met him, I was basically at my breaking point with love. I remember telling myself this was my last try (because I was so done). To this day I literally have no idea how I could have so much in common with someone. It’s like we completely agreed on almost every aspect in life. Did he just lie to me or agree with everything I said or something?
Apparently he has also had random acquaintances tell him he’s a breath of fresh air and so nice to be around compared to most people, so it’s not just me.
I really don’t know what to do other than cry about losing him. I’ve tried so hard to find happiness for myself but how could I let something like that go?
My life hasn’t gotten any better since then and I honestly think I am hopeless. Genuinely.
Literally everyone pales in comparison to what I had with him. Even though what I had clearly wasn’t real, because ultimately he clearly didn’t feel the same about me since he chose to leave. It felt real to me, talking to him is the most enjoyable thing I had experienced in my life.
This all sounds extremely sad and pathetic but really what am I supposed to do? I bet most people haven’t even come close to meeting someone like him so they can’t relate to this at all. I am going to sound insane again but I think he is some prodigy or something. Like one of those one in a million once in a lifetime people that most won’t even get the chance to meet.
About 14 years ago, I met the “perfect” woman. She was interested in all the same things I was,. I enjoyed spending time with her and we would just talk for hours. We didn’t date very long before we decided to get married.
And then the cracks started showing. What I thought was “perfect” was actually the outward manifestation of an undiagnosed mental illness where she was just “mirroring” the person she thought I wanted her to be. What followed was 6 years of absolute hell, the story of which is too long and too awful for me to recount here. When my first marriage ended, I felt like I was perfectly happy to be alone for the rest of my life. Being alone is better than being chained to your enemy.
I’m not saying your situation would have ended up like mine. Just giving some context.
A short time later, I met someone else. I wasn’t looking for a relationship. I did not think I wanted a relationship. I just thought she was cute and decided to chat her up. We hit it off and after a while, to my surprise, she asked me out. I was actually kind of excited but also scared shitless. I didn’t really know what to do so I decided I would just be honest. Without going into too much detail, I told her where I was at emotionally, that I wasn’t looking for anything really serious, and that if she was ok with that we could go out. If not, I get it. No hard feelings.
Fast forward about 7 years. We’re coming up on our 5th wedding anniversary. I adopted her daughter and we had two more kids. NGL, the last few years have been rough for a lot of reasons but I wouldn’t want to have spent them with anyone else. My wife is my best friend. I am very fortunate that she somehow waltzed into one of the worst chapters in my life and didn’t immediately run away.
She is not “perfect”. I’m certainly not either. We are not the same person. We are different people with different life experiences that have shaped who we are. I had to stop looking for “perfect” to find what I actually needed. “Perfect” was what got me in hot water to begin with.
When I was thinking about whether I wanted to get with serious with my (now) wife, I threw my criteria out the window and tried to focus on what really mattered.
Is she a good and moral person? Do we have compatible values?
Are we a good fit personality wise?
Do I enjoy spending time with her?
Do we have enough overlapping interests to make our time together interesting?
Is she OK with me investing time in my interests that she doesn’t share?
She definitely checks all those boxes.
Don’t spend the rest of your life mourning what might have been. You will never know how things would have turned out. It could have been great it could also have been awful. There are plenty of people out there who are terrible people. But there are also a lot of good people. I’m willing to bet the right person for you is out there and you may not even be looking for them when they show up.
I don’t know the person you are talking about, they might genuinely be amazing, they might just have excellent social skills, but the most important thing for you to do is move on.
This isn’t a riddle worth solving. Why did they mesh so well with you? Why didn’t they stick around? Let’s imagine a world where you have these answers with 100% certainty. Does it change anything? No.
I don’t say this to belittle you, but to encourage you. Your happiness, your worth, your life is not this other person.
You deserve happiness and love and all that life has to offer. There are billions of people on this planet and I guarantee you that if you move forward you will find many that will love you and care about you. And you will find many that don’t. And you will find everything in between.
Don’t fall for the trap of there being one true love out there. Take what good you can from that experience and also learn from it. It seems you placed a high degree of importance on sharing similar opinions and interests. That is important, but many people fall madly in love with people that are unlike themselves too. I love my wife with all my heart and we share the same core values but we differ in many ways. I’m loud, she prefers the quiet, I’m an engineer, she’s an artist, but we love those things about each other.
Take away from this that maybe you should bump up how important having a partner who is loyal and able to communicate well is, and notch down how important some of these other aspects.
It hurts going through heartbreak. It is natural and human to want to not feel that pain again. Sadly, love requires that we be vulnerable. Love is a stupid gamble that you can let someone know the real you and they will embrace that and stand by it. It is so special because it is so rare. But I learned something important in my time on earth, most everyone is capable of love, and everyone deserves to be loved.
At the very least, love yourself. We can not change what has passed, but we get to choose what happens next. You get to choose today to love you, and you get to choose it tomorrow and the next day and the next, and I hope you do. And when you love someone, even if that someone is yourself, you won’t be able to bear to see them persist in despair. Find your love of travel, or art, or science, or writing, or whatever brings you joy. Let that love fill your heart for a while.
I hope all the best for you, 20s is far too early to give up. When I feel despair in my own life I remember this quote by Mary Pickford and it’s always made me feel better
You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down.
Ultimately I think it was just how easy he was to get along with and how much fun we had together. He was also open minded and loved to discuss and brainstorm and ponder about things which I love too. Most people don’t care about anything I have to say. Thanks for the thoughtful response.
That makes sense. I’m an engineer and half the things I talk about don’t mean anything to my wife but she still listens. And half of the art things she’s telling me about don’t make sense to me but I love to watch her talk about things she’s excited about and try to understand.
I think the best thing you can do is exactly what this reply does, understand what things you appreciated about the relationship. It’s very important to know what you are looking for and what you value.
I might be an optimist, but I’ve gotten to meet a lot of people in my life and I’m of the opinion that there’s really a lot of good in most people. It’s not always at the surface, but it’s almost always there.
I really do hope the best for you. Life is a beautiful, wonderful, and limited experience. I’m not religious, but I am a mathematician, the number of variables that had to line up just so so that you could exist are a wonder. I hope you live your life to its fullest and look back at this time as nothing more than a speed bump. If a total stranger can care about you, so can the people around you.
Good luck, be kind to yourself.
I guess my point was, I’m assuming you live in the US if you think there’s a lot of good in people
You are correct I’m from the US. I’ve also met lots of people from South America and Europe.
I also meet a lot of people through the things I like to do, largely writing code, I’m a weird engineer guy that writes code all day and relaxing by writing more code.
I won’t pretend I know what life is like where you are. Maybe though you can find people that are interested in the same things you are. I’ve also spent a good part of my life volunteering to help others. Volunteering at community food banks or a local hospital I’ve found the most kind and generous people, and it’s filled my heart with a love for my fellow man.
I don’t know what’s around you, and it might seem daunting to try, but finding a local volunteering group and spending an evening with them might be a good place to start. You might not meet your soulmate, but it’s a low cost step to connecting with whatever good people are around.
From what you’ve seen, do you think people are happier in certain parts of the world?
Even if they’re interested in the same things that doesn’t help me become friends with them if their outlook on everything else is completely different. They are also super racist. They think “English speakers” are like a different breed or something, and I know this because I understand both languages and they tend to talk crap after every interaction with an “English speaker” aka foreigner aka anyone that didn’t grow up here.
It’s even worse for me because I’m technically “from” the country but I can’t hide it because of my name. So everyone hates me even more than an “English speaker” because they view me as a traitor who left the country and I can’t even speak their language without an accent, the horror. If it weren’t for my name I would just pretend I only speak English and my life would be way easier this way.
Literally every single time I’ve spoken to someone that grew up here for more than 1 second (ordering a sandwich) one of the first things they talk about is how much they hate America and how much better everything here in this country is (hint: they have no idea what they’re missing cause they’ve never left the country). They also always comment on my accent and how much I “suck” at the language because I’ve literally never had to use it but am still able to speak it so sometimes it takes me a second or two to remember a word I never use. Then they tell me I will never be accepted into society or get a job here unless I take language lessons.
At this point I just want to leave this awful country where everyone treats me like garbage. The language isn’t worth perfecting or learning for me and I have zero desire to live here. The only jobs that pay any living wage are in IT, and I still wouldn’t want to have my colleagues be… the way that they are.
As for volunteering, the hospitals look like actual abandoned backalley nightmarefuel depictions. There nowhere else to volunteer cause we don’t have social services.
Thanks for the response. I could be totally wrong but I feel like the country where I’m currently living doesn’t have anything for me in it and I don’t think I will be happy here. On the other hand I don’t know how much better it will be elsewhere. I just feel like the people here are generally awful, especially in the city I live where all the jobs are. I can’t move cause of that, and also the pollution in other places is even worse, and if I go to some village it will only be old people there. So yeah life does seem quite limited.
My only solution is moving somewhere else but I’m worried it’ll just be a waste of time and money and unnecessary stress, maybe I should just accept my fate here, idk.
That was beautiful. ♥️
My little sister recently went through a similar breakup. The wound is still very fresh in her case. I will tell her this information in time, but she is in the processing phase right now. So if you’ll indulge me, here is a little advice from a big sister on break-ups with ‘the perfect guy’.
Often, guys like this are chameleons. I have seen a few people like this in my life. Wonderful, charismatic people who make the person they are talking to at the time feel like they are standing in the glow of sunshine. They aren’t being manipulative or intentionally trying to love bomb the person. It is just in their nature to be agreeable and find meaningful connections with people.
You mentioned other acquaintances feeling like he was a wonderful guy. It is completely possible that he is a great, intelligent, funny guy with whom you had a great connection. And yet, he did not feel as deeply as you because he connects so easily with most people he interacts with.
In your own words, he “cared about me more than my own mom” and yet “wasn’t good enough for him and he didn’t want to continue the relationship.” It seems there is a disconnect between how deeply you felt he loved you, and how much you loved him. This is where a lot of the pain and sadness comes from in the breakup. When that glow of sunshine you were basking in is gone, the shadow feels especially cold.
I do not know anything about your relationship aside from what you have described. However, I fear you have fallen into a mentality of thinking no one else could ever compare to him. I have seen people dating ‘the perfect guy’ (Top of his class Harvard, D1/pro athlete, sexy charismatic surgeon…prodigy in the eyes of many) and yet, he wasn’t the right person for their relationship. People who are accustomed to being the best at everything make really good chameleons. They want to be the best at friendships and relationships, too.
I do not want to tarnish your relationship, or discredit the pain that it brought you. I want to highlight the fact that there are other men out there that are absolutely a better, more unique fit for a loving relationship with you. A lot of the successful relationships I have seen are between people whose glow shines more exclusively on their romantic partner. Often times friends and acquaintances will say things like “I don’t get it.” Rather than him being so obviously great to everyone, he will be more specifically great for you.
All that being said, what to do next? Focus on you. Fall in love with yourself for the time being. Do what makes you happy, and the right person will be pulled into your orbit because you know yourself and what brings you joy. Your late 20’s are just the beginning of the adventure.
It’s weird cause he said he’s done more for me than he has for anyone in his family or in his life… but still, he has commitment issues and a whole host of other issues too so it doesn’t matter does it
Well, now he just sounds like a turd. It isn’t normal to quantify acts of love and use them as a metric of comparison. You do them because you care about the person. It sounds like he needs to figure himself out before he can have a functioning relationship, and it makes sense that he has commitment issues.
I mean, he did occasionally say turd-like things but everyone has flaws. He also said he wishes I was prettier so he wouldn’t have doubts about marrying me lol.
He meant it in the context of telling me I treated him worse than his friends do, and he said that after we got into an argument once. His friends are more like acquaintances and he has never had to live with them.
Honestly I wish I could remember wtf actually happened (apart him constantly trying to leave when there was an issue instead of trying to solve it). That was a common pattern. Like if I would ever communicate to him anything that “bugged” me, he would just be like “do you want me to leave I feel like I’m just making you unhappy” and I would be like “no I do not want you to leave are you insane” but then he would keep mentioning leaving or booking a flight back and eventually I was just like… I think bro just wants to leave
We had to cohabitate temporarily, somewhat soon after first meeting in person, and I think the learning curve of me being his first gf plus that was just too much for him to handle
Either way it became exhausting after a while being the only person who wanted to make the relationship work
Alright, you dodged a bullet. Better to be single than with a man like that.
What do you mean “a man like that”? I’m sure most men think it, he’s the only one that was honest about it
No decent human thinks like that. And certainly a good person wouldn’t say it, even in the heat of an argument to hurt you.
You can say most men think it, but frankly, most men aren’t worth dating if they have an attitude like this. I think this guy has warped your perspective. You are worth way more than whatever he was providing in this relationship. It is becoming increasingly clear from your responses that he falls incredibly short of ‘perfect guy’ or ‘prodigy’ territory.
You just listed a bunch of red flags ahaha girl who the fuck says “i wish you were prettier”? Not even in a heated argument… never
He was just being honest and he didn’t say it to hurt me he just told me how he was feeling
You know better for sure. I personally don’t know if I would have said it even if it was true.
I mean me neither but like that doesn’t make him a bad person or anything
All of what you said is spot on about a particular type of person who isn’t malicious but does seem to forge a lot of shallow relationships and not really focusing on one, but I don’t get the chameleon thing. Is it because they easily adapt to whatever setting they are in by changing how they act?
Yes, they tend to adjust their personality to suit the person they are talking to. Adapting to match someone enthusiasm for a subject, and just generally blending really well with whoever they are coomunicating with.
I find these people are often very easy to like. However, they don’t know themselves well enough to be a great relationship partner because they spend too much time trying to be cohesive with the other person.
Sorry, I realize I got caught up in my own ramblings and didn’t define the term.
Yeah… interesting poem I came across
When my high-school girlfriend broke up with me in college (she was the first person I had ever dated) something broke in my brain. I mean that literally. It’s when my depression started and that depression hasn’t gone away for over 20 years. It probably never will. My feelings for her caused me a lot of suffering and ruined my subsequent relationships for about a decade, but gradually they became a dull ache rather than a sharp pain and by now they’re simply bittersweet nostalgia.
I really hope for your sake that your situation will work out better than mine has, but perhaps you can feel more optimistic about your future if you know that even I eventually got to the point where I was ready for something new. I don’t think about my ex even when I’m depressed and I even find it darkly funny that in retrospect she was less compatible with me than the women I broke up with because I couldn’t stop thinking about her were.
I mean I’m ready for something new but everything is a massive disappointment
I don’t mean to be rude, but what you’re describing is one way not being ready for something feels. It’s not just a conscious thing - it’s also the inability to enjoy the new things that you try
I mean what am I supposed to do?
I’m just going to add my voice.
You likely have been very much programmed to think of this one true love bullshit. It’s romantic feel-good stuff that sells books and TV shows and other media, but it’s not the reality. It’s a fantasy.
You are this, and even more, compatible with a plethora of people. There are a lot of people you could love like you loved this person.
The only thing stopping you from feeling this again is yourself. If you want to believe that there is no one as amazing as your old flame out there, then that is how it is. Your belief in this makes it true. Because as long as you believe this, you will eternally focus on all the ways the new person is not the same as the guy you loved, instead of appreciating the new person for the different features they have.
As soon as you stop believing that guy is the best ever and no one can ever compare, that is when you will find someone new who you think is as amazing. Not a single moment before, you simply couldn’t even recognize it.
In the meantime… Another thing everyone has said is that it is actually possible to be completely content by yourself. You don’t actually need any romantic partner to be happy. It’s the same as above: as long as you believe that you’ll never be happy if you don’t find someone as amazing as that guy, then that’s how it will be, you will be unhappy. But as soon as you believe that you can be happy by yourself, that’s when you will actually be happy alone. It is actually that simple. I’m sure there are things you love to do that don’t involve a romantic partner. You can do these indefinitely and stay happy. As long as you believe that you can.
I don’t believe in the one true love bs. I thought that about my first real boyfriend. Then I got over that eventually.
The point is this person was objectively better than most. That’s different. It’s not even about love.
Anyway I’ve never liked this line of thinking, it’s very just world fallacy-esque. “Its your fault if things don’t work out because you brought this upon yourself and deserve it” no thanks
That’s the thing about relationships: they have to work for both people. The fact that it didn’t with him doesn’t mean you’re bad and he’s good, it just wasn’t what he needed. If you’ve dated other people, you’ve probably experienced the reverse.
Unless all your relationships have broken down for the same reasons, there’s no reason to think that the next one won’t be better, or the one after that.
One thing though - it’s clear from what you posted that your self-esteem is really low, and most of us do self-destructive things when our self-esteem is low. There’s a cliche about it being hard to love someone else it you don’t love yourself, but bring a cliche doesn’t mean it’s false. It’s also very taxing on someone to be in a relationship with someone that has very low self-esteem. Not everyone can handle that.
Tbh his self esteem was quite low often, but it also fluctuated with periods of thinking he is godlike. I didn’t personally find it taxing to deal with his insecurities. I was just bewildered at how much he hated himself and thought he was unworthy of love while simultaneously running away from the one girl who loved him. Kind of funny. Ha ha.
Yikes that sounds familiar as fk. My 2 cents: you might be craving isolation (and maybe in part is okay) but actually going out and meet people is better for yourself, force it if necessary. Change habits, meet new people. Shit happens in life, it’s only sad and pathetic if you let it consume you.
You’re right, but where I live the people are very closed minded and most of the expats are married and older with kids and family or are digital nomads who plan to leave soon/live in their coliving spaces and only interact with other nomads 💀
Yep it sucks when it’s like this but I’m sure it could be worse. Ask yourself what do YOU like to do (chess, reading, gym, parc) and find a group in your city to hang out with. Make your day full, super full. You should come back home everyday exhausted, force yourself like this for a couple of months to make it a habit. When it will become too much you can start leaving some activities aside, giving value to what you really like.
Also Idk if saying that he’s the best of the best can help you or him. You are probably exaggerating a bit and maybe you tolerate some quirks of him that prob others would hate. He too probably doesn’t feel the best of the best and hearing the disconnection between you and others might harm him.
Anyway socialising (even if you rather break your leg instead of talking to ppl) is the best way to get out of this. I was on the other side, i saw the whole process…
Disconnect between me and others? As I said others like him too so there’s no disconnect there
Like him and prodigy are different :) but anyway I just think that in this moment maybe it doesn’t help you.
