This week, my boyfriend (28M) of four years broke up with me (24F) out of the blue. We had just celebrated our anniversary earlier in the month. The last time I saw him we had an amazing day together, we watched a documentary we love and went out for dinner, a rare date night for us. We rarely fight and when we do we’re both calm and it’s more of a discussion - no horrible name calling or anything. We’ve never broken up before or even really come close to it. We’re both introverts so I have my work friends and he has his work friends but after work hours we’re with each other, texting each other, etc. I know that’s not totally healthy but both of us have always been the kind of people to be by ourselves!
So on that night we were going to dinner we had been hanging out for an hour, and I brought up the whole incident of him ditching me for his friends for the second week in a row (which is bizarre in the four years we’ve been together he never does that, but I know he has new friends he’s excited about so I am happy he’s making friends) and we started talking about it, going back and forth on me just saying I felt bummed he wasn’t taking my feelings into account and him saying he was excited he had knew friends and was enjoying it and didn’t want our schedule together to be so rigid. I said i wanted to be at least fairly high on his priority list and if he didn’t want to take my feelings into account then maybe he shouldn’t be in a relationship and he was acting not like himself.
He said I was right and he told me he hadn’t been feeling like himself for awhile (he had told me days before that his anxiety was really bad). He said he didn’t feel like he was in a relationship zone and that he needed to be by himself and figure out what was going on with him and his life by himself. I think he’s generally unhappy with his job and struggles with mental health but hasn’t gotten treatment, despite my encouragement. He said he had been feeling this way for about a month.
I tried to say that we could figure it out together but he said that it wasn’t fair to me, that his ex had done to him what he was doing to me (pulling away and being a bad partner) and he didn’t want to put me through that because he knew it sucked. I asked how he would be okay not talking to me anymore when we’ve been together so long and he said “it would suck”… the entire time he was acting like a robot and not like himself. I mentioned that he wasn’t acting like himself and he said “maybe this is who I am now.” I find it hard to believe he had a complete personality transplant in a month, it was clearly the anxiety talking.
I was obviously blindsided and devastated and said “you’re everything to me” (which I’ve said before! Many times) and he said that wasn’t fair and that was too much pressure for him. He drove me home and after he left I called (I know bad idea but I was in shock) and he said he needed some space so I haven’t messaged him since and am doing NC. It’s been about 48 hours.
I’m still in shock and can’t figure out if he actually wanted to break up or if this is his issues talking. He said he hadn’t planned on breaking up at al, that l it was a spur of the moment decision and I believe that since he was acting totally normal before, we were about to go get dinner. We’ve also talked before about him maybe trying to push me away since I’m the one closest to him. I’m obviously devastated and unclear on what to do… I want to give him space but I also am worried about him and his well being. I’m also concerned that he’s by himself now with no one close to him (he’s an introvert and despite these new friends he has, he wouldn’t share any of his anxiety with them … it took years for him to open up to me about it.) Any advice/input on this would be much appreciated!