Hello all,
Would really appreciate advice regarding my situation with my ex. I’m 37 and my ex is 36. We were together for 4 years, despite him breaking up with me three times. I now understand that I’m fearful avoidant and he’s dismissive avoidant, and a lot of our relationship struggles came from triggering each other’s fears and not having the tools to rebuild trust safely.
We started dating in 2022 and had an incredibly strong connection, chemistry, and friendship from the beginning. Early in the relationship, his mum passed away, and because I lost my dad in my 20s, I supported him deeply through his grief, emotionally and even financially, helping him finally arrange her gravestone years after her death.
He’s also in training, so much of our relationship involved supporting him through exams, career progression, and intense work demands. I never pressured him or stood in the way of his ambitions. In fact, I grounded and reassured him constantly, and our bond became stronger because of it. As he did for me.
The biggest issue throughout the start of the relationship was his “one foot in, one foot out,” using career pressures and uncertainty about the future as reasons he struggled to fully commit. Those fears caused previous breakups, but each time we worked through them. Eventually we lived together for 18 months, which felt like the happiest and most connected period of our relationship. We were talking seriously about marriage and children before he moved an hour away for a new job opportunity, which we discussed i would move once he got more settled.
During the relationship, there were sporadic moments where he acted secretive with his phone. I noticed it but avoided bringing it up because I feared abandonment. Eventually, one incident became impossible to ignore, and I finally raised my concerns around trust and possible infidelity, he denied it
Unfortunately, further down our relationship my instincts were correct. I discovered he had been messaging his ex during these times. I also later found out that during one of our reconciliations while I was cutting ties with other people to focus on rebuilding us he had been organising dates with others. What hurt most was that when I directly asked him about it at the time, even reassuring him that honesty would be okay because we technically weren’t exclusive at that point, he still denied it. This was the same regarding his ex, he had told me he messaged her when she lost a family member and i left it as that because i trusted him. I’ve never tried to control him, or put tabs and we were both very independent.
After that discovery, I struggled emotionally. In the three weeks that followed, I reacted 3 times from him triggering my nervous system, i don’t believe my reactions were unreasonable and they were actually tame in consideration. But by the third conflict he ended the relationship completely. I begged him not to and explained that I was trying to rebuild trust after discovering the dishonesty, but when i asked he give me patience and reassurance he was unable to meet those needs.
When he broke up with me he asked for space while also keeping things emotionally ambiguous. He blamed me for the break up and said my reactions is what made the relationship harder to continue with, that he doesn’t know how to fix this, but what he fails to realise was trust was being rebuilt just slowly. I explained that once everything was finally exposed, we actually had the opportunity to rebuild honestly and become stronger because the secrecy was no longer hidden and could finally be addressed openly.
I understand that being confronted with the truth about his messaging and dishonesty may have brought up shame and guilt for him, especially given his avoidant tendencies. What i am struggling with is he left many of his belongings at my house and hasn’t fully closed the door on reconciliation. After he left he rang me and reiterated that he “just needs space,” which has left me hopeful but the ambiguity of whether we will reconcile is difficult.
We’ve been in no contact for three weeks, and after four years together i know our relationship was loving, supportive, and moving in the right direction, which makes it difficult for me to understand why he would suddenly cut his losses rather than try to repair things.
I just need guidance on whether this is actually a break up or just a bump in the road.