Hi all, hope you don’t mind me posting in here. I’m new to the site and I was going to start my own topic but this one is exactly what I wanted to talk about.

So first of all, I’m male, I feel I should point that out since it appears most of you posting here are ladies. But even so I’m in the same situation as you all.

Essentially my girlfriend of 6 years had always been sure she wanted kids and a family whereas I’d never been quite sure. I think because of that neither of us we’re 100% committed as there was always this lingering feeling that we might have to break up at some point. However, after our friends told us they were pregnant (that was probably about 9 months ago) it made me think really hard about that stuff and I came to the conclusion that yes I did want kids. I told my girlfriend and she was ecstatic and we decided we’d start trying around the end of 2019 (to give us chance to get in a few more holidays etc.).

Around 6 months ago I asked her to marry me as a symbol of our new 100% commitment to each other, she said yes and everything was great. But 3 weeks after that she told me she’d be staying with some friends while I find somewhere else to live as she’d had an ‘epiphany’ and realised that I wasn’t the person she wanted to spend her life with.

I was absolutely blind sided, she’d shown no indication that this was coming and in fact things had been better between us than they had been in years. Her parents are divorced and I know the whole situation was quite traumatising for her and her brother as children so I sorta chalked it up to her being scared of marriage. She was adamant that that’s not what it was and she’d just realised that we weren’t right for each other, but none the less I assumed if I just went along with it that at some point she would change her mind.

But here we are 5 months later and I’ve just found out that she’s in a new relationship and I’m absolutely devastated. I think this is the first time I’ve actually realised that she was serious and it wasn’t just cold feet. I’ve missed her for these 5 months but it’s been more in the way that I would have missed her if she went away for work or something, i.e I’m sad to be without her but I’ll make the best of it until she’s back. But now I’m realising that all the stuff I miss and the life we built together is gone forever, so the breakup now feels totally fresh despite the fact it’s actually 5 months old.

I’ve spent the last few days in tears, struggling to even do the simplest things like shower or eat and the pain is unbearable. I just can’t understand how she went from wanting to marry me to being with someone else in the space of 5 months. And the kicker is that I’m 110% sure I want kids/a family now and I can’t imagine having it with anyone else but her.

So yea, hope you all don’t mind me joining in on this conversation, but maybe an added male voice might be helpful?