Hi lexy99,

You’re not alone out there, I’m 27 and am still living at home while in the process of finishing my bachelors degree. Not an ideal situation for me, I unfortunately didn’t take school seriously when I was younger and I’m having to make up for lost time now, and with the added bonus of having to sacrifice any semblance of what used to be my social life along with it. I’ve had several opportunities to move out but had I taken any one of them I would be right back where I am now and it didn’t make sense to me to take that jump not being a hundred percent sure about not having to move back. Long story short I worked for a government subcontractor and was laid off around the time of the US government shutdown a few years ago and while I was eventually offered the job back after the next contract negotiation was over I didn’t want to be stuck in that cycle of uncertainty any longer so I decided to finally finish my degree instead. I get it though, I had a lot of those same fears that you listed when I came close to signing a one year lease. I was even in an ideal situation where a friend of mine who I also worked with was in the same position as me – mid 20ies and still at home – and we got along really well and were really excited about getting a place together. Ultimately I ended up deciding not to sign the lease because I was scared of the uncertainty of my job (we were listed as temps for our first year until the new contracts were signed – a cute way of them being able to let us go and then hire us back so they didn’t have to fork over benefits without all the extra red tape) which proved to be a legitimate concern as everybody on my team was let go what would have been 7 months into the lease.

I’m a terrible obesser/worrier as well – especially in regards to money – and when it comes to having to support yourself that can be daunting. It can also be really empowering as well and I think you will find when you settle into a routine and budget and realize you can do it – you will overcome those fears and be stronger for it. I love my family, I really do, I have awesome parents and I’m glad to be able to spend more time with them that other children probably won’t get because in the end family is more important than any job or position. Even with acknowledging all of that and realizing it wouldn’t be possible for me to do this without their help – I don’t want to be here deep down and it sucks being stuck in this situation even though I know it’s a blessing and I should be grateful. In regards to your worries have you thought about maybe trying to get a roommate? That would help with both the financial and loneliness aspects. If you’re not comfortable with that getting a pet can be a huge help to feeling lonely in a new place. I guess the homesick aspect never factored in for me because the place I was going to move to was no more than 15 minutes away from my parent’s house but you can make time to hang out with them on a weekly basis. I’m no finance guru by any means but remeber that you are in an advantageous situation, you don’t have to take the first half-decent apartment that comes along. I would recommend using that stability in having a place to stay to the fullest and take your time finding the best place and situation possible. I think renting is a much better idea to start as it’s good practice without as much of a risk and situations can change greatly from year to year – is there a reason you wanted to buy a house right now other than not being tied into a lease? Depending on where you live it could be cheaper to buy a home but I would wait to do so if you aren’t absolutely sure where you are is where you want to be for the foreseeable future.

Anyway, I hope things work out for you and know that you are definitely not in that situation alone.

Best wishes

Hi Strawberry,

I came to this site a few months back when I was looking for direction after a breakup also – 4 months removed from a 2 year relationship. I had such a hard time coming to terms with things because it caught me so off guard. She had been having doubts about us for a while and I thought we were both pretty happy – I really didn’t see it coming. That feeling of hopelessness when you want so badly to change the reality of a situation but you can’t – it’s paralyzing – I literally struggled to find the right words when she called me to break up. I can sympathize with what you are going through totally. I had a period of about a week where I had no desire to eat – I went 3 or 4 days and had no hunger at all I actually started to get worried and forced myself to eat. My ex didn’t so much say specific things about me, in fact she said there were a lot of things I wasn’t ready to hear about myself yet, but she seemed so disgusted with me over pretty small things. I couldn’t understand how someone could feel that level of vitriol towards someone they supposedly loved so much at one point. She acted as if I had wronged her in some way when all I had ever done was try to show her unconditional love. Anyway, it’s been 4 months and I’d like to say I’m completely over her but today is her birthday and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wonder if I even crossed her mind.

I’m trying as much as I can to move on but I still find reminders every now and then and it does drudge up some of the hurt. You just have to trust your process and focus on staying in the moment. As someone who has always been a big worrier and obsessed over the future – I can’t tell you how freeing it feels to let all that go and just worry about where I am right now this moment. I know that’s easy to sit down and tell someone but I’ve become a lot better at it with practice and a will to apply it. This has been one of the hardest things for me to do – that and show compassion to someone who I felt treated me pretty poorly all things considered. Meditation and positive affirmations have helped me a lot. Some days I have to fake it – some days I feel hopeless and miserable – but I do find moments of levity where I feel calm and I am glad when I look back and saw I fought through the day when everything in me wanted to just shut the blinds and pull the covers over my head. To me that is true courage – something I’ve learned to find in myself and exercise. I’ve become a lot stronger person through this mess and I’m a believer that strength can’t be gained without pain (physical or emotional). I still have my bad days but I have seen how this breakup has made me a better version of myself and closer to the version of myself that I want to me.

All I can offer you in advice is what seems to be helping me – find some time to sit down and put the sadness and pain aside, if only for 10 minutes, and focus on some of the things in your life that you have to be grateful for. Start there and go easy on yourself, don’t beat yourself up and try to do some of the things you enjoy (I know sometimes this isn’t easy but eventually you will find the person you were before you met this person). You may not feel like it right now but in time you might find that you are happy this relationship did not work out. Your wants and needs are just as important as your partners and if we are really honest it’s a waste of time to put energy into wanting to be with someone who doesn’t want to be with us. I know it sounds corny and cliche but you survived just fine before this person was in your life – in time you will be just fine without them. I wish you the quickest of recovery and I hope that you find some peace and relief from the situation – I sympathize with you totally – as much as a random stranger on the internet can I guess (haha). Just know you are not alone there are plenty of us out there struggling to deal with breakups – some take longer than others- and there’s nothing wrong with that. Just don’t let it consume you and close you off to the other opportunities life is trying to show you.

Best wishes in your recovery,
Matthew

• This reply was modified 9 years, 9 months ago by Matthew.

Hi sondersome,

I see a lot of what brought me to this site in your post. It reads very similar to what happened to me and I definitely understand what you are going through. You should give yourself some credit and praise for realizing a relationship should be with someone who wants to be with you not something you have to beg and plead for – it takes others a long time to realize this. I too was dumped on a holiday (Halloween). I know that feeling of wanting to pick up the phone and call that person – I myself had so many unanswered questions that I had to try to let go of – and I had to take her number out of my phone to resist the urges after awhile. For me the thing that hurt the most was knowing I did everything I could to support and love her and at the end it was almost like she was disgusted with me. Ultimately I realized none of that mattered, her opinion stopped mattering, I knew I was a good person and I could walk away from the relationship knowing I did everything I could to try to make it work and it just wasn’t meant to be. Thoughts like that might not be comforting yet, you are going to feel sad or lost for awhile, that’s okay and normal I believe. The key is that you don’t stay in that place longer than you need to – you won’t immediately bounce right back and you should allow yourself time to grieve but don’t let this experience lead you to a stagnant place where you are shutting the doors on the opportunities of life (if that makes any sense).

I think everybody is a little bit different so what seems to be working for me might not necessarily work for you but I’ll offer up what I am doing to try to progress. I think the most important thing is that you focus on yourself and be selfish for a little while. Be kind to yourself and realize that even though things didn’t work out with that person, your wants and needs are just as legitimate as theirs and you have a right to happiness yourself.

It’s been about two and half months for me and many days have been a struggle, I honestly have to take it hour by hour some days, but I’ve tried applying different techniques to cope and not stay stuck in the feelings of sadness. Sometimes I go for a walk or run, sometimes I take a few minutes to go to a quiet place and meditate, but I always try to keep a firm grasp on the present moment. Sometimes I just sit and try to find the gratitude for all the blessings in my life right now. I’m at a place where it helps me to acknowledge the events that have led me to this place but to not dwell on them. I feel them, acknowledge them, and move on. For me the thing that has helped me the most is forming a routine around all the things I had been putting off doing. Getting in shape the way I had been planning for years, finishing up my degree program and certifications, trying things I’d always wanted to do like tai chi and cooking classes. I started working on improving myself and I’m slowly seeing the way this breakup has led me to being a better version of myself. I’m seeing how my reaction to the adversities of life are changing to more positive responses – I’m gaining a gratitude for all the positives in my life that wasn’t there before. I feel like I’m becoming a stronger person.

Ultimately the hardest thing I’ve had to do throughout all of this was forgive my ex and show her compassion. It went against everything I felt, everything my friends has suggested to me, every response I would have had in the past. I choose to take a different approach this time and from the sounds of it you are trying to do something similar yourself. Don’t beat yourself up if you get tripped up by feelings of sadness. There are things I do and see on a daily basis that remind me of my ex or things we had done or planned to do that stir up those feelings. Just remember you are a work in progress. Not everything you find on this site might work for you or will be something you believe in but try to have an open mind (if you would have told me a year ago I would be meditating daily I would have laughed in your face). But I can promise if you put yourself first right now and show a little love and forgiveness to yourself – in time you will heal. I’ve felt just the way you are feeling right now, I get it completely, and I wish I could say there’s a quick fix to make that pain go away but there just isn’t (at least not one that is healthy for you). There’s several good blog posts on here that might help to bring you out of that frame of mind when you are feeling down. Something I like to do is whenever I’m hit with those feelings of sadness or longing, I pull up a blog post or search through some motivational quotes.

I wish you the best with your recovery, you are not alone, and it’s hard to imagine right now but if you let it this will make you a stronger person one day.

Matt

I’m glad that my post was maybe able to help you in some way. Try not to beat yourself up over not understanding something, we all learn things at different paces and you may get more out of a particular experience than I do. The younger version of myself would have dealt with things in such a different way. I would have become a recluse and shut the outside world out worrying only about my own pain but I’ve found that reaching out to others and sharing really heightens your compassion for yourself as well as others and has helped me so much more in times like this. That is one of the ways my breakup has made me a better version of myself I think. I’m sure in time you will be able to see the ways what you have gone through has made you stronger as well.

I know how hard it is to fight the urge to want to try to fix things, how much you want everything to go back the way it was, and if you are anything like me you’ve probably gone over all the little things that you maybe could have done to fix things. The truth of the matter is you are worthy of the love and happiness you desire and none of the things you think you did wrong or wished you could do differently changes that. I know it’s hard to detach the feelings of happiness you relate to that person – but it is not fair to yourself to think of it as something you have done wrong. From your account I don’t think your ex was wrong when he claimed he was lucky to have you – he was absolutely right – remember that when you are feeling down. My ex told me some of the same things (you are the best man I’ve ever dated, I’m so lucky to have you, etc.) and I can understand how it leaves you wondering how someone could ever say those things and then suddenly tell you they don’t love you one day. Try your best not to focus on that, it might not be something you will ever fully get the answers to, instead focus on the positives about yourself and remember you are worthy and you are worth it – your wants and needs matter just as much. You may not always believe that – you may have times where you struggle and the pain feels too great – but treat each day as it’s own victory if you have to, keep telling yourself that even if you don’t believe it and in time as you are given more of a chance to heal you will find it to be true.

I haven’t totally moved on – I still get tripped up into those feelings from time to time – I don’t think I would say I have gotten myself together so much as forced myself not to let it bring me down completely. It’s only been a few months but I can see progress in myself and that is reassuring and what I am focusing on instead of how bad I still feel sometimes. There have been days where I felt like I was completely over it that were followed by days where I felt immense sadness and hopelessness but as tiring as it is – I feel like with every opportunity to process and react to those feelings with compassion and gratitude for all the good things in my life I am made a little bit stronger. I am becoming a much happier person by changing the way I deal with sadness – if that makes any sense. For me it’s been a lot about forcing myself to react in a much more positive and constructive way that I would have in the past and not necessarily feeling like I’ve totally moved on.

Again I hope that helps again in some way, know that you’re not out there alone struggling with this, but also know you are strong enough to find happiness and serenity without having to rely on anyone else to achieve it.

Matt

Hi jdkm,

There are some of us who are right there with you. I recently had a relationship end and tried to end things in the best way I could from my side. It was made all the harder for me because I’ve always been a pessimist and had to make a number of changes in my life to try to change my perspective and proceed forward in the healthiest way possible. I’ve never been that type of person but I didn’t want to be like that anymore. I forgave her for every thing I felt I needed to and wished her the best in life – so that I could walk away with no resentments myself. Even with all of that and the work I’ve done for myself, the thought of her dating another guy right now is still pretty painful so I definitely understand how you’re feeling. Ultimately I just wanted her to be happy but it still hurts knowing it won’t be with me. I think we can take solace in the comfort of knowing we are actively working towards progress and have done things to better ourselves when a lot of people would have done something toxic or destructive. Stay strong and keep progressing, thanks for sharing.