This is my first post, but I really hope that by putting my story out there I can finally start to feel better.

I met my boyfriend 4 years ago, following a bad break up of an ex. He made me feel special and wanted to heal me. I was struggling really badly with Body Dysmophic Disorder and hated everything about myself. Because of this, I had to tell him I couldn’t be with him because I couldn’t get naked in front of him and was terrified of anything sexual. Instead of running for the hills, he stuck by me and promised to help me. The months went by, and we frequently argued and he cried a lot. But we also had such fun and I fell in love with him very quickly. Because of my disorder, we didn’t go out a lot, I didn’t meet his friends, we didn’t take photos together or get intimate, but he was always there. We smoked a lot of cannabis and watched films and just spent time together.
Fast forward 2 years, and I finally sought help from a counsellor. My thoughts of myself were ruining our relationship, and I had made this poor man go 2 years sex free. Looking back, I feel distraught at how unwanted he must have felt. At this point, the arguing stopped, he didn’t want to get his hopes up. He started smoking more, quit his job and lost contacts with his friends.

After 3 years together, I finally started to gain confidence, it was a slow process. But as this happened, my partner went downhill. He developed anxiety issues and wouldn’t leave the house. He soon began to depend on me. We eventually had sex, and it was incredible. We were happy, but he still wasn’t himself. I got a job in London and was busy with friends and family. He stopped contacting me or making any effort. I tried my hardest to make him involved in my life, but he wasn’t interested. We had a month of only swapping a few texts.

He broke up with me last week. He said he was finally started to feel like his old self again and he was happy. After hoping and wishing for 4 years that we would get to the point where we were both happy in ourselves, he decide to give up hope. He said it is too late and too much has happened. I feel physically sick that we finally got to a point in our lives where we could be a normal couple and he doesn’t want to anymore.

I have so many regrets. I wish I could have tried harder to overcome my illness and just had sex with him, give him the love he really deserved from the start. Instead I drained him of all emotion, and now someone else will get his affections because I didn’t deserve it. I still have so much hope, our story seems too complicated and difficult to just give up on it. He was my knight in shining armour and I completely ruined his life.

How do I give up this hope? The hope that I have felt with every atom in my body for the past 4 years? I have never wanted anything or thought about anything so much, and now I have to accept that it will never happen. I don’t know if I can just end this chapter of my life, without knowing how it could have been.