healingnun,

I’m sorry to hear about your pain – some of the things your bf said to you is similar to what my last 2 exs said to me and maybe there are some commonalities that could help you make sense of things. A lot of guys, especially young ones, don’t realize that long term relationships take work. Many have this mistaken notion that “if it is meant to be, then it would be easy”. When things start getting difficult, they question if the relationship was right or not. In fact, almost all relationships face difficulty at some point.

A lot of men do not like feeling stressed in a relationship – it doesn’t matter if they did something legitimately wrong (everyone does at some point, really), what they will take away is how they feel when they interact with you in those situations. Your ex is still very young, and it could be he is too inexperienced to understand what “love” is. If you lashed out at him, he will start associating these negative feelings with the relationship. These negative feelings can build up over time. Of course, nobody expects you to be a saint and to simply accept everything thrown at you, and heaven forbid anyone takes abuse from their partners. But this is a lesson in managing people’s feelings in conflict – it is a lifelong, difficult one.

I’m not sure if anything I say will help you. But I know in good time you will feel better – I left my ex of 5 years and it has taken me almost 2 years to come to peace with him not wanting to commit to me. You may not feel good begging and pleading with him to reconcile (we have all done this), but at least you know you have expressed your intentions and have been honest – while he does not seem to have been quite so transparent. If he did indeed love you, then his actions and feelings do not reconcile and he will not forget you easily, especially if you treated him with an open heart and kindness. If he does forget you easily, then it is for the best that this happened now rather than many more years down the line.

In the end, nothing you do or say will change another person’s behaviour – except to handle it with grace and goodwill.

I’ll leave you with a quote I felt really helped for me and I hope you will find peace soon.

“Happiness is like a butterfly:
the more you chase it,
the more it will elude you,
but if you turn your attention to other things,
it will come and sit softly on your shoulder”
Thoreau