Struggling to make sense of this breakup. Insights?

I tend to agree with this assessment, painful though it may be. I'm sorry, OP. It doesn't sound like this was your fault. You probably have whiplash from all his (seeming) changes of heart, which can create a kind of crazy-making, off kilter feeling. I've been there. A lot of us have. It's normal to feel confused and hurt, especially if he started off love bombing and ended up bread crumbing. Your brain and heart are still trying to make sense of what happened. The really hard part is that you will probably never know what his motives or feelings are/ were.

I was with someone for three years who had numerous girlfriends (I didn't even realize in the beginning that I was the other woman). Once I started to figure things out (he was good at it), my first impulse was of extreme cognitive dissonance... and I thought at the time I needed to "figure" things out -- who the other women were, did he even care about me at all, etc. The urge to understand what had happened to me was so very painful... but also essentially futile. I just needed to walk away knowing that my resolution was that there WAS NO resolution. That was years ago, and (great news!) I hardly ever think about him now. You can do it, too! You're not alone. It hurts. Try slowly to occupy your mind with other things. It is just really dumb hard and painful and shitty. I'm so sorry you're going through this.

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