How do I remove him from a pedestal?

[foottaps]

I've been stuck in a cycle of grief since my boyfriend broke up with me in December 2022.

Context:

I met my ex-boyfriend in September 2021. This was our sophomore year of college and it was the first year that wasn't completely online due to COVID. We both immediately developed crushes on each other; he was the roommate of some of my friends from freshman year (people I'm not really friends with anymore). We officially got together in October, right before my birthday. We had our first kiss on my birthday, which was my first kiss ever. He became my first everything: I lost my virginity to him, this was my first relationship--and it was a serious one too.

Things went really well for a long time. I was experiencing a lot of anxiety around school that semester and he made me feel really safe sharing and confiding in him. I relied on him for emotional support and he became really helpful in terms of my eating disorder (encouraging me to eat, etc.). Towards the end of the semester, in December, I fell into a depressive episode and basically had a breakdown in front of him, which was the first time I ever expressed that side of myself in front of anyone. I kept apologizing to him and he consistently told me I had nothing to apologize for; he sat with me the entire time I cried and was incredibly caring. I had never trusted anyone more.

There was another factor looming over the relationship, however. He had signed-up to study abroad in Madrid the following semester. I was the first person he told, when we were still friends, and I didn't think anything of it at that time. But, once we were together, I started to dread him leaving more and more as time progressed. It really hit that December once the semester was over. I went on a family trip after Christmas to California and I was terrified of catching COVID the entire time because it would mean I wouldn't be able to see my ex before he left for his semester abroad. I was so upset that entire trip, I regretted going and I was downright terrified that I ruined my chance of spending time with my ex before he went away for five months. I was genuinely inconsolable; no matter how hard my ex tried to comfort me, nothing worked.

I think that really foreshadowed the next five months of our relationship. I did end up getting to see him before he left (I actually flew home early), and I basically moved in with his family for the week leading up to his flight. And then he left. I was devastated. I essentially spent the entire time he was away feeling abandoned. See, he confessed to me before leaving that he was having serious doubts about going through with this study abroad, he just felt obligated because of the money he had put into it (he has a very delicate relationship with finances). That just fueled my sense of abandonment--I convinced myself that he chose his pride over me. I was very, very depressed that spring semester (2022). I needed his consoling but I needed it in person, and I held that over his head because he wasn't around. I was jealous whenever I saw him doing fun things because I wanted to be the one he was doing them with. I spent the entire first half of that semester counting down the days until Spring Break, because I was going to visit him. We had a blast during that time, and I loved traveling with him, but the issues picked up again once I got home. The worst was at the end, when he told me that after his exams he was going to spend some time traveling instead of coming home. I felt abandoned again, and I lashed out. I couldn't talk to him while he was traveling. I even told him I sometimes felt like I hated him.

And then he came home. We made up, we were happy to see each other. We loved each other. I actually had a really amazing summer. I spent a lot of my time staying with his family, and we slept together almost every single night. But, I struggled a lot with my jealousy that summer, and it continued into the following fall semester (now juniors in college). I felt upset every time he chose to hang out with other people, or when he would pick up shifts when he knew I wasn't working. I knowingly guilt-tripped him into cutting plans short so that he could spend the night with me. I'm not proud of any of this. I actually seriously considered whether or not I have BPD because of this relationship. We started fighting a lot fall 2022. Our fights started consistently ending in us telling each other that we both think we should break up, but that we didn't want to. I can't remember if this happened before or after we broke up, but he confessed to me one night that ever since I told him that I sometimes hated him, back in May, he hadn't been able to shake that feeling and he was unknowingly holding it against me. He told me that he thinks he was instigating me sometimes as punishment. He also started to have trouble saying "I love you too" to me around November. We broke up in December. It was kind of mutual, but I never actually wanted to. He had previously begged me to let him go, and I told him it was unfair to put the responsibility of the decision on me. Eventually, he pulled the trigger himself. I knew it was coming though. He pulled away dramatically during that semester's exam season. He told me he couldn't see me so that he could study on school. I expressed to him that I expected more from him during that time because it was also stressful for me, and he was my boyfriend. It just aggravated him.

The night we broke up, he ran home and came back with a wooden ornament that he carved Appa into (from Avatar: The Last Airbender, my favorite show). It was my Christmas present. On the back he had carved his initials with a heart. He slept over that night. He wanted to remain friends. I wanted him in my life. His birthday wasn't too long after that. We got brunch, just us, on his birthday. At some point, I started begging him to take me back. He always said no. He always said that we're incompatible and that we're not good for each other. He put up really strict boundaries with me about what we could talk about and what he was willing to console me about. I went to Brazil for a family trip the next month, January 2023, and I was so, so depressed the entire time. We were still in communication, and I tried to convince him to get back together the whole trip.

The timeline gets a little fuzzy once the new semester started. But, essentially, we were on and off "friends" for months. Neither of us could really stay away from the other, but it was always me that reached out first. He expressed wanting to remain friends. I expressed not being able to do that without holding onto feelings for him. This repeated several times. We ended up hooking up twice after that semester's Spring Break, I'm not entirely sure when. I was ecstatic. It meant he was still attracted to me and I thought there was a chance he still liked me. But the "friends with benefits" situation that started quickly ended; I was expecting more than he was willing to give. I wanted a boyfriend again. I'm not sure what he wanted. That was like a second breakup.

After that, I texted him a few times here and there. It was usually when I was feeling really depressed and stuck on memories of our relationship. I'd ask him to remind me that he was fully over me and moved on. Then we'd have a conversation about how he thinks we're terrible for each other and that he has no desire to get back together. It was an ouch every time.

Now, the present:

I'm a senior now. It's been nearly a year since we broke up. There hasn't been a single day where I haven't thought about him. I'd take him back in a heartbeat. See, ever since we broke up, I've lived with this feeling of "wrongness." It feels like we made a mistake. I blame myself a lot for how things went down. I feel insurmountable guilty for how I treated him. He hurt me too, which I didn't completely dive into, but he said some really mean things after we broke up. Things were looking up earlier this semester. I was dating, I even saw a guy for a few weeks. I've consistently gone to therapy since before we even broke up. I've surrounded myself with friends and I've confided in them.

But, last week, I talked to him. In person. I gave him a bag of all of the gifts he ever gave me. He sat down with me and asked me how I was doing. I told him that I've been better. He said the same thing when I asked him how he was doing. I told him that I really wanted to know how he was doing. He told me that he didn't want to share anything more with me. I asked him why, if it was because he didn't trust me (he had expressed that sentiment in the past). He told me that it was really because of the upset he still feels around me. He eventually told me he couldn't sit with me anymore and got up and went back inside his apartment. He was nervous the entire time, I could read his body language. Not once did he look me in the eyes.

I was crushed. I'm still crushed. I feel so much guilt. I feel so, so bad. I know he hurt me. I want an apology (but I know I can't rely on that and that I'll need to forgive myself), but I want him back. I never stopped missing him. I have never been happier than I was in that relationship. I'm not convinced I'll ever trust someone the way I trusted him. I know I have him on a pedestal. But I have no idea how to take him off of it. When he was good, he was perfect. I don't know how to move on. I want to but I also don't want to. I want us to find each other in the future. I feel so jealous when I see other people getting to witness him experience life; I still feel like he should be experiencing it with me. I dream about him. I can't help but hope he'll reach out (what would have been our two-year anniversary is coming up... and my birthday). I want him to "happy birthday" his way back into my life.

I'm so stuck.

[Sam W]

Hi foottaps,

It can be so rough to see the end of our first really serious romantic relationship, in no small part because we've never had to go through it before and are stuck navigating some pretty intense feelings without a road map.

From your description, one big thing that will likely help with taking him off the pedestal and making it easier to move on from this relationship is to set a firm limit with yourself to not see him anymore, even to do things like return stuff. It sounds like that most recent meeting catapulted you backwards in terms of how you were feeling about your ability to move on. In a similar vein, I'd suggest removing the ways you still have available of seeing updates on him or his life, like social media accounts, where you can. That doesn't have to be forever, but right now it sounds like being able to see any of that might be adding to your hurt (I'm assuming that's what you mean by being able to see other people witnessing moments in his life, but please correct me if I'm wrong),

Too, I think something that could help is to start changing the story you tell yourself about this relationship. Right now, it's still very much a story about how he was perfect when things were going well, and how you could still make it work if only your could get back together/do something differently. But that story leaves out important things, including the fact that you didn't like the person you were in that relationship in terms of your actions. So, maybe with the help of your therapist, do you think you could figure out how to start thinking about the story more as one of "this person was important to me, and we have some really good times, but also some not good ones, and now it's over as we both move on?"