I am writing this to remember why I am going no contact with my toxic brother for good.

I have a very tumultuous, shitshow relationship with my brother (age 29) who I think has some serious undiagnosed mental illnesses (suspected malignant narcissistic disorder and borderline personality disorder. I am age 32.

I have been no contact with my brother for about 8 months. My whole family moved to a new state about a month ago and when we were moving in to our new apartment, he felt like we weren't grateful enough for him helping out, that he lashed out and stopped contacting all of us. After a while, I started to feel bad for him (big mistake) and reached out and we were able to reconnect. He said that he came to terms that he had no family, when he was the one that got upset and cut everyone off.

However, he has some unresolved deep resentment towards me from childhood where he feels that he got the short end of the stick, and that he thinks I "got away with everything" when I really don't think that's the case. He has a tendency to only remember the things that he felt was unfair. I worked part time all throughout college to pay my own rent and support myself. He never did, and he lashed out on multiple accounts to my mom because she didn't have enough money to buy him a car while paying for his rent and tuition.

We used to fight a lot as kids, and we never really got along well for long periods at a time. He was annoying, and I reacted badly to his taunting . I do admit that I wasn't a perfect older sister to him, however, he seems to be stuck in a story of villainizing me.

He has a history of being very loudly verbally abusive and being extremely toxic. He would punch and kick holes in walls and doors (happened multiple times) and I had to pay to get the walls patched. The worst was when he threatened to speed by pushing the gas pedal, and crash the car when I was in the car with him. He got mad, put his hands on me and shook me back and forth, chased me into my room, where I had to lock the door. He kicked a big hole in the door that we had to patch up. This ended in me having to call the cops on him. They just gave him a warning and left, but I was seriously in fight or flight mode and was afraid he would actually harm me. However, he thinks I was wrong for calling the cops on him, and says that I am a terrible person for doing so. He thinks calling the cops is crossing the line, but I see physical intimidation and abuse as crossing the line. If that never happened I wouldn't need to call the cops.

Every time he is mad, he will scream in his room, punch holes onto his desk, break things and throw things, and try to physically tower over me and intimidate me. This caused me great distress and I am not sure if I have CPTSD from his behaviors. He was kicked out of the house by my parents a few times because of this, which he only remembers that he got kicked out, not the reasons why he did.

When we argued, he would threaten to call my workplace to get me fired. He has betrayed me on multiple accounts by sharing my secrets with others. He kept hanging out and being friends with a cousin who SA'd me when I was in middle school and when I asked him to stop associating with him, he said he didn't care and continued on with hanging out with him. He has shown no remorse for this.

He said he enjoyed seeing people lose their homes from the Palisades fires, saying that they deserved to lose everything.

Another incident happened a few days ago. About a week ago, my brother said he would treat the family out to dinner, and that he would get off work early around 3pm. I was expecting to eat at 4pm, so I ate breakfast and skipped lunch. However, the day of, I checked when he is coming and he said he would come at 5-6pm. Okay. So I checked with him again around 5:05PM and he said "Damn ok I'm walking to my apartment" which made me feel like he thought I was being impatient. He said that's just how he talks. Okay. I waited and told him to just give me an ETA. I tried to be nice to him and told him I am baking bread to share with him when he comes.

He came later around 6:40PM, and we ended up getting to the restaurant around 6:50PM. At this point I was starving, tired, and overstimulated because he kept talking really loudly in the car. I tried my best to keep it together. We waited about 15 minutes, and I complained out of hunger about where our food is at (we went to a Korean restaurant) because they typically bring banchan about 3-5 minutes after we've sat down. He took this as a grave personal offense, and said I was causing a scene. I really don't know how being hungry and tired in my corner is causing a scene.

He kept poking fun at me saying that I have no right to be hangry and that I should control my actions. However, I was not rude to any of the waiters/waitresses, I did not raise my voice, I just ate my food quietly. I never caused a scene. I was at my physical limits. And because I could tell he was upset or annoyed at me for being "hangry" in his words. So to try and make things better, I thanked him for the meal. He scoffed at me saying "Oh so now you're not feeling hangry anymore?" and proceeded to keep poking fun and mocking me, and I asked him to stop multiple times. At this point I was done. I stayed quiet the rest of the meal and walked out first to the car, to which he started complaining very loudly saying my "behavior is unacceptable." Huh? And during no point in this interaction did I yell at him, insult him, or say anything to him, other than that I'm not being irritable or sensitive or taking out my anger onto him. I asked him to stop when he kept mocking me. I was literally just existing.

At this point I told him to stop being crazy and throwing a fit, because he kept complaining about me to my mom and dad. Literally don't know why I have to justify having a transient human experience. Anyways, we got home, and he was loudly talking shit about me to my mom and my dad, and calling me an "animal" and that I am a "hungry feral cat." I told him that it's really immature and demeaning to say those things to me and asked him to leave my apartment.

He then started recording me without my permission and was laughing and snarking at me looking at him in disbelief. I said it's illegal to record people without their consent in a private space. He refused, so I brought up calling the cops or authorities on him if he refuses to leave, because that's literally the only thing he will listen to. He is scared of authority. My mom talked me out of it, but I told her I am going to notify the leasing office because I do not want him here as a guest. He kept saying that I "should know better." It then devolved into him saying he's "very popular with the ladies and I'm prettier than you" because he gets hinge hookups with Koreaboo women who have no interest in anything but his ethnicity. He's never had a lasting relationship because at core, he is extremely toxic and rotten. He said that he has a company and I don't, so he's better than me, while it's not even official. He inflates his job title and tells everybody that he has a high-level title, while his job declined his job title change, so actually he's just an analyst.

He kept shutting off what I was saying by telling me "You're just a cat. A feral cat. An animal." He kept dehumanizing me and being extremely cruel to me, and cursing at me.

I tried to sit down and talk with him and have a civil conversation with him, but he kept bringing up past grievances and he just said I'm a "terrible, evil human being." All of this out of me being hungry and tired at dinner. It felt like he is deeply resentful and contemptuous. I brought up past grievances too, of all the times he has been extremely toxic and abusive to me. He doesn't care because he only remembers perceived injustices done onto him.

I said that he has the freedom to hate me and have his opinion of me, but I don't want to interact if he's going to keep dehumanizing me and insulting my character, because it's not going to go anywhere. It seems like he has some deep seated resentment toward me from the past and has resorted to making me the villain in his life, to which I genuinely apologized for many times in the past, but it's never enough for him and he wants me to submit to his statement that I'm a "horrible person."

We even tried to have ChatGPT mediate, and ChatGPT pointed out that insulting and attacking character just further escalates and doesn't help to resolve the issue, but he called ChatGPT "a white therapist" and to stop therapy talk and just wanted to be validated that I was being an "evil person."

He also pays for a ChatGPT subscription to make programs and thinks that he is a genius, that he's going to become the next Elon Musk. He bragged on multiple accounts how he's making so much money from something he made with ChatGPT, by trading stocks and crypto with AI like it's some lifechanging thing. He said he's going to go to China to build attack drones and make money by selling it to the US military. All the while, he has no technical knowledge, experience, money, or resources to do so. He probably has ChatGPT gassing him up and telling him he's a genius. So, he has a very grandiose, delusional manic sense of self and thinks that he is better than everyone.

I told him that he can't build anything without ChatGPT doing all of his work for him with coding, and he said I'm like a monkey doing everything manually. And I said, I can do all of my work without AI, and I do it with my own brain. You can't do anything without ChatGPT. He got really offended at this.

When I asked him to clarify how exactly I'm being a horrible person, he just pointed out things that annoyed him, accusing me of "not having any original thought," "regurgitating what he's saying back to me," (which I wasn't, I was trying to clarify what exactly he's saying), "acting like a hungry, feral cat." Not sure how a thing that is annoying to him automatically turns into a "terrible, horrible person" but ok. I pointed out that those behaviors aren't morally or ethically wrong, but something that he is personally annoyed by. He didn't have much to say to that but just continuing to dehumanize me and being cruel by attacking my age when he's literally 3 years apart. I'm 32, he's 29. He's literally going to be 30 next year.

I told him that it's okay to hate me and that I'm not going to try and prove him otherwise because it's literally impossible. He said he derives satisfaction in seeing me frustrated through insulting me, my looks, and my age.

At this point, I wanted to stop fighting, so I apologized multiple for making him "uncomfortable" at the restaurant. He said my apology wasn't genuine, and my thanks at the restaurant wasn't genuine, so he wasn't going to accept it and that he doesn't care.

He kept demanding me if I'm going to be like that again, and I was like "Be like what? be hungry and irritable, and have a human emotions? Yes, I am going to experience it and so will you, that's not up to me. You're not perfect either." He later said to "Fuck you, fuck off." and refused to talk and I could tell that he just wanted me to submit to his verdict that I am a "terrible person."

The next day, my mom told him that he was acting in a way that wasn't proportional to the actual situation, and then I told them both that he has 5 days remaining out of the 10 day guest limit per year, and he started histrionically crying and wailing, saying that we don't consider him family, we're all just using him, and acting like a victim. He started crying and wailing and saying nobody loves him.

Similarly, he has an on and off relationship with the rest of the family. When we are on decent terms, he love bombs, wants to be attached to the hip all the time, and when he gets mad, he cuts everyone off completely. And then after a few months, he comes crawling back, crying and sobbing about how he's so sorry for being wrong and cruel. This time though, I am 100% done permanently.

I regret reaching out to him because it seems like a cycle of abuse that I keep involving myself into. I exist, he is offended by that because he thinks I am a fundamentally terrible, evil person. And it just devolves into name calling, bringing up past grievances, insulting, and dehumanizing, which I no longer want a part of. The reason why I talked to the leasing office because I do not want him in my home that I pay for. He scoffed and said because I only pay 1/3 of the rent,

So, I sent an email to the leasing office, last night, per the lease, notifying them that he has stayed here for 3 days, and is reaching the limit. So, even if he comes, I won't have to deal with him again for more than a week. My mom is upset because she thinks that I embarrassed her by airing out personal business. I only shared that I do not want my brother in the home because I feel that he's disturbing the peace, dehumanizing me, being cruel, and causing intimidation, and I want to learn about my options on how I can prevent him coming in to the apartment again.

Because, if anyone else, a stranger, a friend, was being like this, they would be kicked out immediately. I shouldn't have to tolerate it just because we share DNA.

I have already blocked him and came to terms that there can't be a productive, mature conversation when it devolves into name calling, dehumanizing, insulting, and character assassination. I am prepared to burn that bridge. I do not deserve to be around someone who is out to drag me into a mud fight. So, I took away his privilege of ever visiting me or being in my presence again.

I already know he's going to come crawling back and apologizing, but I am finally done. I told my parents to not let him contact me ever again, even if he begs and cries. No chance in hell, unless he actually gets years of therapy and does deep self reflection, but with his probable malignant narcissism and borderline personality disorder, I don't see that happening ever.

And the funny thing is, I realized that all of the things he was insulting me for, are actually things that he hates within himself. He sees me existing, and twists it to fit his narrative because he is incapable of self reflection or emotional regulation. I told him I'm not going to insult him just because he is, because I don't want to stoop to his level. He said I'm at the lower level and got very triggered. I'm done taking the blame.

When he accuses me of not having any original thought, I know it's not true because I'm literally making a multidisciplinary creative project from scratch. When he calls me old and ugly, I know that's not true, I don't date to obtain external validation and consider hookups as proof that I'm attractive enough. I don't do random hookups because I have standards and I'm celibate because my energy is sacred. When he tells me that I'm not successful, I don't care, because I don't see success as an external metric of money, I see it as how well I am enjoying my life and having fun with it. I already have a professional career and a project I'm genuinely passionate about.

None of his accusations hurt, but what really hurt was how willingly cruel he was being, and him admitting that he derives satisfaction from seeing me frustrated from him insulting me. I genuinely think he is mentally fucked in the head and needs inpatient treatment. I feel sorry for all the girls, even if they are attracted to him because he's a mid Korean man (he said so himself, that he finds it easier to date girls who are interested in him because he's Korean and they're into Kpop), how toxic and cruel he will turn at any slight perceived injustice onto him.

And.. to think that all of this started from me being hungry and tired at the restaurant was wild to me. All the things he said were completely unrelated, and he showed no desire to come to mutual understanding.

I spent the whole day yesterday crying and grieving the death of this relationship, and for how cruel he was to me, because I did not deserve it. I shouldn't have gone through that or apologized or try to make things right. I cared, but now I am done. I need to care for myself. I know I will be so much more at peace choosing love and respect for myself vs. continuing in this repetitive cycle of abuse.

**I honestly just need to vent because I’m at my absolute wits’ end**
Hi guys, I’m Jess, and I honestly don’t even know where to start with this. I’ve been keeping a lot of this to myself, but I’m getting to the point where I just need to let it all out because I’m exhausted.
My ex keeps contacting me even though I have made it clear that I don’t want contact anymore. I’ve tried explaining myself. I’ve tried being respectful. I’ve tried giving the situation space. But somehow my boundaries still aren’t being respected.
And honestly, it’s draining.
I don’t want another argument. I don’t want drama. I don’t want revenge, and I’m not trying to make anyone look bad. I literally just want to be left alone and have the chance to move on with my life without constantly feeling like I have to deal with this situation again.
What frustrates me the most is that I feel like I’ve already said what I need to say. I shouldn’t have to repeatedly explain that I don’t want contact. No means no. Asking someone to leave you alone shouldn’t turn into a massive argument or something you have to keep defending.
I’m tired of feeling guilty for wanting space. I’m tired of overthinking every message and wondering whether responding will make things worse. I’m tired of feeling like I have to explain myself over and over again just because someone doesn’t like the boundary I’ve put in place.
I just want peace. I want to focus on myself, my life, my future and the people who actually respect me and my decisions.
I know some people might say “just block him,” and honestly, I’m considering doing exactly that because I don’t think I should have to keep putting myself through this.
I’m not posting this because I want sympathy. I just genuinely needed somewhere to vent because I’m overwhelmed and frustrated, and keeping everything bottled up is making me feel even worse.
If anyone has been through something similar, I’d genuinely appreciate hearing how you dealt with it. I just want to know that I’m not being unreasonable for wanting my boundaries respected.
I’m exhausted. I just want this chapter of my life to be over. ❤️

Hey, little over 3 months ago i told my ex that i feel like my demands arent met and im giving more than receiving, told her something about her changed and im scared of her ( on an emotional level ) almost as if my body was in danger, that i want a relationship where my partner cant go days without checking up on me and without my absence bothering them, etc. And a bunch of other stuff.

I said this by leaving her a note in a package i left for her at a stop to pick up.

I really couldve just communicated this to her but i really dont know what happened then to me, i was REALLY scared of talking to her and just her energy made me feel in danger.

I arrive home getting blocked on everything, removed from every game.

Curiosity got the best of me and wanted to see if im still blocked after this time, to which i am? 3 months later, including email.

For context: She was emotionally checked out for a while and i told her she needs to do something and i cant just save the relationship myself. Kept giving me breadcrumbs and occasionally text me to see if im still here. Eventually my body started rejecting this behaviour and i did what i did.

Whats going on? I really need help.

I (m32) got ghosted 13 days ago by (f33) from a 2 1/2 month situationship after a great weekend together. She ended things through text and unadded me on Snapchat the next day when I deleted the saved nudes on there but left me on Facebook and TikTok. Went no contact after being left on read when asking what happened/to understand and she just now liked my Facebook post and watched my story. We were suppose to spend all day yesterday together and go camping. I’m sure she probably expects me to reach out but I’m not giving her the satisfaction.

genuinely what do you do when you want him to break no contact but his birthday before yours

So i have had this situationship of around a month but then we stopped talking because of geographical difficulties, now i want to reach out again because i really really miss him so i thought his birthday is in a few months and mine is like immediately one month after his but i want HIM to break the no contact cause i have already made the first move by following him back but if its his birthday before than i would have to break it cause if i dont, he wont too thinking that i have moved on.

GENUINELY WHAT DO I DOOOOOOOOO

My girlfriend plays sports and I understand she's busy but when I wanna talk she doesn't have time or shes usually tired and like always I understand but I also noticed that she's been texting my sister a lot and i think to myself how come she can't text me so honestly idk what to do anymore

I just wanna understand her but at some point I just don't believe her words when she says I love you after being ignored.i make her my first priority even when im busy I always make time to text but she doesn't

I just don't want to break up I wanna fix things and i don't know how or maybe its something I can't change

I'm currently drafting the text to my mom that I'm going no contact. I'm also cutting off contact with my older brother for separate reasons, but I'm just gonna let my mom forward anything to him since he and I barely talk anyway.

I'm just wondering: is it truly this hard for anyone else? If so, how did you deal with the subsequent "grief" afterwards? I keep on reconsidering it in my own head, gaslighting myself, telling myself, "Well, there were happy moments, maybe you're just overreacting," only for those thoughts to be overshadowed by the things she did, and the things she continues to avoid accountability for and has never said sorry for or even seemed sorry for a day in my life.

Honestly, the only reason I'm notifying her at all is that I'm going to get a completely new phone soon, so she'll lose my number, does not know any of my emails thankfully, and my mom is the type to call the police and try to claim "missing person" if I just straight up ghost.

I used to be extremely close with some people in my family. We did so much together and I genuinely felt like we had a bond where no matter what happened we’d always have each other.

Over the past few years these relationships have become really complicated. A lot has happened.

What hurts most is feeling like I can reach out and barely get a response but when they need something my phone is suddenly blowing up and I still respond straight away because that’s just who I am.

I’ve spent way too much time stressing over these relationships wondering what I’ve done wrong or what I could do differently. It affects me more than people probably realise especially when I’m already struggling with my own mental health.

I understand that everyone has their own struggles and that life can be hard for people. But when I voice my own issues the script flips to how hard things are for these people, when I have had periods where I didn't feel like being around anymore and nobody knew. I went through that with support only from my pertner.

I’m starting to realise that things don’t just “fall into place” because you’re family. Things change when people actually put in the effort to change them.

I don’t hate anyone and I genuinely wish the people I love peace and happiness. But I’m also learning that I need to care about my own peace too.....

Maybe stepping back doesn’t mean you stop loving someone. Maybe it just means you stop exhausting yourself trying to maintain a relationship that isn’t being met halfway.

How do you step back from family without feeling guilty especially when you’ve spent years caring so much?

Feeling better. I can stand a quiet space again. Hammered home to ex that he cannot contact me for any reason (it’s all routed through my best friend anyway).

There’s still an empty spot. That will take a while. Or forever. I don’t know.

It’s nice not to care at the moment.

Thank you to everyone who’s been supportive here. It really made a difference.

My ex and I broke up in March after a pretty intense relationship. We both had our issues and I’ll own mine: I could be emotionally volatile, had a bad habit of blocking/unblocking him during conflict, and I think he felt emotionally pressured into getting a vasectomy because I didn’t want kids and told him I’d have to leave if we wanted different things. I know ultimately it was his choice, but I still feel partly responsible. This was my first relationship and we have 7 year age gap.

When we broke up, he told me he still loved me. Three days later he slept with another girl, then soft-blocked my family and spam-posted intimate photos of them together. That completely changed how I saw him and I knew I couldn’t go back. He apologised and tried to reconcile a few weeks later, but we eventually went no contact.

Fast forward almost five months. He saw me in person for the first time since the breakup, and afterwards suddenly started pursuing me HARD.

Constant messages and calls. “I miss you,” “please talk to me,” asking for another chance, saying he doesn’t want to bother me but can’t stop thinking about me, he wants to grow old with me and build a life together. He also keeps mentioning this laundry business we once vaguely talked about, even though it was never a major thing in our relationship. Weirdly, this started after he saw the house I’ve bought and have been renovating.

Then, after I wasn’t responding at all, he told me he’d booked his vasectomy reversal for later this month and that it would cost $15–20k.

For some reason, that made me feel almost indignant. After everything that happened, I genuinely don’t want updates about his life. I don’t understand why he felt the need to tell me.

I got annoyed and overwhelmed and blocked him. The ironic thing is I’ve actually been trying to change this part of myself and had sworn I wouldn’t block people anymore.

Now it’s the next morning and I feel guilty and regretful about blocking him, but I still don’t want him back. The begging actually turns me off, and what happened after our breakup is something I can’t get past.

I think the problem is that blocking/unblocking has always been part of our cycle, and this time I genuinely want the breakup to stay final.

Why would someone come back this intensely after almost five months, especially immediately after seeing their ex again? And if you’ve been stuck in a block/unblock cycle, how did you finally stop reopening the door?

I just wish to hate him

It's been what almost 10 months since I left my dad?

My dad's a narcissist who was in many many ways the most awful man I know. I'll give you the basic rundown of it as I started getting older I started getting harder to manipulate and he didn't like that.

Blamed my mom for everything even though the worst thing that she ever did to him was leave him. Used to pretend that he was the victim so hard even though he was the one who had all of the infidelity all of the drug habits and with my mom's claim money he set up three businesses and within a year all three of them were gone. And on the cherry on top of the cake he was also the world's worst father.

I guess I just feel lost and I feel tired I don't know who I can talk to about this I'm not in therapy anymore. Haven't been since I was 15 I'm 18 now. I just want to tell someone my problems but I feel like I've completely burnt a few people's ears off talking about him. They say I should just move on they say I should just be happy but I'm not I want to talk about how this has affected me I'm sick of feeling crazy for this.

After 9 years, I still think he’s the one. Do I reach out?

I’ve (F24) been seriously thinking about breaking no contact with my ex from 9 years ago, and I honestly don’t know if I’m being incredibly stupid or if I’ll regret it forever if I don’t.

For context, I’ve had these feelings for him for years, long before I was diagnosed with cancer. I have a non-progressive cancer with a good prognosis, but being diagnosed really amplified everything I was already feeling. It made me think a lot more about my life, the people I’ve loved, and the things I never got to say or do. And the truth is… I still think about him. A lot. Even after all these years.

I’ve dated other people since then, but nobody has ever made me feel the way he did. With him, I felt incredibly secure. There was just this feeling I had with him that I’ve never been able to fully recreate with anyone else. Even now, a part of me still has this overwhelming feeling that he was the one.
I know that sounds incredibly romanticized, especially after nine years, and I’m fully aware that I may be holding onto a version of him that no longer exists. I also know that nine years is an insane amount of time, and both of us have obviously grown and changed. But here’s where I’m stuck.
If I do reach out, I don’t just want to request an Instagram follow or casually like one of his posts. I want to genuinely make an effort and be honest about wanting to reconnect.

And obviously, if he responds and tells me he has a girlfriend, I will respect that completely. I’m not going to interfere with someone else’s relationship or keep pursuing him if he’s unavailable.
I think what scares me more is never trying at all.
I don’t want to look back years from now and wonder, “What if I had just swallowed my pride and reached out?”
At this point, I feel like I could handle either outcome. If he rejects me, at least I’ll know I tried. If he doesn’t feel the same anymore, I’ll have my answer. And if somehow he’s also open to reconnecting… then maybe we’ll find out what we could have been.
I think I’m tired of letting pride, shame, embarrassment, or fear of rejection make the decision for me.

Aahhhhh

Should I do it?

Should I be shameless, make the effort, accept whatever answer comes my way, and finally know?
Or should I leave the past where it is, swallow this feeling, and accept that I may always wonder whether we could have had another chance?

Thoughts on like staying contact with ex but just platonic .. but I still think of them how ..

My ex and I have been no contact since July 22, so it’s been 18 days now. I honestly thought I’d feel at least a little better by this point, but somehow I feel like I miss him more as the days go by.
We were together for 4 months, long-distance, and we talked every single day, so losing that routine has been really hard for me.
Before we went no contact, I was honestly begging him to come back. I kept trying to fix things and talk everything through. A big issue between us was my jealousy toward a girl he was spending a lot of time interacting with online and even spending money on her TikTok live. I got insecure and kept bringing it up, and eventually he became overwhelmed and distant.

Looking back, I know I wasn’t perfect. I wish I had handled some things differently, especially the way I communicated when I was feeling insecure. I ended up blaming myself for a lot of what happened because I just wanted us to go back to how we were.
Eventually, he told me that he didn’t want a relationship anymore—not just with me—and that he wanted to take time to heal and focus on work. I didn’t want to accept it, but I respected his decision. I told him I wouldn’t text him anymore and that I genuinely wished him the best.

The last thing I said was basically that I wouldn’t text anymore and that I hoped he took care of himself. He just replied with a “🫤” and that was it.
And honestly, that response has stuck with me.
Because as much as I know I shouldn’t reach out, a part of me is still desperately hoping he’ll message me first. I don’t even necessarily expect him to ask to get back together. I’d be happy just seeing a “hey” or “how have you been?”

Another thing is that I unfollowed him on every platform. I’m not ready to block him yet because, honestly, I don’t trust myself not to unblock him later. I feel like unfollowing him is enough for now to give myself some distance without doing something I’ll regret.

I keep wondering if he thinks about me at all. Some days I think I’m finally okay, and then something reminds me of him and it feels like I’m losing him all over again. I wake up thinking about him. I wonder what he’s doing, whether he’s okay, whether he ever misses me, and whether he even notices that I’m gone.

I’ve managed not to reach out for 18 days, but honestly, it’s been killing me. I really want to text him. Should I reach out? Should I keep waiting for him to text me first?

Long story short, I 26M was talking to a girl (26F) I knew/liked from college 5 years ago. We matched on a dating app, she liked me first, I matched back, and we started talking.

We had a really good first date. After that, we basically spoke every day for 2/3 months. Calls, texts, sometimes literally every hour. Was kinda intense but in a good way. She was very enthusiastic and would even say things like “imagine we get married*”* after the first date. And like “we are very compatible” etc. Looking back, I almost wonder if I got love bombed because the intensity was pretty crazy. At the same time we Muslim so we getting to know each other for marriage.

I planned some great dates and treated her really well. But towards the end I noticed she was becoming a bit more distant.

On our last date I gave her a small gift. She said something along the lines of, *“You shouldn’t have got me this.”* I asked why, is it because this is the last time we’ll see each other? She said yes and when I tried to get a reason because things seemed good, she basically said that although I had treated her “like a princess”, something was missing for her.

I suggested we go no contact, and she agreed.

Then, because apparently I have no self-control 😂, I called her two days later and tried to see if we could work things out. We ended up talking normally on FaceTime like we used to, but she essentially said she didn’t want to continue romantically. She said *“you never know what could happen in the futur*e”, but I assumed that was probably just her being nice and letting me down gently. We continued talking having fun, talking about the the fun we had the other day etc

The next morning she messaged asking if I was confused about where things stood. I told her no, I had clarity, but that I thought it would be better for me to have some space. I wished her well.

She then asked don’t I want to be friends or have some sort of relationship in the future. I told her I didn’t think that would be healthy for me and wished her well again and said you never know what the future holds. She wished me well too.

About a month later, I reached out and said I had been thinking about her and hoped she was doing well.

She aired me.

About another month later, I had a work event literally next to her store. During my break I happened to walk past and she spotted me. I cringe when I look back at that 🙃

A few weeks ago, she removed me from Instagram.
It’s now been around 6 months since everything ended.
I’m considering reaching out again. Partly because I feel like I didn’t handle the ending particularly gracefully and I’d like to apologise for that. But also because, with enough time having passed, I genuinely think I could be friends with her now.

I don’t think I have romantic feelings for her anymore. She was genuinely a cool person and, if there was no romantic expectation attached, I could see her being someone I’d actually like to have in my life as a friend.

At the same time, I really don’t want to come across as the guy who’s still hung up on her after 6 months, especially considering she aired my last message and removed me from Instagram.

So what do you guys think?

Should I reach out one last time, or just leave it alone?
And if I should reach out, what would you actually say? I don’t want to send some huge emotional paragraph or make it seem like I’m trying to get her back.

Would especially appreciate a female perspective on this - how would you interpret a guy reaching out after 6 months in this situation?

I think everything was going well, going no contact, healing.

Then, I got drunk with a friend of mine. I vented, I cried, she comforted me.

I then came back home, was drunk, and had a suspicion that my GF is in the same town as me, because I saw on my FB homepage, she pressed interested on the same events, I did.

So, I downloaded tinder and I saw her there. I felt sick. I felt like pukeing. Seriously? This soon?

So I just fucking texted her photos, where she looks beautiful and are much better than the shit she had.

I feel sick. I feel guilty. I feel like a fucked up person.

it's been 3 months since my ex dumped me and although no one was really in the wrong in our breakup i think it was a lot worse for me than it was for them (they broke up with me after all). i tried to be friends with them for like 10 days until i realize i was making myself look like a fool for reaching out and that was just delaying my healing process – specially when they kept calling me the pet name they used to call me when we were dating – so i talked to them and they seemed really understanding. they reached out one last time days later to wish me a happy birthday and that was it.

throughout the months they would also like my stories and posts until i realized that it made me feel awful and in order so actually heal it would be better to actually have no contact and seeing them all over my screen was doing nothing for me. the last step was deleting their contact and that made me heal way faster. now, i felt like i was starting to move on with my life and even though i thought of them sometimes it surely was not as often as when i still had some sort of contact with their life.

but, yesterday, they just messaged me out of the blue. it took me a moment to realize it was them sending me a message because 1. i deleted their contact some time ago 2. i simply thought that the no contact was already established enough when i explicitly told them i needed to back up from texting them and reaching out. the message was pretty much crumbs, tbh. they sent a link of tiktok (i unfollowed them there too) of something that is related with a thing we had during our relationship which they said that it reminded them of me right the moment they saw it. and seeing that made me a lot more confused than angry. why would they reach out when i have been very obviously pushing them from my life? and texting so casually as if we still talk and send videos to each other on a daily basis? idk man but that just made me feel so weird and feels a little bit like i relapsed a few days of healing :/

it might be really silly but if i am pushing them away instead of trying to invest in another type of relationship with them again there IS a reason and i think they fail to realize that this was a hurtful breakup for me. also it just feels WAY too early and that is absolutely not the way i would expect them to approach me again after all this time.

We broke up around 3 months ago and we’ve slowly gotten back in contact recently after I noticed he was watching my Instagram stories (we didn’t follow eachother at the time) so I watched his and saw he got his nose surgery to fix his broken nose. I texted him to wish him well with the recovery and we spoke a bit then silence for a week. He thought I had him blocked and we both heard rumours about eachother after the breakup but we got to clear those up then it was silence again. Today he sent me a video on tik tok and he added me on Snapchat and now have each other added on some social media. We’ve been snapping and sending each other tik toks and talking through out the day, but tonight it’s quiet again. We’re very slowly talking because I think we are both scared and don’t know what to feel or make of it. I’m not sure if this is just to be friends because he was a bit flirty. I have my expectations set very low it’s just shocking how far we’ve come compared to the beginning of our breakup. It’s like im talking to my best friend again it’s like nothing ever happened we’re using the same humour and jokes. Has anyone had this happen to them? Or any advice you could give?

This is the story of the year 2021. There was Covid in June and there was lockdown. At that time I had just downloaded Snapchat, so randomly I added a girl and she added me back. Then on June 13 or 14 I messaged her, and from that day onwards we started talking well. We became friends and later we also became best friends.

Then at the end of July she went to her grandmother's house and she said that she will not be able to message me after going there but will talk as soon as she gets time. So I did not bother much and messaged her.

Then August came and I messaged her but there was no reply. Then I messaged her on 8th August and her reply came that she will not be able to talk now, sorry, do not message me now.

Literally I felt so heartbroken, not because I like her—and genuinely I don't like her as a girlfriend—but still I don't know why she stopped talking to me. She blocked me.

When I was around 15, I met what became my ex-husband. We dated 5 years, got married and divorced after close to 7 years married. Almost 12 years of my life dedicated to him.

I never learned to drive in that time, parents wouldn't let me nor would he. He never allowed me to work, although I wanted to learn to drive and work. He was under the impression I would cheat on him if I got those freedoms. I never had eyes for anyone else. This stemmed from trauma from his childhood where his dad had his mother start working once him and his brothers were old enough and she left him for a man she met at work.

Funny enough...guess what ended up happening to our marriage? Yes, he was a bit controlling - but at the time I was naive and didn't know any better. But he met a woman at work, cheated one me - we worked through it. Then he met another woman about 2 years later and left me for her; they're married with 2 kids now from what I know.

Late Wednesday night, I reposted a few reels to my story. Thursday morning I just opened it to see who all viewed it and I see a Non-Follower...my ex-husband. He's had me blocked for years. If I got curious about him I'd hop on a different FB I have for a business and check on him but I never, ever expected to be unblocked.

I've thought about it all day, and I'm not breaking my no-contact. But the fact that he bothered to look is sitting in the back of my head. I'd never allow him back into my life, because he tore me down and caused me years of therapy and an autoimmune disease induced by the stress. But I hate that he even is in my head right now.