3 months post break up. Was I missing something?

[alittlebitofdane]

I’m still trying to process my breakup and would really appreciate some outside perspective.

 

My ex broke up with me last December, and this was actually the second time he’s broken up with me.

 

For context, I’ve been living in this country for about 4 years on a visa through my job. My company is currently processing my permanent residency, which takes around 3–4 years. I also live alone—my family is in other states, hours away—and while I have a few friends, I mostly only see them at work.

 

We were together throughout 2025. He’s in the military, so we were long distance the entire relationship. I visited him twice where he was stationed, and we spent time together when he came home. I met his family, and although he never met mine, they all knew about him.

 

I genuinely like who he is as a person, but one issue was that he struggles to open up. He tends to deal with things on his own and doesn’t share much about what he’s going through.

 

Around September, things started getting stressful for him because of uncertainty in the military—his roommate was being relocated, and he didn’t know where he would be stationed next. In October, he found out he would be staying in the same place for another year. After talking to his mom about it, he suddenly called me about 40 minutes later and broke up with me, saying he couldn’t handle another year of long distance.

 

This completely blindsided me because we had been fine just hours before.

 

About a week later, he called me to apologize. He said he had panicked, felt extremely lonely after his roommate left, and realized he had been depressed. He admitted he pushed me away because of it. He also told me about a military program called SkillBridge, which could allow him to leave as early as 6 months to transition into civilian life.

 

He asked to get back together, and I agreed—but I told him he needed to communicate with me instead of shutting down when things get hard.

 

Things were mostly good again, aside from a few normal arguments that we worked through.

 

At the same time, I’ve been dealing with my own challenges. I don’t drive, and my parents never taught me, so I’ve been paying for lessons and even flying out to see family just to practice. I failed my driving test twice, which was really discouraging, but I was still determined to keep trying.

 

When I called him crying after failing the second time, he got frustrated and said something hurtful. He later apologized, saying “there was some truth to it, but I’m sorry for being mean.”

 

Then later that same night, he broke up with me again.

 

He said that after talking to his mom about marriage and kids, he realized he’s not ready for that kind of commitment. What confused me even more is that just a week before this, he had brought up the idea of us getting married. His reasoning was that it would help close the distance, help me get permanent residency, and allow me to leave my toxic job. I told him I was open to the idea but not ready to seriously consider it at that moment given everything I was dealing with.

 

He initially said he understood—but then still encouraged the idea, and I somewhat agreed.

 

So when he broke up with me, it felt like a complete reversal.

 

He also said he couldn’t wait for me to become more “stable” or be able to freely travel with him, and even told me that if I had passed my driving test the second time, we would have been “on the right track.”

 

That really hurt, because I’ve been doing everything I can to improve my situation.

 

What’s also confusing is that things he had previously said he was okay with in our relationship suddenly became reasons for breaking up.

 

From my perspective, it feels like he was overwhelmed, struggling mentally, and ended up projecting that onto me and the relationship. But I’m still trying to make sense of it all.

 

Am I missing something here, or does this seem like he was acting out of panic and inconsistency rather than actual long-term incompatibility?

[Gebidozo]

1 hour ago, alittlebitofdane said:

Am I missing something here, or does this seem like he was acting out of panic and inconsistency rather than actual long-term incompatibility?

He was acting out of his wish to no longer be together with you.

The causes of that desire are irrelevant. Whether he realized he didn’t love you enough (most likely), thought you were incompatible for a long term, panicked at the prospect of settling down, got affected by something other people told him, met someone else, or a combination of any or all of the above - he broke up with you. It’s over.

He actually did it twice. Perhaps it in the future you shouldn’t be giving second chances to people who break up with you like that and then want to come back a week later.

Get him out of your life and out of your thoughts, and start healing.

 

[ExpatInItaly]

6 hours ago, alittlebitofdane said:

does this seem like he was acting out of panic and inconsistency rather than actual long-term incompatibility?

Not really, no. It seems like he has known deep-down for a while that he doesn't see a future together but hasn't had the courage to tell you that directly.

So he comes up with vairous other reasons and seems all over the map to mask the fact that he knows he isn't feeling it anymore. Perhaps he'd hoped that would change for him, that he might get his old feelings for you back - any number of things. But given that he's broken up with you twice now, it's safe to say that this relationship really needs to be over. 

I'm sorry. It hurts, but someone who can blow hot and cold like that isn't feeling strongly enough anymore to commit to you properly. It's going to be far better for you to accept that this guy is not the one and work on healing. 

Edited 14 hours ago by ExpatInItaly