Not sure what to do here. I feel like I can’t breathe. My fiancé, the person that I love more than anything, has decided that he can’t be with me anymore. He doesn’t want a life together because there’s been too much damage in our relationship for him to see a path forward. 

I was physical with him more than once and I’ve put him through emotional pain, as well. I can’t believe I’ve done the things that I have. I never wanted to hurt him. I’ve never wanted anything more than to be with him. We planned our whole lives together. I had an episode in July and completely lost control of myself and threw something at him as he was packing his bags to leave the vacation we were on together.

I immediately started calling every therapist and psychologist in my city so that I could start treatment. I had been seeing a therapist for a couple of weeks prior to this incident, but I realized how much of a problem I had and that I wouldn’t be able to resolve it on my own like I thought I could. It was really difficult for me to finally realize that this problem was bigger than something I could solve myself. He said that he would keep the window open for me because I clearly needed to get help, but that he couldn’t promise anything and that we were not together any longer. I was diagnosed with BPD by my psychiatrist and she put me on Zoloft. 

I went to stay with my dad in my home state for a couple of weeks, which was the first time I’ve ever been able to lean on my family for any kind of emotional support, and started DBT therapy. It felt like the Zoloft was making significant improvements on my general anxiety every day. Like the weight of the world had lifted. I felt positive that my fiancé and I could figure things out, and created plans for how that could look in order to provide the most psychological safety and for us to build back together in a steady and consistent approach. Structured time away from each other to remove the codependency issues we both fell into, couples therapy to resolve conflict and communication issues, dating instead of being engaged so that it takes the pressure off of things, continuing with my meds and DBT. We agreed we’d have a larger conversation together about where our direction is and that he’d explore every possibility (staying together and not staying together) but that as he’s been processing, he feels like it’s moving towards us not being together. I still felt like there was hope. I had processed so much in the 5 weeks since the incident happened and since I began the work on myself. I was excited for the rest too, even though it’s been emotionally taxing. My childhood was really rough and there was more abuse + neglect than there wasn’t, and I had repressed a fair bit of it until now but even so I felt strong in my ability to figure this out. 

I got back to our apartment last week and felt so much potential. I had missed him so much while I was away and the space was necessary but reaffirmed my feelings that this is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. We had the big conversation this weekend and he said he can’t be with me anymore. I haven’t been able to handle this at all. I’ve begged, I’ve asked about every possible way that this could work and he doesn’t want to do any of it anymore.  I’m destroyed. I’ve basically just been crying for 3 straight days and I can’t stop. Everything triggers me. I never thought I would have to do this without him again. I thought I had more time to figure this out. Now I have to figure out how to plan a life without him and it’s put me into multiple panic attacks every day because I can’t handle the idea of living my life without sharing it with him. He’s the funniest, smartest, most caring person that I know. He’s the best friend I’ve ever had. The only person that I’ve ever had a home in. I feel so lost. Knowing that I’ve hurt him kills me. I let him down so much. He isn’t perfect and has done things that hurt me too, but so much of it has been a response to how shitty of a partner I’ve been. I never wanted this, I only ever wanted to make him happy the way he’s made me happy. I behaved like such a child because for the first time in my life I felt safe enough to. 

A couple of years ago I got black-out drunk and hit him in the face. I was beyond mortified at my behavior. We broke up (understandably) and he moved out of our apartment. We spent a few months apart and he ended up reaching out to me to reconcile. We both were able to reflect on our faults and decided that we wanted to be with each other because we thought we were meant to be together. I promised him I would never do anything like that again. Since then, I’ve publicly embarrassed him by making a scene when we were drinking, threw something at him and flipped our coffee table when we were in an argument. I broke my promise. I made him feel a lost sense of security in one of the worst ways and I’m mortified that I’ve done this to the person I love the most. I felt so uncontrollable and completely overwhelmed in all of these instances that I just became the worst version of myself. I won’t use Bpd as an excuse because my actions are my actions but god I wish I could have just figured this out earlier. 

I feel completely paralyzed with sadness. He’ll move on and find someone better but I know in the deepest of my heart that he was the one for me. Our lives are so intertwined with each other. His family became my family in so many ways, and my family adores him. He is my family. The closest that I’ve ever felt to another person. I feel so much turmoil about the way I’ve made him feel. This man wanted to give me everything and tried to, and I ruined it. He’s the best partner in the world and I thought he was going to be my person forever. How do I get through this? I don’t know how to deal with a loss of this magnitude at this point. Everyone I’ve ever deeply cared about has left me and this time it was my fault. Coping with this seems impossible.