The intimacy in our relationship is gone, though he denied it at the time when I confronted him about it

This helped. But i feel like i’m filled “hope” that worth somehow. I’ve been seeing this guy i work with for over 2 and a half years off and on. , i over heard that he had a gf. But when i confronted him, he cleared out said that he wasn’t with her in a while and that he only talks about her cause he doesn’t want the office to know about his personal life. We tried to stay friends cause that’s what he wanted, but for some reason, talking as friends becomes more and leads to flirting and then bed sometimes. and that’s how its been. About 2 months ago, i had this gut feeling to look at his FB which I NEVER DO… but i did. Nothing was on there really except this picture of him, a man, and another woman. The picture looked more like that other man’s gf or wife maybe. So i went on his sister’s FB page then found where she tagged him and his exgf “so i thought” about them bringing her dinner. I confronted him and he was out nervous and kept saying sorry. Long story short…. i’m left hurt once again by him. He keeps insisting that we stay friends and he has been saying and doing little things for me that he never did before. I didn’t see anybody the whole time i was with him. He has been with his gf for a long time, but doesn’t live together, nor does he want to talk about her to me when i ask questions regarding if he loves her or not. He still gets a little jealous when i talk about other guys. I want to stay friends, but i know very well that we will return to the way it was.

It echoed so many of my thoughts, such as: What hurts is stopping the hope that the relationship would work; that it seemed one-sided for too long and something was wrong; that an attempt to get what I wanted from it resulted in a fight instead of a mature discourse; that someone who cares should be able to article my importance to her at least at some level, even if “like a brother”, instead of “you have a complex and it is wrong for you to ask at a time like this;” and, then an extended silence to try to control me. (This was an internet fling.)

Then I read this article, and I will many times for the next while. It hurts very much, the addictive hope that the future will be better than something in the past. Even though, every minute was hell and second guessing.

We did long distance for three years while I was away in another city for school and had broken up once in my last year until I had returned home and we mended the relationship

I’ve been in this relationship for 8 and a half years, he is my first boyfriend and we met at such a young age. We have literally gone through hell and back. We fight, say horrible things and have been physical with each other. There were times he tried to end thing but I begged him to stay. I can now recognize that feeling of addiction after reading this.

Three years ago our living situation changed drastically and we moved into the basement of my parents house. This happened around the same time of his grandma passing and since then, everything has gradually gotten worse. He could barely hold a job and engulfed himself in social media projects. I have been financially supporting the relationship and have been feeling the resentment grow after every passing year. And in the past year, we have gotten into so many huge fights which resulted in me trying to end our relationship. Each time after we had time to cool off, we couldn’t bring ourselves to end something we had for fruzo so long.