my ex-boyfriend ended our relationship because he's too broken

[Tilde]

um hey, this is my first post ever and im trying to understand what thought process my ex-boyfriend was going through and how cptsd works. Also english isn't my first language so im trying to be careful on spelling mistakes. We were together for a couple of months, a year in a few and we were long distance, we tried to see each other as much as we could. He's the best person have ever met and im angry at the world for all he had to go through. I still love him and i know i can't never love someone like i love him. He opened up on some part of his different trigg3rs but this one was the biggest he ever went through during the relationship. The last one he had that was this intense was 2 years ago.

Our communication was always clear and thoughtful but 2 months ago the communication drastically changed and i was often met with a silence i had trouble accepting, days after the beginning he told me about it and i asked how could i make the process easier for him but he told me he just had to " tough it out" (nightmares, cold sweats, vomiting, crying in sleep, no appetite, dissociation and more), i asked him how he felt about getting help and because of his current living situation ( place where he doesn't feel safe with people he don't feel safe with) he told me he preferred to wait for a safer place. He opened up at times but when i would ask him if he wants to talk about it, he would refuse which i respected every single time and be as supportive as i can. One day we just argued about it because i felt neglected (i have an anxious attachment) and the only conversation we had was greetings, 2-3 messages and good nights messages, i was lost. We talked about it once again and didn't mention it anymore.

He came to see me at the beginning of the month and i thought we were about to have an open-hearted conversation but he clearly told me he didn't know when he will get better and he doesn't want to drag me with him in this process, he didn't want resentment to grow between us, he feels like he may not heal. He also felt the argument he had was me blaming him for going through the trigg3rs but i was really telling him how i felt. He told me how much he loves me and that he's doing that with a heavy heart, he was crying so hard, i never saw him cry like that, tbh im still in shock, i begged him but he felt like he couldn't make empty promesses and kept telling me how amazing i am, how loved he felt but the duration of his heavy trigg3rs were impredictables. We cried, hard, during hours. He preferred for us to go no contact and when i left he told me "we keep each other informed".

I just can't stop loving him, i am not going to force my way back in his life but i really want to understand what his thought process might have been like. I just pray he will come back to me but i also understand that he need therapy, i also started therapy, the break up gave me clarity and i felt i needed to work on my attachment style too and other traumas i might have supressed and thought i overcame, i feel like if i knew more i would have been a better partner to him...

I will wait for him. It would be pointless to attempt an another relationship when all my heart yearns for him. He's my destiny.

Thank you for reading and i hope i'll learn more.

 

[Riley Jones]

Hey, I'm so glad you reached out, and welcome. First of all—your English is great, honestly. Don't worry about it at all.

What you've just shared is a lot, and I want you to know that what you're feeling makes complete sense. You loved someone deeply, you showed up for him, and then he made the choice to step back. That's genuinely painful, and your heart is still processing it. That's okay.

Here's the thing I'm hearing: you're carrying a lot of responsibility for his healing, and you're also blaming yourself for not being "better" or "more understanding." But I want to gently reflect something back to you—you *were* understanding. You respected his boundaries, you asked how to help, you showed up. You didn't do anything wrong.

When someone is in the grip of intense trauma responses like what he was experiencing—the nightmares, dissociation, all of it—sometimes the kindest thing they feel they can do is protect the person they love by stepping away. It's not about you not being enough. It's about him feeling like he can't show up the way he wants to, and that breaks him. That's his pain talking, not reality.

The part that worries me a little is the idea that you need to "wait for him" or that he's your destiny. You sound like such a caring, thoughtful person, and you deserve a relationship where you're not holding your breath. Healing isn't linear, and sometimes people we love deeply aren't able to meet us where we are—not because we failed, but because their own journey is just too heavy right now.

I'm really proud of you for starting therapy and working on your attachment style. That's genuinely beautiful self-awareness. Keep going with that, not to "be better for him," but to be better for *you*. You deserve that.

How are you doing with the no contact? That's the hardest part.