Hi, everyone.

My boyfriend who I met on Hinge last year almost to the day… 9/9/22, broke up with me about two weeks ago. We were in a long distance relationship the entirety of this relationship with a distance of two hours apart from each other. To make matters even more difficult, we are both stuck living back home with family in bad financial positions. As you can imagine, intimacy was hard, we had to definitely book a few hotels here and there. We are both 31, I have been in several relationships, one of mine being 4 years. He has never had a real relationship/girlfriend until me, all his others were failed situationships and hookups. When we met on Hinge, HE asked me what my intentions were from the get go about 2-3 days into talking as he started flirting with me. The pacing felt right and I had never had a guy actually want to go ahead and address motives, intentions with me so he felt safe. I told him I was not looking for anything in particular other than a friend and if that turned into a love connection, then great. Also, that I am solely monogamous and can only focus on one person at a time, including in the early dating stage. I told him I would not be quick to have sex, that it would need to be in a committed relationship before that happens and was a very serious person about intimacy in general. He told me that he was pretty much looking for the same thing and agreed wholeheartedly about only being able to focus on one person at a time too. Thank goodness, someone normal for once. We met in person a couple weeks into talking daily from Hinge and then onto Instagram. We pretty much immediately defined and labeled our relationship from there. No funny business, and he even had me meet his parents and he met my family, his work friends, etc.

The only major red flag I saw in him was that he admitted about 5 months in that he had a very shameful f****boy past, that he actually had a female friend have to confront him to tell him that if he didn’t stop being a creep with women, he was never going to have a successful relationship. He took this seriously and started therapy. What exactly that behavior entailed? I don’t know. Also, his parents are both very successful and retired psychologists with PhDs. He said he was very proud of all the work he had done to improve himself and be a better person to women, and people in general and that he was so grateful I had met him after all this instead of before. He told me he was hesitant to tell me about all of it sooner because he didn’t want anyone to use his past against him or look at him in a different light. I’ll admit, it did make me worry a little because he often uses jokes ironically, but sometimes I can’t help but feel that there is some truth into them? But I totally appreciated his honesty and vulnerability with me. He expressed on many occasions how thankful he was and lucky to have me in his life because he had never before met someone so loving and accepting of him.

Over the span of this almost 12 month relationship, we only were able to meet about 1-2 (sometimes 3) times per month and always spent about 2 days together each time. We texted daily and I did have an issue with his lack of communication in between visits. I requested that we start FaceTiming at least once or twice a week, or just even a phone call. He expressed that he really just didn’t like being on the phone that way and that his ADHD and depression (which he has been professionally diagnosed with, I’ve also seen his meds) kind of mess with the passing of time to him and that he’d honestly just forget to check in with me. But that he knew it was important to me, so he’d do it any time I asked. Well, I appreciated that but I also hated having to always ask to be… thought of and missed. I tried to not take it personally. He is self-admittedly and self-loathingly addicted to World of Warcraft. (I know, I know). I am a nerd too, though and I understand that people need something to unwind with after work every evening. But it did get old that I never “won” over these distractions in front of him. I expressed on several more occasions that I really would like to have more communication over the phone with our voices or faces to bridge the gap in the distance issue. He always agreed that as time was progressing with us, he SHOULD be more active in doing that stuff with me. Well, it still just never happened. And yes, I would swallow my pride constantly and just ask him if we could talk. He always agreed, and unfortunately these times were usually me venting about my day or something he had done that was worrying me. Relationship check ins were happening probably too often. I have also been in therapy for 1-2 years a few years ago, and was told I am an anxious attachment type and codependent. I figured he seemed either secure or somewhat avoidant. But also, I didn’t want to diagnose stuff when we are still in year one here.

June happens and after a concert that night, the topic came up of snooping on your significant other’s social media stuff. He said, “you can look through my phone but you won’t find anything. The only thing that would probably upset you is that I sometimes compliment girls I’m friends with.” I said, “Like flirting??” He said no, and we dropped it because conveniently for him, we were looking for something and the topic passed. But I dwelled on that comment for weeks. July happens and the topic of liking girl’s Instagram thirst traps comes up. I tell him this is definitely one of my only boundaries I really have – I have had boyfriends in the past go all over social media and liking these bikini and sexy photos of girls, and it just really really hurts me. It’s a very difficult boundary for me to uphold, however because I do not like being controlled myself or monitored like a child so the last thing I want to do with my guy is be a parental figure. I can tell a guy all day it hurts my feelings and that their motives behind giving THESE types of photos attention is confusing to me when they are in a relationship already. But if I have to ask them, and they still WANT to do this? I feel like the boundary is then useless and I have to pick my battles. He asked me what I considered a thirst trap. I said, anything that is half-naked, bikini photo, lingerie, etc. He said, “okay so what about just a nice photo of them going out?” I sighed and said, “I GUESS… I just don’t really see the point when you have a girlfriend. But I understand you are allowed to have platonic women friends. I don’t want to be toxic.” He said, “I don’t need to do those things because I have a girlfriend anyway.” But I told him that back in June, he told me he knew I would be upset about that stuff. He said, “No I was referring to the past messages.” He even let me go through his phone to his Direct Messages from a girl he matched with on Tinder awhile back from Australia. Apparently, they still talk off and on but he assured me the last message was from right when we started talking, about a couple weeks in and the message didn’t look sketchy to me. I let it go since we had not even met in person at that point. Also, for him to be openly showing me all this stuff to reassure me? I really appreciated it.

Back up to probably April of this year? We had only had sex probably 10 or 11 times at this point and after sex one afternoon, he tells me he wants me to try getting aggressive with him and slapping him, also kind of yelling at him that he’s a loser, etc. Basically a shame kink situation. I was floored. Never had he had such a serious look on his face before this. He was DEAD serious about this and I just didn’t know what to make of it. We had discussed sexual preferences early on, I told him I was vanilla and not into BDSM or anything too kinky. I love to dress up in costumes and roleplay. We had fun with that stuff, and I’m always open to hear someone out but this particular request just kind of offended me. Why? Because we were only seeing each other in person once or twice a month, and had only had sex so many times so far, and I just felt like that level of kink should be reserved for… further into the relationship? It made me worry he was already getting bored with me. I also worried about his ADHD and depression meds because he told me they KILLED his libido. Not only that, but he barely every finished with me. He only finished with me like 5 or 6 times this entire relationship, as condoms made it even worse for him. So I always felt pressure to have him have a good time. He assured me SO MANY TIMES that sex wasn’t so important to him, that he just really appreciated that we could be comfortable and have fun in the bedroom, that he enjoyed being with me like that, that the end goal didn’t matter to him and he got more satisfaction knowing he was pleasing me. Nice sentiments, I believed them. But I also wasn’t born yesterday and I knew we may run into problems or that he wasn’t being entirely honest with me despite him probably wanting to believe himself that he was okay. I sat on this request for two days. I talked to friends about it and they made me feel validated in thinking it was a bit too soon for this type of “fun” especially with someone so hesitant as me. I FaceTimed him and told him I was uncomfortable with hitting him, that I loved him and I can’t express my sexuality like this with him. He told me he was disappointed just because he thought it could just be fun, but that he respected my boundary. I asked him if he was needing more from me or dissatisfied in any way. He assured me absolutely not. This made me feel better so I told him that I COULD be open to this kink… I just needed some more time. The request just hit me harder (no pun intended) too because he vented to me OFTEN about feeling inadequate being the only one in his family with no college degree. All his siblings have masters! He is a tradesman though and I told him he had his own unique talents. He scoffed. He really has a lot of shame around not measuring up to them and I know he struggles.

Three weeks ago, he was working on the weekend and I asked him how his day had gone. He told me it was actually pretty good because he got the opportunity to work with a newer coworker he hadn’t had the chance to work with yet. He referred to the coworker as “they” and said “they are pretty cool and have a lot of followers on Tik Tok.” I remembered he had briefly mentioned a new employee a month or so ago at this job of his and that they were trans. Something immediately felt off about this comment though, the Tik Tok comment. For one, he often scoffs at Tik Tok. He’s pretty anti-social media anyway. He’s pretty against the vanity of it. He barely posts, if at all. I wondered why he cared? I tried to brush it off.

Two weeks ago, he asked if he could come and visit me that weekend. I had to work until 3 pm on that Saturday, but he didn’t care, he said he couldn’t wait to see me and wanted to make it happen. He had a long weekend from working overtime at his job previously and said we should get a hotel in my neighboring town and really do it up right. I was so excited so I booked our hotel that he gladly wanted to pay for. Friday night happens. He hadn’t spoken much to me that night, again not out of the ordinary. While we were dating, he sometimes went 12 hours without speaking to me. I tried to accept it since I genuinely thought this guy was awesome. I did not assume he was cheating or doing anything shady. He is a total homebody and gets so distracted by his video games and lounging around sleeping when he can. Anyway, Friday night – mind you mere hours until our weekend big date – he sends me a video around 11:30 pm of an inch worm crawling on a wooden post at a restaurant. I could see the parking lot in the background and immediately placed the location as the Mexican restaurant we had eaten at two weeks prior. When I listened to the video, I heard a voice VERY close to him.

There are several things wrong with this picture. 1. He never is out late and especially is never out with friends. His childhood friends are 6 hours away in another state from him. The town he lives in has a population of barely under 500 people, most are retired and in the 3 years he’s been living with his parents in this tiny town – he’s not met one peer or person remotely near his age. He’s literally friends with 70 year old women and housesits for them. I tried not to be weird. I know my triggers and paranoias and projections can become too much sometimes and I often told him how much I appreciated his patience with me. He always reassured me that we were a team and he wasn’t going anywhere.

I asked him what the person in the video said. It sounded like a female voice, and he said “Oh that’s my friend (name) lol.” It was the Tik Tok famous coworker he had gushed about the weekend prior. I just said, “Oh, what are you guys doing out?” He says, “we were just in town checking out the live music and we got some Mexican food.” I was immediately hurt because why was he out at almost midnight with someone getting food the weekend before we are supposed to be hanging out and we even had booked a hotel? I try VERY hard to be understanding but this was just acting out of his character. Something was off. So I panicked and went through his Instagram following list (which I never let myself do before. I tried to not look for issues but I couldn’t hold it in anymore). I couldn’t find this person in his list, but I did see a thirst trap profile pic of some girl he was following. I clicked on it and he had been liking all her bikini photos, photos of her with her mom, pets, etc. the entire time he had been dating me. I was once again absolutely SHOCKED because this went against what we talked about. The latest one had been from two days ago. One of the bikini butt photos he liked ON THE DAY HE WAS AT MY HOUSE. I was just SO hurt.

So I panicked and asked him if we could talk on video. He agreed. I told him that I was just confused about him being out so late with someone before our big weekend and he says, “That’s a dude.” Like deadpan, seemed like he was trying to level with me and say, “they are trans but…they are…a dude…” As in, “no worries it’s not ACTUALLY a girl I was with.” I am sorry to offend anyone here if those words seem disrespectful to pronouns, I am only trying to explain that I think my ex was trying to either cover himself with their pronouns, or maybe just be respectful of them. Well, I let it go because I had not even seen what this person even looked like. I was more upset about the thirst trap liking. He told me he messed up, he admitted and took accountability for letting me down and he felt a lot of shame and disappointment in himself. I told him I really didn’t want to reprimand him constantly but this one… this one was so painful and we had talked about it before. Then I asked him why he likes those types of photos and he tells me it’s a mindless reason. I said but liking them requires effort. Those types of photos are posted to elicit a sexual response, and you liking them gives them that kind of attention. He says, “well I guess I want to give them the attention they are asking for then.” I said, “But shouldn’t you be giving that attention to your girlfriend? Why do you feel the need to give these random women your attention like that??” He just admitted he has wandering eyes and is falling for these photos. That the distance is getting to him, that we barely see each other, that both of our problems just keep compounding.  There was a lot of silence and finally he says, “well. I’ll always think your opinion of the final season of GoT was wrong.” I was STUNNED in shock. He was referring to our first Hinge conversation from a year ago. I said, “Umm. What? Are you breaking up with me?” He says, “Yeah, I guess so.” I couldn’t believe this had just ended everything. I tried to bargain with him for what felt like an hour. I asked him how long he had been feeling this way. He said maybe about a month. I asked him why. He said, “I don’t know, I just miss how things were and the fun it was, and I hate that your negativity has been getting to me and we can’t be there for each other to support each other and also what are we even doing?? We can’t afford to move, we both have no money. I just don’t see how this can go any further. You don’t want to leave your town, your job, your family—” I interjected and said, “SINCE WHEN HAVE I EVER SAID THAT??? ALL I’VE SAID TO YOU IS HOW I WANT TO MOVE OUT AND MOVE AWAY!!” He said all the times he joked about me moving there, I didn’t seem to take it seriously. I said, “I didn’t take it seriously because I didn’t think you took it seriously! I wasn’t trying to scare you. We are JUST hitting the year mark soon. I was going to touch base with you around that mark and try to see what we can do. I genuinely saw us moving in together in time, and heck maybe even marriage someday.” His face winced. I just kept asking what did it. Why just give up out of nowhere. He said that this conversation was just making him realize he can’t do it anymore, that we aren’t working anymore. I asked him if it would help if I could work on moving closer. He rejected it with frustration. I asked again what was the thing blocking us from just working on this instead of giving up out of nowhere. He said he was so upset with himself, that he had tried to tell himself and me this entirely time that he was fine and he wanted so badly for this to work for us and to prove to himself and me that he could finally have a real successful relationship with someone but that he was failing because of his unhappiness and commitment issues. Now did he mean commitment with me? Or commitment in general? Or was he talking about monogamy, or was he talking about future building commitment? Not sure because I was absolutely dead at this point in shock. We ended the phone call.

Two days later, after maybe 3 hours of sleep in total and no solid food, I couldn’t take it anymore and I reached out to him to apologize for all of the times my past trauma triggered me and I projected insecurities onto him. I took ownership for being too hard on him sometimes and felt a lot of shame about it. I then asked him if there were any chance to fix us if he even wanted to. He responded and apologized as well. He told me that he panicked and shut down and doesn’t deal with confrontation and shame well so he just abruptly ended it. That explained THAT part, at least. But to give up entirely? He told me that he didn’t see how we could ever get the chance to work on our issues and support each other if we couldn’t be together physically. I told him I wished he just would have felt comfortable telling me he was unhappy before it was too late. He said he had never been unhappy with me. But that apart from me, he was struggling. He said that his past issues that he thought he had truly worked out in therapy had been coming back and eating him alive and that he’s been falling apart for awhile over all of this. He told me he put up a failing tough persona for me because he didn’t want to worry me any more than I already was. (For context, July was one of the worst months of my life. I had nothing but extremely bad luck and financial struggles and bills, medical issues, repairs, etc. pop up and it was relentless). We both agreed our issues were triggering each other’s wounds and we were hitting a regressive period with our mental health. I told him I’d still like to be in his life if he were open to that. He agreed wholeheartedly and said he honestly didn’t know what he would do without me in his life and that I was his best friend. He thanked me so much for showing him he was capable and worthy of love and that he was eternally grateful for me for showing him all of this. That was nice… but it felt like a sting. I know what those words mean. He also told me that it was wrong of him to have not been thinking of the future for us. He said he figured our issues would inevitably end us so that he was trying to have the most fun and make me as happy as he could while we had the chance. I found this confusing considering all the times in the past he alluded to a future with me, even if it seemed light in nature.

A day later after some light conversation still here and there, he texted me that Sunday evening telling me he still felt a lot of shame and was really sad about what happened and that he was still so sorry but that a new week was starting and he wished me good luck for it, and that we were gonna get figure this out together… with a heart emoji. I responded hours later and thanked him and told him I still felt bad for hurting him too.

A day after this… I go looking for the Tik Tok person’s profile again. I find it easily as my ex only follows a handful of carefully chosen accounts. Sure enough, this person is big. They have a Patreon, they have a massive following on all platforms and… they are… female. Once again, I am sorry to offend anyone here about this but I felt kind of betrayed that he had assured me this person was someone he wasn’t going to find attractive or be a threat to me (he’s straight), but this really didn’t help. They identify as they and he but basically they are his walking fantasy. The cosplay get ups are off the charts, their talent is really impressive for their art and to know he’s working with this person full time daily now, and going out to eat with them and they have boobs and curves and are into all of the same things? Yeah, I’m threatened. Over the span of our relationship, he’s mentioned hundreds of times different sexual fantasies he has and they contradict what he usually claims about sex. He tells me he’s the most sexually fulfilled he’s ever been with me, then goes on to act as if he’s dying for an orgy or something. I am not shaming anyone’s kinks, I’m just not at all on board with a lot of stuff. He told me the last time we hung out that his darkest sexual fantasy was to bang a succubus. He also on several occasions has mentioned struggling with past “porn brain” and that he’s had to work through that and that it doesn’t control him anymore. I tried to trust him on this. He said he still struggles but that he just distracts himself with something else. He told me he thought porn was detrimental to women and men in the end by consuming too much of it. The Tik Tok coworker dresses as many of his sexual fantasies, including a succubus.

At this point, the communication is still happening but it varies by the day. It has dropped dramatically. He goes from being very cold and one or two messages a day, to venting about work as if nothing has happened, to even sending me a few selfies and calling me cute. I have not entertained any of the confusing mixed signals. I’m trying to be respectful of his decision. I realize that I probably definitely need to cut off contact with him. I told myself to not make any moves until I know what I’m doing is solely for me and not to try to manipulate him into realizing what he’s lost or some nonsense. It has to be for me. I know this is just killing me and it kills me more to think that he may be giving me the ol’ “it’s not you, it’s me” routine to spare my feelings. I’m not sure if he realized with the distance issues, and his sexual issues that it’s not been working, or perhaps he lost attraction to me. I asked him on video that night if he just didn’t see me romantically. He said, “maybe, I don’t know.” When I asked him two days after that like I mentioned earlier, he claimed the strong feelings were there.”

Am I a clown? Seriously. I worry that this is very simple and this dude just lost attraction and got bored because he has a porn addiction he’s still struggling with and this would explain the push to have to up the ante early in our relationship by the slapping and shame kink request, and all the sexual fantasy talk. I wish I knew what exactly was ” the past issues eating him up from the inside and falling apart” over? I assumed it was the f***boy past and sexual frustration. He also was cheated on several times in a two month long situationship 2 months before meeting me. He told me when we first started dating that he was worried he couldn’t be 100 percent for me because he was still struggling with shame from being played so easily like that. But he seemed to move past it as we got more serious.

I know that despite what he feels, I should be focusing on what is true for me. But what is true for me is that despite all of this, I love him so much and this has been the best and I THOUGHT most open and mature relationship I’ve ever had. I thought he was such a good sport, so accommodating and I thought I was finally healing my insecure attachment with him being so supportive. Apparently I broke him, or maybe it had nothing to do with me. If I knew this guy was just leading me on this whole time and didn’t know how to end it out of guilt, I’d feel really dumb crying so hard over this.

TLDR: 31 year old girl who got broken up with (two weeks ago) almost a year into a long distance relationship by a 31 year old guy who claims they have commitment and issues with females/relationships/avoidance issues and doesn’t want to work on bridging the distance gap or work on getting back together. Do I give up all hope for the future of us? Or do I take these SEEMINGLY serious sexual issues to heart and not try to hold on?