Why did he break up if he still loves me?

He was my boyfriend for 2.5 years. He suddenly broke up with me during a normal conversation on the phone on July 1. The reason we were talking was just normal day-to-day relationship problems; it wasn’t something that couldn’t have been solved.

However, my boyfriend had always been someone who, whenever an argument went on for too long, would say things like, “Enough, let’s just break up. I’m so tired of this,” as a way of escaping the conversation. Until this breakup, whenever he said things like that, I would make him sit down with me and talk about whether he genuinely wanted to break up or whether he was just overwhelmed and trying to escape the argument.

But this time, instead of going after him and trying to fix things again, I decided to wait for him to come to me and apologize. He didn’t. On top of that, he blocked me.

Then, on July 3, he unblocked me. We didn’t speak at all for three weeks. At the end of those three weeks, on July 25, we decided to sit down and talk.

He apologized for the way he had broken up with me. He told me that he had genuinely wanted to break up suddenly in that moment, and that he regretted it afterward. However, when he thought about everything more rationally, he decided that breaking up with me was the logical thing to do because he had realized that he couldn’t balance the relationship and his own life at the same time. That was why he hadn’t contacted me at all during those weeks.

He told me that his decision wasn’t something he had made based on his feelings. He said that he still loved me very much, but that when he was with me, he devoted himself completely to me and couldn’t focus on his own life. He said that because of this, he didn’t want to start the relationship again.

I told him okay, but deep down I was really hurt.

At the end of that conversation, we decided to stay friends and went back to work. We work at the same place, so we still see each other regularly.

However, afterward, he continued to avoid me and distance himself as if we had never even had that conversation. Because of this, I told him one day after work that if he didn’t have anything to do, I wanted to talk for another hour.

At first, he said he was tired and wanted to go home and rest. But then he ended up asking me to go to the cinema, so we went to the cinema in Odyssee. There was no romantic closeness or anything like that between us; we acted like two friends.

After the movie, he bought me a little dog-shaped keychain. We named it Argos because that was the name of Odysseus’s dog. Then we said that maybe we could meet up like that from time to time, and went home.

On July 28, I called him because I had been using his YouTube Premium account and wanted to ask whether that was a problem for him. Then I brought up our decision to stay friends.

He told me that he only wanted us to talk at work, because whenever he spent time with me outside of work, he felt bad. He said that he missed our relationship and that I affected him very deeply.

We ended up arguing on the phone, and he blocked me again.

Then, on July 30, we saw each other at work again, and he apologized once more for getting angry with me.

On August 5, one of my friends at work got really angry with me. She told me, “Every time he comes over to you, you let him talk to you and give him access to you. From the outside, it looks like you’re the one chasing him and waiting around for him.”

That really hurt me because I genuinely thought I had been setting boundaries, but I realized that from the outside, I might actually have been putting myself in a position where I was constantly available to him.

So, on August 6, I deliberately made my attitude clear and set a boundary. I gave him short answers, avoided eye contact, and kept my distance.

My ex spent the entire day following me around and asking what was wrong. Even though I repeatedly told him that nothing was wrong, he kept insisting. He told me that he had been thinking about it all day and couldn’t understand why I was acting differently toward him.

That evening, he stalked my TikTok profile. Then he removed the videos of us from his own TikTok account.

Today, August 7, it was just the two of us at work. I had an overwhelming urge to talk to him, so I went up to him and asked, “We’ve been broken up for a month now. How are you doing? What are you thinking?”

He told me that he had started focusing on himself and that it had been good for him. But he still said that he didn’t want a relationship.

I told him, “We can’t just immediately start a relationship again anyway. Our trust in each other has been damaged so much. But maybe we could try something new instead.”

He asked me what I meant.

I explained that we could choose a certain period of time where we would meet once a week, without putting any relationship expectations on each other, and simply spend nice, enjoyable time together. After a few dates or meetups, we could decide whether we wanted to try being in a relationship again.

Outside of those meetups, we would have no contact — no texting or calling — so that we could actually have space and think clearly.

I asked him not to give me an answer immediately and to think about it for a week, then tell me his answer after that week.

He left after that conversation.

A few hours later, I started feeling extremely anxious. I realized that if he said no, I would have to either let him go or accept some kind of situationship with him, and both possibilities were incredibly painful for me.

I started feeling so bad that I realized I wasn’t able to manage my emotions properly. So I called him and told him that I was withdrawing my proposal and that I didn’t want to do the plan anymore.

He told me that he hadn’t wanted it either, but that he was going to wait a week to give me an answer because he didn’t want me to be hurt. He also said that he didn’t think his decision would have changed anyway.

That really devastated me. It felt like my whole world had collapsed.

Our relationship was genuinely beautiful. We loved each other very deeply. We spent almost every day together and somehow never got tired of being around each other.

He used to constantly buy me little gifts, cook for me, make me food, and put me first. He would do anything for me. I never had a moment in the relationship where I felt unloved or wondered whether he cared about me.

If he didn’t see me for even one day, he would miss me.

In fact, the day before he broke up with me, he came to my house simply because he hadn’t seen me that day. He told me he missed me and brought me dessert.

I told him, “I feel bad that you came all the way here. You should have just rested because you’re so tired.”

And he told me, “I’m working for our future. I love you.”

And then the very next day, he suddenly broke up with me because he couldn’t control his anger.

That hurts me so much.

I love him very much. I also believe that he loves me, and he says so himself. He has repeatedly told me that the problem isn’t me, that he knows he has a problem balancing the relationship with his own life, and that he doesn’t want to start a relationship with me again because he doesn’t know how to create that balance.

At first, I kept telling myself that he would eventually come back to me. But as the days go by, I’m losing more and more hope.

I’ve lost 10 kilograms since this happened. I lost my period. I’ve lost my happiness and my energy. I don’t feel like myself anymore. Everyone keeps telling me how bad I look and how much I’ve changed.

And he wasn’t just my boyfriend. He was also my best friend — probably the closest person I had.

That’s why I miss him so much.

We still get along well when we’re together, but I’ve realized that I can’t heal when I don’t have boundaries with him.

The problem is that I don’t want to set boundaries because I want to distance myself from him. I want to set boundaries because I want to eventually build a healthier, more mature relationship with him.

I don’t want to lose him. I don’t want to completely remove him from my life. I want us to grow up, learn from what happened, and build a relationship where we can love each other without either of us losing ourselves.

I still want him. I still love him. And I still believe that what we had was real and worth fighting for.

At the same time, I’m starting to realize that wanting to fix everything by myself isn’t enough if he doesn’t want to try again.

I’m really struggling to understand how someone can love me this much, miss our relationship, be so affected by me, and still genuinely believe that the right decision is not to be with me.

I don’t know whether he might eventually change his mind, or whether I need to accept that he really wants a life without the relationship.

I would really appreciate your honest thoughts on this situation. I’m not looking only for reassurance — I want an objective perspective on what might be happening emotionally for both of us, whether his behavior suggests unresolved feelings or simply difficulty letting go, and whether there is realistically a possibility of rebuilding the relationship in a healthier way.

Last updated on:2026-08-09T01:29:01+05:30