I came on here because my brief, months-long relationship with a man I've been friends with for almost a decade and a half just ended last night in a very painful way and I wanted to post about it. But reading this post, I see so much of him in whom the OP describes that it helps me to heal just a little, and to understand that, while I have a lot of issues in relationships, it was probably impossible for me to try and improve on these with someone like him.

I knew he was stubborn, and I reasoned that, as he relaxed his stubbornness when we started seeing one another, the communication would begin to flow more easily as he worked on this. He's had a lot of hurt in relationships, I reasoned.

Then he began to ignore me in the middle of more "elevated" text discussions. Like, we'd be talking about something which might be uncomfortable or which he deemed irritating, or which was important and emotional to me but which he felt was a total waste of time, and he'd just stop replying, leaving me to feel increasingly hurt and ultimately abandoned, which is something he knew I struggled with.

This was a pretty regular cycle for us, where my requests for communication or clarification on something would be met with stonewalling because he felt I was pushing or was trying to cut in on something more important. I should mention here that we were in a long distance relationship, and text was our main form of communication. Besides calling, of course.

The thing OP said which reminded me of J was that her boyfriend thought she had to deal with the consequences of her behavior. I had something similar, when J and I got into an argument during a particularly rough evening for me, mentally (I had been spiraling all day), and we each said some hurtful things. I apologized and said I wasn't doing well at all, and just really needed to talk to a friend at that time. He said, "No. You've lost your privilege." His behavior toward me up to that point wasn't appropriate but I rationalized it because my behavior was poor, just as he tended to point out. But that statement stunned me. I mean, expecting your guy to be there when you're breaking down, to me, isn't a privilege.

I don't have much to add that hasn't already been said in this thread already. And I wasn't with J for as long, though being totally deleted from the life of a friend you've known for 13 years after the end of a weekend visit (I'd mentioned that i felt we weren't fundamentally compatible as a couple, fighting and making up ensued, Sunday night was bad, he refused to end things on a good note for the sake of the friendship, and suddenly it's like he never existed) is pretty devastating. I was in the place last night and this morning where I thought I wasn't going to be able to survive. Now I feel that, while I placed a lot of hope in this relationship, I probably dodged a bullet as far as he's concerned. I'm really sad that he chose the out he did, and it's hard not to beat myself up since I made a lot of poor choices over the weekend (and the relationship as a whole). But the way he chose to end it, the way he spoke to me, the way he made me feel worthless is ultimately about him, not about me. He liked to talk about my crazy and how I deserved his behavior in retaliation for my poor behavior. But no one deserves to be mistreated.

Even if he says he just needs time to heal or whatever, trust me that this is a cycle which will only continue, and it will continue to make you feel more and more like you can't survive if he leaves, because you're so busy making sure he doesn't that you lose yourself in the process. Trust me; I am in that right now.

J knew that I couldn't handle him leaving without some closure; I said in the beginning that the one thing I needed was for him to not disappear, because I have pretty significant abandonment issues from childhood. And that is exactly what he did. Realizing that he did this helps me to understand that this wasn't about what was best for us or the relationship, it was about him being hurt and needing to maintain his sense of control and power in his life and in the relationship I'd just basically said I was leaving.

You will be okay; and you totally deserve better.