I hope here is the right place to put this.
I (27m) lost my mum about 1.5 years ago to cancer; I am an only child and she was a single parent, so I have been left alone in the family house to kinda just “deal with it” and “get on with life”. I have been completely unable to do that - unable to touch her things, throw anything away of hers or even use some of the shared items - to the point that I have had to buy duplicates of some stuff.
Very recently (within the past few months) an ex I still cared deeply for moved in with his current partner-of-a-few-years; I fell to pieces as, not only was the man I loved sharing his life with someone else, but he was (in general) living the life I had always dreamed of, whilst I was stuck here in this seemingly endless hell. I reached my breaking point and talked to him about what “we” were; we were close and felt like a couple in all but name, but one day he just shut me out and became cold and distant. I don’t know what happened or why, but I knew what we had - so I stuck by him through the years. It was immensely painful at times, but I told myself it’d be worth it and he’d eventually come around and see I was always here for him and we’d go back to how we used to be.
…That wasn’t how he saw it; he stated that he was “careless and immature” with his emotions and didn’t put proper forethought into them. As a result, what we had was “more than a friendship, but not quite a relationship”. He says that some life stuff happened and he shut a lot of people out (he says it’s a recurring problem he has) and that, when he sat down and thought, he “realised I could never take a gamble on someone I had never met before halfway across the world” (he lives in the US). He said he had a crush on me, but it never would’ve worked. Since then, a (mutual) friend has told me that the ex confided in him a bunch of reasons why we never would’ve worked - distance not being one of them. He told me that the ex I had in my mind was a fantasy, and he doesn’t exist like that. He told me that he’s been polite to me ever since he shut me out - so that he wouldn’t be the “bad guy”.
I feel I’ve hit rock bottom, and I’m doing all I can to try and work my way through this, but it feel impossibly hard, working without a direction or goal. I’m aiming to start cleaning up the house, but I have no idea how to start with mum’s stuff. Likewise, I’m trying to take care of myself, but it feels pointless without my ex as the finish line.
Any advice welcome.
