I’ve been married and divorced already, but the pain of losing my ex husband was different. When I met my most recent ex (who I’ll call Zach for this post) and began dating him, I felt like I finally understood what real, true, deep love was. I loved him, and I loved the way he loved me. We were together for almost 4 years. Long distance was tough but we made it work.

I came back from a visit recently. It was our worst visit yet. Something seemed off, he seemed distant, and we had a pretty big argument. We’d been going to couples therapy and had a session together during our visit. After he dropped me off from our visit, he texted me that something was on his mind. I’ll spare you the details but something in couples’ therapy made him realize that he didn’t think he could be truly happy in this relationship with me. My world collapsed. He wasn’t sure about breaking up with me, but he was thinking about it. Over a week passed with some small level of connection and talking but no updates.

Last night we talked more about his feelings again and I told him if his feelings about being unhappy in this relationship didn’t change at all, even after all the compromises and changes I was willing to make, that maybe it was time. It felt impossible to say, to help him honor his emotions when it meant leaving me, but I can’t keep up this facade of juggling pieces of a fragmented relationship, and I love him so much that the thought of our relationship making him unhappy hurt more.

Now he’s gone. I can’t talk to him about my day. I can’t ask him for advice. I can’t send him photos, make jokes with him. Everything has always reminded me of him, and so now I see him everywhere I look. I was willing to do anything and everything to keep him, and yet everything wasn’t enough. He was all I wanted. I didn’t really have a type, or know what I wanted in a relationship before I found him. Now I know that all I wanted was him.

And now he’s gone.

I do not feel any hope for finding a love like ours again. I do not feel the want to look for it, because if this love that I cherished so deeply and believed in whole-heartedly fell apart like this, then what is there left for me to look for out there? I do not wish to feel this pain again. I do not wish to trust like I did again. I do not wish to cause pain like I did again. I really never thought I’d die alone, and though I’m still fairly young, I feel like I don’t believe in love anymore. Not for me, anyway.