My [F23] LDR bf [M23] revealed he isn’t in love with me anymore.. but wants to be? How to repair my broken heart?

I’m going to try my hardest to make this short as I can. I’m emotionally exhausted. Sorry if it’s not written well.

Bf and I together 18 months. I’ve been in abusive relationships in past, healed my wounds, and met my now bf, my first real healthy love. His first love, left him for someone else 3 years ago, when he first went overseas for college. He got depressed and dropped out. He recently moved overseas again to a new college this semester, and so the same scenario is playing out between us.

He found out he was moving away about 9 months ago. I was super supportive and happy for him. I fell in love with him as did he when we got together, it was amazing. We have strong foundations for our relationship - good friendship, respect, support, trust etc. Everything has been great, we help eachother through our respective issues. I thought we were good at communication, but I just found out he kept something major from me.

I did notice he became a little more stressed and distanced from me since he found out he was going to be leaving. I put it down to jitters about change, and what had happened to him last time with his girlfriend. I’ve always been sure of myself that I’m in it for the long haul and let him know that. My love for him is strong enough that I will find a way through LD, whatever challenge that is thrown at us. I’ve always assured him of that and tried to make him feel safe.

I’ve not been blind to the fact that he’s had a lot of trauma from his past breakup, I just thought from our communication that he was getting through it. Well, we had a minor argument the other day and don’t ask me how because I don’t remember, but it came out that he has emotionally distanced himself from me in the last 9 months to the point where he feels he’s not in love with me anymore.

This knocked me off my feet. My last 48 hours have been hell. We have done long distance for 4 months and I thought it was going great, he’s only an hour plane away, I’ve made several trips already, as has he back home. Weve never been too long away from eachother and that will be sustainable if we continue. We chat frequently, still we’re there for eachother emotionally in day to day struggles, and voiced how we missed eachother.

He admitted he was too scared of the depression he would feel missing me if he still loved me so deeply. He never told me. I still love him the same and I deal with the sadness because he’s worth it, the love is worth it.

I cried and cried and so did he and I just couldn’t believe what was happening and what I had heard. I can’t get into it, I felt too terrible. Anyway, I told him how I felt and that we could have worked through it and talked through it together, even a bit of therapy? And he started apologizing and wishing he hadn’t pulled away, and begged me to stay and told me he still loves me and wants to fall in love with me again and make it work.

I have agreed, because it’s all I want. I love him deeply. Am I wrong? I need advice. But my main problem is, my heart is now broken. I’m so willing to do it but how do I patch it up again in this unique situation? I feel broken. And now I want to love him still and work it out with him somehow. Just help, please. Advice of any kind is welcome. Any questions/requests for info i left out is welcome too, I genuinely don’t know what I just wrote lol. Exhausted and in love and broken hearted at the same time.

TL;DR bf told me he stopped being in love with me to save himself the pain of missing me when we went long distance, now he wants to fix it and make it work, my heart is broken and I’m tired and confused

Submitted January 01, 2020 at 11:55PM

I’m going to try my hardest to make this short as I can. I’m emotionally exhausted. Sorry if it’s not written well.Bf and I together 18 months. I’ve been in abusive relationships in past, healed my wounds, and met my now bf, my first real healthy love. His first love, left him for someone else 3 years ago, when he first went overseas for college. He got depressed and dropped out. He recently moved overseas again to a new college this semester, and so the same scenario is playing out between us.He found out he was moving away about 9 months ago. I was super supportive and happy for him. I fell in love with him as did he when we got together, it was amazing. We have strong foundations for our relationship - good friendship, respect, support, trust etc. Everything has been great, we help eachother through our respective issues. I thought we were good at communication, but I just found out he kept something major from me.I did notice he became a little more stressed and distanced from me since he found out he was going to be leaving. I put it down to jitters about change, and what had happened to him last time with his girlfriend. I’ve always been sure of myself that I’m in it for the long haul and let him know that. My love for him is strong enough that I will find a way through LD, whatever challenge that is thrown at us. I’ve always assured him of that and tried to make him feel safe.I’ve not been blind to the fact that he’s had a lot of trauma from his past breakup, I just thought from our communication that he was getting through it. Well, we had a minor argument the other day and don’t ask me how because I don’t remember, but it came out that he has emotionally distanced himself from me in the last 9 months to the point where he feels he’s not in love with me anymore.This knocked me off my feet. My last 48 hours have been hell. We have done long distance for 4 months and I thought it was going great, he’s only an hour plane away, I’ve made several trips already, as has he back home. Weve never been too long away from eachother and that will be sustainable if we continue. We chat frequently, still we’re there for eachother emotionally in day to day struggles, and voiced how we missed eachother.He admitted he was too scared of the depression he would feel missing me if he still loved me so deeply. He never told me. I still love him the same and I deal with the sadness because he’s worth it, the love is worth it.I cried and cried and so did he and I just couldn’t believe what was happening and what I had heard. I can’t get into it, I felt too terrible. Anyway, I told him how I felt and that we could have worked through it and talked through it together, even a bit of therapy? And he started apologizing and wishing he hadn’t pulled away, and begged me to stay and told me he still loves me and wants to fall in love with me again and make it work.I have agreed, because it’s all I want. I love him deeply. Am I wrong? I need advice. But my main problem is, my heart is now broken. I’m so willing to do it but how do I patch it up again in this unique situation? I feel broken. And now I want to love him still and work it out with him somehow. Just help, please. Advice of any kind is welcome. Any questions/requests for info i left out is welcome too, I genuinely don’t know what I just wrote lol. Exhausted and in love and broken hearted at the same time.TL;DR bf told me he stopped being in love with me to save himself the pain of missing me when we went long distance, now he wants to fix it and make it work, my heart is broken and I’m tired and confused