Dealing with true heartbreak

I liked him when I was in grade 8 and he was in grade 9. It was a full-blown crush. I mean, I lightly stalked him. He didn’t even know my name, or that I existed. I watched him from afar, just admiring. I didn’t know anything about him except his name. I eventually gave up on that and just moved on. The next year, I found out that he failed grade 9 and was in my class. And suddenly all those feelings appeared again. I couldn’t say that I actually liked him, give, I knew nothing about him. But he was fascinating to watch. I thought he was the cutest boy alive. That year he dated a sorta-friend of mine. One day they were sitting together in the corridor and I looked at them. I just looked as I walked past. They looked back at me and I just carried on walking. It was no big deal. I don’t know how long it was after that, but he got my number somehow and we started chatting to each other. At that point in the year, all his friends sort of gawked at me. Like, in an obsessive way. They would grope me, and I would protest but to no avail. He noticed and told me that he would tell them to stop. I remember telling him that he was the best for doing that for me. He was apparently quite chuffed because he mad that his status. Id on’t remember everything we spoke about in our never-ending chats, but I do know that we left an impression on each other, because just 11 days after we started chatting, we started dating. He was still dating my sorta-friend but I didn’t know. It was the beginning of the school holiday and I wasn’t in town. If I’m being honest, I didn’t really like him. I liked how he looked and I liked how he made me feel. I liked that he protected me and I liked that he was always available for me. Kinda suckish on my part. I didn’t expect our relationship to last more than a week. And I was right because after about a week (I really don’t remember the timeline) he broke up with me. It was a “Well okay then” moment for me. I didn’t really care. But then he changed his mind or something because somehow we started dating again. I was really shy around him. I didn’t let him kiss me until we were dating for something like two or three months. I would always turn away from him, and I know he was getting frustrated but he was so patient with me. He waited until I was ready, and when I was, we kissed A LOT. Sometime around our 3 month mark, I wanted to break up with him. There was just something that felt wrong about dating him. I don’t remember what it was but it was picking at me. He kept me in the relationship. He blackmailed me with some pretty bad things, so I stayed. What other option did I have? There were plenty of bad times. I would always have that feeling that he wasn’t right for me, but he kept making me stay. Then when we were dating for 7 months, I went to New Zealand on holiday for 3 months. While on holiday I got the feeling that something was wrong. He wasn’t acting like himself and he was acting really weird. I whipped out my FBI investigation skills and had (by speculation) deduced that he cheated on me. I didn’t have any solid evidence, though. I came back home and everything seemed to be fine. We were all good. Then, in March that year, on our 11 month anniversary, I found out that he cheated on me on New Years’ Eve while I was in New Zealand. My heart was shattered, obviously. But I forgave him. I couldn’t let go of it for a very long time, but I did eventually. We were all good again. But still, there were times when I felt that something wasn’t right and I broke up with him many, many times. Every time we came back to each other. We couldn’t stay away from each other. We spoke about our future together, our dream jobs, how we would celebrate our anniversaries. We spoke about everything. We truly saw a future together. I fell head over heels in love. He was all I could think about. He was all I ever wanted and more. One year turned into two and our relationship matured as did we. We went on dates everywhere. Movies, restaurants, beach, day drives, night drives, hanging out in his room, and lots of sex. We were great together. Then, something happened. HE was chatting to another girl and he got defensive about it. I broke up with him. The next thing I knew, they were together. Hugging, kissing. I was insanely jealous. I loved him and I missed him. We would chat everyday. We would still see each other and have sex even though my heart was in total shambles. We still loved each other deeply. So we got back together. And we were great again. We still had ups and downs, but we were a pretty solid couple. That lasted for about 7 months. Then, some shit really happened. During the holiday, I ghosted everyone. We didn’t see each other for maybe 5 days. He finally called me saying he misses me. So, we met up on the 2nd of April 2018, our 3 year anniversary. We had a great day together. We saw each other again the next day, my birthday. Our day together was awesome. We saw each other again the next day, another perfect day. Then we didn’t see each other for 5 days. I missed him but it seemed like he wasn’t interested in seeing me. I was telling him all this cute shit about our future together but he just kept sating ‘okay’. It really pissed me off. So I broke up with me. I was supposed to be for a couple of minutes to make him come over. He just said ‘okay’. I thought we would get back together because that was kind of our thing. I break up with him for a stupid reason for a couple of minutes then we’re together and normal again. But it didn’t happen that time. That was the end. That was how we broke up. I felt normal about it all. We didn’t speak for a while. But then we didn’t speak for a very long while. And then it hit me- it was really over. I lost him. I lost the love of my life because of one fucking mood. One fucking mood messed up my whole life. I felt fine most days. Some days I would tear up. And other times I would completely break down. The real “Oh fuck” moment came when I saw a video of him kissing someone else. That shit fucked me up completely. It made me doubt our entire relationship. It took less than 2 months for him to move on from a 3 year relationship. I still wonder if he ever actually loved me. Was I just there to pass the time? It hurts so much. I’m giving myself time to heal. I want to focus on myself and just deal with this whole shitshow. The pain is unimaginable. It’s a gut-wrenching, stomach churning, heart lurching, brain spinning kind of pain. I love him so much. I am so sorry. Breaking up with the love of my life is going to haunt me for the rest of my life. He was my first everything and now he’s gone. All our memories, feelings, hopes, dreams… everything is shattered. I am so broken over him when he is happy with someone else. I just hope that whoever he ends up with sees the rainbow in his eyes.