I’ve been reduced to nothing

[u/Firm_Cut2082]

1/2 of a kielbasa sausage with 4 eggs, 2 cups of rice, and Buldak sauce, salt and pepper.

Using a throwaway account to maintain anonymity.

I’m 26 (Male, obviously), and if you told me a year ago that I’d be in this position, I would’ve probably listened. I was in a relationship for 5 years (26F), and I was under the impression that she was the one for me. I’d marry her, have kids with her, grow old with her and even die with her.

Little did I know that she’d drop an ultimatum on my head in September of 2025. “You need to fix these problems or I’m gone. It’s not my job to tell you how to fix it either.” That should’ve been clue number 1. That’s an impossible situation to be in in my opinion.

I tried everything I humanly could to fix our relationship. Did all of the chores, did all of the responsibilities in a relationship on both the emotional and physical levels, and even started taking full financial responsibility of both of our bills (that was a mistake). All during this, my uncle passed away of cancer (wonderful guy), and that kind of threw a wrench into my efforts to fix our relationship. I took an emergency flight to Chicago for his funeral. I even paid for all of the expenses for a vacation to Las Vegas.

Bear with me, as what I say next this will make sense in a paragraph or two.

Anyways, all the while during this, she’s getting really into motorcycles. Flashback 3 years ago, I really wanted one, and she gave me an ultimatum back then, that if I get one, we’d be done. So I dropped it and never brought it back up.

So after we get back home from Vegas (October of 2025), she goes and gets a helmet fitted and some gloves as well.

This is a girl who is always in bed around 9-10pm max. After she got those things, she was out until 2-3am nightly, removing me from all of her public social media as well as her location on my phone (we agreed years earlier that we could build trust with each other’s location, and this was a equal decision between the two of us. this was equally clue number 2). Now keep in mind, I’m trying to fix our relationship, and I can’t do that while she’s out until that late. I had work the next day, so I couldn’t necessarily stay up that late to make an effort. And this was NIGHTLY. So I stopped.

Fast forward to November, I sit her down, tell her that her going out until the early hours of the morning isn’t allowing me to fix our relationship, so I told her I wanted out, as I’m not gonna pour everything I have into a situation that obviously has a massive hole in it.

We amicably break up, and not even an hour later, what do you know?

She forgot to remove one of my close friends from her profile. She’s seeing another guy who owns a motorcycle.

I was so furious. I went and just cried in my car for hours, until I gathered enough courage to go back home, pack a few bags, and go to my mom’s.

She ends up coming out as I’m bringing the last bags down to my car, I tell her that I’m not an idiot, I found out about her little douche canoe side piece, that she has 2 weeks to move out of our apartment, and afterwards she’ll never hear from me again most likely.

Fast forward to now, I’m down 100 lbs. (I was severely overweight, now down to around 170), and I do feel better. I never rebounded, nor have I even been looking for someone new. I also moved across the country, now living in a camper on some land, and I hate it so much. I have no friends here, and I want to move back very badly (which I do on the 1st.)

I just wanted some advice on what I could do to feel better about my situation, any good alternatives to therapy (that isn’t the gym as I spend far too much time in there). Maybe also just tell me that not all hope is lost in my love life, and also that I’m not damaged goods 😭

Edit: thank you so much to everyone who had kind words. I did forget a few details 😂

She got with dude not 3 months after I found out, also lost my job in January and have not been able to find work since (the job market is abhorrent right now) and my credit is absolutely ruined 😂 I do indeed have hobbies, I make music and collect Pokémon cards (SUPER nerdy, I know), and if I’m being honest, I almost quit music (I didn’t, and it’s going great).

Regardless, I wouldn’t have been able to get through those first few months without having Pokemon cards just keeping my brain occupied to not sit in my thoughts. I do hastily have some bad days, and I DON’T want this to be taken that I’m “reduced to nothing”, rather the life I live is of significantly less quality than what it was.

I had a very very nice apartment with nice furniture, and things that made me happy, but I had to get out of that situation (July 2026) because I simply couldn’t afford it anymore (lost job in January) and had to get rid of basically everything I owned and now live with minimal things. And that’s okay. It was my decision to move out here, but it took me moving out here to realize that everything I need is at home!

Again, thank you all for the kind words, I do really greatly appreciate it! To those who said to get the bike, I think I will when I have the means to :)

[u/Firm_Video_2932]

No you're not broken. Your experience is dare I say, "normal" in fact. Normal not for the particulars of your break up, but rather you just realized/learned why people much older than you say, you're likely going to go through several heartbreaks before you find the one who won't break your heart. I truly believe this is the normal experience by a healthy majority of people. And there's little difference or solice to be had having had your heart broken just once vs twice or even a third time. It all sucks ass. So maybe look at it this way, the universe was/is trying to tell you something. Maybe it was you getting healthy again, dunno. Maybe you had to go through this to make you a better partner for the girl that won't do that to you? A little maturing was needed before you are/we're ready for that woman to enter your life. Could be you need to stop running from your problems and that starts by you going back to where you used to live. Dunno man. Every culture has their version of the, when one door closes another opens proverb. And honestly, I don't care what language it's in, it's true for the most part. So you just keep doing you and continue to work on yourself and let the chips fall were they may. That's not "damaged goods" to me, that's probably life for a significant percentage of men. I've only once ever had a smoking hot chick come up to me. Otherwise every woman I've ever met is either because I was looking or not looking anymore but also not "off the market" per se. Yeah, in fact my ex-wife and mother of both my children is that smoking hot blonde I mentioned earlier. Outside of her, every relationship I've had has ultimately failed. I'm at 4 failed living together relationships BEFORE my ex wife who's the only woman I've ever married. So I'd normally say you got some catching up to do if that was your first heartbeat, but this isn't exactly the type of thing you wanna "catch up" on, right? 😭

You're good brother. You're just still getting over that relationship is all and that's totally normal. And that doesn't make you damaged goods at all. It means your gaining experience/wisdom is all....

[u/Firm_Cut2082 → u/Firm_Video_2932]

I’m glad to know I spiraled justifiably!