3 months, where to go now?

I (22f) and my ex (21m) broke up 3 months ago. He broke up with me after a very toxic relationship (1 and a half years and things started getting very toxic in the later 6 months). He was my first love. I had been in another relationship before but that one didn’t go very far. I’m anxious and he’s more avoidant. I started feeling like he wasn’t listening, that he didn’t care, that he wasn’t trying, and started having a lot of contempt for him. I started yelling at him and cursing at him. I even got physical with him one time, which I deeply regret. Looking back on things, I realized I had long reached my limits and couldn’t handle things anymore. I reached into my toolbox of solutions and coping and took out ones that were most familiar to me. I just didn’t care anymore. I’m not trying to excuse myself. I just hope people will not demonize me. I regret my own actions and am paying the consequences.

I told him over and over again I wanted to break up but he told me he still believed. But when I finally saw a path forward, he no longer believed. He told me he didn’t know if he wanted the relationship anymore and wanted to reconnect after 9 weeks.

And my goodness, was it a hard 9 weeks. I had panic attacks, struggles with sleeping, not eating as much, and constantly sleeping. I took medical leave because I was struggling really bad.

During the 9 weeks, I had asked him week 5 if he ever came to a decision, could he let me know beforehand. He told me he “currently doesn’t see us getting back together.” That absolutely crushed me and I cried my eyes out for two days. But things started moving again. I got better and started being able to let things go. I remembered how exhausted the relationship made me, how I constantly felt like I needed to plan, and how I constantly felt like I needed to ask for my needs to be met. I was still scared of the future but I started feeling excited a little more. I actually decided to give hinge a try just to see what kind of people were out there.

After 9 weeks, we reconnected. It had seemed like we ended up in the same place of not now but maybe later.

I became anxious again because I wanted a direction. It seemed like we maybe wanted to try to work on things so I kept trying to talk things out with him for about a month. He told me he didn’t know how he felt and later, he told me he didn’t love me romantically anymore. It really hurt because it felt like I was led unintentionally. When I asked him for more contact, he said he was “interested in rekindling.” When I asked him if he still loved me, he told me he had a lot of feelings. When I asked him if I could hope, he said yes (later he clarified he meant if it’s how I feel, it’s how I feel). At the time, a lot of my questions were also met with I don’t know or I don’t know how I’m feeling. It seemed like he was still figuring things out.

Eventually, he came to a conclusion. He told me he still cares for me as a person but he didn’t want exclusivity, romance, or reconciliation. He wanted friendship. He said maybe his feelings would come back once he felt safe and trust was rebuilt but he has no promises.

After this conversation and another call, I went back to no contact. We were repeating the same cycle of me chasing —> pressure —> him feeling the emotional pressure —> shrinking away.

So now I’m back to grieving because of the new hope wave. I’ve been trying to build back my life again. I’ve started therapy, going to mental health lessons on Sundays, volunteering, job hunting(this is something I wanted even before breakup), going to board game nights on meetup, planning trips (going to Seattle soon) and trying new hobbies.

But at the same time, I still feel lost. I feel lost because it feels like I’ve ended up in the same place as I was 3 months ago, just with more experience and knowledge that things will be okay. I still feel lost because I don’t think reconciliation will ever happen again. I still feel lost because job hunting hasn’t resulted in much.