Hi - sorry for the long post, not my real account just using my friend’s account. Anyway, I (23F) broke up with my boyfriend (26M) recently, and I’ve been going back and forth wondering if I’m the a**hole for how I left. It’s been eating me alive and I just really need to get this out.

We were together for two years. I moved in with him about a year ago, even though I wasn’t fully comfortable. The main issue? He lived with his brother (same age as him), and from the start, it didn’t feel right. His brother never leaves the apartment, doesn’t have friends, gambles, smokes, gets super drunk, and just… lurks. It felt off. Not only that, but he’s weirdly attached to my ex, he would often interrupts our time constantly, texts him more than I do, texts him/calls him whenever we were hanging out or out somewhere and honestly felt like a third person in our relationship. It started to made me feel weird because this has been an everyday occurrence.

The plan was to eventually get our own place (we could easily afford it), but my boyfriend kept making excuses like “my brother doesn’t have time to plan where he’s going.” LOL. He had 9 months to figure it out. Nothing changed. I agreed to stay 6 more months. Again, nothing changed.

I started cooking and would often cook for me and my ex, but since moving in together I started doing it for the both of them using my own money. I told myself it was fine, I love cooking, and it was just out of kindness so I didn’t really thought much of it. However, it started to became an expectation. My boyfriend started asking me to save a plate for his brother every single time. I slowly started to feel like I was taking care of two grown men….. I know, it was stupid but I was blindsided.

Over time, I got severely depressed. Almost dropped out of school, lost friends, stopped working, and was just… stuck — All for his happiness, he would only start making plans when I tell him I have plans with my friends and he would always guilt trip me to cancel it and hangout with him instead, but whenever I don’t have anything going on he just ignores me and does his own thing. So over time I always brought up leaving, but he always begged me to stay, said he couldn’t be alone, cries, go on his knees and kept telling me he will do better etc. And I fell for it and stayed. Before you all judge me I was completely blind because all I think about is what I would make him feel. I’ve felt abandonment when I was a kid and told myself that I would never want anyone in my life feel that way. I didn’t notice, but me doing this made me lose myself in the process.

Everything slowly manifested into my body. I developed IBS, started throwing up randomly, and constantly felt like I was sick or dying (mind you I have never felt any of these before!) My anxiety was so bad, it literally began manifesting in my body. I no longer recognized who I was, I was constantly anxious, disconnected, and on edge. I tried getting help, put on different medications to feel better, therapy etc but nothing was working.

I started to see myself depend on him for my happiness and stability. I would ask him for just one date a week for quality time, but when he did agree, it felt like an obligation. When we watched movies, he was distracted, quiet, unease as if he was counting the minutes until he could play video games with his brother. He’d complain and grunt when he had to drive me to doctor’s appointments, yet happily drive an hour to get new parts for his computer.

I slowly started to notice that he also cared a lot about what other people think of him. One time, I was really sick and couldn’t attend an event he had planned, and he fought with me the entire day over it. I literally told him he should go without me, but he threw a tantrum. Just because he didn’t want to show up alone….. and I realized that that’s what mattered more to him — how he looked to others but not how I felt.

And so I brought up my feelings so many times. I said I was miserable. That I felt invisible. He said he’d talk to his brother, he would change and do better. But he never really did, he would constantly shower me with gifts or love bomb me to make up for his mistakes and this cycle went on for months, until one day I snapped. I stopped recognizing myself, and I couldn’t carry the weight anymore. I was mad, angry and I just started to hate everything about myself.

I kept over explaining desperate for him to understand me, but he retaliates. He’s reactive and acts defensively as if I am attacking him when I am not, I am mostly frustrated having to explain because whenever I talk to him it’s draining me. But this time I just couldn’t, I don’t have anything left and I really wanted to leave him. He cried. Said “I’m sorry I’m such a bad boyfriend,” but it didn’t feel like real accountability, just guilt-tripping. So when he went to work I packed my bags, threw our pictures, his gifts, his letters in the trash, and left. No goodbye. Just silence. Because I had nothing left. Before this he said he wanted proper goodbye and closure but I just felt like I didn’t owe him any explanation.

So now I’m asking: AITA for leaving like that? I still feel conflicted. I wasn’t perfect—I shut down emotionally near the end and felt like I couldve reacted better but I was screaming for help and all he gave me were promises that never became reality.