Hi all,

Please pardon the long post ahead. I appreciate you taking the time to read it. I am in need of guidance and opinions moving forward in my situation and would be grateful for any insight you can provide.

A little context for our relationship: We (him 24M and I 24f) were together for four wonderful months. He pursued me intensely in March and April and we wound up in an official relationship. In early July we took a trip to my hometown where he met my mom and sister (he had already met my father). Then a month later, about a month ago now, he abruptly ended things after a week of very spotty communication.

According to him, he had been having doubts and discomfort about our relationship since we took the trip to my hometown a month prior. After going, he began thinking about what the next steps were for our relationship, and where we were headed. Apparently he wasn't able to picture a future with me, and had some kind of emotional block that prevented him from investing in the relationship to the same extent as me. I was blindsided, and just couldn't understand where this was coming from. I put my all into the relationship and he even said that I was a perfect partner and that nothing I did or said contributed to this. It just had to do with him.

My instinct is that some or much of his decision had to do with him feeling an intense FOMO - which, according to conversations we had during our relationship, was something that seeped into many aspects of his life (friendships, career, other life experiences, etc). He hadn't done much to affirm his identity and really "live" or be social until relatively recently. I suspect that he saw things getting more serious between us, and when prompted to think hard about where we as a couple were headed, felt that he wasn't prepared to settle for the very first thing that came his way, no matter how good it was. I was his first everything, except first kiss. So if we had gotten any more serious, I and our relationship would be all he would have known romantically and sexually. I think that may not have sat well with him considering his personality structure.

In any case, during the breakup he made it very clear that he wanted me to continue to be in his life, just not in a romantic capacity. I told him I needed space, stating I would need at least a month, but that I would be glad to meet up for coffee when I was ready. Well, for some reason I held myself to that one-month timeline, and pretty much like clockwork, reached out to him after one month because I felt like I had made a ton of progress and wanted to clear the air between us before the start of the semester, considering we are in the same program at grad school. When he replied, I instantly felt worse. I knew to some extent that this would happen, and I had debated even reaching out in the first place, but I felt compelled to follow through on it. I asked if he was available the next weekend. He said no, that he was out of town (which of course made my brain go into overdrive thinking about the who/what/where of it all). He said the week after would be good. I left the ball in his court by telling him to just reach out when he's back in town to finalize the details. It was a very simple, neutral message.

I just don't know what to do now. I know that seeing him will set me back a bit, but I'd rather that happen now than later (we don't have any classes together in the fall, only in the winter). I also had been planning, and told my therapist (who validated me by saying this was healthy), to use the space to express some of my thoughts that I didn't have the chance to while we were breaking up. He had a whole month to think about what he was going to say and how he was going to say it. I didn't have that luxury; I only began processing things after he broke up with me and I never broke NC to share my thoughts or hurt with him. I've decided that I will NOT be opening that can of worms at all (that is, anything related to us or the breakup). I don't need to do that. Realistically, what would that accomplish? Why do I feel he needs to know all that, especially now? He doesn't. There is no reason for me to reopen wounds that have begun to seal and make myself vulnerable before him, which would be giving him unnecessary power.

I can't back out now because I want to honour my promise, even though a good friend tried to talk me into not seeing him at all. Perhaps the timing is premature, but I've already reached out and would rather just have a friendly, non-vulnerable exchange and then resume NC on my end. I know I need to do that. But do you think my approach is wise? I have been healing - working on myself and making my growth the focal point of my own life - so this isn't a major setback. I just didn't expect to feel so... weird and kind of bad when I felt I was doing SO well.