This is a long he said/she said post, so I'm putting the tl;dr here: I thought my relationship of 8 years was really serious and solid, and I just got very abruptly broken up with. I have no idea what to do now. Should I contact him? Try to talk him out of it? See if he contacts me? Do I just never see him again?

My boyfriend of 8 years just broke up with me. We've both been going through difficult things - I was leaving a job that I had been really excited about, but which very quickly turned out to be toxic, and he was moving to a new apartment, and having a hard time managing the process. (He's autistic/has Aspergers, so things that might seem simple to some people can be more difficult to navigate for him.)

Anyway, we had been having a hard time for a couple of weeks, and arguing/fighting for several days. He kept saying that the relationship wasn't working for either of us, so maybe we should just break up. Every time he said it, I was like, "No, I disagree - it has been working for me; this is just a tough time." At some point, I lost my temper and said, "If you want to break up with me, just break up with me, but don't try to make me do it for you." He still said he didn't want to break up with me, but a few hours later, he very suddenly said there was too much fighting, he didn't want to do it any more, and we were done.

At the time he said it, I had been getting ready to leave his apartment, because I was feeling really anxious and upset and needed some space. So I just left.

I don't know what to do now! It's been 20 years since I broke up with someone or got broken up with. He hasn't called or texted to check in on me, and I feel awkward about calling or texting to check in on him, since if he wanted to keep talking to me, he presumably wouldn't have dumped me.

Adding to the confusion, last night before the breakup, I was feeling very insecure, and said, "what would you do if I broke up with you? Would you just let me go?" Which, yes, is a shitty, needy thing to ask, so please don't criticize me for it. He said, he would come to my house and get me, because he wouldn't let me break up with him. And then I said, "if you broke up with me, I'd stand outside your house like Lloyd in Say Anything, and just keep telling you how much I want to be with you." Obviously in real life, those would both be psychotic things to do, but I took it to mean that we were both committed to making things work. And then, three hours later, he broke up with me.

So...what happens now? Do we just never speak again, after 8 years? This was a serious relationship--only a few days ago, he talked about how it sucks that you can't marry more than one person, because he would want to be able to honor our relationship like that. Are we just done now? Am I supposed to try to talk him out of it? There were real problems that we needed to deal with, so if we did stay together, there would still be work to do. I honestly don't know what to do next.