How could he dump me in such a cold, cruel way?

I’m a 48-year-old gay man and, until recently, was in a fabulous loving relationship with my (now ex) boyfriend, who’s 45.

We’d been together for two years and had both come out of long-term relationships when we met.

We lived together, had a great social life, were best friends as well as lovers, and I thought everything was pretty perfect.

Then a few weeks ago, he had a weekend away with some old friends and, when he returned, he was acting oddly and then told me our relationship was over. He said he couldn’t do it any longer, we “were done”, and it wasn’t what he wanted any more.

Needless to say, I was shocked and utterly devastated. It was almost surreal – like I didn’t recognise this person I’d been with for two years. He was cold and refused to properly explain what prompted this decision, which was so sudden and out of the blue. He moved his stuff out of our flat a few days later when I was out, and we’ve had no contact since.

I’ve tried to speak to him because I feel I need some closure, but he won’t answer my messages. I still follow him on social media, but he hasn’t posted anything in weeks.

It feels as if our entire relationship was a lie and I’m struggling to understand what happened. Could you give me some much-needed guidance?

Coleen says

It’s incredibly painful being dumped, and even more so when it’s out of the blue and you haven’t been able to talk it through properly to understand why.

However, the fact is he’s decided for whatever reason that it’s over for him, so try not to torture yourself with questions.

He obviously had reasons – maybe he met someone else, maybe this weekend with old friends made him reassess your relationship, or maybe he was afraid of the commitment.

I think guilt probably has a lot to do with the way he left you, leaving without an explanation and just cutting you off. And maybe in time it’ll become clearer why he walked out.

I don’t think your whole relationship was a lie and I’m sure he loved you, but something changed for him and, unfortunately, he took the coward’s way out. Having been dumped several times myself, I understand your pain, but I also know it’s possible to be happy again.

So, try to focus on the positive things in your life and build on those, and don’t isolate yourself from friends.

We can always learn something from every experience, and what I’ve learned from past break-ups is that hanging around waiting for closure will not help you to move on. Good luck.

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He just said we ‘were done’ and walked out