If you're on the East Coast, you're basically saying you're up 3:30 AM posting this. Can I assume this just happened like 5 minutes ago as of the time you posted this topic?

Like, you wanna say HOW it happened?

Well it actually happened about a month ago, though we'd been hanging out a lot things were appearing to get better. I mean we were doing "coupley" things. But I just found out that she's dating someone else, unless it's bs. I don't want to air her personal life out here but she has bipolar so her mother and I both think that is the sole cause of it. May be too late though, damage has been done.

By "shipped out" I suppose you mean he's in the Army and is going to his post, right?

Anyways, I'm sorry to hear this. Um, well there's a Celtics game on "later today". Try to use that to get this off your mind, and hopefully they win.

While I don't want to get into details, I've been married twice and divorced twice, and had to raise two of my kids alone. The first marriage I was very young and did it for the wrong reasons, and ending it was a positive thing, (if that can be said). The second was one of the most painful/traumatic things I've ever known, and the ONLY things that got me through it were, one: knowing I had a little daughter that needed me, two: having family that cared about me and supported me, and three: just taking it one day at a time. When I had gotten through one day, I knew I could get through another, then two, then four, etc., and as time passes, the pain slowly goes away ... though it's hard to believe at times that it will. My kids have saved my life/sanity on a number of levels over the years, and were the core part of the most important tool of surviving ANY break-up: A support system. Hope that helps.

Thanks for the advice Bahku and Redz. I definitely have been trying to put the people around me that I know care about me, it's just a really weird/unexpected/sucky situation. The one day at a time approach has been helpful, it's what I've gone to recently, it's still early though.

Sorry to hear about this, ohiocelticsfan.

My first serious girlfriend just out of the blue told me that she didn't want to carry on our relationship.

This was back while I had just begun my Military career. I thought that we were both eventually headed for marriage as well, when out of the blue she told me "I don't want to carry on the relationship."

I felt dejected and stunned, but moved on. Sure enough, about a couple of years later, I happened to run into her in the same area I was stationed in. We were cordial with one another and talked, but I had moved on with my life. I didn't even ask her about the past.

It was hard to let go at first, but God had something else in store for me. I ended up meeting my wife of 12 years a few years later, and my military career certainly kept me busy until then.

You'll know when it's the right one. And it's ok to vent. We're a Community here.

Hold your head up. You'll find the one in due time. 

Ohio,  when you loose a serious relationship you loose not only direction but magnetic north. she didn't tell you where to go, but she helped guide you there, she did not tell you what to do but she helped you make the decision.

The only thing i can tell you to do is to choose a direction and start moving that way. keep your focus on your own compass, on your own magnetic north. sooner than later you will be in a new groove moving in your own direction and emitting some magnetism of your own.

good luck

Sorry for your pain. When the heart hurts through loss of a relationship due to death or circumstances or whatever, it just takes time to heal.

Perhaps there are some positives here, though which may ease the pain in a small way. If I were one of your personal buddies that you hung with on a regular basis, I would never say this to you for fear of irreparably harming our relationship if you got back with her, but since I'm not, I don't have that concern, so I'll say it: maybe you were just dealt a winning hand by the big guy up above (or the fates or blind luck or whatever else you do or don't believe in)to have this relationship end. There could be many reasons for this to be eventually perceived to be fortuitous. One is the bipolar issue and the other is that this will free you to potentially meet your true soul mate.

Bipolar disorder is a lifelong condition with varying degrees of severity and responsiveness to medication. Since a marriage is ideally (although, obviously in reality not always) for a lifetime, that's an awfully long time on a roller-coaster with  a lot of peaks and valleys. I guess that could mean a lot of great  make-up sex, but perhaps also a lot of time in turmoil and conflict. In addition, should you get back together and either continue the relationship and/or get married and eventually break up over the same issues, aside from the "sentence" you would be serving, hopefully there are no children involved to also get hurt in the breakup. Also, bipolar has a high genetic component to it. Just some things to consider in possibly perceiving your "bad luck" as "good luck".

As far as relationships go, unless you live in a monastery or hermitage, you ARE going to meet other women. I know that thought isn't really appealing to you right now as you perceive this woman as "THE ONE", but the human male's biology makes him incredibly adaptive and pragmatic. And since sexual desire underlies and  drives most mating relationships, you will have sexual desires for others which then will present a chance for meaningful relationships to take hold. Let me put it this way in a somewhat strained but nonetheless still valid analogy: If you were marooned on a desert island with some terribly unattractive fertile woman for the rest of your life, after a while there would be plenty of little (probably unattractive)kids running around eventually. The pessimist might view this as "settling", the optimist would view this as making the best of the situation.
In no way do I suggest that you "settle", but rather that you view this as an opportunity to meet other women, any, all or none who could make you happier, ultimately, than this one.

Good luck, pal. Many of us have been there and many of us will be. Such is the human condition. You are not alone.