| Carolyn Hax is away. The following first appeared March 13, 2011. Dear Carolyn: My boyfriend of seven years left me for a 20-year-old (we’re both 26). Throughout it all he has tried to be kind and reassuring to me, but I can’t seem to reconcile that with the wholesale rejection of everything I have been to him, everything I am and everything I could have been. We’ve had a tumultuous history, but we always worked through our problems and I really thought we were going to spend the rest of our lives together. I tried to reason with him and lay out our entire history, and while he agrees it has been worthwhile and that he was happy with me, it’s still not worth it to him to give up this new girl. I don’t know if he’s saying kind things only to make me feel better or if it’s an outright lie. I’m so confused about the last seven years now. I’m trying to take things day by day. I keep trying to remind myself that I did my best, and I can’t force him to love me. I just get overwhelmed with these feelings of worthlessness, though, and I feel like I’m losing everything. What else can I do? — Devastated reject | 
