Getting over it: how to do it?

[AgentApathy]

I've reached an all new low: I'm pouring out my heart and asking strangers on the internet for advice. I'm sure everyone has had one of these stories, but I'm stuck in a rut and the rut is so deep that I can't see daylight.

My now-former boyfriend and I have not had an easy time of things, almost from the beginning. Almost just as soon as we started dating, he left his job and a month later moved to the city where I lived to be with me. It took 6 months for him to find a job, and during this time, his thyroid medication dosage was way off, resulting in some chemically induced depression. Once all of that was solved and he was working again, things seemed to smooth out for a few months, and we went back to being happy like we were before, just to stumble over several more relationship hurdles. This culminated in a huge argument around Thanksgiving, leading to him coming to me December 3, begging me not to leave him, asking me to go to counseling and saying that he had been looking at rings not so long before and wanted a life with me.

We went to counseling, where the counselor told us after several sessions that she sees couples all the time who NEED to break up and she tells them so, but that we're not one of them, that we just need to learn to communicate better. That month was hard; there was the usual holiday stress and then on December 23, one of my friends died unexpectedly. My grief was compounded on January 1 when my boyfriend broke up with me, saying that he loves me but he couldn't handle the stress and discord anymore.

Of course that isn't everything, but I don't want to bore everyone with all of the details. I am having a hard time dealing with the sudden shift in attitude and circumstance: I had put aside all of my doubt and anger entirely and committed myself to working with him to fix everything, and suddenly that life we had been working toward is gone. Nothing is the same; all of the goals I had set for myself were inclusive of him and our future life together, and now I don't even know what to wish for or hope for. I feel totally shattered; I don't even feel up to seeing my friends and even though I have the means and ability to go somewhere, do something, there is nothing I want to do and nowhere that feels like it would be a comfort.

My question, following all of what was very likely TMI, is this: how do YOU do it? What has worked for you to get over it when you felt like your life was over? I know the easiest answer is to just forget him and find someone else, but this is the first time in my 35 years that I have *ever* been with anyone with whom I felt I could want a child (my friends are still slack-jawed over this, since I have always been anti-kid), so I'm in it pretty deep. I keep wondering when I get to stop bursting into tears and feel okay again.

Help me get over it: what should I do? I'd rather not go on medications unless I have to, but the emotional exhaustion is getting to be more than I can handle.