I’m completely lost and losing hope. Gf of 7 years broke up with me around 6 weeks ago now, and even it came out of the blue, looking back now I see the reasons why, even though we were good most days, when we fought we fought hard. There was lack of intimacy from her side a couple years ago, we went in circles about it, then we moved apart for our jobs for a little while. A year later intimacy was still lacking whenever we saw each other, long story short I ended up getting some attention from a girl at work, and she saw a text I had sent her that while wasn’t bad by any means it was still sucky to see I would imagine. She was more hurt at having to find out the way she did (went through my phone) and that I wasn’t upfront about it when she asked. I felt terrible because I had wanted to talk to her about it but she’d already gone through my phone. Fast forward all the drama that came with that, we both agreed that we messed up and she agreed that my actions didn’t come from a bad place, it was just a mistake that occurred due to a severe relationship issue – the intimacy.
Despite us trying to work it out, I was still feeling closed off from her and slightly resentful that she had demanded I changed my life completely, like telling me to move asap even though it’d cost my job etc so she would feel secure. The topic of marriage also came up too, I said we weren’t in a good place to be talking of that, I didn’t want marriage to be a thing she saw as a quick fix. I was still hurt and we needed to slowly get back there, but she kept pushing me to get over things, and likewise I was pushing her too. We fought about timelines and how she was pressuring me to do all these things, I said I had closed myself off from her during the time she didn’t show me any interest and it was hard to re-open myself due to fear of being hurt. As you can imagine we both had issues of opening up and both had resentment, when we argued we’d always come back around to “but you did this…” and neither of us backed down. Our communication and trust broke down.
Fast forward another year and we’re more ok now with a lot of it but communication was still rubbish. But I was asking her about the kind of rings she liked to show her I was ready to take the next step, she seemed happy. We still had arguments but they’re not as bad, I think she still felt scared to raise some issues with me, but I tried my best to let her know she could. We went on holiday together in Feb and I could sense her being a little distant, I think even though she had told me she didn’t have a timeline for us, she did in the back of her mind because the week before she got upset and said she thought I’d bought a ring prior to the trip, and was sad to know I hadn’t.
So during the trip she was a little distant but would still hold my hand, touch me, she even talked about joint bank accounts etc and I happily agreed. Fast forward to back home, she stayed at my house a few days during which time she just slept for the most of it, we didn’t interact much. She started to become very protective of her phone and that bugged me, got me paranoid, so I confronted her because that in combination with her being distant sent me into panic. She said she had been talking to her brother about us and some of our issues and didn’t want me to see. So I asked her to talk about it with me, she did briefly but it felt very detached, a lot of what she has to say came across as if she felt justified in the lack of intimacy and that I was a villain in how I reacted to it in the end. I didn’t continue the subject further. On the last day before she left she finally opened up a little we cuddled, kissed, fooled around a little. We said our goodbyes. I felt some relief. I continued to text her like normal the next few days and made plans to go see her, she said that would be nice. A few days later I got a real bad feeling so I asked her if we were ok, and that’s when things went downhill, she broke up with me.
Fast forward a lot of confusion, the usual begging, pleading etc she explained that it was a combination of trying get over what happened, not feeling like she could trust me, feeling angry still, and feeling like she wasn’t ready for the next step. She said she still loves me and is still in love with me but she had to go work this all out and things need to change.
I accepted all this and left it, I asked to see her because she did all this over text and I felt I was owed more. I went to see her and I had not planned to do anything rash, but silly me, emotions won over and I pulled out a ring and said to her that this wasn’t a proposal, just that I wanted to show her that when she’s ready I was too. Nothing changed her mind, I wasn’t expecting it to. She said that when she thought about it could make her happy, but then nothing changed.
A lot happened in between then and now. It’s been 2 months since the official breakup.
Longest NC was 2 weeks, last we spoke was a week ago. I reached out due to a sickness in my family. I’ve been really thinking about everything and how it happened, and I really can’t shake the feeling that it just comes down to poor communication. I honestly feel like we could work if we tried again on a clean slate, but the last thing she said to me was that she misses me, and when she sees things online she wants to link it to me and reach out, she’s sad about that, but when she isn’t sad she feels at peace and she thinks being with me will just bring back the anger, anxiety and so she doesn’t want it.
I don’t know what to do, because in the phone call we had laughs and jokes too before serious part came up and she said that. I asked her if we could be better would she consider it? And she said that she was glad I was working on myself but she didn’t want it to be for her, that she wanted to be clear that it won’t change her mind. But I feel like the way she laughed and joked with me, if we could get back to that she could see we can have that happiness. I still need more time to heal but I feel like the more time goes by the more she becomes ok with everything, I obviously want her to feel ok so we could get back to neutral, but I don’t know if I should just give up and let her go.