I’m 26, she is 24, and we had been dating for ~1.5 years (mostly weekends due to her work travel schedule). Broke up about a month ago and NC for ~24 days now, and as I approach 30+ days of NC I wanted to get some external feedback on my chances / approach to this.
This was my first relationship. I had no understanding of what healthy boundaries are as well as how a serious bf should treat their partner in showing affection (e.g., love language). My gf may also have been a bit conflict avoidant, since we fought 1 time in our entire relationship. Up until we were forced into long distance due to COVID, the relationship seemed to take the next level as we took an anniversary trip in February. However, as my work from home became super stressful and I felt the mental health effect of being isolated at home with just my parents, I became a bit more distant / took her for granted in June and July. When she came back to the city, I met her parents the first night, but did not meet up with her until the following weekend due to tunnel vision from stress. That was when she broke up with me - citing my lack of effort in the relationship, incompatibilities between us in how we show emotion, me potentially going to grad school in a year, and how she was very mad at me for not being more excited to see her after 4 months. I was too shocked to say much besides that I still loved her and wished she would reconsider, and she quickly walked away after.
I reached out a week after, since she offered another chance to chat once our emotions have calmed down a bit, and clarified a few things. First, she thought I was about to break up with her, which was the furthest thing from the truth. Second, I let her know that a lot of what she cited was my inexperience with relationships, and the fact that she never communicated certain expectations to me meant that i could never meet them. (for example, I learned about love languages from her a year into our relationship). I told her exactly how I feel about her, and proposed us taking some time apart to think through how we can make our relationship better using improved communication, trust, respect and more quality time spent together. She told me that she had made her mind and her decision was final, since she didn’t think she could be in a situation where she had to see if a guy really changed or not. Each time I mentioned things I could do better, she told me to apply that to the next girl I am with. She asked about a potential path to friendship down the road after we both have healed, but I told her that I didn’t know if that was possible and only time could tell. After the end of the convo, I told her that I respected her decision, and thanked her for the good times we had.
Since then, we’ve had no contact, but the lines of communication (text, social media) are still open. She has also kept pictures of us on instagram still up as well. I have also done a lot of self reflection and realized a lot of my mistakes were from ignorance / inexperience / immaturity as well as my family upbringing as an only child. It took me longer to open up to her than maybe she wanted, which probably made her less comfortable communicating certain problems to me. I realize now with more context the things I should have done better in hindsight, and feel like a healthy relationship is possible if I put in the legwork to give her the affection she needs. If she turns me down, it won’t be the end of the world since there is a good chance I will be off to grad school in a year-ish time, which will naturally aid the moving on process if I am off to bigger and better things.
Is this situation something that is salvageable? My plan was to wait another 1-3 weeks before reaching out with an elephant in the room email. While this time my apology will be more genuine and specific than what I expressed in the follow-up conversation since I have had more time to reflect with a calm head, will it still be helpful given we already had a “closure conversation” a week after the breakup?
