Erractic girlfriend... Lost the love of my life...

Here’s my situation:

I met a girl about a year and a half ago. When we met I was just looking for a fun time and nothing too serious. She was 20 and I was 29. By far the youngest girl I have ever dated. Thing is we ended up really falling for each other. We had the most amazing connection. Of all the girls I’ve dated, she was the first I could honestly say I was deeply in love with and could see myself with long-term. However, as I was to find out over time, her confidence and independence were just a thin shell…

She is amazingly smart and already had a decent job working with computers full time and was working toward her degree in college full time as well. She is tall, and amazing looking, and overall looks much older than she is, and had a time from 14-18, when she would out to bars nightly and party a lot but this has since stopped. However, despite this she is very self conscious and very socially awkward but has the ability to project confidence. She has almost no close relationships with friends or family. She also tends to hold her emotions inside and put on a smile no matter what. Her parents are very religious and conservative and while they know she is not religious, she has always lived a double life with them. I have spent a lot of time with them and they are nice people, but they still believe we have not slept in the same bed together and that she is a virgin. Other than this huge deception, she is extremely honest, almost to a fault, as she does not censor herself at all, which makes her social awkwardness all that much worse.

Despite this, when we are together she is the sweetest most loving person and we have a great time together. The quirkiness of her personality is what really made me fall in love with her.

We took things slow for 3 months then she moved out of her parents’ house and in with a friend to be closer to me. We got pretty serious for the next 6 months. Things seemed amazing. She was the smart, beautiful, confident and independent woman of my dreams. I was the smart, handsome, confident man of her dreams… or so she led me to believe. One day she shows up at my apartment and says she is breaking up with me. That she can’t be there for me like I want her too. That she is a bad girlfriend and doesn’t understand why I love her so much, that I am so much better at things and smarter and more popular than she is. It really came out of nowhere and blew me away. It broke my heart. Naturally, I figured she was just saying that to let me down easy, but the next day we talked about it and she said she is stressed with school and work and that she was on her period and just took freaked out about it all. I told her if she wasn’t sure about us or wanted out, that it would be ok, but she reassured me that was not the case and that she loved me.

This ended up happening 4 more times over the next year. Same situation, same reasons, same devastation. I didn’t understand it. Everything would seem perfect for a few months. We would seem so in love. Then she would break up with me. I would go no contact for a few days. People we knew would tell me she was very sad and depressed and distant. It didn’t make sense to me. If she wants out of the relationship, shouldn’t the breakup be a relief. It has been for me in these situations. A week later she would call me crying, wanting to talk and saying how embarrassed she was about what happened and how out of control she feels. We would ease back in to the relationship because deep in my heart I truly felt that she loved me.

Over time, I began to see how insecure she really was. She always had a hard time in social situations, sometimes wanting to leave suddenly others actually crying. She was so critical of herself and others, constantly pointing out that she didn’t look perfect or she had a pimple that no one could even see. She would also point out other people issues excessively. Throughout it all, I blamed myself for not being able to show her that I truly loved her for who she was and became pretty depressed. I thought I found the love of my life and it kept falling apart at random moments.

Eventually, I broke up with her. I couldn’t stand not knowing why this cycle was happening and why I couldn’t prevent it. I didn’t want to worry about when my world would come crashing down again. We talked a lot about it. I told her she has been the love of my life and I want to be with her, but that this relationship wasn’t healthy for either of us and that she needs to figure out what she wants. The next day she quit her job and made plans to move about 2 hours away to a new campus for her final semester. Within a week, she was gone. We have not spoken in 2 weeks and she is living at the dorms. Mutual acquaintances say she feels horrible. She is very sad and is very heartbroken. I feel the same way. I knew things weren’t working well but I always had hope for the future. The times between the breakups just felt so perfect.

Overall, I can’t believe she just picked up and left so quickly. I have no plans to contact her. I still don’t understand why this cycle kept repeating for no apparent reason. I realize that she is still young and that plays a big part in all of this. Part of me thinks she is just scared of being in such a serious relationship, however, I’ve never pushed anything. If anything, she was the one escalated things to begin with. I’ve always been supportive of her schooling and goals and felt like I was in a great position to help her since I have already been there/done that.

Anyway... I still love her a lot. My brain tells me to let her go but my heart knows she is feeling very heartbroken and wants to reach out.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation? Do I really even have a choice of doing anything but letting her go?

/jack