He's giving me mixed signals! I don't know what I should do!

I'm sorry this is so much to read. :(

My boyfriend and I just broke up 5 weeks ago today.

We had always been friends and had always liked one another, we lived right down the road from one another, about 3 minutes drive time, and coincidentally enough had the same address just different roads. I never really took it all as a coincidence tho, I always thot that meant we were supposed to be together.

I was raped 2 different times by 2 different people. I’m not sure if that’s the reason I became the person I am today but now I have no self confidence and I have so many trust issues with guys. I’m always thinking that they’re not going to want me anymore and they’re going to cheat on me. I always want some kind of attention from a guy like loving on me or holding me or something like that and if they’re not then I feel like they don’t want me anymore or they’re cheating on me. I always feel like if the guy is talking to another girl or looking at another girl then I’m not good enough for him cuz I don’t look like they do and that the girl is going to steal the guy away from me.

I started dating and eventually married this guy and ended up having 3 kids with him but we started having problems cuz as above I started feeling like they didn’t want me anymore which he didn’t cuz he cheated on me numerous times but I ended up still staying with him for a while after that until we just split for good.

I started dating this current guy about a year or so later after I split with my ex husband. Everything was going great between us until we moved into this house we are in now. We lived right next door to my dad and paying him rent until he wanted to switch houses to where we had the bigger house and he had the smaller one and since I had 3 kids from a previous and we had 1 together, she’s 4 now, and he had 1 from a previous, 5 kids total, then it seemed like a great opportunity.

I know my dad was trying to be nice but this house has never felt like home cuz my dad left everything of his over here, furniture, electronics, dishes…just about everything. We started fighting more and then he started playing on a video game A LOT to where I started thinking that it had something to do with me and it might had but I never could understand that when he was doing his own thing like play on his game that’s just what it was and it had nothing to do with him not wanting to spend time with me but I took it as that cuz we didn’t talk anymore and we barely spent any time together and he just wanted to play video games all the time. He would go into another room to watch TV if I was watching something in the living room and if he was on the couch laying down watching TV and I sat on the love seat he wouldn’t want me to go sit or lay down with him. Well let me correct that since I was already feeling like he didn’t want me anymore I started pushing him away cuz the way I felt was if he didn’t want me anymore then instead of trying to save our relationship then I needed to push him away cuz if he didn’t want to be here anymore then why make him stay so I told him to leave a lot of times but when he would come to me to try to give me a kiss, I’d get mad at him and push him away. When he’d want me to lay down with him on the couch I’d tell him no cuz we both couldn’t fit on there; I would sit with him and watch TV but after a while that seemed to just stop too and not necessarily cuz it was my fault…it just seemed to just stop.

I was fighting a battle with myself over my kids cuz I felt like I was to blame for them being in the situation they’re in with their dad, they go bi-weekly to his house and mine and I felt like they shouldn’t had to eat the way we have to eat cuz me and my boyfriend both work for a school bus company, he’s a bus driver and I’m a bus monitor, and when the kids are in school we work and the kids are out of school a lot so we would have to eat the way we had to eat and I really don’t get child support from their dad so it’s just me and my boyfriend that was doing the best we could with what we had but every time my boyfriend and the kids and it didn’t matter what it was about or who started it I felt like I had to take my kids side and even knowing that I was in the wrong for it and knowing that I was going to end up messing up my relationship with my boyfriend I still did it, I just didn’t want them to leave to go to their dads and stay with him cuz I knew if that happened I’d never see my kids again cuz their dad wants to move out of state or out of the country.

I also started talking to my next door neighbor about my issues with my boyfriend cuz I couldn’t talk to him cuz he never wanted to listen and since I was feeling very vulnerable about the relationship I started talking to her, she’s 81. She never liked my boyfriend but I still listened to her cuz she was older and did have more life experience than I did but I never realized until later on after we split up that she was doing nothing but making things worse for me and him. She says she never lied but on some of the stuff I just got the feeling that she was lying and even after me and him split up I got the feeling that if me and him worked things out then she would had made something up to try to get him thrown in jail and because of her he doesn’t really want to come over my house at all and I don’t really blame him even tho I wish he would come over so we could talk about things.

After dealing with all those issues and listening to my next door neighbor I finally told him to leave 5 weeks ago today and now since I’m not listening to anyone else I’m missing him like crazy and wanting to get back together with him or at least talk to see if we can go in the right direction. All he tells me about us working things out is that he needs his time and space and when he gets a place of his own we will see about working things out but yet he’s told me little things like when he moves out of where he’s at now then we will see about working on our relationship, if we do work things out then I need to start liking dogs, if we do work on things then we need to get a place of our own, if we do work on things then we all need to work on our attitudes, he wants to spend some time with my kids especially my son, he says if I win the lottery I want to buy a house for us. He even wanted me to send him a message explaining to him why I am and do the things I say and do but then when I asked him about it he tells me he doesn’t have a reply right now cuz he just doesn’t know what to say…he just says and does little things like that but yet he barely talks to me. I don’t have a phone at the moment so we only talk using Facebook Messenger and I can send him a message and he’ll see it but he won’t reply. I mean don’t get me wrong we have talked a lot even in person but this weekend I’ve sent him the same question for the past 2 days and he wouldn't reply at all until earlier today and he was brief on his answer and that was about our daughter and since we work together he can pass right by me and not even say anything. He says he’s busy but he can stop and talk to other people which makes me feel like it’s just me he don’t want to talk to or be around.

I just don’t understand what he’s trying to do. If he’s just trying to get my hopes up but he doesn’t have any plans on us getting back together, or if he really does want his time and space and when he does get a place of his own then we will try to work on us but I mean right now he’s acting like he’s living the singles life and isn’t worried at all about working on our relationship. I know we agreed that we weren't going to work on our relationship right now and that we both have things with ourselves to work on but even tho we agreed to that I’m still trying to fight for us cuz I really do feel that we could make it work but at the same time I’m just tired of feeling like I’m fighting for our relationship for nothing cuz he’s acting like I have the plague when I get around him and since he won’t talk to me…I just don’t get it, I don’t get why he’s treating me this way!!! I can ask him what does he want to happen tween us and he won’t reply, he’ll just tell me he doesn’t know and I’ll tell him you’re the only one who does know so just go ahead and tell me but he still won’t. All I’m wanting is some clarification on what’s going to happen. I mean if he doesn't want to work on us and no matter how hard it’s going to be for me to hear that I’d rather hear that then to think there’s a possibility on us working things out when there really isn’t cuz then I’d be able to focus on moving on but he just won’t answer me and as many messages I do send him which is roughly 5-15 a day and that’s usually with him replying back and there are days we don’t talk at all or maybe send 1-2 messages I still don’t want him to try to get me for harassing him.

I know he’s the only one who knows what he wants but what do you think I should do because I’m seriously confused? I honestly and truly want to work things out with him but I just don’t want to fight a losing battle anymore. The nights are easier than the day time cuz I know he’s doing nothing on his layover and we could be talking but he chooses not to and like I’ve said when I see him at work he won’t talk to me but at night I can keep myself busy and don’t think about him like that. People at work have told me that me and him are going to get back together but I don’t know if that’s cuz they know something I don’t or if they’re just trying to make me feel better and more than likely it’s the 2nd one. Can someone just give me some advice please!!!!

Sorry hun, too complex to plough through and in view of what has happened to you I feel like the opinions of more random strangers on a forum in addition to that of people in your life, is just going to add more layers of confusion.

I'd suggest seeking out a good therapist and maybe a support group if the therapist thinks it wise, because despite not having read it all I can't help but think that some unwiring and grounding with professional support would help you to see things more clearly.