gf broke it off and went to her ex
Been dating for a year. She lives in Tuscon and I'm in Phoenix (it's about a 2 hr drive). At 6 months she wanted me to move in with her. I told her at the time it was too soon. At 8 months she asked again and said she really needed me there. I agreed to and said I would wait for a transfer within my company (we have an office 20 minutes from her) but couldn't guarantee it would happen right away.
We had a great relationship and loved each other very much. We started to plan a future together. She wanted to get married. She loved how I was with her kids and said I would be a great stepparent. She always moved a little faster than me but I figured it was just her personality. She was divorced and married her ex two months after knowing him.
There were definite red flags that she had some serious emotional issues. I noticed them but didn't realize how deep they went. I wanted to support her as a loving partner and help her through her issues. She would tell me that she was damaged from her childhood. That her parents abandoned her and she had to live with her real dad who neglected her. She eventually had to live with grandparents. She was in abusive relationships before getting married and her ex-husband, while not abusive, was bi-polar with manic episodes. According to her he also neglected her sexually.
It was around the time she first asked me to move in that i started to see emotional outbursts from her. She would text me that she didn't like being alone in her apartment. She had a 50/50 arrangement with her ex when it came to the kids. During the weekdays she didn't have the kids she said she would just sit in her apartment and cry. I would ask her why, if it was because she missed her kids or if it was another issue. She'd always just say that she just can't be alone here. Being alone became such a fear of hers that she would often drive the 2 hrs to me after work, stay the night, and then go directly to work from my place the next day. At the time I couldn't understand why she didn't like to be alone but after the break up I started to put all the pieces together and traced it back to her abandonment issues as a child. More on that in a bit.
Our relationship was strong except for the distance issue which kept coming up. I felt such a bond with her (still do) and she would tell me (and show me) often how much she loved me. The couple months the issue of me moving there would come up often. I think in the last month of our relationship she brought it up every time I saw her. I would also get frantic texts about how she needs me there now and that the distance and her being alone is emotionally and physically exhausting and she doesn't know how much longer she could do it. I heard her and there wasn't a lot i could do. I couldn't just quit my job and move there and the commute for work would have been too far. I would ask if she could just have a little more patience but she was insistent on me moving ASAP. It felt like she was cracking up and at the time I couldn't understand it. It's only now that we've been broken up for a couple weeks that I've been able to put on the pieces of this puzzle together.
One day she texted me that her ex asked for her back and that she was considering it. I was in disbelief. The day before she said she wanted to grow old with me. We were laying in bed and talking about our future and talking about getting a bigger apartment when I moved in her area. She called me the next day and told me she was going back to her ex and that he apologized for all his bad behavior. I was floored. I didn't know what to say. She never once said anything nice about him. Not only was she taking him back but she moved him in the next day.
When I asked her why she said the thought of having a whole family together was too tempting. She said that I was refusing to hear her desperate cries and that she couldn't wait for me any longer. I asked if she loved him. She wouldn't answer and only said that as the father of her children she'll always have some feelings for him.
I needed some time to recover so I didn't call her or text her after that. A few days later she texted me and asked how I was doing. I told her that I was fine and that I was taking a trip to San Francisco to get my mind off it. She asked if I was staying with an ex-gf there. I said that I was. The night before my trip we got into a verbal fight over text. She said that I was a jerk for running into the arms of some woman. I said it didn't concern her and if it made her jealous then good. I later said that she needed to get help with her emotional issues. This set her off and she sent me a barrage of nasty texts. I figured the communication was over with. But when my fight landed I had more texts from her. She wanted to know if i arrived safely and then there were a couple texts asking if i was really staying with an ex. Just to try to end the convo I said that I probably wasn't. She said , "Okay..then have a nice life." I didn't want to end it like that so i said I'd email her later. I sent her an email later on that night that basically highlighted all the positives of our relationship and how much we love each other. She responded that she had been waiting anxiously all day for my email and that its emails like that that make her cry and make it so hard. She said that its best for now that we step away from each other. I said I agreed. She then replied that she loves me so much she cries all night. She loves me so much she has to force herself not to think about me.
I didn't get it at the time. Then why did she leave and take the ex back? But as i started looking at all the signs i noticed that the love she had for me couldn't trump her fear of being abandoned. A couple days before she broke it off with me I got a text from her asking if i was sure I'd be happy living with her away from where my friends and family are. Throughout the last few months of our relationship she would ask if i was going to break up with her. I would tell her of course not. At the time I thought it was just an insecurity she had. Now I realize that it was much more than that. It was about deep seeded abandonment issues. It frightened her to death that she would be left alone. She feared that I would move there and grow tired of her then dump her.
By taking the ex back she never has to worry about being abandoned. He won't leave her. We exchanged keys a couple days after the breakup and when she got home she texted me that she misses me and cries. She admitted she was still in love with me but that she had to give the ex another chance. She couldn't admit the real reason which was that she was spiraling out of control and the ex was instant stability and removed her greatest fear.
I'm trying to recover from all this. Many people i know have said I dodged a bullet. That her issues would have come up again and again if i had moved in with her. Everyone i've told about this has said she is going to contact me again at some point. That the need for stability will give way to her feelings of love for me.
I'm trying to heal from this but man is it hard. I know it's over and I'm blaming myself for not seeing all the red flags. One day she wants to marry me , the next day she leaves me for her ex and then says she's still in love with me.
