Relationship ended, want her back, need advice

[Carl16]

These situations can be very long reads, I'll try to keep it short.

Recently my relationship with my girlfriend has ended after 1.5 years. The latter part was long distance (approx 3 hours drive). i went without seeing her for 1 month and when i went to visit her, things were noticeably different. I was with her for 3 days and in that time i thought we got things sorted out, but when we were at my car and I was getting ready to go she said she wanted a break. We had a huge emotional discussion where i also found out that another guy had expressed feelings towards her. I left with things up in the air. I went home devastated and worried I was going to loose the most important thing in my life so I decided to make some drastic changes to my life to help stop this in its tracks (shouldn't have done this, seems to just have pushed her further away)

when I told her of these changes she would barely speak to me and said she couldn't do this anymore.

A week later she came to my house and picked up her stuff that I had placed in a box with a note saying how I was sorry I panicked and I agree that this is the best thing for both of us.

Its now been one month without contact.

In this time I've done a lot of work on myself. Quit a few bad habits, changed my poor diet into a healthy one, started working out etc. I've also been doing a lot of reading about relationships and the female mind, a lot of the stuff about failed relationships and what kills attraction I've read is almost like a blueprint of stuff I personally did wrong to get myself into this situation.

these include:
lacking decisiveness
not being an alpha male
lack of leadership
lack of purpose
too much mundane routine
theres more but 5 is enough for now lol

I did not realize i was doing these things but now that i do i will never make these mistakes again.

now I know many people are gonna give me that age old advice "there's plenty of fish in the sea" and your completely right but me and this girl have a very special relationship with a very special bond.

i met this girl a handful of times through my friend and then didn't see her for 2 years until he invited her to hang out with us one time. After this time, her heavy flirting (little did i know she was fed up trying to get me to notice her) lead to our long relationship and 6 months in admitted she waited 2 years for me to ask her out. this girl is absolutely in love with me.

As our relationship was ending she was almost sick to her stomach, there are no words to describe how much we love each other (im positive she still feels the same way) but (i think) she feels that my lack of drive in life and constant procrastination will not lead to a happy fulfilling relationship together. now like I've said I've made a lot of changes and am willing to work as hard as i can to make a life for the both of us that we can both feel safe in and enjoy together.

unlike most guys who are destroyed by the fact that their girlfriend doesn't want them anymore, what is killing me is that i know she wants me badly but wont have me anymore because she cant see a life with me due to my aforementioned character flaws. which i have changed and will never allow those negative aspects of my personality to take hold ever again.

which brings me to my question at long last, sorry for the novel there....

like i said I've been no contact for a month and much of the recommended reading for getting your ex back suggest i now ask her out for a casual lunch or coffee and almost pretend like we just met and try to reignite a spark.

Is this the best approach?

That's very hard when all I wanna do is say, look i know these were the problems, these are the steps I've taken to rectify them and lets not waste anymore time apart, this is silly!

Or is it best to wait for her to bring up the past relationship?

any advice, not just on my question but any aspect of my situation will be greatly appreciated. i don't have a lot of experience and could use the input from seasoned relationship experts.

Thanks alot

[lahnnabell]

You can't convince her to come back. She has to want to. This is made doubly hard if she's already seeing someone else.

[Natlee]

If she wanted a break then she must have needed it. By trying to push yourself upon her with meeting her or talking about the past will push her away even more because your going to look needy. If she wants you she would contact you and if she doesn't its time to move on.