Fairy-tale at age 53 gone bad......

[Radioboy]

20 years ago, after my first divorce, I met a girl who I adored. I was in a bad relationship at the time, and she listened patiently but could not understand why I was involved. She was secretly in love with me but never told me. We were never romantically involved except for one night of kissing. I would've pursued her, but she had three little girls, and with my own little girl gone because of my recent divorce, I wasn't in the mood to take on three that were not my own. She eventually moved, and remarried. I did the same.
10 years ago, I got a brief phone call from her. She was married, and so was I. We ended the call with, "I still think about you a lot."
About 2 years ago, I started thinking about her a lot, and after 2 months really started looking for her again. I found her and it turned out SHE thought she had found ME because she was looking for me as well. It was ON and great until (ominous music) this summer.

She has never been able to express her emotions. It turns out she had just spent 18 years in a verbally abusive relationship with an OCD--borderline sociopath, and at the beginning of the summer she began to pull away, and her inability to talk to me how she felt about 'us' left me confused. It all came to a head a month ago when she announced one Friday morning she would not be coming down that weekend because I continued to smoke inside my apartment when she wasn't there after she asked me not to do it. (I never smoked when she was here) She had just spent the previous weekend here, never said a word about it, left on great terms, and we were supposed to take a road-trip during the week. No trip, and now not coming either and I blew a cork and broke up with her. I had really gotten tired of her disappearing act, and couldn't take it anymore. I really didn't want to lose her, I just blew up. Within about 7 days, I made contact, and we talked every day for the next week which ended with attending my reunion. She was all over me the entire night, and a huge make-out session in the parking lot ended the great evening. I sent her a picture of us at the reunion the next day and she wouldn't respond. About 5 days later I mustered the courage to just call and ask her out and she wouldn't answer the phone. I just about had a coniption-fit and thought, "this is why I blew up in the first place." I wrote her a scathing letter (looking for something---ANYTHING) and finally on Tuesday she read it, and responded with pure anger and panic. She couldn't believe that I thought everything was a lie and blah, blah, blah. She said she was SO devastated that I 'threw her away' so easily that she mourned for 2 days and she was DONE. She also blurted out that she had already gone out with a new guy twice! She said that going with me to the reunion had just confused her because we were 'broken up'. I told her that I thought that since only 7 days had passed and we had been talking every day, I had taken her out to dinner once and then the reunion with the make-out session, we were slowly getting things back together. She had to go to class, so I went and waited for her to come out so we could talk. I explained what had led up to my initial loss of temper......and my attempts to get things back together. She explained to me that too many times in her abuse marriage that she had thrown away just like I did, and that he also would come back and apologize just like I was doing. I really didn't know what to say, and frankly couldn't believe she had already gone out with a guy 3 times or 2 times (it kept changing) and it almost seemed to me that he must have already been in the starting gate.
At any rate, now she says she needs 'time' and her life is messed up so badly that she doesn't want a relationship at all right now. She's hurt, tired, and wants to just do nothing right now. Her life IS a total mess....she lost her job, had to start school at age 48, had to sell her prize horses, and is living with her mom who has had the house torn to shreds for the past 7 months trying to remodel it on her own. As a matter of fact, our relationship changed after she started school. AND-----AND-- she has started menopause. I am crazy about her, but my GOD I can't even apologize to her without it being mocked as an ex-husband ploy. I'm 53 and totally out of practice with relationships. I really thought after the week had passed and we were talking and going out, we would have time to discuss the initial blow-up. I have NO idea what to do now, except wait it out. I'm miserable, and frankly am not certain that there is really a new guy she's dating or that was thrown in or exaggerated to cause me pain. Her 'go to move' for a return this summer has been Facebook, by poking me, or popping up on chat. 3 days ago, I wrote her a 'final' letter that explained my perspective on what happened and why, and also that when I DID break up with her, I wrote that I wasn't sure she was in love with me anymore anyway. She had only argued the smoking issue and maintained I broke up because of cigarettes----completely ignoring the love question. There have been a total of 4 letters since the initial break-up, and ALL of them have talked about my insecurity of whether or not she was in love with me. She only would talk about how easy I threw her away, and I chose cigarettes over her. She DID text me the night of the reunion and told me what a great time she had, and since she had sold her beloved horses that day, I gave her an encouragement card at the beginning of the evening. She said that giving her the card showed her that I really did care about her. I responded, "of course I care. I care a lot." she said, "I know. I care a lot about you too." The next day, I saw her pop up on Facebook and asked her if we could have dinner. She hem-hawed and it never happened. Later in the parking lot meeting, she explained that I was 'confusing' her since I had broken up with her over cigarettes and it wasn't resolved. ANYWAY----- I sent her the letter, told her I wasn't interested in a relationship that had no communication, reaffirmed that I thought she was my soul-mate and best-friend, sent it to her, and closed my Facebook account. I had realized that I have NO control over this thing at all, and I don't know whether her menopause coupled with her abusive past is doing this, or she is screwing with me or what? It was smooth sailing for an entire year. I cannot understand what happened other than losing her job and having to start school. This is eating me alive and I never thought I would go through what has become a 9th grade relationship at this age. She has just flipped out. Please advise.

I just updated this thread..... I stumbled upon Borderline personality disorder. I'm wondering now. She went ONE YEAR without anything at all, and this summer it was every 3 weeks a new problem. The problem above has been escalated by her and seems totally un-fixable to me now. It's as if she just flipped off a switch and is no longer in love with me. The reunion described above might have been a 'show' and wasn't even anything like I thought it was, or I wouldn't find myself in this position.