Girlfriend Depressed Moved Out and Broke Up With Me to Find Herself But Still Texts?!

[Martian536]

Hi All. VERY LONG but hope you can help..

 

I am so confused. I am not sure where to start but I met this girl over 2.5 years ago. I just came off a severe long term (8 years) where I was engaged and my ex-fiance had a typical case of GIGS (me being her first serious boyfriend).. but also we broke up because of insecurities caused by somewhat cheating (during our dating phase) where she gave it up to her high school fling and then told me several months down the line. I thought I could forgive and let go but I always was tormented over it and at the end of our 8 years, I hit rock bottom (unemployed) and I brought up the past and used it against her (again.. but the first time since we got engaged.. i made a promise I wouldn't bring it up.. but since I felt so low, all my insecurites came out). I scared her away..

 

Fast forward several months 6 months later, I meet a girl and I am pretty sure I fell in LUST because I was vulnerable and the sex was amazing (compared to my ex) and I can blame this on her experience level.. I ended up with this girl for the next 2.5 years.

 

Now when I look back, I saw a few red flags but the more I got to her know, she seemed genuine and caring but troubled as a result of growing up in a poverished dysfunctional household with a semi-absent alcoholic father..

 

Here are some interesting things I noticed:

*Slept with me quickly on our 2nd night (1st date after we met) and asked if i believed in fate of us being soul mates.. Told me she was "intense" and if I could handle her.. didn't know what she meant till now.

 

*Is middle child - youngest is a lesbian sister high school drop out, oldest is a alcoholic (dui) and meth addict brother who is currently in jail for the 3rd time.

 

*Says she use to strip for money for few months she says when she was in desperate need of money but she quit that and never would consider it again..

 

*Before me when I met her at age 23, she's already had 8 sexual partners but only 4 year or so relationships since 16 or so..but ours ended up becoming her first real serious one (first to meet her family, etc..).. so basically she had a history of failed relationships.. i even asked her and she said most ended around the 2 year mark (how ironic!)..

 

After all the honeymoon and all, about into our 2nd year, she moved in with me because her crazy brother moved back into her moms house and is somewhat of a bully to her.. she also hated her dads presence whenever she saw her dad yelling at her elderly mom.. her younger lesiban sister does not live there but is totally taken care of by her older girlfriend so she's never in the picture..

HEr elderly mom and dad have a weird relationship, he would come over and visit every so often and sometimes sleep over but lives in a totally different house.

 

She could not stand the stress of her family so she has the courage to get away from them but also the fear to detach from them, she's a smart girl who just finished her bachelors degree last semester and I was there throughout her college expereince.. shes not much of a party girl or materialistic which i loved about her.. Since her brother moved back (coming out of jail for a dui), she started living with me..

 

This is where things started to get really rocky.. all throughout my relationship, we had so many verbally abusive fights and a few physical (on her part with slapping but she has stopped since I told her that slapping is still abuse from a girl).. due to a clash of my own insecurities and her general "crazy making" behavior, she has a heightened sense of distrust (and I would think its becuase of her abusive dad and bully older brother).. I use to always think whether she had a major case of daddy issues, bpd, or bipolar because I never researched on these things until I met this type of girl. I wondered if I was just vulnerable and had a hero complex to save a damsel in distress who won me over with lust..

 

NOW FAST FWD TO BREAKUP..

 

The way this girl packed her stuff and left caught me off guard. We made love the night before and I kissed her goodbye to go to work We go on chat sometimes while she's at my place. She was unemployed. She started arguing with me for no reason over me exchanging a camera I bought her with her money. The first thing she told me when she got on chat was "I wanna visit my brother in jail".. then she flipped and said she didn't wanna deal with what I was tyring to do with the camera. I knew she was stressing over money.

 

Then out of nowhere, I get a text that she packed her stuff and moved out. And stupid me,I shot myself in the foot when I text her back "so i assume we're over?"

 

and thats when she just told me everything.. how she had a panic attack and had to get out and she couldn't deal with our fighting anymore.. (never saw this coming, we made passionate love the night before..)

 

So since then, shes moved back into her moms (where she faces another stress.. however, her brother is now back in Jail so he's no longer there).. I immediately agreed to the breakup and her space.. a week later, I asked her where we stand. She emailed me saying our argument (which she created with her negativity) was the last straw?! She stated she had a panic attack.

 

I just couldn't believe how someone can just shut off out of nowhere.. lately my ex girlfriend has been having major POST-Graduate depression.. stressed over money, her weight (she gained 25lbs since I met her and I would postiively motivate her to exercise iwth me but she took it as criticism so I backed off.. I wasn't sure if she was getting quite comfortable or depressed because or whether it was her birth control (but she's been on it for years before I met her).. i don't know if its genetics becuase her younger sister blew up alot too and she's only 23.. and her older brother is sorta on the thicker side as well.. but she's prob the thinnest of them all.. She's not all that bad 25lbs more but I met her when she was 130 and now she's 155..

 

Back to the birth control, just a few weeks before all this happened, her and I had decided for her to get off of the pills (Ortho) because she was fedup of her mood swings, she blamed her weight gain on it, and it all added to her depression..

 

Anyway, now she's gone and I realized I should've stayed more supportive rather than get caught with her stresses. I always tried to help her fix things when I should've just stayed out..

 

Now here's the deal.. She tells me to move on and we should go our separate ways becuase of she doesn't think we will get better.. I really care about this women and seen her go thru so much. She's the only one in her family who has her head on straight to make a better life for herself (bound to be an High School Art Teacher).. but she feels trapped with a highly dysfunctional family.. she is of southeast asian origin and her family is 1st generation refugees..

 

Now that she is gone, is this a blessing in disguise? Her email told me that she also realize her being jobless was causing a strain on us (I had to support her for the last 4 months and I was also afraid she was getting very comfortable and codependent on me).. I don't know if I sould've been more patient with her since she just finished school and the job market is tough but I honestly did not see much of an effort on her end to find a job right away.. she seemed to enjoy the 4 month break off doing nothing.. I was working fulltime and trying to keep us both supported.. it got to the point where I was paying for her food and gas all the time. She does not have much financial support from her mom who lives on social security and has housing assistance.. I wonder if growing up this way with two siblings who don't have much going on for themselves is having her caught in the middle. She use to tell me she had a fear of success because she was scared she would have to end up taking care of the whole family..

 

1 week after the breakup was when she wrote that email that sounded hopeless.. she wanted her independence and said she was being codependent on me and we were fighting alot. I responded and told her that I also contributted to the breakup by not being supportive and getting involved with her life stresses (nice guy syndrome) and also admitted that her moods triggered my insecurities/baggage that I had from my previous relationship (she hated that she had to stress over my insecurities when she had hers to deal with that didn't pertain to the relationship).. after this email, it seemed to have opened her up a bit.. i also replied to her and brought up the fact that maybe her getting off the birth control is really exaggerating her depression. I went ahead and researched "depression after stopping birth control" and theres thousands of women out there who have gone thru the same anxiety and panic attacks and a few of them also broke up with their boyfriends and had doubts about the relationship.. I told her to consider that all she was going thru was probably a major side effect (a month out of birth control)..

 

almost 2 weeks after the breakup and after she read my email, she has been texting me occasionally.. asking me if I could be her reference for a job application.. We text back and forth casually.. I never initiate it as I want to go NO CONTACT in case she's trying to string me along.. she says to move on and not wait for her in that first email (Before she knew how I felt about us) (which usually means its really over) but her actions seems like she's totally just confused and stressed out and really wants to fix herself.. we have a good decent size circle of mutual friends who care for both of us..

 

bottom line, this girl has a genuine caring nature but she seems very stressed out from things beyond her control.. I hope she finds her happiness soon so we can possibly try one more time..

 

am i being too hopeful or should I move on? Its kinda too early to tell.. only 2 weeks from the breakup but I am confused as to why she has opened up a bit more when intiially she wanted us to go our separate ways..

 

she has sorta done this "freak out and leave" one time in the very past when we were first dating.. she was gone for about 2 weeks "thinking we were incompatible" at that time.. but since then, she's been alot more stable, less moody.. all until she was done with school and realized she was unemployed with no money (initially she was getting help from financial aid)..

 

Suggestions on how I should handle this? I want to stay supportive and respond to her when she reaches out to me casually but I hope I am not prolonging an inevitable heartbreak.. I want us to go back to how we were prior to all this depression she's facing.. is this the end? I told her all this would pass and we would be back to our happy selves..

 

depression and negativity really kill relationships.. =(

 

now my quesiton is, is my girlfriend just really confused and depressed and really regrets moving out and considering it over (since I assumed it was over.. i prob should've agreed to her space rather than force a decision out of her).. she says she was tired of us fighting but alot of what she doesn't realize is her negativity about everything, however we calmed down alot more lately on how we handle our disagreements... in fact, we never even had a heated argument before she left.. but now shes still finding ways to poke into me.. i don't know how to handle this.. I want us to work out and I will stay supportive but away from her while she figures things out herself.. she was happy when she moved away from her family to live with me but once another stress factor entered into her life, she flipped and ran back to her mom..

Edited March 15, 2012 by Martian536

[facepalm]

There are many similarities between your situation and my own, only yours is more severe. I have yet to post my story, but let me tell you, I think you have dodged a bullet. You should be grateful that you don't have kids or a house together.

 

You can not save, fix or change a person. You can be supportive of them changing themselves, but that's about it.

 

I know the love you felt for each other was massively intense and lustful, but she does not sound like the kind of person who can be in a real lasting relationship.

 

Get the hell out of there, work on yourself, focus on your future and cut all contact with this girl. I think she needs serious professional help.

[betterdeal]

You have to be careful of your own happiness and well-being, and the way you talk about how you wish to support her makes me feel you're putting her needs before yours.

 

When you split up with someone that means no more support, no more texts, no more talking about the deep stuff. You, as well as she, need to be comfortable with taking ownership of your own affairs if you are to have an honest and freely giving relationship.

 

Does it mean this is the end? Well, it means this is the beginning of something new, for both of you. Maybe let her know you'd like to hear from her when she's in a better place emotionally, but for now, do your own thing.

[Octavius]

"You can not save, fix or change a person. You can be supportive of them changing themselves, but that's about it."

 

This is very true, I made this mistake with my ex and I think it had a lot to do with killing her attraction for me and thus the break up (coming off as needy even though I was trying to help). My ex was insecure about a lot of things so I started pointing out all my small insecurities to try to help her feel better..... retarded move on my part.

 

My ex was very depressed/suicidal but she never took it out on me and we never fought. One thing I will advise is don't blame everything on the depression (though it is likely a big part), it is easy to use it as a scape goat for the breakup and the other person may use as such. (Plenty of women and men use terrible fake excuses when breaking up).

 

My ex also got off birthcontrol and started antidepressants 2 weeks before the breakup, which I think may have contributed to things. Goodluck with trying to convince her this is the cause though, likely not happening.

Edited March 15, 2012 by Octavius

[Pens55]

Im gonna say it - yep, you love and miss her. But you dodged a bullet.