Rug Pulled Out From Under Me... Deeply Conflicted... HELP

Hello Enotalone folks. I was on this wonderful forum roughly 6 years ago after a break up that helped shape the person I am now. Beauty of all relationships is that they shape the people we become. As I write this about my latest relationship it's important to mention that I'm 31 just got out of a 4.5-5 year relationship with a girl I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with, she is now 27. I had and still have a deep unconditional love for her that is making this all much harder and down right tragic...

We met through a friend and became an item instantly. The process was slow at first, we were younger then and I was out of a job at the time so I really only had time to work find a job and work out, essentially get my life back together. As we began seeing more of each other I eventually found my a new job and I felt like my life was getting back on track not mention I had this beautiful girl that I was falling in love with. The duration of our relationship was mostly positive and we basically lived together for about 3.5 years of it. This is not to say we had our moments. She deals with BAD anxiety and suffers from depression, to the a depth that is beyond her control, still. I can count on one hand the number of times she would have awful mood swings. pull up her wall and lash out at me. I knew what it was and remained supportive and present, not putting pressure on her and the worse it got, lasted about a week and other times only a couple days. It dissolved when she would come up to me and hug me off guard and apologize for being so difficult and I told she had nothing to apologize about and we pressed on. Communication was also a big issue for us, in the sense that she is a reactor and will say anything and I tend to be a logical thinker and it would often frustrate her because I would sit and think about what I would want to say and sometimes I would be speechless. For those faults, which are big factors in maintaining a successful relationship, we were best friends, could do anything together, talk about anything because we simply loved being together.

It really up until the last year things have basically dissolved and I am beyond heart broken. Before we met she always talked about moving to SF to work and be closer to her close GF's from back home (she is from the Midwest). The plan got delayed as we moved to SF last July. She is the kind of person that work just comes naturally to. She is intelligent, hard working, driven and just has that IT factor, it comes natural to her. She got her boss to agree to let her open an office for their company up north and she was the impetus for the move. I have lived in my hometown (LA) all my life and saw this as an opp. to move to a new place and start the next chapter of my life with the person I loved. A week before I was going to quit my job, I got promoted. I was unsure of what to do, because this was going to be a good chance for me to really open of my career. One aspect of my GF's job was her having to travel down to LA on a weekly basis because it was a small company and she needed to be present. I went to my boss and presented the same thing, I would work from both places, when in LA I would come into the office and when in SF, I would work from home. I got a raise with this promotion but my company wouldn't pay for the airfare, so whatever raise I got was going to buying weekly airfare. We made the move and for the later part of last year we were traveling together weekly between both places and it was fun. Her company gave her a budget and we would stay in hotels and air bnb's and the travel home. The eventual goal was to be in SF full time, it was just going to take a while, but it was all worth it, to me and I hoped to her. We eventually found this beautiful apartment in the fall and moved in. We saw a future there, maybe with a kid along the way, but out lives were taking shape and I was beyond proud of the life we were going to share. At the turn of the new year, her now old company was not giving her the chance to do what she wanted as far as opening up an office, she ended up taking a new job, and that would require her to be in SF full time, she couldn't turn it down and I was supportive of that. I was now going to travel alone on a weekly basis so we would be seeing each other half of the week instead of the whole week. I was bummed but I knew it was worth it. The new year started off alright and then Feb came around and things took a turn. She had family coming to visit us and we got in a fight over something so silly but her mood was off all weekend, towards me. That whole week it was an icy feeling until that Friday when we had a really bad fight and she was saying stuff like, your not loving me the way I need to be loved which killed me inside because this was the first I heard her say anything. I was devastated. That weekend we had a friend staying with us so we remained cordial and the weekend ended with us getting lunch and her saying she wanted to take a break to work on ourselves. I was shocked. I speak "her" better then anyone so I knew where she was coming from, she felt like she was depending on me way too much for emotional support which I never wanted to be her wet blanket, I was always trying to be a loving and supportive partner. We talked about it on the way home and it was turning into a positive conversation and both cried and she said she would miss me. Only problem is, I was still going to be coming back to SF on a weekly basis and she didn't set any terms for this break so I got back the following week and started to get weird from there. I tried to make a move on her one night and she pushed me away saying "why do you think this is a sure thing." When we had the convo about she mentioned being best friends with benefits... This led to a series of hard conversations over the next couple weeks where we started to live like roommates, going to a friends wedding and having the best weekend together, just like everything was ok, then back to a ty place.

My birthday was in April and it just got worse from there. I was supposed to go a friends bachelor party in Vegas my birthday week and that whole week she wouldn't return my calls. I made the hard choice to fly home and sort everything once and for all. She was caught off guard and I admit it was a sweeping gesture but the plan was always to meet in LA for my birthday. We met that weekend and I told her I wanted to stay in LA for the month so we could have space. She suggested that I still come to SF and when I was in town she would stay with a friend. For the month of May, i was going home only to see her leave in the same breath. I was working from home looking at a life I wasn't going to be living for much longer and it was killing me. Her best friend was getting married at the end of the month and that was going to be the last straw for both of us. I went to the wedding, she was unavailable for me in any emotional sense and it was one of the hardest weekends of my life to be sharing a room with the person I love the most only to have her give me nothing. The wedding ended we talked that morning after and spent time in the hotel room holding hands and crying without much resolution, she wanted to be on her own, able to find happiness and fulfillment without me and I told her I wasn't going to try and fix her nor was I ever going to do so, just wanted her to be happy. That's the last time I saw her in person almost a month ago. When June rolled around, I emailed her that it was enough and I couldn't be living like this anymore, splitting the apt pretending to be OK. She got the message, I drove up last week, walked in, everything of my was put in the corner of the apt, no presence being felt, I packed my car up and left, she was out of town. Walking away was painful and really hard. I didn't like to leave an obligation I made that started with so much promise and love. I felt sick and still do. We ended up talking on the phone today for about an hour. I'm now just starting to think as an individual and not someone who has maybe or maybe not been with someone of the last three months. Conversation was hard. because I asked her questions and she had trouble answering them. We just see things so differently, but I never thought our problems couldn't be fixed. She spent the last three months getting over me and unclear about everything and I am now playing catch up. We didn't resolve anything, but were able to talk for another thirty minutes as we always use to, laughing, effortless. It just feels like she threw away a good think and I wanted was a chance to be in SF with her full time and we were so close to making that happen. She is emotionally all over the place right now and is just content with being on her own and finding her happiness, I just don't know why I had to be a casualty of that all in all. I also don't think she is seeing anyone, but I am not sure.

Truth of the matter, I have a deep unconditional love for this person... DEEP. So much has changed for me over the last 4-5 years and she was there for all of it. I've never felt this way about a person and relationship or not, she is very special to me and probably always will. It felt like she has been projecting her lack of self on me for the last couple months and selfishly not willing to see how much of burden the year of travel, (just losing my job, which she doesn't know) and the overall craziness of it all. I didn't propose yet because I wasn't ready. I have been in debt and wanted to put my life in a better standing because to be the best partner I could be, I wanted to come into a marriage being about to take care of and be that stability. I've exhausted myself with friends by talking about it, but it has helped. I've been working out everyday and that has been a life saver. In my gut, it's supposed to be her and I'm going to take a long time to move past this. I spent the last week saying goodbye to her family,all of which had become my family over the last five years. They are just as bummed as I am and each convo ended in tears. She said I could reach out to them so I wasn't crossing any lines. The love and support I got from them has been oddly the only closure I needed. Her dad told me how much love and admiration her family had for me and it takes a special person to get universal approval from all of them, I did it and I still have it. Made me feel good. I am left in this place where I still care so deeply for her and want her to be in my life, I just don't know if that's healthy, long term. A buddy of mine recently said if you guys have any chance to get back together, you had to be apart for a while. I am putting no stock into it and hold no hope for anything, just wanted to get on with my life and take care of myself, and create the best person I can be. Can anyone make sense of this mess, I'm still so confused......... Thanks for reading..

It sounds like things ran their course. A lot of times when someone isn't happy in a relationship they look for, or even create, tangible excuses to end it. From what you've written, this seems to be the case. If she was as committed as you are, she would have understood that it was important for you to take the promotion and seen that you were doing everything you could to make it work; expending huge financial assets, time, and effort to see her on a regular basis.

I'm truly sorry about your loss. One of the things that helped me the most when "getting over my ex" was realizing that we put unnecessary pressure on ourselves to "get over" someone. I've come to realize that acceptance is not just "getting over it" or forgetting, but accepting that, even though they are not directly involved in your life now, that they were an important part of your life and made you who you are. It's okay to remember them fondly as such and not shut them out from your memory completely.

This was the poem that really put it into perspective for me.

Best of luck in your journey!