Confusion about meeting with ex

After two years together my ex (33) broke up with me (30) as she said she was suffocating in the relationship and we were not moving forward. We were in half LDR as I was working remotely for some time and flying back and forth to her. I noticed that she distanced herself, but did not communicate well that at the time. After the break up she stayed, I moved to the city where I worked.

After the break up I started to work on myself and gradually improve, started doing things for myself to not be sad, but also to just be better person. I also know that I had issues with communication in this relationship and went to psychotherapist to improve that generally.

Shortly after a month out of nowhere she initiated contact with me. She said she noticed that I'm doing things and she is sad and angry that I wasn't when we were together and maybe if she would wait longer I would. She was emotional, but not mad or screaming, I proposed to meet in person to discuss our feelings properly. We setup a place and date - different city so we are on the same ground.

I went back to NC, but she came back with messages always initiating interactions. There were bits and pieces of flirt there, but she also said that she is happy that we are doing things alone as this gave us needed distance to think and she is happy that I'm doing so well. She went back to sending me pictures of her during her vacation time. She even wanted us to talk on the phone and during that time she spent most of it saying how she is improving herself at work and physically. When she was going back she said she is happy because she is closer to meeting me again and she is excited for that. Recently she again said she really wants to see me, but then she added that she wanted to share that and said she is sorry. She finished saying she misses me a lot.

The meeting is coming up during next week, we will spend day together. Now my question is how should I approach this meeting. I am confused if it's just her being weirdly happy to meet with a "friend" and maybe I just will refill her building emotions after breakup or she doesn't know and she is just sending mixed signals. Don't want to blow it up, will probably try to romanticize her and see where it leads me. If we end up in friend discussion I will just want to have great time during that day and go back to NC to let her think about that. But happy to hear others opinions, because obviously I may biased :)

I get the feeling you want to reconcile?

Yes, because we both trusted and respected each other and she was a really good person with whom I was seeing long lasting relationship. At least before I did the mistakes and that's why I am working on improving myself.

That said I don't plan on begging, I am improving for myself and if she sees it that's great, if not I will move on.

Sounds to me like you are now being the guy she wanted you to be all along. Yes, it stings that she had to dump for you to work on yourself and be a better man. Think on that. So yes, she probably wants to see you, spend time with you, possibly see if reconciling is possible. I wouldn't push the subject right now or jump into that right away. Rather than coming into it with preconceived ideas, maybe just give it a blank slate and see what you both put on it. She has been making changes to herself and her life as well. So see each other with an open mind and maybe as the day goes, have the more serious conversations on what's next.

If you do talk reconciliation, you both do need to address openly what all went wrong before, how you can handle things better, differently, what do you both want for the future and make certain that you are both on the same page. Understand that neither one of you can slump back to being the same way as before you broke up IF you want any reconciliation to work. Don't expect instant clear answers either. Better that you both take time to think things through rather than jump to conclusions.

What did she mean when she said she felt suffocated? What are the mistakes you say you made?

As I said my issues are with properly communicating emotions. As for suffocating I think she meant that I became passive and we were not moving forward and as she had quite some time for herself and that meant why not have all this time? Now I'm much more active and trying new stuff and working on expressing myself.

Sounds to me like you are now being the guy she wanted you to be all along. Yes, it stings that she had to dump for you to work on yourself and be a better man. Think on that. So yes, she probably wants to see you, spend time with you, possibly see if reconciling is possible. I wouldn't push the subject right now or jump into that right away. Rather than coming into it with preconceived ideas, maybe just give it a blank slate and see what you both put on it. She has been making changes to herself and her life as well. So see each other with an open mind and maybe as the day goes, have the more serious conversations on what's next.

 

If you do talk reconciliation, you both do need to address openly what all went wrong before, how you can handle things better, differently, what do you both want for the future and make certain that you are both on the same page. Understand that neither one of you can slump back to being the same way as before you broke up IF you want any reconciliation to work. Don't expect instant clear answers either. Better that you both take time to think things through rather than jump to conclusions.

Thanks, this seems reasonable advice. Obviously I don't want and expect hard declarations, but I just don't want to get out of that meeting also feeling that maybe it went well and her thinking that she has friendship back and doesn't need to worry about that.

And believe me I know that I should have worked on this sooner, but we don't learn if we don't do mistakes.

So I just wanted to report back. We did indeed take things slow, had fun first, enjoyed our own company, but also talked openly about what didn't work and why. There were some tears, declaration of love and much more understanding than before. She even said out loud a plan where I find a job in her town, we start dating again and we end up together. That said we didn't really decided on any actions, which was expected and I didn't want to rush anything. She said she won't be dating anybody right now, she needs to still figure out this as her problem was supposedly (according to her therapist) always trying to fix her boyfriends and she doesn't want to do this only because of that.

We started talking more openly through messages recently and she said that it still hurts and she is sad that I wasn't like this before and wasn't talking to her so openly and she needs to forgive me first, which she feels is positive and much closer after our meeting. Just that she needs to figure it out if she is doing it for right reasons. Doesn't want to be confusing, just needs to talk to her therapist and make the right decision. And right now she is also really busy with her work, where stuff happened and she said she needs to figure that first as it makes it hard to focus on other stuff.

My question is - should we talk to each other at all at this point? Maybe by talking to her I'm making things worse and bring back feelings I shouldn't. Every time we talk I notice she gets happy that we do, but sometimes there is also that "weirdness" between us, when she brings sentence like "with whomever I will end up with" even if I don't bring it up and I said before she can take as much time as she needs and she declared that before that she will not date. Do you guys think that having talks where I show interest in her life will harm her thought process? I do really care about her and don't want her to think that she doesn't matter to me, but also don't want her to think that I'm talking to her just to remind her about this and decision she needs to make. Don't want to put a deadline on this also, but it cannot last forever either as at some point she or me will just meet someone else. Any suggestions?