I know what to do, I’m just sad
My girlfriend (24F) broke up with me (27M) about 2 weeks ago. We had only been dating for 5 months, but we were serious. Spent many many days at her parents’ place (she lives at home), they loved me, her and I talked about where we wanted to live one day, baby name preferences, things like that. All seemed to be going great.
Two things happened. First, one day, when we were saying goodbye to each other, I’m almost 100% sure she started to say “I love you”, but sort of stopped herself and trailed off. A week later, I said it to her, because I felt it, but also to give her the confidence to say it back. She said it back, but in the same sort of trailed-off tone she used the week before. I didn’t press her on this, and figured she did, but maybe had a hard time expressing this to me.
Then, school got harder. I watched her shut down. Her mom and I spoke about it. She told me that during stressful situations, she shuts down, and school absolutely brought her anxiety. I tried to be supportive without being overbearing. We went on a short vacation, and she was totally off. We didn’t have sex for a month. 10 days after we got back, she broke up with me. She told me I was “perfect”, but she felt like she couldn’t be enough for me. I told her I would be there to support her, but she felt like I didn’t deserve to deal with her essentially. She seemed despondent and defeated. And that was that.
Based on her intimacy at the beginning of the relationship, the difficultly handling stress, and the discomfort with showing strong affection (we had a great relationship, she was open with me, our sex life was great, but the L word scared her), I suspect fearful-avoidant patterns. I don’t know if she felt love or not. I think she was either afraid to admit it, or she truly never did. I really don’t know. I saw her mom, by coincidence, 2 days later. She told me she and her husband were so sad that things ended, and she was still despondent at home as well. She didn’t end things and immediately detach. We’ve been NC, but we (and her family/friends) still follow each other on IG. I intend to keep it that way for some time. I really want her to reach back out, but I also know that when she does, I’ll have to re-assess. Will she do this again? What has she done to lower the odds of it happening again? Will I have moved on? She’ll either realize she ran from feelings that made her insecure, or she never had those feelings to begin with. Even so, I miss her and I love her. She wasn’t my first relationship, but she was the first woman I loved.