From a fulfilling relationship to her leaving town…

I am in my 30s and I was going out with a girl who is also in her 30s but a few years younger for about 9 months, or almost a year if you include the meltdown period that she has been going through for the last few months now, which I will explain more below. She is smart, hardworking, sweet, very very pretty, funny, and we were very happy together.

Basically we met around this time last year at a party, immediately liked each other and arranged some dates, and started having a lot of fun together. Drinks, movies, nice dinners, walking her dog, great conversations, holidays, jazz bars… stuff like that.

We had a lot of chemistry and were very attracted to each other mentally, emotionally, physically.

She used to be happy and cheerful and seemed passionate about me and her career, even though it is very time consuming. She said she liked doing it though, so she was doing what she wanted to be doing.

She wanted to share her car, we had trips to other countries planned, we spent all the holidays together… We were having a really great time basically. It felt very romantic.

Then COVID-19 came and put some strain on things. For example, both of our apartment complexes didn’t allow guests a lot this year. Her long hours didn’t help also. But we found a way to be flexible and make things work until recently. The trips we had planned obviously got cancelled also.

Then sometime this summer she started acting like a different person. She was no longer the cheerful girl that I love. She seemed to have a bad mood and be more withdrawn, we didn’t go out as much, etc etc.

I also noticed some weird photos on social media of some guy walking her dog with her or something like that. I think he’s an old boyfriend or something, but I don’t know too much about him. We never got to know each other’s friends much, mostly because of her schedule, but he seems to be part of her social group or something. I didn’t like it and confronted her about it at one point, and she said, “He’s my friend.” I don’t know much about the situation other than that.

She finally explained that a close family member has a serious disease and is dying right now, she seems to be burning out at work maybe and her workload may be getting to her even though she used to love her job, and she even told me that she thinks she’s wasting her life.

She also started lashing out at me for no reason one day, even though I’ve been very nice and very supportive of her. We were very happy together and had a great relationship and then she more or less ruined it overnight. She made vague complaints about our sex life, but as I mentioned, our complexes made it hard to see each other sometimes, so that’s not really my fault. Basically she seems to be having a lot of personal problems right now and giving up on life or something.

She ultimately ghosted out for a few weeks. She stopped contacting me and wasn’t even at her apartment. This was the no contact period basically. She seemed to be taking me on a rollercoaster ride out of nowhere, and I felt very sad.

I did lose some weight and have exercised a lot more lately, I saw other friends, I have gone out on some dates with other women lately, my mood recovered somewhat, etc. So I did everything that I was supposed to do during this period basically.

I knew she was probably in her hometown, because she goes down there sometimes. It’s only about an hour away, but I don’t know her address there. I have been there several times before in the past, but we have never been there together, mostly because of her work schedule and COVID-19 and stuff.

So anyway, she finally surfaces one day and told me that she moved back down there for now. I’m pretty sure she moved home with her mom for now. Our conversations haven’t been great lately, but at least we were talking again. We never really had any problems before until she started acting weird this summer. She’s been downplaying our relationship and stuff like that, even though we had a great time, and it was very romantic.

Then yesterday I noticed that she deleted me on the main social media platform that we use to communicate. She’s done it once or twice before also and later refriended me. It’s just a deletion, not a block, but it’s not a good sign really. We can still send short messages and friend requests and stuff right now.

My goal was to gradually get back on track with her and then visit her in her hometown. There’s some historical stuff there, and it’s kind of fun to walk around downtown and stuff. I wanted to get some pizza and check out the old buildings and so on.

Basically this has been very disappointing for me. I didn’t really do anything wrong, and I basically got blindsided.

I feel like the COVID-19 pandemic sort of ruined our relationship. She had some problems on top of that that I discussed, but it would have been easier to spend more time together if the virus didn’t make some restrictions for us and so on.

So anyway, I don’t really know what to do now. Maybe let things cool down for a couple weeks again and try to send some short messages and upgrade back to regular friend status on that app maybe.

I feel drained and disappointed, and it’s not the same when I go out with other women lately. They aren’t nearly as fun or good looking, and the chemistry just isn’t there usually.

The app I mentioned is the main way that we communicate, and I don’t have her address in her hometown, so I don’t know what else to do. I have felt like I’m in some weird movie or something sometimes. It just isn’t fair.

This is getting a little long, so maybe I’ll just stop here for now. I have described everything pretty accurately. If anyone has any ideas or knows what to do or has gone through something similar, I would leave to hear your thoughts. Thanks.