Is it over or not? Both messed up, but I hope to get her back

Okay. First of all, apologies for a long post.. I thought that I need to explain the situation pretty deeply to get my situation understood properly.

Now, my 3.5yr long distance relationship ended just after Christmas. It wasn’t “too long distance” at all, about 100km apart. I have an extremely flexible job that allows me to work remotely whenever I want to.

Now… Our relationship was one of those “full of passion, but also full of passionate fights”. We both are the types that seek passionate partner and when we met, we just both felt like we had found our soulmates. Our first date, we chatted for 8 hours, about everything. And just within a week we were doing the same thing, again, on our second date.

This very, very soon evolved into passionate relationship where we’d spend every other weekend with each other’s homes, talking and having fun.

Now, we also both have kids (50/50 joint custody / time with them) and we involved our kids into the relationship after about 9 months of dating, as we both were sure about this relationship being The One.

But but… The first problems started about six months into the relationship. I had this female friend of mine that I chatted a lot with. We were also former Tinder matches, but had decided that we work better as friends than as anything else. She anyway got jealous of this ongoing chatting with my friend, even though it was never time or attention taken away from my relationship.

This was our first big fight and something that ultimately affected our rest of the relationship. She insisting me to cut my friend off… I eventually agreed. But as a counter, I also asked her to get rid of her male friends that she had become friends though means like Tinder.

Alright… Fast forwards to beginning of 2019… At this point, we had had several big fights and things were somewhat complicated, but still, those moments together every other week pretty much ironed out all the problems we managed to develop through online communication.

Come the beginning of 2019… She was going out with her friend for a beer on Saturday and we agreed that I drive to her town that night and pick her up from the bar and take her home then and we’d spend a couple of days together after that. I did drive to her town that night, but bit before, got a msg from her that she has someone to take her home, so lets meet at her home. We did. Had a good couple of days together.

But about a week later, she had left her phone unlocked, with messages open with her female friend, on that specific weekend… Actually the day I left from her place, after those couple of days we spent together. She had asked her friend “the guy’s phone number”… Friend had given it to her and she replied with a kissing emoji, nothing else.

I thought about this for a few weeks and at one occasion, when together, I finally raised the issue to her and asked wtf was that about. She told me that it was nothing, just her goddaughter’s boyfriend’s father, who she had talked at the bar,m who had had some marital problems and she wanted to chat more about those later on.

Now, that sounded like a bit lame excuse. And she didn’t have any messages left with him to prove that, she had deleted those.

I was furious… My trust grumbled. She begged to rebuild the trust. I set some rules, like “if you go to a bar without me, msg me when you get home so I at least know you’re ok”.

I’äd also stress that we rarely went to bars, not together or alone, after all, we’re both 35-ish, with kids.

She agreed.

But I got infected with distrust and jealousy.

Spring went ok, but during the summer, fights about affection, jealousy, etc were commonplace.

Come Autumn 2019 … Fights got more common. My kids suddenly changed their schedule how they spend time with me and suddenly we lost our chances to meet, completely. And f2f meeting were always the ways for us to fix problems we had managed to build.

Boom, one November weekend she went to bar without telling me about it all, until she was in the bar. Didn’t inform about anything whether she got home or not. Nothing.

I was furious and fights via texts got nasty.

Come early December and she did the same, again. This time admitting the next day that she did it on purpose, just to annoy me, as she hated how she’s being controlled by me.

Christmas approaches and she starts talking about taking a break with our relationship. I’m hesitant, but eventually agree, just after Christmas day, that we take a one month break, during which we’re in a relationship, but wont see each other and minimize communication to zero and let both think, without fights, what we want. And to meet f2f at the beginning of February.

She then asked if we could still be able to send “good mood texts”, i.e. nice texts,m but no arguing or serious stuff. I agreed.

First day of the break went surprisingly good. Sure, she went to a bar (again, previously, she maybe went to a bar twice a year), but after the bar texted me, send me pics of her and talked nice things to me. I was soothed, felt like this could work and now that we’re taking this break, maybe we can finally finish the fighting cycle we had developed.

On second night, she messages few messages,. But those somehow felt.. Wrong.

I couldn’t get any sleep.. When clock hit 2am, I gave up sleeping and did the unthinkable. I decided to check on her. Drove during that night the 100km to her place to soothe my mind.

Nope. Someone else’s car. Checked registration details, a guy from her old hometown.

Checked, only place with lights on was her bedroom. Curtains drawn. I got so mad. I knoc ked the door, she opened a window and ask what the heck.. I asked what the heck is this.. She couldn’t reply anything that made sense to me. I just spat on her face and left.

Well, left, almost.. When I was furious, I walked away, but also scraped her and the guy’s car with my keys.

Then, driving home, furious, I got an idea on how to hurt her and messaged several of her friends, apologizing that I wont be able to be their friend anymore, as she had just cheated on me. Then installed Tinder, just basically as a “revenge”.

Then I cut off communication to her completely. Cut her off from all my social media, blocked her where possible. I didn’t reply to her calls or texts.

Week later, she started harassing my friends about how to get my stuff from her place to me. My friends got tired of this and asked me to establish contact to her. I simply detailed on what of my stuff I want and where to bring it, once she’s visiting my town.

Two days later. I don’t know why. I decided to call her. We chatted for about an hour. She was at first, furious about everybody she knows, knowing about what happened, including her teenage children, who had heard about it. And furious about the cars.

But as phone call progressed, she apologized for her actions. Touched subjects like “how could i ever explain my friends if we’d…” and how she wanted to see me again. To which I said, yes, seeing you would be nice. And she replied quickly that meaning seeing more than once. She also told me, without me even talking about the cars at all, that she wants to stop the criminal charges against me over the cars and me just to pay the repairs.

It was very emotional phone call. And the first thing she said when I rang her, was “I love you”.

And how she had discussed on Tinder with someone the previous day, who had told her that there’s no suchh thing as perfect love, after she had explained the guy how she had fouind one and lost one. And how that guy had told her that everybody should just find “good enough” and howe funny sher thought that. I laughed at that too, as we both know that we want something that is extremely passionate, not “good enough”.

And she also managed to somehow, without sounding a person who is telling an excuse, to explain me what happened in her house that night. She had invited actually three of her friends, two women and one guy from her hometown to stay at hers overnight and drink wine. And others were already went to bed and she was still reading in her room. I kinda bought that, as in this point, we were already two singles talking to each other.

Next day, she texted me all day about how to get the criminal charges dropped, expenses on fixing the cars, etc.. And she called me that afternoon, pissed, on how she had to spend entire day on chasing info about how to amend something I had done. But that evening, she texted me, apologizing her harsh tone and how she jusst got annoyed, as her work was hectic and all free time was spent on this issue.

Then some messages about us.

Next day, I established no contact again, but she texted me simply “I was at the store and saw (item x), which reminded me of you”. I replied quickly to that, but neutrally.

The next day, she sent me a picture of one quote in one funny book she got as a present.

And that’s where we are now.

I do know that I want her back. Seriously. And I also know that I was a dick past year for pushing her too hard with my jealousy, as I didn’t see those moments when she tried to convince me that she’s trustworthy. I see thoise now.

But I cannot tell what she wants. And what should I do to get her believe in us again. And of course, how to handle the tarnished reputation, if we ever want to continue as a couple.