mr_the_ex

I don’t think no contact is the right rule for this one because you dumped her.

I think you need to talk to her honestly about her feelings and work it through that way. Tell her honestly if you want to get married and have a family or not. And listen to her answer. See if both of you want the same thing from a relationship. Focus on listening to what she says and what she wants.

You put your wants and needs ahead of hers. You moved your friend in, you moved out, you broke up, etc. You didn’t prioritize the relationship. You have to be honest about whether you are willing to do that. Have you had a full conversation with her about it? She seems like she might be open to having one. If your interests aren’t aligned, you should be willing to move on. But no contact here seem counter productive.

I didn’t think you sounded narcissistic. I think it was just part of you telling the story. To me, it is totally understandable you wrote all that because it is part of the grieving process.

Here’s my 2 cents.

First, she honestly sounds like a disaster. She is on and off depressed, likely bipolar, hides things, doesn’t take care of herself and doesn’t plan well. And, not to generalize too much, but women whose parents divorced early with lots of problems, as hers did, can have a fundamentally different view of relationships than those that had parents that stuck together and that had a healthy relationship.

It is sometimes the case that women who come from “broken families” have trouble with long term relationships and don’t like to commit because they learned at an early age that committing to someone ends up hurting everyone.

You are at a the worst point here, the point where you miss her every day. I know it is difficult but with time, it will pass. My advice would be to delete everything associated with her but keep it all in a lock box somewhere (for computer related stuff, on a SD card put away on a top shelf in a box or something). I would move on and just take it day to day. Every day is a little better than the previous.

You’ll probably always feel sorry for her given her situation. [this part is removed at the request of OP]

You ex isn’t likely going to make this easy. She might come and dump on you when there are problems in her life. And that isn’t healthy for either of you. I wouldn’t tell her you will “always be there for her” because one thing I’ve learned in life is that you can’t change anyone else. They have to want to change. And you saying you will “always be there” can be seen to her as meaning “if I really mess up, I can always go back there”. And that allows her to mess up.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t help her if she has real problems. But I wouldn’t go telling her that you’ll be there to catch her if she falls. It can allow her to put her in a situation where she falls.

But I digress. My advice would be to not just have no contact but go on with life without her. If you find yourself thinking about her, let yourself think about her but know you need to do move on and life and forget about an ongoing relationship with her. She is also torturing you a bit with her stories about other guys and you have to end that.

You have to focus on yourself. You seem like a decent person. She seems like a mess. You want to save her and you love her. Honestly, she doesn’t love you. Maybe she’ll change one day but it is going to take her a long time and I don’t even know if you’d want her after you’ve been away for her a while because she isn’t a good match for you. A good match for you is out there, one who doesn’t make your life miserable.

Take 30 days of no contact and focus on yourself. And then take another 30 days. And if she doesn’t change AND fight to get you back, take another 30 days until you’ve found a woman who you can love and who doesn’t make a mess of things.