For context –
My girlfriend and I dated for about a year and a half (mid ’21 to late ’22). Our relationship was full of ups and downs and had a very rocky start in which we broke up 2 times. After we got away from the rough patches, things were pretty much perfect with the occasional up and down. We had discussed marriage, kids, our future and everything in between. We’ve always had a strong connection and understood each other, for the most part. She was my best friend and I was hers and despite the downsides I still saw perfection in her. The downsides however are as follows: Throughout our relationship, we’d have intense highs but very low lows where she would get cold, distant and combative with her words. She would shut down arguments, stonewall me and refuse to communicate – typically sweeping things under the rug and never apologizing and would usually use sex or the idea of grand vacations, festivals and trips to apologize without saying sorry. She also went through a very toxic previous relationship (6+ years) in which her ex was verbally abusive and cheated multiple times. There was a period in which we were going through a rough patch (midway through our relationship) where she called her ex multiple times one week, leaving long voicemails and implying wanting to get back together (all confirmed by her ex’s current girlfriend). When I found out about this, I broke up with her and she called me over 80 times in the span of two hours begging for me to take her back which I eventually did.
When we broke up in late ’22, I was crushed. We had a big following out but maintained some contact and I tried to mend things together. Over the course of ’23, she would pop in and out of my life begging to see me and work things out only to ghost or trigger an argument to leave days later. She would reiterate her feelings for me during this period, talk about marriage again and our future and a whole other host of things; would also introduce me to people as her boyfriend and tell all of her friends that we had gotten back together. She reached out a total of 30-40 different times, sometimes I’d reach out and we’d see each other, other times I wouldn’t entertain it and she’d follow up weekly and sometimes daily until she got ahold of me. She was slowly becoming a girl that I did not recognize. When she’d ghost, I’d typically send a strongly worded text that she would ignore and when reaching out again would acknowledge that it was too difficult for her to respond to and that ignoring it out of sight made her feel better.
At the end of December ’23, she asked that I bring some items of hers that had slowly collected at my place over the previous months and that afterwards we wouldn’t have to see each other again. I asked her why she didn’t want to see each other and her response was that “it just felt right” and never elaborated. I assumed this would be the last of seeing her but I was wrong. She reached out at the beginning of February and we spent some time together. Same result.
She reached out again last weekend and I took caution. This time however, came with a long apology, apologizing for everything that she had done to me, that she was in a much better place mentally and that the reason for her constant ghosting was that she had a deep rooted fear that I would resent her and ghost her for not always being around (she’s a flight attendant – my mom is also a flight attendant so the schedules and being away for long periods of time never bothered me, my girlfriend knows this). She also expressed her irrational thoughts of us and constantly feeling like she wasn’t good enough for me and that I would eventually leave her and break her heart. That I was her best friend still to this day and that she didn’t want to be with anyone else and wanted to spend the rest of her life with me. She told me she’d do whatever it took to make things right and would work daily to make that happen. After all of this, she “soft launched” us on instagram (basically posted a story of us implying we were back together), told all of her friends about us being back together including her best friend (who was very confused and was under the impression that my girlfriend had been intentionally blowing me off for months; she asked what changed and my girlfriend told her that things had been moving in the direction of a relationship for a while now). She was lovey dovey for two days, had wild and passionate sex and the connection seemed to come alive again.
Yesterday, she became slightly distant but I chalked it up to her being tired and not getting good sleep the previous night. We had plans to hang out at my place and watch movies. She texted me before coming over that she hated leaving her cat alone at her place (something that she does often and has used her cat as an excuse to not come over in the past – would sometimes happen prior to her ghosting). She eventually came over and acted awkward and combative – would awkwardly lay across my bed and then would snuggle up to me and then go back to laying awkwardly. We talked normally but the affection was extremely low. I was playfully roasting her like we normally do and she repeated in three different instances that if I kept it up “she could just go home” (these roasts included talking about her college basketball team losing that night – nothing crazy). This instance made me feel like she didn’t even want to be at my place in the first place. When we went to bed, she refused to cuddle (something that we’ve always done, we’d cuddle for 10 mins or so and then I’d slowly move back into my spot on the bed and in the morning I’d wake up and she’d basically be on top of me because of how close she wanted to be to me; this happened twice over the weekend) and practically slept on the complete opposite side of the bed. She woke up multiple times in the night to check the time on her phone to see how close it was to my alarm going off so that she could leave. When we woke up, I asked her if she didn’t sleep good and she told me that she didn’t, I asked why and all she gave me was a “I don’t know”. She laid uncomfortably next to me and read a book while waiting for my alarm to go off and I told her that she could just leave if she wanted to. This led to an argument where I told her that her combative attitude and behavior from the night before combined with the lack of affection and cuddling made me feel like she didn’t want to be at my place to which she responded that everything was fine but clearly it wasn’t since I’m making a big deal out of her behavior. She then went on to tell me how childish I am and that she couldn’t be with someone so childish to make a big deal out of what I was making a big deal out of. She then stormed out of my place. I have since texted her a small apology and haven’t received anything back. Is this even worth saving at this point? What can I even do? Why is this happening?
I still don’t understand her behavior… the constant coming and going, the proclamation of our love to her friends and family, the talks of marriage and our future kids, talking about future plans and making future plans, how she goes from lovey dovey for a few days to super cold and distant and then disappears. I feel like I’m stuck in a trauma bond. But I truly do love this girl more than anything, when she’s perfect, she’s perfect but when she’s awful, she’s awful. It sometimes feels like I’m dealing with two different people. She’s a completely different person when she acts lovey dovey, she even looks different, the faces she makes are different, the tone in her voice is different. It’s very confused.
TD:LR: Off and on girlfriend came back with a long apology for her previous behavior and wanted to make things work – started acting cold and distant after a few days which led to a minor argument and her eventually ghosting me.