Hello! This is my first post, also, I'm sorry, but this will be a bit long so bear with me.
I'm a 22 years old guy from a decently poor country from the south-west of Central Europe. About 3 years ago I lost my mother after she battled heart problems for a while. All I had left was my father (who was always cold towards me, unlike my mother who was always warm and taught me affection and how to love) and my grandma (my mom's mother, who had a a stroke 7+ years ago and talks nonesense all the time because of it and she is hard to deal with most of the time).
I started going to university again after dropping the first year, because I couldn't stand the distance from my home. I started university mostly because of my parents pushing me to be "better than them". In my life I was never in a relationship. I was interested in girls, but not to the point where I would even think about making a move, it was mostly, "yeah, she is cute, has a nice personality etc." but nothing more. In my second year of uni a classmate started talking with a new girl in uni and he started asking for advice because she was a gamer and he wasn't, so I had more knowledge than him. After a few days he decided that I should start talking to her, which I wasn't interested at all in. After a lot of pressure I decided to try to message her. At first she was very cold, but slowly we warmed to each other, but only as gamer buddies, since again, wasn't interested in a relationship. One day she called me, which was a bit odd since we were mostly talking at uni or texting. She started crying and told me more about her life. Her mom has an illiness that slowly affects her brain, to the point where she is talking slow and moves even slower and it's only getting worse with time. She told me that because of all her life problems she started cutting herself. At that point something clicked in my brain and I decided that I have to take care of this girl no matter what, because I knew what she was going through. With time we grew very close and we began having a relationship. I found out about another big problem. She had a long distance ex, about 15 years older than her, that after they dated in secret and she decided to break up, started threatening her for the past 2 years without anyone knowing. It took a while to give her enough courage to threaten him back with the police, but she managed to do it. Sadly because it was my first relationship and her first "healthy" relationship, we were getting in a lot of fights, mostly from childish reasons, but the main one, her being very cold compared to me. I'm anxious attachement and she is avoidant, so while I was trying to solve problems she was distancing herself. After a few months she broke up with because she said she feels numb to everything and that she started cutting herself again. When we broke up I was still in very good relationships with her parents and I was afraid her ex would come back to threaten her when he finds out we broke up, so I made the stupid decision of talking with her dad about it. He thanked me and promised to not tell her. Two weeks later she messaged me and we started talking again and soon after we made up, but something was clearly wrong. She was always scared when we would go out, always oposing to changing plans. For example if we were at a restaurant and I said we should go get icecream or coffee at another place after, she would say that her dad doesn't know and wouldn't be ok. After about a month of this I couldn't keep lying to her and told her the truth, that I talked with her dad. Turns out her dad insulted her, interrogated her to find every little detail about the ex, told her that he is spying on her phone and so much more. A few days later she broke up with me because she couldn't trust me anymore. I fell into a big depression, I started going to therapy to try not to CTB. At some point I started working out, taking care of what I eat, dressing better, being more social, I made a big group of friends I would have outings every 1-2 weeks, either karting, airsoft, bbq etc. After about 8 months, for uni I had to do work practice at a local company of my choosing and despite knowing better I chose the company where her dad is working. I wasn't surprised that the only 2 people doing work practice there were me and her. Her dad welcomed me very warmly while she didn't even say hello. I kept doing my job and after 3 days I woke up with her at my desk with a sandwhich. She told me to eat, asked me how work is going, what I have to do etc. At this point I wasn't the same insecure, anxious guy so I managed to keep a normal conversation with her without thinking of us. We started hanging out more and more during the breaks. At some point she asks me if I wanna go on a holiday to Greece with her and her parents. I told her that we're not even together it would be weird. She said it wouldn't be weird, and fast forward 2 weeks later we're back togheter and everything is so much better. We were both more mature, she was warmer, even tho "I love you" was always out of her vocabulary. What I did wrong, was that I stopped going to therapy, slowly stopped working out, taking care of myself, because in my mind, I reached the secret objective, getting back into a relationship with her. Slowly that was our downfall. I kept being too possesive, I didn't give her enough space to breath, to do her own things, we would be all day together, no time for ourselves. Slowly my anxiety and insecurity came back tenfold. I started doubting she loves me, whenever I asked her if she is ok, I wouldn't believe her, I would say she is hiding something that is bothering her etc. The relationship got rocky, because I was like this and at the same time, she never told me directly what bothered her. All of these gathered until one day she asked to be just friends. At first I decided to stop working, stop going to uni and most likely CTB. Her dad "slapped me" to reality and I went ahead with us being just friends. I wasn't getting mad anymore, we were happier than before, or so I thought. After talking about getting back togheter multiple times she said she wasn't getting any space from me, it's the same as if we were in a relationship, spending every moment together. She left for holidays to her grandparents where she can't smoke, which is a big problem since she is a heavy smoker. I made the same mistake twice and I started talking with her dad in secret, to ask for advice on how I can be better. To me her dad was more of a dad to me than mine, that is why I went ahead to always ask him for advice. She found out and decided to cut contact completely. I tried talking to her in person a few times, but she was always mad and pushed me away. I deeply apologised, even though it didn't matter to her. At some point she told me that she feels so much more peace now that we are not talking anymore. Since then we did greet each other, tho 90% of the time she looked very mad. One day she made a joke since I had to get a signature from her for work, I joked back and that was the last interaction we had. She started hanging out with a female coworker, since she doesn't have friends and now without me she is all alone so she resides to work. She also started slowly removing me from all social medial (trying to do it without me noticing) so at some point I decided to go ahead and remove her from everywhere myself. It hurt. Since then I picked up a dance class with that female coworker. It helped a bit with my depression, but I'm slowly falling back into it. My therapist knows I have CTB thoughts, but what she doesn't know is that I already bought SN and it's ready to go at any moment. I wrote 2 letters, 1 to my ex and 1 to my dad, thanking them both for everything and not blaming any of them for it. I barely managed to pass my exams since I couldn't concentrate.
I don't know how to move on, she seems like she moved on so quickly and drowns herself in work, while I'm here going through all the dreams we had, about moving in together, getting married, being happy away from everything. All I want now is to somehow make things right, but I don't know what to do, I don't know how to talk with her. I'm tired of all the "you will find better", "an ex is an ex for a reason", "there is a lot of fish in the ocean" etc. At some point I even thought about tell her to run away with me, to move to another country, start over, without all the problems. Sometimes I'm so close to CBT, that I don't even care I don't have all the letters made.
I'm sorry for the long post, I hope better days come for everyone..
I'm a 22 years old guy from a decently poor country from the south-west of Central Europe. About 3 years ago I lost my mother after she battled heart problems for a while. All I had left was my father (who was always cold towards me, unlike my mother who was always warm and taught me affection and how to love) and my grandma (my mom's mother, who had a a stroke 7+ years ago and talks nonesense all the time because of it and she is hard to deal with most of the time).
I started going to university again after dropping the first year, because I couldn't stand the distance from my home. I started university mostly because of my parents pushing me to be "better than them". In my life I was never in a relationship. I was interested in girls, but not to the point where I would even think about making a move, it was mostly, "yeah, she is cute, has a nice personality etc." but nothing more. In my second year of uni a classmate started talking with a new girl in uni and he started asking for advice because she was a gamer and he wasn't, so I had more knowledge than him. After a few days he decided that I should start talking to her, which I wasn't interested at all in. After a lot of pressure I decided to try to message her. At first she was very cold, but slowly we warmed to each other, but only as gamer buddies, since again, wasn't interested in a relationship. One day she called me, which was a bit odd since we were mostly talking at uni or texting. She started crying and told me more about her life. Her mom has an illiness that slowly affects her brain, to the point where she is talking slow and moves even slower and it's only getting worse with time. She told me that because of all her life problems she started cutting herself. At that point something clicked in my brain and I decided that I have to take care of this girl no matter what, because I knew what she was going through. With time we grew very close and we began having a relationship. I found out about another big problem. She had a long distance ex, about 15 years older than her, that after they dated in secret and she decided to break up, started threatening her for the past 2 years without anyone knowing. It took a while to give her enough courage to threaten him back with the police, but she managed to do it. Sadly because it was my first relationship and her first "healthy" relationship, we were getting in a lot of fights, mostly from childish reasons, but the main one, her being very cold compared to me. I'm anxious attachement and she is avoidant, so while I was trying to solve problems she was distancing herself. After a few months she broke up with because she said she feels numb to everything and that she started cutting herself again. When we broke up I was still in very good relationships with her parents and I was afraid her ex would come back to threaten her when he finds out we broke up, so I made the stupid decision of talking with her dad about it. He thanked me and promised to not tell her. Two weeks later she messaged me and we started talking again and soon after we made up, but something was clearly wrong. She was always scared when we would go out, always oposing to changing plans. For example if we were at a restaurant and I said we should go get icecream or coffee at another place after, she would say that her dad doesn't know and wouldn't be ok. After about a month of this I couldn't keep lying to her and told her the truth, that I talked with her dad. Turns out her dad insulted her, interrogated her to find every little detail about the ex, told her that he is spying on her phone and so much more. A few days later she broke up with me because she couldn't trust me anymore. I fell into a big depression, I started going to therapy to try not to CTB. At some point I started working out, taking care of what I eat, dressing better, being more social, I made a big group of friends I would have outings every 1-2 weeks, either karting, airsoft, bbq etc. After about 8 months, for uni I had to do work practice at a local company of my choosing and despite knowing better I chose the company where her dad is working. I wasn't surprised that the only 2 people doing work practice there were me and her. Her dad welcomed me very warmly while she didn't even say hello. I kept doing my job and after 3 days I woke up with her at my desk with a sandwhich. She told me to eat, asked me how work is going, what I have to do etc. At this point I wasn't the same insecure, anxious guy so I managed to keep a normal conversation with her without thinking of us. We started hanging out more and more during the breaks. At some point she asks me if I wanna go on a holiday to Greece with her and her parents. I told her that we're not even together it would be weird. She said it wouldn't be weird, and fast forward 2 weeks later we're back togheter and everything is so much better. We were both more mature, she was warmer, even tho "I love you" was always out of her vocabulary. What I did wrong, was that I stopped going to therapy, slowly stopped working out, taking care of myself, because in my mind, I reached the secret objective, getting back into a relationship with her. Slowly that was our downfall. I kept being too possesive, I didn't give her enough space to breath, to do her own things, we would be all day together, no time for ourselves. Slowly my anxiety and insecurity came back tenfold. I started doubting she loves me, whenever I asked her if she is ok, I wouldn't believe her, I would say she is hiding something that is bothering her etc. The relationship got rocky, because I was like this and at the same time, she never told me directly what bothered her. All of these gathered until one day she asked to be just friends. At first I decided to stop working, stop going to uni and most likely CTB. Her dad "slapped me" to reality and I went ahead with us being just friends. I wasn't getting mad anymore, we were happier than before, or so I thought. After talking about getting back togheter multiple times she said she wasn't getting any space from me, it's the same as if we were in a relationship, spending every moment together. She left for holidays to her grandparents where she can't smoke, which is a big problem since she is a heavy smoker. I made the same mistake twice and I started talking with her dad in secret, to ask for advice on how I can be better. To me her dad was more of a dad to me than mine, that is why I went ahead to always ask him for advice. She found out and decided to cut contact completely. I tried talking to her in person a few times, but she was always mad and pushed me away. I deeply apologised, even though it didn't matter to her. At some point she told me that she feels so much more peace now that we are not talking anymore. Since then we did greet each other, tho 90% of the time she looked very mad. One day she made a joke since I had to get a signature from her for work, I joked back and that was the last interaction we had. She started hanging out with a female coworker, since she doesn't have friends and now without me she is all alone so she resides to work. She also started slowly removing me from all social medial (trying to do it without me noticing) so at some point I decided to go ahead and remove her from everywhere myself. It hurt. Since then I picked up a dance class with that female coworker. It helped a bit with my depression, but I'm slowly falling back into it. My therapist knows I have CTB thoughts, but what she doesn't know is that I already bought SN and it's ready to go at any moment. I wrote 2 letters, 1 to my ex and 1 to my dad, thanking them both for everything and not blaming any of them for it. I barely managed to pass my exams since I couldn't concentrate.
I don't know how to move on, she seems like she moved on so quickly and drowns herself in work, while I'm here going through all the dreams we had, about moving in together, getting married, being happy away from everything. All I want now is to somehow make things right, but I don't know what to do, I don't know how to talk with her. I'm tired of all the "you will find better", "an ex is an ex for a reason", "there is a lot of fish in the ocean" etc. At some point I even thought about tell her to run away with me, to move to another country, start over, without all the problems. Sometimes I'm so close to CBT, that I don't even care I don't have all the letters made.
I'm sorry for the long post, I hope better days come for everyone..
