I broke up with somebody I loved

I was not sure where to post this, because in terms of mental health issues, we are talking about anxiety, panic and a dash of attachment disorder. But I am not writing about myself, but about an ex-girlfriend, so perhaps this should be under relationships? Admins please feel free to move this post if appropriate.

Why am I here?

I recently broke up with a girl (let’s call her Emma) who suffers from the conditions I listed above. To clarify, she has not been clinically diagnosed with anything, but I think her symptoms fit. I would like to get some advice regarding how I should handle the breakup and support her, whilst hopefully allowing her to move on from our relationship as soon as possible.

Why else am I here?

I am struggling with the breakup myself. I miss Emma a lot. I loved her, I still do, sort of… I feel very guilty about ending my relationship with her, knowing the immense pain it will cause her. If I am totally honest, I guess I want to be told be told that it is not my fault and that I did the right thing. But at present, I obviously do not believe that.

Relationship History

I met Emma in the autumn of 2017 through mutual friends. At the time I was making good progress recovering from years of depression in my 20s, and finally felt ready to date again. I was drawn to her apparent positivity, kindness and of course, beauty. After a few weeks of courtship, we officially became a couple in early 2018.

We enjoyed about a one month-long blissful honeymoon period before things started to go wrong…

• I found out (not immediately) that she had been living in a co-dependent situation with her two sisters and mother all her life. The sisters (elder one in particular) viewed our relationship as a threat, that Emma was "abandoning" their family and interfered in the early stage of our relationship. Causing stress, drama and preventing us from seeing each other very often for nearly 3 months.

• When Emma eventually learnt to (encouraged by me and her friends) stand up to her elder sister and fight for our relationship, she got physically assaulted and driven out of her home, even though she pays for the mortgage on the house. This forced her to move in with me about 4 or 5 months into our relationship.

• Suddenly I went from too little Emma in my life to too much. She had friends outside of the family, but did not meet up with them very often. Her entire life had revolved around her family... now it revolved around me. She wanted to spend all her free time outside of work with me, even joining me in activities that she did not enjoy, like watching football with my friends, for example. It was suffocating.

• It is perhaps wrong of me to think this way, but when I fell in love with her, she was happy, carefree and a source of positivity in my life. An important attribute that I look for in potential partners to balance out my own tendency for cynicism and melancholy. However as problems mounted in her family and in our relationship, she was frequently sad and emotional. It became increasingly exhausting to support her, whilst also trying to prevent a relapse of my own depressive moods.

• She has a crippling fear of change, to the extent that she struggles to sleep in hotel rooms when we went on holiday together. She has worked at the same (very good) employers since leaving school and would likely struggle to find an equally good job elsewhere. In contrast I have never lived in the same city for over 6 or 7 years and I do not want to limit my horizons based on geography, especially as my own mental health issues robbed me of so many opportunities in my 20s.

• Just over a year into our relationship I had a great opportunity to work overseas. I took the job despite Emma's strong objection. Initially I planned for her to join me if the job was good enough, but eventually I realized that even though she would begrudgingly agree to move to save our relationship, she would not be happy living in a completely alien environment and unable to speak the local language (and find decent work).

The Break Up

For the above reasons and others, I broke up with her after about 20 months together, including 6 months of a long distance relationship whilst I worked overseas. (I went home to do it in person).

I feel so awful about hurting her so very much. She is the kindest, nicest and sweetest girl I have ever met. She gave me a chance when I had nothing (I lost my job when we first got together), when she was out of my league, I truly loved her and she loved me unconditionally.

It is breaking my heart how much I have let her down, but I think if I persisted with our relationship, I would have inevitably slipped back into the nightmare depression that I suffered in my 20s.

I feel so guilty that I (inadvertently) blew up her world, tore her family apart, took her out of the only comfortable home she knew... and then abandoned her. I feel like she is like a hedgehog that painfully pulled out her spines to be with me, and now I have left her bleeding in pain.

It has been 2 weeks since our breakup, she is still living at my house with one other lodger. I got rid of another lodger that she found difficult to live with. For my finances (I have a mortgage) I could really use the rent money, but for now I have not set any timeline for when she should move out. I am still working overseas at present.

I don't want to be cruel and tell her to leave, when I know that things are not okay (estranged from elder sister for over a year now, who has become downright nasty and crazy) in her own home, but I feel that by allowing her to remain at my house, she is holding onto false hope that I will change my mind and reconcile. She rang me crying for over an hour last weekend, it was heart-rending.

I don't know what to do...

I don't know as there is a lot I can offer with regard to this. But I noticed you had yet to receive replies to your post. So I thought I would write one. You wrote you'd like to get advice regarding how to handle your breakup as well as to support your ex, "whilst hopefully allowing her to move on from our relationship as soon as possible." What I would like to suggest is that you can't. All you are going to accomplish by trying to do this is to pile additional unhappiness onto what has already been created. Here's a link to an article, from Psych Central's archives, that I think speaks to this. The article is on the subject of divorce & not all of it is relevant. But I think the core principle, as expressed in the title, is apropos:

Want a Divorce? Stop the Emotional Yo-Yo and Be Clear About It

The other thing you mentioned was your guilt at what you believe you have done to your ex. I don't think I have any words of wisdom to offer with regard to that. The situation simply is what it is. It's unfortunate things have worked out as they have. But, on the other hand, you can't sacrifice your life for your ex either. Here's link to DocJohn's article on the subject of guilt from PC's archives. The article provides links to quite a few additional articles on the subject:

Coping with Guilt | Psych Central

And then here's a link to yet another interesting article I happened on that may hold some relevance for you:

Fear Of Being The Bad One: The Problem of Breaking UP | Healing Together for Couples

Good luck...