My ex and I had a very fulfilling and adventurous three year relationship which also had major challenges from the very start.
I'll say off the top that we broke up and came back together several times over the course of our three-year relationship. When we were together, we fought and made up, fought and made up, over and over again. As I write this, I know how unhealthy it sounds. But I truly believe that at our core, we loved one another very deeply. We did so many positive things together, but we had so much fear/insecurity that got in our way.
She was insecure about me breaking up / leaving her. In many ways I was her longest and most serious relationship, and she had a lot of unresolved issues with her early family life that left her with these fears. That meant that whenever I would want to talk about the problems in our relationship, it would be met almost immediately with flashes of anger and defensiveness on her part.
I can't say that I was much better. I was insecure that, after we got back together, she wasn't really putting her whole self into our relationship. She was hung up on a previous boyfriend (that she had dated while we were apart) and it made me deeply insecure. She also seemed less interested in sex with me, which was a major change from the way things were "the first time around". These fears and insecurities of mine (that she was not really in our relationship fully, and didn't love me completely) continued for the rest of the time that we were together.
I should also mention that we had one major conflict that showed itself after just a month of dating - she desperately wanted children, and I was leaning towards not wanting them. This continued to be a theme throughout our relationship. At one point, she convinced herself (and me) that she would be willing to forgo having children to be with me. I was uncomfortable with her making that sacrifice on my behalf. But she insisted that she was an adult and could make her own choices. Not wanting to end the relationship then and there, I accepted this explanation.
We lived apart for all three years. One of the things that had kept us from moving in together sooner was the fact that she lived a good distance from me - about 45 minutes drive, and she had a job with a challenging schedule - she worked nights and weekends (except Sunday, which we used as our sync-up day to see each other each week).
She wasn't willing to take a gamble on moving up to my area without some form of financial security (she was a waitress and lived paycheck to paycheck). Because I make a lot more money than she did, I offered to pay her rent and other things to try to convince her to move, but it never seemed to take. She was too concerned that I would "decide" that I wanted to leave her and she would be left out in the cold without a job or a home. She wanted absolute assurance that she would not be able to be "kicked out" of wherever we lived. She wanted a place that was jointly ours. For a long time, I struggled with this because I felt two things very strongly: that I didn't want my partner to be financially dependent on me before we were married (after might be okay for a time), and I definitely wanted a chance to live together before committing to marriage. I have always felt that it is best to live together before marriage, but I especially felt this to be true based on our volatile past.
Fast forward ~2 years to last fall. I had just gotten back together with her (my idea) and had told her that during our recent time apart, that I had decided that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. (It's important to mention that she had claimed that she was ready to marry me since year 1). She reacted with excitement, and we started earnestly planning our marriage together. I was 100% invested, and felt good about finally making a decision and no longer being "in limbo" with her.
The realities of buying my first home then proceeded to hit me like a ton of bricks. I had the down-payment, but I had saved for years to have that much cash. When we were out looking at homes, she zeroed in on a place that I liked but didn't love. I was ready to move on and keep looking, but the look on her face was so anguished... I could tell that she wanted that house. I agreed to make an offer. To my surprise, it actually went through and we were awarded the sale. I felt like everything was moving so fast and I felt completely overwhelmed. I was about to hand over $120k and put my name jointly on a title/loan with someone I loved deeply but with whom I had fought and broken up frequently. What would happen if we had another fight? I had assumed that she would be okay with me keeping the downpayment but I wasn't sure. I decided to broach the thorny subject with her and she was adamant that, if we were to buy a house and get married, that we would share everything equally, and that no - If things didn't work out, I would not see all that money back. I would see the 50% that I was owed. I promptly freaked out. I finally told her that I couldn't go through with the purchase if she saw it that way. Then she agreed. Still, I wasn't in love with the place - and when it came time to write the check, I was physically sick with anxiety and couldn't go through with it.
She went into a depression spiral and assumed that this meant that I no longer wanted to marry her, which was not my thinking at the time. I tried to explain but she didn't want to hear me. Things deteriorated after that. I told her that, based on how shaky things had become, I wanted to try living together first before getting married. We couldn't agree on how to do that. I started to develop serious concerns about our future together. Could we survive with opposite work schedules? Could I marry someone who was content to be a waitress the rest of her life? Could I handle the consequences if we failed to make it (meaning, losing a lot of money)?
Because we couldn't agree on how to make that work, we finally broke up. I was emotionally exhausted and drowned myself in my work, from last Christmas until last week (about 5 months). During that time, she tried to contact me a few times about the possibility of being friends. I wasn't ready. Last week, I responded to her and I was totally shocked by what she said.
Before we had broken things off, I had told her that I was concerned about her mental health - her depression and her fatalistic thoughts - and I gave her some money to see a therapist, no strings attached. I was never sure if she really would. But when I got in touch with her, she was kind and gracious and happy... and thanked me, telling me that she was in a much, much better place. She had changed her job to a steady daytime schedule and she was making plans to go back to graduate school. She was happy and living with anxiety for the first time in her life.
I was totally blown away by this, and promptly melted down emotionally. This was the person that I had wanted to marry for all those years. This empathy and kindness and emotional stability that I saw... this is what was missing. I told her that I still had deep feelings of love for her, and confessed that if we could both work on these issues through therapy that I'd like to try again to have a future with her. I even told her (truthfully) that I had reconsidered having children and that I decided I wanted to. She told me that she was trying to move on, and that she couldn't go back to what we were before.
Now I'm a wreck. I don't know what to do. I want to be with this version of her so badly. But it seems that leaving me is what gave her the strength to be better. It's a catch-22.
Do I keep trying, or do I just give up?
tl;dr - Really turbulent relationship with my ex, who suffered from depression. She's better now and I want to try again but she's moved on and doesn't want to go backwards. Do I accept it, or keep trying to make things work?
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