Looking for some advice after split

In reality, this is predictable as her pattern, right? Hot and cold? At her whim? I'm not saying it's intentional on her part. But it certainly is unhealthy and also rather thoughtless, not considerate of you. She broke up with you, and chose not to go to therapy to try to repair. So she misses you, and I presume still chooses not to go to therapy and repair. You've expressed pain to her so she could consider how her reaching out might impact you, but probably didn't. Or at least was impulsive enough to not let that stop her. It's immature, and pretty meaningless in my view.

It's a bit of a mindfuck.

Here you are struggling, and she's throwing a wrench into your recovery, is how I see it. There are emotional hooks here, and this has the potential to make you spin. So my opinion, and only my opinion, is that it's appropriate to enforce a boundary out of self care and self respect. ONE of you have got to care about YOU and how you're doing, in a meaningful way that actually supports your best interests now and for the long term, and it's going to have to be YOU. She's wrapped up in her own dysfunction. One of you is going to have to respect your healing progress (that you are truly working on, good for you!!!) And it's not going to be her, she's eschewed all that... its going to have to be you.

If you keep getting snagged by emotional hooks you could swirl around the emotional drain endlessly with her. That's how she's living, making a conscious choice to not move forward with you but to text you on occasion. It's not cool, even if it's not intentionally selfish it IS selfish.

Put yourself first. That is the only way you can raise your bar and find the relationship that will reciprocate. Elevate yourself above the emotional games and acting out, and choose the challenging road that actually takes you where you want to go, instead of the hard road that is a dead end. And as long as she isn't doing the same as you, prioritizing her own attachment solutions, it is in fact a dead end.

Yeh…I am going to third what introvert and Alexandra said….you need to put up a boundary so you can heal.  Consider how crazy her comment sounds…she breaks up with you, yet she feels abandoned because you did not want to engage with her while dropping off her stuff?  This is not a person who has your back, this is not a person who considers your feelings because she is too wrapped up in her own insecurity issues.  It would truly be best if you could set a boundary, no contact until you are ready….

As always, I do appreciate your perspectives and advice on this. As I hopefully laid out in my original post, this is all a bit new to me so I'm really trying to learn and put stuff into practice at the same time - which can be a bit daunting.

So there was a bit of a twist as ultimately I did reply to her message. I think I did see it for what it was, a drunken and possibly unwelcome message, but when I engaged with her the next day she did say it was something she'd be thinking a lot since No Contact, not just when she'd had a few birthday drinks. So I suggested we meet up and she agreed.

And it was really lovely. We had a bit of a general catch-up about her birthday and how her little one is, but then did get around to talking about her message and generally how we've both been feeling without each other. We talked about how our communication had been so poor and that her unexplained (for me) hot/cold behaviour had left me feeling increasingly anxious, but that when I'd felt unhappy in the relationship I'd not said anything as I was too scared of her rejecting me and me ending up on my own - which in hindsight is ridiculous as ultimately that's where I ended up as the relationship ceased to function for either of us. She explained that she really is anxious avoidant, and that she had felt the relationship was just so intense and at times overwhelming but she hadn't been able to tell me she needed space/alone time as she thought I wouldn't be able to cope with that message, but equally she really doesn't want to be massively independent and that she wants me there for her at the same time, so she wasn't even sure how to relay that message. All in all, pretty tricky emotions to juggle and I do feel for her. I asked why she couldn't just tell me this in the moment, and she explained it's not "a moment", it's just a growing sense of unease. I asked why she didn't tell me about this growing sense and she said she was telling me now. She laughed when I pointed out we'd already broken up, so it was pretty late in the day.

From her side she has reached out to her therapist and is arranging to restart that. She was really interested in hearing I've started therapy as well. We were sort of skirting around the elephant in the room for a bit (she asked me if I was still living in the city, had I seen my ex etc. - both things which I think she's long felt insecure about i.e. would I just move back to where I came from at the first sign of trouble in our relationship and get back with my ex) but eventually she said had been thinking about her own comment about wanting to grow old together and that she wanted to find a way to make that happen.

I'm not getting carried away and we did speak about how therapy is no silver bullet for either of us - but for the first time since we broke up, and maybe for the first time since we got together in the first place, I feel like we are on the same page, we truly see each other, and there is a way forward for us. I'm pragmatic enough to know that even with all this in place things might not work out for us, but it feels like if that were to happen at least it wouldn't be for the lack of trying and wasn't just because we hadn't been great at communicating.

In terms of next steps, I think it's going to be a slow and steady approach. She would like us to be 'dating' - which she defined as doing nice things together and going out for meals and things like that. She also said I'd be seeing the little one again at some point, which made me feel that she wasn't just looking to downgrade to a friendship or situationship - as she puts her little one's needs above all else and doesn't just want men coming in and out of her life.

In the meantime, I'll be getting stuck into therapy, trying to create my own social network locally and getting used to the space living on my own for pretty much the first time in my life gives me.

So I'm cautiously optimistic - which for me isn't a bad place to be in given how the last month has gone. I don't feel at the moment like she's giving me false hope - but I guess time will tell if I was right on that.

I agree with alexandra, you need to see it for yourself, and it will make you grow. You have this forum to explore and find more tools to help with the situation, and keep protecting yourself without forgetting to live. It is a tough road, but at least you will have tried. And sometimes it's better than not going for it, and keep thinking about what might have been. Just be cautious enough to cut your losses if things go south. But there will be people here to remind you if you keep coming on the forum, which i recommend. Good luck to both of you. Hope you will keep us posted