I know, I know...I don't want them to come back but I miss..

Hey guys,

First time posting on these forums. And you can guess why: I dated a DA. For a year and 3 months.

Backstory: Knew her obliquely through the years. Friend of a closer friend, who is close with my best friend. Mutual friends said she was bad at relationships and made bad choices, but when i talked to her she seemed stable in general.

How we got together: I broke up with my BPD girlfriend 7 months prior (she was a close friend's sister, did not know she was BPD, too much AP in that relationship). I saw my now ex at my friend's bday party. We'd gone on two unofficial datesback in the day (this later turned into a private joke for awhile, that she'd left the country so we couldn't get together previously, but like this was destined to be [did no know she was DA then]). We went on a few dates, and things were slowly heating up, then one small roadtrip 2 hours away. Singing in the car with the radio turned up to old 60's/70's/80's tunes. It was a pretty magical day, and we were kissing at that point.

Now, on our second date, when I kissed her and told her I liked her, she said she liked me too, then about 10 seconds later as were walking she said: "Sometimes, I'm bad at relationships" and then "I also might be a bit avoidant". I lead her to a nearby bench and interrogated her briefly, but she downplayed both statements to the point where I was sufficiently satisfied (it did seem like at least 3 of her exes had turned out not to be amazing people).

On her birthday, she had no one to celebrate with ("Oh, I do things with my friend's later in the month"). I said that was a crime, took her to a movie, we went back to her house after and slept together and it was on from there. The whole thing moved somewhat quickly: she was staying over at my place for 3-4 days before and after the weekend (she had an online job), I'm at hers a lot, sometimes working. We're becoming entangled in each others lives and she's really opening up. She made us official with a: "I guess we're boyfriend and girlfriend now" and was telling me she loved me early on.

"I can't believe we found each other" makes my head spin.

We had a 5 hour phone call within the first 2 weeks of dating, and at the end of it she nearly told me the source of all her trauma (I did not know, again, how bad this was until later). A few months later, over Messenger, she opens up, tells me she's bawling her eys out, as she's telling me about the events (her family moving from England to Australia when she was 9) that lead to her crying everyday for 6 years, how they had a shameful (but fixable) family secret, how her dad was a tyrant and she couldn't make a loud sound without being yelled at etc. etc. Sounded horrible and my heart went out to her and she said she felt close to me because it felt like I understood her. Many many things like this came out over Messenger to begin with. I felt like she trusted me.

Then, over time, she starts saying things like (at 2am when we were falling asleep, in a dark room, out of nowhere) "I can't put the level of effort into this that you are". And a week later, "We're going to live our own, seperate lives". When I question hr about one small thing, she says, "I'm not going to change, ged12345". All of which were concerning. She also told me she felt like she'd "gone crazy" at the start of the year (which I now know means she'd over-extended herself and her avoidant tendancies were starting to slip in again). Note: During this time, she still continued to downplay her trauma...until she said "We're going to live our own, seperate lives" again, as if a command, so after I dropped her at the train station, I just sent her a series of texts saying for her to have a think about what she wanted because I didn't want to be in a relationship that was distant. She calls me that night, calls me two days later, stating she has always had a need for freedom and she can't feel caged etc. I roll my eyes internally because, yes, she's more DA than she said she was: Why start coming over more often if she knows she needs space?

We reconciled and were going to have a big talk but she was travelling overseas, so I pushed the talk back and she was very loving up until she left. You can guess that the trip did not go well between us. When she came home, I picked her up, and we had a fight about. what had happened and then she contracted COVID. I looked after her for 9 days, during which she said, "You can kick me out if you want" a few times, which I just internally blinked at. When she was better and had gone home, she todl me she was very depressed, and after the next time we saw each other, she said that night: "I feel like we're just friends."

We talked that out and I delved further into attachment theory. 8-9 months of hot and cold later (some actual improvements where she was telling me she love dme again for weeks), then her deactivating and "losing feelings" and acting bored, then another small breakup (I said to her not to call me again if she wasn't interested as she knew what I needed: She called me every 2nd day for 2 weeks). Then another trip overseas for her, with beforehand being a lull. She gets back, I meet her best friend from uni, everything goes amazingly well, and she breaks up with me that night. Funnily enough, she "lost feelings" the previous time after I met her other close friend (meeting her other friend was fine earlier on but that was during the honeymoon phase). There was also a "I'm having doubts about the relationship; I don't feel that big love for you I need" - some obsession or misunderstanding around limerance there, but she said she'd prayed to God she could talk to me about how she was feeling rather than running away, so some good intentions also.

So that's the story. 2 months NC at this point.

There are many other aspects: she was quite promiscuous (she sometimes has sex with someone to "generate feelings"), is bisexual and liked to attend a bisexual women's club (for sex or socialising - she tried to convince me that would be fine with us together, but I'm monogamous, have always been, expressed that to begin with, so—no—I'm not going to change my mind on that), liked to surround herself with guys at various distances who admired her in some way, had a threesome with a couple, who were close friends, before we dated etc. etc.

So perhaps not the most consistent, committed, person with character out there (all which I found out over time) but I believe she's like this to compensate for not being able to attach.

What I don't understand about it all is that I'm huggy, loving, caring, lots of PDA. Her ex, who is more DA than she is and just kicked her out of his life after there first real argument ever, is the opposite. She told me quite a lot about her backstory and said on the last phone call "I regret breaking up with you but this will all just happen again if we get back together. But I love talking to you. And I've never felt this comfortable with anyone before." I think she opened up to me more than anyone, asking me for advice, help with issues she was having, for her hobbies, said she'd never had anyone take care of her or be supportive like I had. When she called me 3 days after the breakup, she said she'd been reconsidering, had barely slept, and was crying on the call.

And yet she walked away, saying: "Everything has a hint of freedom to it now" and "The dating pool is quite sparse out there" due to her political leanings. We went from talking every 2nd day, and sometimes online, to nothing. In fact, she stated at the end of the last call that "sometimes I felt forced to call you, to contact you". Crazy. She even had this lost, disconnect voice that I sometimes heard her use; probably some form of disassociation from her feelings. She'd increasingly do that, talk like I wasn't on the phone with her or in the room.

I know this is long but...any insight would help. We had discussed couples therapy twice, but she obviously reneged on that with the breakup. I'm not crying everyday at the moment, but this is still hard. Due to certain reasons I can't explain, it's been hard for me to make friends for awhile, so she was a major support, even though I didn't mean for her to be.