I brought over her last heavy piece of furniture and we started talking.
HER: She said our entire relationship we played out an aAnxious / Avoidant dynamic. She has traced it through the entirety of the relationship. She felt like she had to show me that in fact I did love her.
She hasn't been happy since last February.
She has left the relationship.
She doesn't want to be in a relationship where she has to convince herself that she loves someone, which is what she feels like she's been doing.
She feels like our entire relationship has been the anxious / avoidant pattern
She doesn't see us getting back together ever. She just wants to focus on being good parents.
During different parts of the conversation she said it's over and doesn't see us ever getting back, she has completely left the relationship.
We haven't broken our patterns despite trying and trying even up to 3 weeks ago.
She said we tried so hard for so long.
ME: I repeated back most of her comments and did my very best to validate them.
I told her that it's a good thing that the previous relationship is over.
And that this space is good for us right now.
And that I love seeing everything sees doing with her life.
That I am creating more space in my life for me and I'm beginning to hold more space for someone else.
I mentioned that I know these are just words but my actions will speak.
As I was leaving I said again, that relationship is over, I feel like it's worth it to plant a seed and see where we are in the future.
It looked like she wanted to say "No" again but didn't want to hurt me.
A woman friend gave me 2 pieces of advice on my way over to her house: "High engagement and low attachment." and "If you do things as a family and she sees how much fun it is with you then she'll want more of that"
_________ MORE BACKSTORY
To answer the question why she moved out in September:
We had a rough year and a half leading up to that point.
I was getting depressed due to the pressures of being the sole provider. In an effort to save the income I took a advocacy role that left me feeling more an more angry. I had a rare knee condition which left me void of any of my real regulation practices.
We went to therapy and didn't have such a great therapist. We weren't communicating well at all.
Covid happened and I lost all my income.
She went back to work as a nurse working 2 12hr shifts a week.
I took a consulting position that ended up blowing up due to the 2 partners fighting. I got angry and even more depressed.
(important to note: I had been depressed before and was able to recover once I went on meds. I am someone that has done a lot of work on himself, before this relationship I was single for 10 years. So I was a bit of a novice when it comes to relationships.)
She and I had grown resentful. The joy was gone.
We had a big fight in August, my pattern was I would retreat. I took a solo trip, I felt energized.
When I came back she said she wanted to leave to have some space for herself to meditate, sew and so forth. We lived in a 1100 house and I work from home so we were around each other all the time.
She actually changed her mind twice on moving out only to finally move out Nov 1.
I went back on meds shortly after.
She saw the changes I was making and made a comment to a mutual friend, "wow Joe is really done a 180 and he's crushing it, I want a piece of that!"
We spent Thanksgiving together as a family and things started to become really nice and tender. She said she wanted till February to see where we stand. I mentioned I wasn't sure if I could wait.
She replied in a letter a few days later saying how she hadn't left the relationship and sees us in the future living in a sunlit home. I avoided commenting in part because I was scared but also because I wasn't sure how things could change and wasn't sure I trusted it.
We spent Christmas together and shortly thereafter I was really stressed over trying to cram a test in before starting my new job. I wasn't sleeping and we had a big fight right around New Years.
The anxious avoidant patterns played out continuously.
Earlier today I happen to see photos of the first 2 years of our relationship there was a lot of joy.
_______________
So back to this evening I didn't follow the Sandi rules tonight.
At the moment we are going on a hike this Saturday as a family.
A friend told me tonight that I should really just let it 100% end and move on and focus on my self and learn from my mistakes and who do I want to become.
