29M / 29F — Can a relationship realistically recover after police involvement, financial resentment, insecurity, and emotional exhaustion if both people are finally becoming self-aware?
My girlfriend (29F) and I (29M) are trying to figure out whether our relationship is repairable after things became extremely emotionally unhealthy and unstable.
We’ve been together about 2 years, lived together for 1, and have a baby together. We also each have sons from previous relationships. For a while, I felt like I was carrying a lot emotionally and financially while constantly trying to reassure her through insecurities and trust issues. She has admitted recently that she took me for granted and projected a lot of fear and anxiety onto me throughout the relationship.
One of the biggest recurring issues was a local kava bar I would go to to relax, do homework, and see friends. Early on in the relationship, I followed a female worker from there on Instagram. Nothing happened, but it understandably hurt her and created insecurity. I blocked the girl, eventually deleted Instagram entirely, stopped following women, etc. But over time the issue evolved into her strongly disliking the entire place and wanting me not to go there at all because of the emotional association she developed with it.
At the same time, I started feeling like no matter what I did to reassure her, it wasn’t enough. I felt controlled, emotionally exhausted, and unseen. She recently admitted she realized she was unfair to me and was projecting fears and jealousy because she felt isolated, didn’t really have her own friends/outlets, and felt like I had spaces outside the relationship that she didn’t.
Part of why finances became such a sensitive issue for me is because I felt blindsided multiple times during our relationship. Early on, we talked about being 50/50 partners financially, but in practice I often felt like I was carrying much more responsibility than expected.
For example, shortly before our baby was born, I found out she wasn’t actually receiving maternity leave income like I thought she would be. She also later told me that money she previously said she had saved was entirely put aside specifically for her older son, which emotionally made me feel like I misunderstood our financial reality and where I stood in the partnership. Her mom had even offered ways to help support her financially through her family business during maternity leave, but she declined it at the time.
I think all of that built a lot of financial anxiety and fear in me about stability, follow-through, and whether we were truly operating as a team. So when I talk about needing financial transparency and reliability now, it’s coming more from fear of ending up overwhelmed and unsupported again than from wanting control over her money.
Things escalated badly recently during an argument about our relationship. Police were called over a domestic disturbance. No one was arrested, no injuries were found, and the officers said they couldn’t identify a primary aggressor because of conflicting statements. But it obviously shook both of us deeply. Shortly after that, she moved back into her parents’ house with the kids. We’ve both been grieving the collapse of our home life and the emotional damage between us.
To complicate things more, she became pregnant again and now feels she needs to get an abortion because of the instability of our situation. Emotionally, that has devastated both of us. Since then, we’ve actually started communicating better than we have in a long time. We started therapy, slowed down our communication, and she’s been much more reflective/accountable lately. She’s apologized for a lot of things and admitted she realizes now how much we took each other for granted.
But I’m still struggling with resentment, trust, and fear about the future. One major issue now is finances. I told her that if we ever moved back in together, I would need financial transparency and reliability because I felt overwhelmed carrying things before. She’s okay discussing finances openly, but she does not want me seeing her accounts directly because she feels that crosses a privacy boundary. I’m realizing I may need a much more independent financial structure moving forward because I’m afraid of ending up overwhelmed again.
I genuinely love her. She says she loves me and wants us to heal. But part of me wonders if we’ve damaged each other too much already, while another part of me feels like this crisis finally forced both of us to become more self-aware and emotionally honest.
I guess my questions are:
- Does this sound repairable or does it sound like trauma bonding and emotional exhaustion?
- Can trust realistically recover after this much instability and police involvement?
- How do couples know the difference between healthy compromise vs losing themselves trying to keep a relationship alive?
- Is it realistic to rebuild after years of insecurity/control dynamics if both people are finally becoming self-aware?
- And how do you rebuild emotional safety without becoming controlling or emotionally avoidant toward each other?
Looking for honest perspectives, especially from people who have actually repaired deeply damaged relationships.