Hard time coping with the end of a 5 year relationship [35M] with Gf [30F], any advice?
Hello guys, I'm starting this more as a confession.
I've been together with my GF for 5 years now, living together for 2 years. We got together through friends in common and began dating. Our relationship was great for the most part, we always talked a lot, very few fights, but in the last year I started to gradually drift away and become emotionally distant.
My gf had a hard upbringing, her family never had a good financial situation and her father was a compulsive liar, abusive to her mother and neglectant with her and her younger sister and their parents eventually separeted (he was also arrested for drug trafficking for a short time). 6 years ago she lost her mother to breast cancer and that was really rough for her, her mother was everything to her and the only person that always had her back and really loved her (that is her opinion). We got together a year after she died and she still is to this day coping with her loss. As a result from all this she has some difficult with emotional regulations, with depression, impulsive behavior, sometimes starting fights with her coworkers or with me over minor things and gradually became more dependent on me (both emotionally and financially) and although both of us are doctors but in different places professionally, as I do have a better income. I became the one that had to tell her to calm down, don't act impulsively and help navigate her struggles. The signs of anxious attachment began to appear, she would disapprove of my hobbys and spending time with my friends, staying mad because i'm "choosing to spend time with them and not with her" wich made me feel very guilty until I understand through therapy that I wasn't supposed to be responsible for her happines, at least not in the way she percieved it. I have communicated more than a few dozen of times that she needed things and people in her life that gives her joy other than me for us to have a healthy relationship and she agreed but never seemed to follow up. She began therapy (after a lot of insisting) and things did appear to improve for awhile.
As the months have been passing by I have been more and more distant. It's hard for me to admit but I began counting the hours until she has her shift so I can be alone. I feel drained all the time, have little to no interest in demonstrating affection or sex. A couple of months ago we had a really big fight over an instagram post of another woman i accidently reposted (missclick). I have never been unfaithful and do not go out liking posts of other women, I barely spend more then 30min of my day in instagram. After this happened, I tried to explain myself and she accused me of infidelity, being interested in hookers and all sort of things. I was hurt and was just coming home from a week away working and decided to sleep in my mothers house to cool of. On the next day I came home to find all my stuff in trash bags because she said we were done. As I tried to leave she changed her mind and said she was sorry for acting like that I understood that it was not intentional for me to reposting that photo (it was not a bikini photo or nothing like that, just a picture of this girl in her car that appeared on my feed, I don't even follow her). Even though she changed her mind I was determined to break up, I was tired and emotionally drained. I tried to leave and explain I wasn't happy anymore, we both cried, she said things like "I've invested so much time", "you'll just abandon me like everyone else", even suggesting she might end her life if we split. I stayed, mostly out of guilt.
So this has been my struggle, not a day goes by that I don't think about leaving, and can't seem fo find it in me the strenght to keep trying. I've been overwhelmed with guilt for not been able to give back the love she demonstrates and at the same time selfish for not been able to end things. I have an imense amount of respect for her and want her to be happy. It's been really hard to accept that I need to leave, we also have 2 dogs that I really love so thats rough.
If anyone has been through some similar situation and could give an advice, I would really appreciate.