Questioning my 5 year relationship
Hello I am a 30M and have been in a 5 year relationship with a 29F. We have now been engaged for almost 2 years now. Having a bit of trouble processing a lot. Need help to differentiate this being cold feet or actual need to pause everything. I will give a full detailed breakdown of what has happened. ADVICE NEEDED.
Well we started dating in 2021 and officially in October of 2021. It was a turbulent first year as I was getting multiple threats from her ex-boyfriend as he was still showing up to her home and her going to see him for time to time to pick up some "weed" since he was a dealer as well. Obviously this bothered me a lot. I asked her time and time again to let this go and her answer had always been that she would deal with it her own way. Throughout this time my parents always had there guard up and told me to reconsider and I kept of defending her. Then 5 to 6 months into our relationship I find out a huge bombshell she was sleeping with another guy when we initially started dating. That individual reached out to me and I confirmed everything. Hurt is an under statement. I drove over to her home and asked to talk and she basically threatened to break up with me if I did not get over it. It was a crazy week and I chose to stay and seek therapy. After that I can honestly say the relationship was pretty smooth for the next 3 or so years I would say. Our biggest fight after that was me liking a few of my friends who are the opposite genders pictures on Instagram. Due to that I completely got off social medias just for her peace of mind.
Now comes to the engagement. I planned out an elaborate beautiful engagement got her the ring of her dreams and asked her to marry me. One of the happiest moments in our lives. On top of that my parents even with all there reservations bought us an apartment to start our lives. We move in and one morning I hear her crying. I am here thinking she is sick or hurting or something happened to an immediate family member but she is crying because the ring I bought her is Lab grown and not natural mined or "blood diamond." When I tell you the air just left my whole body it hurt deep and cut me emotionally. I tried to understand her POV but i could not. She blamed it on her hormones at the end of the day and I let it go. On top of that she had been complaining each and every single day for the next 3 months that we shouldn't have moved in here and bought a house ourselves and that she will not help with the utilities since its under my parents LLC. Reasonable but my parents justification was you must live with a person first before making a huge commitment. I took it upon myself to refurnish the whole place to her liking so it could feel more like "home." Fast forward another couple months and we go out with another couple and my brother and his girlfriend. Drinks are had and when we got home she basically called me some of the nastiest things telling me I am a terrible partner and that I do not put her first and always listen to my parents. Not knowing if I did I would've broken up with her awhile ago. It just hurt me quite a bit again.
Now at this point I am emotionally drained the love is still there but I just cannot wrap my mind around a lot of things. I start realizing that I am avoiding conflict and just appeasing to her to keep the peace so I have a sit down with her. I tell her all things that are wrong and how I am feeling. I tell her calmly and in a constructive way. One thing leads to another and it blows up into a huge fight. She throws her ring on the bed and leaves the apartment and then comes back an hour later apologizing and saying that she does not feel loved and our intimate life has not been the same since after engagement and we move on. During this time she is spot wedding planning, and not involving anyone but her family and giving my family ultimatums to when and how the wedding they are throwing should be (2 different cultures, 2 different weddings).
Then during this time I lose my job and gain a new one. Fully remote at a very prominent company. This is where I make a huge mistake and caused a blunder. I passively told a co-worker over teams that I broke my engagement. Which is an utter lie because I am still engaged to this girl. But nothing else other than that, She saw that exact message and rightfully was furious. Started packing her stuff and almost left again and came back that night. I sat her down and opened up everything. My phone, email, work phone, my work laptop personal laptop to give her the peace of mind that this was an inappropriate comment and that's it. It was a lie and I owned up to it and I told her I will add extra transparency to everything I do. I even left that job completely and had that individual blocked on everything. Then one morning she checks my phone again and finds old messages from 2017/2018 messaging her sorority sisters. (Messages were on my email since I had no socials she went through my email) and she lost it. Spit on me, hit me deleted all our pictures on her socials I thought this was it. It was probably the scariest day of my life . Her reasoning was that I have a pattern of "cheating" my rebuttal was that you were dating another man at that point of your life and you did not know I existed. That made her even more mad. Now for the past year up until now we have been in such a limbo. She has been PUSHING to go to the courthouse and get married but I keep on telling her our conflict resolution is abysmal and we need to work on things and I need total forgiveness before we go into marriage because taking this road will be a road to divorce. I have way more to lose than her in a divorce situation so I need to make sure that these things are checked off. I do love her i really do some days when its good we really do have a good time. But then out of the blue she would check my phone, go through my email and work laptops and verbally abuse me and emotionally play me. I am exhausted, What do I do? How do I go about this? We live together and she has said that if we do break up I owe her a years worth of rent since that if she didn't move in with me her sister and her husband and kids would have never moved into her parents house and that she doesn't have a room in her own home. The guilt I feel is unbearable sometimes.