Do you know what, you're all spot on. And stupidly I know all that, and what to do. However, it was never my intention to get into it then and so, when caught on the hop in the street, it's hard to put in practice. You're right, it was mixed messages, and invalidating, and I can see that now.

However, speaking to each other at work was never an issue before, and so ordinarily not a problem. Because of that it never occurred to me that was the issue in itself, and more that she'd somehow taken issue with the content of the call, and misunderstood what I was saying, as I thought she'd be pleased by it, and so calling at work would be fine.

However, Sophiesmom makes a good point. It's very possible (likely even) that she took it as me giving up. In which case it's not only something that might have upset her, but also totally inappropriate to call her at work about, and so naturally she'd be angry at both the (perceived/misunderstood) content, as well as the timing of it. Had she took it as intended, it might have been annoying, but not big enough to hang to for so long.

I suspected she might have misread what I'd said, but is something she'd never admit to, and so my "explanation" was largely aimed at trying to correct that misunderstanding. So yes, if one takes the misread interpretation, then I was wrong to call at work, which I'm aware of, but wrongly assumed that by trying to correct that interpretation I'd undo the damage. The thing to have done was apologise and shut up, and then hope to deal with the rest another time.

If it wasn't so frustrating it would be comical.

cielpur, if I'm honest, it was never really one sided at all. When together her issues only caused minor problems, which I was aware of, and they never really bothered me, and mostly it was a really good relationship. It has only been since, that things have got so haywire. I can now even see that much of that was my doing, by not being clearer, and then making things worse with wrong assumptions.

Sophiesmom, that's a tough one. I half assumed she would already be more comfortable without me now, and was prepared for that, as it's been a couple of months since we last saw each other and were on good terms, and that her silence meant she'd processed it and moved on. As such, I assumed our bumping into each other today would likely be as no more than friends. The best I hoped for was that she was happy, regardless, but the fact she's still so angry about that call, and doing coke at work, suggests otherwise.

It's therefore frustrating, as the core issue seems to be little more than a communication breakdown. Sure, in part down to her insecurities, but initiated by me leaving myself open to ambiguity. Followed up by me invalidated a justified (if one accepts her misinterpretation) anger, in trying to correct that ambiguity. The unfortunate thing is, that had there not been any feelings, then neither the content of my call, nor its timing, would have mattered. She'd have just shrugged her shoulders, moved on, and not been angry at all.

So, I guess I'm still torn, as if she knew the intent of my call, this would never have happened in the first place, and if I knew why she was angry, I could have retrieved it. Knowing what I know, and the fact that there are no reasons, beyond communication, that things are broken, then it's tempting to want to overcome that. Equally though, I can't see how I'd get that opportunity.

So, what I want is the same, but what I get is an entirely different matter.