Hi all, First time poster here… Feels good to have found this place.

As my title says, I’ve recently had a break up with a lady (61) (me M 62), closing in on one month ago. For some reason, I’m still feeling the need to write, and this will likely be a long story. Sorry… :-)

We met at the end of April, and it fell into place quickly. Both of us connected profoundly, and pretty much almost right from the get go, we declared that we had never met anybody that seemed as similar. We are both very shy, introverts, and both considered ourselves oddballs… We seemed to bond over that almost instantly.

Things seemed almost idyllic for about the first two months, until problems started to arise. She started to become a little bit cranky and cantankerous. Not terribly, but I noticed the change.

She ended up revealing to me that she had been on Prozac for many years, and had been feeling really good, so she was trying to taper off, so she believed it may have been messing with her mood, which made complete sense.

The next month started to show plenty of inconsistencies and red flags… She didn’t like a whole bunch of things about who I am, and after about the third month, she even broke down as we were lying in bed late one night, and began crying and sobbing, that she was the happiest she has ever been with me, but she could not reconcile that I am different than what she was raised to believe would be who she would end up with. She said she was very confused and didn’t know what to do about it.

For example, the first conversation we had was about me, not being religious. She had concerns, but seem to get over them. A few weeks later, this big conversation came up about me having long hair for a man, and how her high status profession has certain standards, and she’s worried that her colleagues might ask her questions or judge her for my appearance. Next, it was that I am virtually broke and barely making ends meet from month to month, whereas she is at the highest level of her career, and a high earner. She also was worried that I was not going to be able to take the vacations that she wants to take when she retires soon, and that we may not be able to live the lifestyle that she had worked hard and dreamed about.

Those problems alone might seem like dealbreaker’s, and after that, I really lost a lot of emotional trust and safety with her, although I loved her.

She said she was going to see a therapist that she hadn’t seen in a while later that week, just to talk to her about it. A week later, she said she was fine hit come to terms with all of those things, and things went back to normal fairly quickly. Or so it seemed.

Over about the next month, her behavior began declining even more… It wasn’t over the top terrible, but she would be snappy with me, and sometimes direct negative energy and hostility toward me. I was very triggered by it and didn’t respond, well, but held it together, and never aimed it back at her.

Then, at the beginning of our fifth month, after we hadn’t seen each other, for a few weeks, we had a glorious few days, but it ended terribly with her snapping at me, and getting annoyed at things that really had little value.

That night, on the way home in the car, I told her that I was not ok with that kind of of negative energy, and that our relationship would become toxic if we couldn’t find a way to not bark at each other like that. She really didn’t say much for the half an hour conversation, other than she knew she could sometimes be a jerk, and that maybe that’s why her relationships hadn’t been working out… But she also said that she wouldn’t be snappy like that if I hadn’t done the things I had done… Etc. etc. No accountability, or no real empathy toward what I was saying. Mostly silence.

Later, she told me that she felt targeted, but agreed that we should keep working on these things, even though I secretly thought she would probably want to break up with me after that. By the way, I believe I am thoroughly anxious avoidant, but more anxious than avoidant.

To try to abbreviate this long story, I didn’t see her for another three weeks because of logistics, and then, when she returned from being away, she invited me up to her house, at which point, I made her a nice meal, she gave me a few gifts that she bought while she was away, then, very strangely, sat me down and told me that she needed to break up with me.

She said it was because of living too far away from each other, 1.25 hours (it was always her that had difficulties with maintaining a schedule, and I always told her I’d be up there, almost anytime she wanted me to come), and she also said that she was breaking up because I couldn’t afford the expensive vacations she wanted, even though we had started talking about one that we could’ve gone on over the holidays… But that conversation stalled. And then, she told me that she was breaking up because we were only end up getting annoyed with each other all the time.

I only spent a couple of minutes, trying to talk with her about what she was saying, until I quickly packed my things and left, wishing her farewell. She asked me if we could eventually be friends after I got over being mad at her… And I told her that that’s not what I wanted. She said she knew that I was feeling that I was getting older and I needed to find what I wanted sooner than later…

So, I told her I loved her, and if she ever changed her mind that she could let me know, and I told her that if she can look me in the eye, and tell me this is what she needs to do, then, I will respect her decision. She said she thought it was, so I left.

We were only together for five months, but it was an active and very meaningful five months for both of us, from what I can tell, but as they say, there are always two sides to every relationship.

Part of the reasons that I think that attachment disorders may fall into play here is that after about the first couple of months, she came to me one day, after we had watched a whole bunch of videos about attachment disorders, and she told me, she said she did some research on her own, and said, teary-eyed, that she believed that she was a fearful avoidant, or a disorganized avoidant, I can’t remember exactly which one she said… She said it described her perfectly. I was pretty impressed that she went to that length to do some more research.

It is my guess that her breaking up, which came completely out of the blue, may be the result of some sort of attachment disorder, and need to gain distance from someone that was getting a little too close to the source of some of her disorder.

I tend to wonder if the “big talk” in the car that night, which really made it pretty clear to her, that she has anger and hostility issues, may have spooked her, and subconsciously created a fear in her that she could never live up to what I was saying to her that night, and that I was inevitably going to break up with her anyway, so she beat me to the punch.

Many others question this theory, and just say that the distance, and the social status difference, and the annoyance are just reasonable things that people use to break up with others, and that I need to get over it and move on. That may be true. I’m not sold on it.

Here’s where it gets tricky… From the day, I walked out of her house, after about that two minute break up, I went no contact. One week later to the day, she text me out of the blue and says… “Hi Whirl, I hope you are doing OK and will enjoy the wedding with your family over the weekend”.

I waited for a while, and sent kind of a smart, Alec one-liner back, and she responded with just what she had been doing at her conference over the weekend in Florida, then I asked her if she was going to see her sister while she was there, and she responded the following day that she was, and that she had seen a cousin, and they went to the aquarium, which was nice. I didn’t respond to that, and it’s been three weeks with no communication.

So if I had to have a question in here, it could be… Did I make a mistake cutting off contact with her after her last text? Could that have been her way of trying to make amends and reaching out and her way of maybe trying open a dialogue? If that is true, and I don’t know, not responding to her last text could now make her feel that I’m not interested, and maybe she will just disconnect more and move on?

Many online coaches, say to stick out, no contact, because she was the one that broke it, so she needs to fix it. I think she may be too shy, and feeling too broken to reach out like that. Or, she may just think that I don’t want to deal with her anymore. Who knows.

It’s only been a month, and I have done a bit of healing, but I’m still feeling so completely abandoned, and I can’t imagine what happened in that lady’s head that she would seemingly walk away from some thing that seems to have so much promise for both of us.

She knows what I bring to the table. Her and I talked twice every day. I woke up early every morning to call her on her way to work, and we did a video call every night before she went to sleep. She always seemed happy to hear from me. I almost had minimal believe this whatever happened. I thought we were just continue working on getting better at not triggering each other. Isn’t that what couples do? I guess I couldn’t tell you.

Do any of you guys have any thoughts after reading all this? What should I do? Should I reach out to her eventually? Let her reach out to me?

I saw some evidence that she may be depressed. I know from my own experiences that mental health issues can make you push people away who get too close. If that’s the case, is there really anything I can do?

It could be said that we left on good terms. I didn’t say anything hostile to her at all. One of my last words to her, although not hugely, romantic, or “I have no shortage of love for you.”

What should I do? Thank you for any input you can give. Sorry for this lengthy post.