[spaceman09]

Hey everyone, I'm new to the site and thought I would give this community a try! I guess I'll just start out by writing about why I'm here and if anyone's been in the same place I'd love to hear your thoughts or advice!
My parents are divorced, I'm 23 years old and I've had 3 significant relationships. My first girlfriend and I got together when I was 16 years old and it was the most intense experience I've ever had. The feelings I had for her were so strong, and I knew I loved her even just after a month of being together. But after 4 months of being together she dumped me. I never got a real true answer as to why. It felt really abrupt and I was lost and confused. That was one of the most painful moments of my life, to lose someone I had such passionate and intense feelings for so suddenly without knowing why. I just knew it hurt more than anything.

My next relationship began not long after, I began having casual sex with a friend. We became extremely close and I developed strong feelings for her. However she didn't want to put a label on our relationship although we would basically do everything couples do, not just have sex. I was worried than since she didn't want to commit that she was a flight risk and could leave and hurt me at any moment, like how my first girlfriend did. But this wasn't the case, after stringing me along for about 9 months, she finally decided we could put labels on our relationship. I felt secure, I was so happy to be with her.

But things got difficult when I grew very jealous of her ex. This jealousy consumed me, I became very insecure and angry. I feared losing her. This caused me to put up walls and block her out, I would get anxiety about the end of the relationship and I became really cold towards her. I just didn't want to get so hurt again. Finally after 2 years of being together I got so freaked out worrying about everything that she could do to hurt me, I broke up with her. But the walls I'd built weren't strong enough to protect my feelings. I completely broke down and asked her to get back together, and she eventually agreed. We got back together but this time things were really boring, we lost the physical side to the relationship and the intense emotional feelings I once had were gone. I think this was because of my lack of openness and walls I put up to block her out. So we broke up again, this time because she was sick of continually getting hurt by me and feeling like I was pushing her out. This hurt me so much, it was definitely the lowest point in my life. I had such bad anxiety and depression I would stay in bed all day. I begged for her back, but this time she didn't want anything to do with me and I completely understand why. I was so cold to her and hurt her so many times.

I went to therapy and I worked out a lot of problems with my jealousy, and I worked on my depression and fixed my sleep schedule. I thought I was also making progress with my openness issues, but I'm not sure that I was then. Along came my 3rd girlfriend. I was 19 years old and we met in college. We formed a friendship and we would hang out all the time, study together and do everything together. Finally she confessed she had feelings for me and we went out on a date. The date went okay, but towards the end of it she admitted she had never been in a relationship before and wasn't ready for this with me at that time. I was devastated, but I understood that she had to work on herself. We stayed in touch and she asked me almost a year later if I wanted to try again. I was thrilled, of course I did. But I was also scared of getting hurt again.

We dated for 2 and a half years and broke up last night. Over the course of the relationship I let little things scare me into putting up those walls again. If I felt rejected or if she was uninterested, there were some jealousy issues again also. But I put myself in a guarded box again and became cold, the physical side of things stopped happening after awhile. She began to get hurt by me over and over and I didn't know how to stop it. At first in this relationship I was so afraid of her leaving me I would have anxiety attacks about it frequently. And in trying to protect myself I grew so cold and distant. Last night was really hard for me because I felt like too much had gone wrong and I didn't want to keep muddying the relationship up with my patterns and continue hurting her. It just felt like this is something I have to work on while I'm single and by myself.

I still love her and I miss her, and I'm honestly devastated again. But I'm looking at therapists in my area and I'm really trying to make these important changes in myself so that I can finally have a longterm committed relationship without fear. I'm just not sure if it's possible to truly change, and I'm afraid. I want to get better for myself, and if that means getting back together with my recent ex that would be great. But I can't live this way anymore. I have been through a lot of things that made me unsure about the future of my relationships, and I've made a lot of my own mistakes. But I have to break this cycle.

[healingme4me]

I see this is your first post, Welcome to PC

Sorry to read about your recent heartache. It's promising that you are willing to turn to therapy to address things about you that you want addressed.

Hope you find the support that you need.