This may be a long one
Me (24M) and my girlfriend (23F) had been dating for close to 2 years before she ended things about 2 weeks ago. She was the love of my life, and we lived together and in my opinion we had a near perfect relationship. Her dad was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in November and had a rapid decline, dying around a month ago. My ex and him were extremely close and it tore her to bits. I tried my best to comfort her the whole time, countless nights of her crying into my arms, and sometimes she shut me out of it which I completely understand. During the days and weeks leading up to his death, she had been flying up to where her family lives to be around him. I always asked if she wanted me to join her on these trips, but she always said no. I’ll talk a bit more about this later. I also travel a lot for work so during the last month or so of his life we had only seen each other for a week or so. I ended up moving to the city her family lives in temporarily to support her, and it was a promotion.
Anyways fast forward to about 3 days before he passed she flew up to her hometown again. I again asked 3-4 times if she wanted me to join her but she said no. My parents were telling me I needed to go but I wanted to follow her lead. I didn’t feel like I could force myself to go with her if she didn’t want me to.
The night before he passed we were apart from each other and there were a couple of friends in town that I hadn’t seen in years, and I asked her if I could go out for a few drinks with them, and she said it was ok, but when she called me to tell me that her dad was passing the next day and I was walking home tipsy she was completely irate. We ended up getting into an argument about it, one of the only ones we have ever been in.
Anyways, he passed and I moved up to her town in the same week. Went to the funeral, wake, but I could tell she was off about us. She broke it off about 3 days later, saying she needs to be alone and she didn’t feel like I was supportive enough. She left the door slightly open for a future reunion.
I was completely crushed, then as a few days passed I started to get a bit angry. If she just communicated what she needed be to do I would have happily been there!!!!!! But I’m realizing now that she was going through the worst event of her life (maybe the worst one she’ll ever have to go through) and didn’t even know what she needed. I understand there is no playbook to helping your girlfriend grieve, but I still wish I could have done more.
Anyways, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her. Before his death we were the strongest we had ever been and I had pictured house kids big ole rock on her finger the whole damn thing, all to be taken away so quick. I know I could have done a better job supporting her but I understand I’m not a therapist.
I started to have the thought that there was another reason for this. So I texted her and asked for closure and we talked yesterday. I apologized for everything and let her know that I still love her and will always be there for her. We talked for about 2 hours but she ultimately told me she wasn’t ready to get back together. Anyways at 11pm tonight she texts me out of the blue and says she wants to talk. I’m giddy and think she may want to get back together, but she literally just wanted to chit chat like we used to do. I’m not gonna lie it was awesome. She was laughing at my jokes and we were chopping it up like the good ole days. But she did not say anything about getting back together. We did end the call by saying I love you.
Anyways now I am extremely confused. I still want to give her space but she’s all alone right now and I also want to be there for her. She’s going through the worst thing possible right now and it makes me tremendously sad thinking about it. I would love to have her back in my life and I understand that her emotions and feelings are totally out of whack right now but… does she lowkey secretly want to get back together? But doesn’t wanna say it right now? I may be delusional but I caught that vibe. Another part of me doesn’t want to comfort her because the reality is she hurt me so bad kind of out of the blue and took a lot of this pain out on me when I didn’t deserve it, but at the same time she’s allowed to do dumb shit when she going through something so fucked up. Relationships man.
Anyways any thoughts and advice is greatly appreciated. I will always love her and it’s such a tragedy that all of this has happened.
TLDR ex broke up with me after her dad died and we have started talking again