My partner and I have known each other for 16 years, and have been together for almost 9. She lived in a capital city and moved upstate soon after our relationship started, and within three months we rented our first apartment.
Over the years, we've had our ups and downs. I used to be a very bad partner in regards to household chores, and years of excessive porn usage made me a lazy bedmate. Despite that, I've always been extremely loving and caring, she called herself a love sponge, and I was all too happy to give her more and more love. She almost broke up with me twice, both times because of how awful I was when it came to chores, and the shock of the second time was what made me straighten up and develop a habit of always checking for stuff that needs doing and doing them before watching TV or playing games. I'd tried doing that a few times before, but the improvements were always temporary and I lapsed as soon as I felt she was okay again.
Sex was still an issue, though. Last November, she befriended a guy and, when she told me about him, I could sort of see a sparkle in her eyes, and that worried me a bit. Some weeks later, said guy asked her if our relationship was open. It wasn't, but we had an agreement that, if someone that piqued our interest showed up at some point, we'd talk about it to decide on how to proceed. That's what she did, and I took it kinda badly. Not terribly so, but insecurity settled in. I asked her to be careful and voiced that something about him felt suspicious, so I was mostly against her pursuing it. They still talked for a while, but she started noticing that he'd only message her when he had another female friend interested in having sex, finally understanding that he was only interested in her for a threesome, and she blocked him.
I understood that she wanted to feel desired, though, but I was too used to watching porn and relieving myself to actually see her for the beautiful, attractive woman she was, and she missed that badly. Still, I didn't make a single effort to change that. Cut to July. Another male friend, a really decent guy, told her he was into her, and asked if I'd be okay with them going out. I didn't take it all that well, but better than the first time. I felt threatened, especially given how similar to me he looked. Anyway, I think that was the push I needed to start really seeing her as the woman she is, and being more open about my sexuality and the things that get me off. Our sex life changed completely, becoming frequent, intensely passionate.
So, another problem completely fixed, right? Yeah, but she still wanted to, in her own words, "experience these other connections", and I did what I could to respect that. She said it had nothing to do with me, that she was perfectly satisfied with me as a partner, and that other people were just other people. It was all true, but I was so unbearably insecure I constantly asked her for reassurance, and it took its toll on her. At some point, I could see she was exhausted, and I was suffering too much to endure it any longer. On the same day I told her I couldn't take it anymore, she said they had ended their fling. Three dates. It really wasn't anything to worry about, but I made a mountain out of a molehill and that only hurt us for no reason.
Last night, after she got back from her theater group, she told me we had to break up. Her reasons didn't make sense at first, not even for her, but, after lots of talking, she finally managed to explain it. Since her teens, she'd always been living relationship to relationship, and she never lived adulthood by herself. Seeing that decent dude living happily by himself made her covet that experience for her. She started wondering about how she doesn't really know who she is, doesn't know what she wants, doesn't know where I end and she starts, and so on. Essentially, we've become so codependent she's having an identity crisis. She doesn't even know what her dreams are.
We bought a house last year, adopted two more dogs (to a total of three dogs and three cats), made many renovations, traveled, planned a lot of stuff. The fact that we did all that without her really knowing why leaves me so confused. She says she loves me, loves the house, loves our pets, and yet she hurts. There had been so many times this year in which I thought she looked lost, but I had no idea how badly.
We talked all day today, and she said a lot of stuff that suggests she doesn't actually want to break up. She's still planning going on dates and concerts with me, watching stuff together, taking care of our house, bathing our pets, and so on, but she does need space and wants to live alone for a while. We're gonna move some furniture around the house during the weekend so we can start sleeping in separate bedrooms (an old suggestion made by a couple we're friends with, who've been living this way for years), and we'll both try to spend more time by ourselves when we're at home and going out with our friends while the other person is doing something else. She wants us to disentangle financially over the next few months so she can rent a place where she can live alone for a while, hopefully with both of us growing along the process. I believe that'll be very beneficial for both of us.
She says I'm a perfect partner, that she loves me and wants to grow old with me. She says there's no one else she wants to be with. She said I can hope for the best. We hug and we kiss and we keep grabbing each other and calling each other cute names. With all that, it's hard for me not to feel almost as if we're not breaking up at all, yet there's this terrifying feeling that things could still end if, when she finally gets to know herself and figure out what she wants from life, I'm not part of that.
She has been struggling with depression and anxiety since she was 14, and lately she'd been waking up in these really deep valleys of depression, wanting to stay in bed crying all day, feeling nothing but emptiness. She started taking a new medication, one that apparently starts having its full effect after one week of treatment. Today marks the third week since she began taking that antidepressant, and I wonder if the "clouded reasoning/judgment" part of the side effects list had something to do with her seemingly abrupt decision.
Even without the medicine, though, it still feels as if one of us asking to break up was inevitable. We've been too wary of each other this whole year. If either of us looked sad or upset, the other would ask if they said or did something, and so on. We became so dependent on how the other one was feeling that our relationship became restless.
I want us to find our mutual peace again. I want us to be happy. There's no one else I'd rather be with in the whole world.
I'm so sorry for this leviathan of a post. There's so much I want to say, and so many things running through my head at all times. I'm anxious as hell. So many parts of this post were written in a stream of consciousness, but I'm too disturbed to even try to edit stuff down.
Do you have any suggestions? What would you do in my place?
tl;dr My partner said she wanted to break up our relationship. We talked a lot. Now it seems she just wants some distance to get in touch with herself, but she's sending so many mixed signals I feel I have no firm ground to stand on. I'm terrified of losing her, and she says she's terrified of losing me.