Dear Ryan,

welcome  back!

Your experience with this latest girlfriend is quite similar to your previous girlfriend, the one with the small son. She too was very much into you and praised you a lot, but you chose not to stay with her. This is what you wrote in your last post in April:

I think my issue is more that I feel a sense of guilt/shame when I hurt or disappoint women. It feels as though women see me as something that I may not always be: A good man or a better man than most. I try to live up to their expectancies but often don’t.

It’s the same now. The new girl wrote this to you:

You are absolutely wonderful and kind. When I’m with you I am a different person. Happy and peaceful and life is wonderful. I thank you for that.

They were both head over heals for you. But something in you couldn’t stay…  something in you sabotaged it, and you ended up leaving and disappointing them. Now you are beating yourself up for not being honest with her, feeling like “absolute garbage”.

As I said back in April, I believe it’s the lack of self-worth that causes you to sabotage your relationships. This is what I wrote back then:

But if we don’t feel good enough – if we feel there’s something inherently wrong with us – no amount of outside praise and convincing will do. Sooner or later we’ll do something to “mess up”, and it will be a proof to ourselves and our partner that we indeed aren’t good enough. Self-fulfilling prophecy….

It seems this is happening again – you are again in the situation where you feel you’ve “messed up” and proven to yourself how unworthy you are.