Dear Cal:

You asked: “Is there a chance she may find confidence in herself and realise I was good for her, or is this just wishful thinking?“- every day in the world, relationships resume after breakups, so I am sure that there is a statistical chance that your relationship with resume.  I want to re-read the little that you shared in your thread so to guess (after you reply to this) at what this chance might be:

“In the last few months… She began to question everything, such as her career and every friendship“- I am guessing that during the few months before she broke up with you, she questioned her relationship with you as well as her friendships and career. Even though it felt to you that she suddenly broke up with you 3 weeks ago (“It’s been 3 weeks since my ex-gf suddenly decided to break up”), she was thinking about breaking up with you for a few months before she finally did.

“She..  felt unhappy that she was not at a stage she had pictured in her life by now. She had an idealized view of the world and was comparing herself against these unattainable goals“- seems to me that in the last few months she didn’t see you as fitting her idealized view of a partner or a husband, and that she didn’t think of you as someone who can help her achieve her major life goals.

“She began getting snappy with me… Our physical relationship took a big decline… She didn’t communicate as much and didn’t want to spend time together“- for as long as this was happening, she was moving toward a breakup, but not yet prepared to actually break up with you, struggling: to break up or  not?.

“She said she didn’t deserve me…I didn’t know if this was her way of softening the blow… saying I was too good for her and she didn’t deserve me” – if the only time she told you that she didn’t deserve you was when she broke up with you, it could have been something she said to soften the blow. (When I posted to you last, I didn’t consider the possibility that the only time she told you that she didn’t deserve you was when she broke up with you)

“She said she wasn’t sure she could love anyone or anything. . I tried to reason with her but her decision was made“- her saying that she wasn’t sure she could love… you is not promising regarding resuming the relationship. It looks like she was considering breaking up with you for a few months before she finally did, and it looks like she felt strongly about breaking up when she did.

“I think she feels inadequate in every situation and was always comparing her portrayal of herself with what she thought the ideal was. I’m not sure what this means“- she was presenting herself not as she is but as she thinks she should be, as an ideal. This fits with what you shared earlier: “She would often put on a facade in public”, a facade: an outward appearance meant to conceal an inward reality.

I am assuming that she feels inadequate, unacceptable, in need to be hidden behind a facade. It is possible that she felt undeserving of you, not good-enough for you, but it is also possible that she felt that you are not good enough for her facade, that you don’t fit with her ideal, with what and how her life should be.

I’ll repeat this point which I think is interesting: if she doesn’t value herself (the person she is), but she values her ideal (the person she thinks she should be), then she may not value you as good enough for her ideal.

You wrote earlier: “she told me I understand her the most“- what was she referring to, what is it that she believed that you understand about her?

anita