I am not sure if this is significant but I forgot to add there were a few times my ex told I treat her like her Dad. However I was completely different to her father. She also said her ex was similar to her father but agreed with me that I wasn’t in a lot of ways very early on in the relationship. Not sure why that changed and she said I treat her like that at times.

I was thinking about messaging her ex just to see what his experience was. Do you think that is a wise idea or I should avoid opening that can of worms?

I just deleted our messages in my phone as I caught myself looking through old messages. She definitely seemed a lot happier and grateful early on. Messaging me during the days and mornings at work compared to blunt and short  conversations later on. I know it was the honey moon stage then though. My psych actually explained the cycle of abuse to me and how it works. You have a honey moon stage, then something’s happens, then apologies follow and you make up and end up in the honeymoon stage for something to happen again leading to more apologies. She asked me if that seemed familiar and it really was. Every couple months we were splitting and then going through this cycle. With my past ex it made me realise that the relationship was a lot healthier as we went a whole 9 months and then split but never got back together. My psych also spoke about trauma bonding and made it clear that it wasn’t my trauma that was causing it by rather hers.