She says she

@starshine117

I had a similar situation with my ex gf. We lived together for years and had recently moved to a new place.

We'd been living together for years, been engaged for years. I loved her, I felt like she was all I had. However, my father passed away and it absolutely crippled me. He was the only other person I had. I became an emotional shell and I did not attend to the needs of my fiance.

I truly understand why she drifted and I don't harbor any resentment, but at the time it was absolutely dismantled me. She would come home and compare our situation to this movie where the woman can't decide between two very different men. It was intense. I was weak. I knew I hadn't been an ideal partner for a long time and I wanted to fix everything but she wasn't receptive. I tried to take her out and show her I was still the person she fell in love with, but she kept putting it off. I wasn't able to redeem myself, it was too late, and I have to live with that.

I should've just agreed to split as soon as I found out the situation, but I couldn't. I felt like I had nothing else, so i stayed weak. I hoped, I tried, I worked out more. None of it mattered. I had pushed her beyond the point of return, or I just didn't have the chops to get her back.

I ended up finding someone who loved me full-time, but I truly am tearing up about this while typing. It was tramatic. With my father, it was trauma on top of trauma.

I've moved on. I don't resent her, and I rarely think about it now, but it is a difficult situation that nobody deserves. Quite honestly, if your long time partner can't choose between you or someone else.. it's over. Most likely. It's a terrible position to put someone in. It's thoughtless. We all deserve better, regardless of the reason. I know it's hard, but I personally would try to move on. Completely romantically disassociate. If you love someone, it's full-time. There is no in between. Sometimes ppl drift for a multitude of reasons and unfortunately we have to accept that. It's hard, it takes so long, but eventually it's no longer in your head.

We are our own ppl and we do what we want. You have the right to repeat my actions and try to win her over. I know your heart wants to, but it's slippery slope of prolonged pain. In my experience.

Good luck, I hope my experience helps.

@starshine117

People usually don't change their behavior that much over time.

They just become more adept at hiding it.

When I left my only ever long-term relationship, it was so difficult to do. It took everything I had in me to force myself to listen to my pain telling me that the relationship was toxic and one way (that I was being used, and the only times she "cared" for my problems was when she wanted to turn around and show me exactly how much bigger her problems were). But I did leave her, for a time.
Until I got an email from her years later, telling me that she was married and in a mentally and physically abusive relationship. I couldn't stand the idea, so I began talking to her again when she could contact me in secret while he was at work. It took months, but I convinced her to leave the house and return to her parents while he was away at work. I convinced her to get a divorce and go back to school to do what she had always wanted to. I stayed by her side, online, as we were always states away and long-distance, while she gained her success. I helped her as she went through more breakups with more abusive and controlling men.
At one point, in between relationships while she had time for me (she frequently would vanish for days to weeks spending time with friends in her physical location, which I was entirely understanding of), while she was lamenting how she couldn't find someone good, I confessed to her that I felt bad breaking it off and that I would be willing to give us another chance if she was interested. That was when she told me, "Oh no, I'm straight, I was just dating you to piss off my homophobic mother". She had told me her mother was homophobic, and that's why our relationship was secret, at the time, but years later suddenly admitted to it not only not being secret, but having been a lie the entire time. I was crushed, despite being aware how toxic she was, I still needed to be a part of her life. So I stayed friends with her.
She met another man, entered a relationship with him, this one toxic in another way. We disagreed over it on several occasions, but never enough for me to walk away, at the time. I continued to be her rock, when she felt like giving me the time of day instead of claiming she had "accidentally fallen asleep" or that she "had a migraine" while posting to facebook and ignoring me.
One night she asked me questions about my now understood asexuality, because of friend of hers who loved sex was claiming to be asexual and she "wanted to be sure she understood what it meant". At the same time, she also suddenly told me she was bi (while still in the relationship). I ignored it. By this point I feel like she was hoping to get me to confess to her again for her ego, to have multiple lovers like this other girl did. That always seemed to be her pattern, she had to have the biggest story in the room.
Recently, she went through several deep traumas. I did my best to stay by her side. But she was refusing mental help despite it being held out to her. It got to a point where I felt like she was using the trauma to get more attention rather than as the truly painful experience that I was now having nightmares over it happening to me because I had become so worried about her mental state. But then I noticed the pattern again. The same one as always. Telling me she was feeling unwell when she didn't want to talk to me, even when there was evidence that she was spending time with other people and didn't want to split her attention, or that she didn't currently want my brand of sympathy.

So as hard as it is, even at this very moment as I occasionally find her attempting to pull me back to her again, I left her a second time.
I know it's not really anything like what you're going through, but I guess what I'm trying to say is sometimes we just have to accept that a relationship might not work out, no matter how desperately our hearts want and need it to.
If you need to talk more about it, and I didn't just throw you off entirely, you're welcome to seek me out.

Please take care, and I'll be hoping that everything works out well for you.