My girlfriend and i of 11 months broke up. How this happened has a multitude of reasons but i will break them down. this woman and I were very happy together until April of this year when my father, brother and I went into hospital for food poisoning but my father’s health is not great and so it was a trigger for a side effect of an operation he had in 2015 causing him to have malnutrition now however in April he nearly went in for an operation that had a 50% chance of killing him and he was in ICU for 2 weeks and was unrecognisable to me after i had recovered from the Salmonella which had hospitalised me for a week. this was during a break in my studies of the first semester and straight after being released from hospital i got Covid meaning for 2 more weeks I could not enjoy my holiday as a break and not spend time with my friends in this time either and by the time i knew it the last week of holiday had arrived and i had the last 3 major exams to write which had been cut off by said food poisoning so there was no break in between the semesters and paired with big exams again in July i was overwhelmed stressed and was dealing with trauma from the hospital i didn’t even know of
second semester i became a very horrible person to everyone because i was holding in this stress that i didn’t understand or communicate to a therapist my stresses anxieties and my feeling of being drained because i didn’t take it seriously however when i think back there were only two places i ever let go of those frustrations and that was to my parents and brother for a small time before i did work and then my girlfriend who i called for hours every day and i obviously had no idea that it was affecting the relationship because i was taking things too seriously and i was distant and not giving her the attention she deserved.
about her is that she has had very traumatic experiences as a child with her father leaving to work in another country for 9 years only visiting every few months and her mother being unfaithful to him with many men while he was away. her parents are now divorced and her mother is an alcoholic and her father is taking lots of control of her life which she believes is unfair because he was not present. during this time she lived with her 56 year old(now) grandmother and 70 year old grandfather (also now). so her gran became her mother forgive however her own mother reaches out every few months promising to change which she believes and then there is something that happens and she is left heartbroken and her gran, her father and i had to help her heal her heart every few months. furthermore her grandparents house is also not a happy home with lord of arguments and past physical abuse and so all this combined has given her clinical depression, anxiety and recently diagnosed ADD and this was not a problem as i was doing research on how to be a supportive partner and the only blockade i really ever faced was that i sometimes wanted her to show more emotion but her antidepressants of course took a lot of that emotion away( i never brought this up because i researched it and learned how people diagnosed in this way show emotion and i never once felt unloved)
unfortunately this circumstance with me not talking about what was truly on my mind(which i didn’t even know) and the less attention i gave her led her to believe that she was not good enough and i was going to leave and hurt her like her parents and so one day she asked us to take a break that we later would call a break up but we plan to come together again.
here is what i have now learned in my recent therapy sessions. of course this break up has affected me terribly because i have heard what i have done and i feel horrible for hurting her but also horrible because i am hurt however this break up made me reflect on my past and i realised that my household was also very dysfunctional when i was a child and i developed behaviours because of this. my father was absent in my childhood life as he was always in the office working and was severely obese before the operation so he could not play with me as a child and my mother suffers from OCD and is constantly cleaning something or is busy with something and so she too was not present very much. there were constant promises to play but no follow through and over and above all that was that i felt no love at home because my parents had daily explosive arguments that were never physically abusive to one another though we’re very emotionally abusive to one another and sometimes as a little boy from the age of 5-16 i wondered if they would kill each other it was that bad. the arguments still exist and are just as bad but i am better at blocking them out however what stemmed from these arguments was that every single day i as a little boy would beg them to stop arguing and every day i was ignored and above that for most of that period of time their arguments were unresolved and so they would take out this residual anger on me and so i was emotionally abused and found any reason to be shouted at for very small inconveniences and i was also physically abused to the point where i would hide when they argued because i knew what would be coming. this abuse was daily and it was either my father or mother delivering it. the character traits i then developed was that if someone in my life was doing something i knew was hurtful to them(such as in the past my parents arguing) and this person did not want to listen to my advice i got into a blind rage and shouted at them for doing it anyways. in my relationship this meant when my girlfriend wanted to have a few more drinks when she was already a few down and she has very low alcohol tolerance i told her not to have more because she might get sick or pass out and when she didn’t listen i got angry and i shouted and on 2 occasions i grabbed her from walking to the drinks table and i had not even realised this because i was blind with my rage. i have dealt with this anger and she understands where it has come from.
the break up happened a month ago and we still have daily contact to check up and communicate because we do not want to lose one another however she has also realised that her emotions have been affected by the break up and we agree we both need time to heal before coming together again at the end of the year. however this break up at times has been unbearable and has caused me to start self harming again and had suicidal thoughts as well as a note i recorded because for the first 3 weeks we were full of these sad and angry emotions and without full closure we got angry at one another and were hurtful and did hurtful things to one another. the good thing is we have discussed this and the last week has been better however i have anxiety for the future and i am scared that she may lose love for me. she reassures me but she has only begun the healing process now and it is hard for her and so i overthink if we will find one another again.
Going through a break up? 
Generic post break-up problems
Going through a break up… Any advice?
I want to break the cycle of ups and downs. 
Feeling empty and miserable after a break up with someone I thought I would marry 
