Totally understand. Our stories are so so similar. He has twisted many things I have said as well, making them fit his own insecurities somehow. From saying I'm not ready ready date someone with kids to me not being willing to move to be with me; things I have never said or never even thought. I know what he wants is a family. His family is all out of state, some or them also estranged. He has shared custody of one daughter as well, and I brought both of them into my family thinking he was the one and that they were going to be in my life forever. His daughter got along great with my niece and nephew , who now miss her terribly. My parents and i spoiled her for Christmas and my whole family loved them. It's so heartbreaking. I also do hope he finds someone who will have a big heart, as big as mine (not trying to toot my own horn) and that will make him happy. He always told me he was happy with me so this sudden shut down is very confusing like you said. I dont think I will ever be able to love and trust anyone the way I did him. This break up unfortunately only reinforced my already intense fear of abandonment my ex caused me to have.
I understand how you feel that you won’t be able to love and trust anyone the way you did him. I have thousands of messages from my ex about how she had never loved anyone in the way she did me, how she would get on her knees and thank god every day for me, how should would go through everything she had been through again to find me, how much our values were the same etc etc. I opened up my heart very wide to her and her daughter. I reassured, comforted her, listened to her stresses. Then boom out of nowhere I’m some sort of threat to her existence. But there’s no hope of communicating with her. I am not the sort of person who races off after a relationship to find a replacement. I had been out of relationships for years. I was serious about my commitment. With what we had said to each other I genuinely thought if there was an issue we would sit down and talk about it. Throwing away a relationship where someone has grown close to a child and where there was no arguments, disagreements or differences in values or wishes for each other and where we were very loving to each other is really weird. Could both go many years before finding a connection anything like what we had. I will be damned though in being disrespected about my intentions. Wanting to be a consistent and positive presence in the life of a little girl who lost her father came from a place of love. One of my colleagues said to me yesterday “it’s not like you needed daughter”. He went on to explain that what me meant is that he knew that in being with my partner I was also accepting that her daughter was important and that I was wanting to “build a family with them both”. For me building a relationship with my ex was building a relationship with them both. When my ex had said she was racing around trying to get her daughter from school and also trying to get work done I had said in time to come I hoped that I would be able to help her with those things - to pick up the little one from school. Accepting that the relationship just wasnt about me and her. Her response was thank you lovely that means so much. That’s the thing I will never understand. How that intention could be twisted in the end. I guess she has to find some reason in her mind to set aside what she said about what I meant to her. But it’s incredibly disrespectful.