Girlfriend changed personality - not recognizable

[SocialButterfly123]

I would like to tell my story of a long distance relationship as there really is a lot unpack. There is a good chance it's still ongoing so I will probably update it over the course of the next days/weeks. Nonetheless, I would like to hear people's thoughts/opinions on this, in particular to my thoughts/takeaways. 

Chain of events:

In early April my girlfriend wrote me an email telling me about some fundamental flaws I had. She also said she didn't have sufficient time to go over them because she is busy. Her tone was so hostile that I first didn't believe it's her and told her that. Next day however, we had a very short chat conversation. In it, she conveys basically two things: First, I am a good person and things very well of our relationship, second she doesn't want a relationship now. To me this seemed understandable, I truly admired her, accepted her decision and would be very happy to simply part as trusted friends.

After that we didn't text another. However, after 6 weeks I thought it sensible to simply inquire how she is doing since our breakup seemed cordial. No reply. After another few weeks I hit a low point in life and simply sought out advice/help from people close to me, including her. I texted her twice and got soon a reply: I should stop contacting her. I clarified that I sought her advice because she always had something smart to say. Furthermore, I said that she seems to be a completely different person. 

Then the conversation quickly escalated:

I told her that her actions can lead some people into committing suicide as not everyone could deal with these situations, in particular, if they seem already to be asking for help. I reminded her that I have had these thoughts in the past and that, she knew about my depression and that it had been ongoing for like 15 years in on/off phases. 

2nd, people often result to forms of revenge and named two ways as they had happened in the past. So none of her actions made sense, in particular as someone pursuing a career in psychological research should know all these things. I said: I can't promise her that I won't do any of that, but won't do any of that because I admired/respected her. I also mentioned how breakups should usually go, namely by talking it out.

I made it pretty clear though, that I still think very highly of her - at least of the girl I once knew and won't do anything to hurt/harm her. I explained her recent words/actions completely baffle me.

After that she advised me taking psychological counseling. Later she asked me rhetorically if she should report me to the police for harassment.

My thoughts and potential takeaways:

• I don't matter to her one bit as she is now. She is a completely different person now. She seemed very aggressive/hostile for no apparent reason - two days before our breakup in April she still seemed to have her old personality and seemed to sincerely love me. 
• If someone breaks up with me, I should be calm. Not sure, if this is really realisable, but this might have simplified things. For example, I wouldn't have spend so much energy trying to talk sense into her. She clearly didn't seem to care. This includes no blaming of the other person. 
• NO MENTIONING OF HEAVY TOPICS. Even if I say that I won't do her any harm, because I still cherish/like her old personality, talking about suicide/revenge is bad. Even, if I had sincere intentions, intentions don't matter if they cannot be conveyed/understood as they are. 
• I am so green. I literary have no relationship experience. Due to my depression I had avoided any kind of close/intimate contact simply because I was not sure how I would react if things go south. This really seems to bite me now.
• I am kinda proud of myself as things could have gone so much worse. At least in my point of view, I matured a lot dealing with emotional, hard situations. Having good takeaways is important, but this one seems relatively weak..  at least this prevents me from engaging her any further. 
• I do am uncertain regarding her threat of reporting me to the police. I doubt that anything I told her would amount to an offence. But often, it's less a matter of truth but perception. If she feels harassed by me, then that is a fact/reality. There is a good chance she reported me to the police. 
  On the same token do her actions qualify for something? I do feel scared/frightened by her as she is obviously very hostile. Somehow though I can deal with it relatively well maybe because I have already had my fair share of bad experiences in the past and always came out well. 
• I won't engage in any kind of romantic relationship for a long long time. For that to happen, a lot of things had to be right.
• People can change without apparent reason and there is no real good response to that other than accepting reality, even if it hurts a lot. 

[Wiseman2]

30 minutes ago, Chrysalis19 said:

 a long distance relationship as there really is a lot unpack. 

I told her that her actions can lead some people into committing suicide as not everyone could deal with these situations, 

After that she advised me taking psychological counseling. Later she asked me rhetorically if she should report me to the police for harassment.

Have you met in person? How far apart are you and how often do you see each other? How long have you been talking/seeing each other?

How old is she? Do you both work, go to school? 

Unfortunately if she's asking you not to contact her, it's best to let go.

[SocialButterfly123]

We have met 5 times. Once for 1 day, the other 4 times always 2-3 days. We live about 200km apart. Apart from that we talked via Zoom 1-2 a week for about 1-3hours depending on how busy she is. 
She is 33, doing her PhD at uni, I am 30 doing my Master, but have been working part time the past 8 years.

Apart from that: I totally agree, engaging her would be frightening as she is now.

[Wiseman2]

10 minutes ago, Chrysalis19 said:

We have met 5 times. Once for 1 day, the other 4 times always 2-3 days. We live about 200km apart. 

How did you meet? Was it always a distance situation? What is the timeframe you've been talking if you have only seen each other 5 times?

[SocialButterfly123]

We met on a dating platform end of October last year, got together on Christmas eve at her place. So we met every month once, but talked all other weekends, she didn't have more time. Unfortunately, has always been a distance situation. I planned moving to her city after graduation though, that would be in a couple of months. She still needs a couple of years.

[basil67]

You tried to guilt trip her by mentioning suicide?  That is seriously messed up.  And It easily explains her hostility.  Her wanting to call the police would have likely been because she wants them to make a wellness check because of your suicide threat.  This is the recommended advise for someone in her situation. 

Best to leave her alone and contact a therapist...and be honest about what happened here

Edited July 1, 2023 by basil67

[SocialButterfly123]

1 hour ago, basil67 said:

You tried to guilt trip her by mentioning suicide?  That is seriously messed up.  And It easily explains her hostility.  Her wanting to call the police would have likely been because she wants them to make a wellness check because of your suicide threat.  This is the recommended advise for someone in her situation. 

Best to leave her alone and contact a therapist...and be honest about what happened here

Seems like I did a poor job summarising my mail..
But I guess this is a matter of perception isn't it? I said her actions are truly messed up and can cause serious harm to others and herself. Fortunately, I am smart enough/benevolent to do nothing like that. I made explicitly clearly I won't do anything that hurts her including myself: Because I still value her happiness over my own. But yes, context is king. 
I also went to the police just now, because she added another 2 threats. They basically agreed with my thoughts, my mail was not smart, but most likely nothing is going to happen. I can take this as a lesson however showing how easy things can blow through the roof.. 

I came to her because I wanted her advice, not to see how hostile she has become.

I am deeply disappointed because either the relationship and everything was a total lie or she really fundamentally changed as a person. There were dozens of situations where she could have done the right thing as probably most people would do and she chose not to do that. Seeing that from a person you once put in exceptional faith/trust is just sad.

Edited July 1, 2023 by Chrysalis19

[SocialButterfly123]

1 hour ago, basil67 said:

You tried to guilt trip her by mentioning suicide?  That is seriously messed up.  And It easily explains her hostility.  Her wanting to call the police would have likely been because she wants them to make a wellness check because of your suicide threat.  This is the recommended advise for someone in her situation. 

Best to leave her alone and contact a therapist...and be honest about what happened here

I actually considered contacting the police to do a wellness check on her, but I think keeping as much distance as possible is the right choice, I agree. It would also be nice, if you did not put words into my mouth.

If I just leave things as they are, she should calm down by herself.. eventually. It's sad how things turned out, how much a person can change. But I guess that's life.

Edited July 1, 2023 by Chrysalis19

[ShyViolet]

3 hours ago, Chrysalis19 said:

I told her that her actions can lead some people into committing suicide as not everyone could deal with these situations, in particular, if they seem already to be asking for help. I reminded her that I have had these thoughts in the past and that, she knew about my depression and that it had been ongoing for like 15 years in on/off phases. 

2nd, people often result to forms of revenge and named two ways as they had happened in the past. So none of her actions made sense, in particular as someone pursuing a career in psychological research should know all these things. I said: I can't promise her that I won't do any of that, but won't do any of that because I admired/respected her. 

It is never okay to threaten or manipulate someone in the ways you did above, by talking about suicide or "revenge."  What you did is seriously not okay.  She would be smart to immediately block you after this and be done with you.

 

10 minutes ago, Chrysalis19 said:

I actually considered contacting the police to do a wellness check on her, but I think keeping as much distance as possible is the right choice, I agree.  

What on earth?  This is harassment.  You need to leave her alone and get some professional help.

[SocialButterfly123]

26 minutes ago, ShyViolet said:

It is never okay to threaten or manipulate someone in the ways you did above, by talking about suicide or "revenge."  What you did is seriously not okay.  She would be smart to immediately block you after this and be done with you.

 

What on earth?  This is harassment.  You need to leave her alone and get some professional help.

So, you are telling me I did the right thing staying away from her, not replying to any of her threats? Thanks for agreeing with me, but that could be said in a much nicer way. Now only she has to her job and not write threatening mails and we are good.

[ExpatInItaly]

1 hour ago, Chrysalis19 said:

I said her actions are truly messed up and can cause serious harm to others and herself. Fortunately, I am smart enough/benevolent to do nothing like that. I made explicitly clearly I won't do anything that hurts her including myself: Because I still value her happiness over my own. But yes, context is king. 

No. There is zero context in which it is acceptable to emotionally blackmail or threaten someone. And that is exactly what you tried to do. She isn't the one whose actions are messed up. 

1 hour ago, Chrysalis19 said:

I actually considered contacting the police to do a wellness check on her

What the actual heck? You have absolutely no grounds to do so. She is fine. It's you who is spiralling and needs help, not her.

5 hours ago, Chrysalis19 said:

There is a good chance she reported me to the police. 
On the same token do her actions qualify for something? I do feel scared/frightened by her as she is obviously very hostile.

Nope. Again, you are the one making veiled threats to kill yourself or seek revenge on her.  I too would go to the police with that information. 

Never contact her again, and I would strongly encourage you to seek some counselling. You are not handling this well. 

[ShyViolet]

3 hours ago, Chrysalis19 said:

So, you are telling me I did the right thing staying away from her, not replying to any of her threats? Thanks for agreeing with me, but that could be said in a much nicer way. Now only she has to her job and not write threatening mails and we are good.

Now you're twisting things around and not taking any responsibility for the manipulative, dysfunctional behavior that you engaged in.  It is not okay to make threats in the way that you did.  If you don't at least acknowledge and recognize that what you did was wrong, then you have a serious problem and there's no telling whether you might do such things again.

She made "threats" too?  Okay.  Who cares now?  We are not talking about what she did, we are talking about what you did.  If she supposedly made "threats", then that's all the more reason for you to cut off contact with her and never engage with her again.

If you are leaving her alone now, then great.  Continue leaving her alone.

[Lotsgoingon]

She is not responsible for your depression. Lovers are not responsible for our depression. Lovers can't fix our depression.

You not only guilted her about your depression but you implied that you would kill yourself if she didn't respond in the way you wanted. Look, it's your job to go to get help for your depression--meds, therapy, support groups. That's YOUR job. It is not anyone else's job to fix that. 

You can't be friends with someone who just dumped you. Can't happen (except for .0003 percent of cases). I'm friends with ex lovers, but only after years of break in between dating and becoming friends. If former lovers tried to continue as friends (without a substantial break) neither would move on or if one moved on and dated someone else, the other would be crushed--even though they're not dating. 

She was right to wonder if she should call the police. Your threat to kill yourself was basically a terroristic blackmail. Do this or else! Do this or you'll be responsible if I kill myself. She was right to not back down to that threat.

BTW: she has the right to break up with you for any reason, any time, including for no reason.  And actually it's nice to get an explanation, but she does not owe that to you. And no, she should NOT think of your feelings as she decides whether or not to break up. And that applies to you in the future--you don't hold off on a breakup because the other person feels bad. We're all hurt at some point by romance. We recover, and if you get help for your depression, you will recover as well. Breakups are not deadly. If a person harms themselves because of a breakup that means they were really not functioning well overall. The breakup is not a "cause" for suicide. 

What are you doing about the depression? You need to work on that before you can date and be a consistent dating partner. 

[MsJayne]

7 hours ago, Chrysalis19 said:

Because I still value her happiness over my own.

Why?  You met this person only a handful of times, and chatted a couple of times a week. I don't mean to be horrible, but it sounds as though you tried to make her responsible for your emotional well-being, and that's enough to drain the life out of anyone and make them run from you. I have had someone do this to me and I can tell you this, the moment you realise what they're up to you cannot get away fast enough. It's like having a giant baby to look after, and, just like a baby, they start screaming when you abandon them. 

[Lisa]

Thread locked as per OP's request