This is how I view things between us.

Last summer I became too absorbed by work. Affected many things including relationship. I was stressed, I stressed her out. She didn’t see end in sight. She broke up with me.

I got my life together in efforts to win her back. Got job, apartment, made efforts to reduce stress in life. Living a more normal life. Tossed away ambitions for more that made me so absorbed/stressed. Wanted to show her that that’s what I wanted. Because it is. I want that four bedroom with kids in a cozy house life. I don’t want whatever I thought was at the end of that path I was pursuing. Money. Success. Status. Fame. The times I had with her were the most real thing I’ve ever had in my life. We used to play this game where we would compliment each other back and forth. We used to play this game where we would list the best moment we had that month. It would always be a moment with her. And it would always be something unintentional, unplanned, a nice, cute, spontaneous moment.

Ah, but now, things are different. She’s experienced what it’s like to be rejected by me, not explicitly, but implicitly, and she’s afraid that it will happen again. Things are good now, but then again, so were they a whlle back. And look where that ended up. She doesn’t trust that I’m a guy that can be completely devoted to her. At least not now. Because she needs to see that I’m different. That I’ve changed. Because if nothings changed, she can’t be with that person. She can’t be with a guy that loves what he does more that his significant other. Who in their right mind would value work above the love of their life? Someone cold blooded, not worthy of that person to begin with.

And so, she’s unsure. She wants things to be different. Because things were good, she feels it too. How those two years flew by. She made a lot of sacrifices to accommodate him and his mildly obsessive behavior, but it became too much. She had to draw a line. At some point she was giving up too much, and it wasn’t her.

So where does this put him? He knows all of this, he’s writing it out right now. But he’s in the hot seat. He feels like he needs to prove to her that things are different. He likes to think that they are, but of course she needs to know for sure before she jumps into anything again. Because if things aren’t different, she’s the fool who fell for the same broken man twice.

She wants him to be happy, to not need to strive towards anything. To learn to be content with his current life. Because that’s the only way he can have a meaningful long term relationship. That’s why things didn’t work out - no matter how things were between them, he wanted more. Always striving. Always trying to make life different for himself.