it's been a year since we last spoke on decent terms, and a year and a half since we split up. I tried to go no contact but we work in the same building so I see her quite often. I'm sad to report that I broke no-contact a few times when I missed the relationship, and as you can imagine it did not go very well. She is still mad at me for the way I ended the relationship, and for my part I behaved badly because I needed to blow off some anger that built up during the relationship.

Even though I'm the one who ended it, I didn't really want it to end, but I couldn't see any other way. She was surrounding herself with other guys, being far too flirtatious, and in one case, going so far as to hang out after school with a guy she had exchanged sexual messages with before we began dating. She did this daily for several months without once mentioning his name, or telling me who she was with. It was incredibly disrespectful to the relationship, and what's more, it was fairly embarrassing since she was openly flirting with him in a way that others could witness. Coupling that with her temperament and I was at a total loss what to do. She would get mad at the slightest thing, like if I rubbed her hips when I embraced her for a hug, but it was a purely spontaneous form of affection that I was unaware of, and she would bite my head off for it. It always bothered me that she was so upset by that. It was an expression of love, and she was asking me to stop. You can imagine what I was thinking. I thought she had something going with that other guy. I would say that generally she wasn't very affectionate though, and aside from physical intimacy there was really sparse emotional intimacy between us. At the time I knew very little of bipolar and took these things at face value, i.e. to mean she didn't want to be in a relationship. I wondered often why she didn't end it with me if she was so unhappy. I felt everyday I was with her that she would probably end it tomorrow or the next day. She always seemed to have another guy around, and she always seemed to save her best for him. In retrospect, perhaps it wasn't as bad as I thought, but I felt like I had to end it or she would just escalate the negative feedback to even higher levels until I "took a hint." So I broke up with her under the auspice that she wanted me to.

After breaking up it became clear that she didn't really want to breakup, but I didn't know how to broach the issues we were having. Truth be told, if she had just opened up and told me about her day, talked about her feelings, I'm sure I would have stayed, but she closed too much of herself off, it seemed, and I lost the ability to sympathize, and, after that incident above I began to interpret everything in the most negative light.

Anyways, I loved her, and it was painful to leave, and after that I had to start a big project that has left me no room for a social life, so she was the last person I was seriously involved with, hence why I still come here. I guess I'm looking for context, either a sign that I did the right thing, or a sign it was a clear mistake and I should try to win her back. Mostly, I get mixed messages from this site. I know now I was too harsh in how I interpreted things, and I'm more sympathetic, but at the same time it seems impossible now to go back knowing at some point I'd have to talk to her about being more open with me, and less open around other guys. Not exactly the kind of conversation to win someone over with :/