I didn't know where else to go for advice so, here goes:
On the 11th January of this year, me and my girlfriend were on my laptop when a Tinder notification came up in the corner of the screen. I had looked at previous messages between me and my girlfriend the week before when we'd first started talking because I felt I needed reassurance that everything was going to be ok in our relationship as we'd been going through a rough patch.
My girlfriend saw the notification and thought I'd been looking at other girls. I made it worse by the fact that I lied first and said I hadn't been on it.
A bit of background about myself; I have OCD so checking and reassuring myself is practically second nature.
However, a day after the incident, I went overboard and began obsessing that she was going to finish me and bombarded her with texts and calls - even my mother called her - which I didn't know about -because she'd seen me upset - which made things worse. I have a history of depression which my mother referenced which of course sent my girlfriend into a panic - her ex told her he would kill himself if she broke up with him.
My girlfriend said she felt trapped and some of the things I did reminded her of her ex such as checking our messages, her messages and feeling left out - he emotionally abused her by making her feel guilty for seeing her friends and not wanting to see him all the time. That really hurt me because I told her she'd never have to go through that ever again. But, I checked for my own obsessional mind; I felt I HAD to check or I would lose her...ironic right?
Anyway, she told me she needed space and I tried to oblige. We met up a few days later, but she said things seemed weird and not right. I apologised profusely and told her how I felt about her.
We kept saying we would work on it; we went out on a few dates and when we were out, everything felt like it was us again - even she said the same.
But, she says she now doesn't feel that we can have a future together. She also has had a history of anxiety and now admits she's depressed (was this my fault? - she says it isn't but I haven't exactly helped). We talked about her going to see a university counsellor this week in an attempt to become happy within herself again.
She still says she loves me and cares about me, but that the situation at the time reminded her too much of what went on with her ex - that I made her feel trapped - and her guard immediately came back up. She used to trust me implicitly and now I don't think she can. And, whenever we see each other and sit in her bedroom all night, we literally just go over everything again, look back at all our brilliant memories and just cry.
Whenever I see her she hugs me tightly and kisses me all the time, but over text she seems so cold. She keeps saying she needs space to figure everything out, but I'm scared that we'll lose touch. She keeps dropping subtle hints that we won't be together anymore with things such as "when you move on". I don't want to move on, I love her with all my heart.
My girlfriend also repeatedly says that I cannot do anything and that this is something she needs to work on by herself - she also gets very stressed with uni work. All I've done is try and reassure her that I'm always here for her if she needs me - I went after work tonight just to talk things through again because she had had a really bad day.
I'm really stuck over what to do; I couldn't bear the thought of losing her as she's the best thing that's ever happened to me. I think she fears that things would never be the same. Can anyone help?