I'm male 43. Ex is 43 F.
I've just left her after 15 months. She's now accusing me of being a narcissist and controlling, but having been physically assaulted and threatened before I left and having put up with her retroactive jealousy, I'm not sure that is true.
To cut a very long story short, my gf suffered with jealousy over my ex throughout our relationship. Despite me telling her I loved her and that one day we would get married, she never settled. She'd get angry and jealous about even the slightest interaction with my ex who I have three children with. She went through my watch etc.
I kept saying even though i wanted a future with her, the arguments needed to stop but they never did. Even seeing friends was becoming a source of arguments. Eventually I gave her an ultimatum. Accept my friends and my ex or we're going to fail.
She accused me of being controlling as I was forcing her to change her behaviour in order to get what she wanted (marriage). She also said I'd told her all I cared about was my ex and my friends and not her. That's not what I meant at all. I always maintained I wanted at least a couple of years of living together before we got married, as I rushed into the last one and it failed.
Anyway, when I finally said no more talk of marriage and future plans until we fixed the jealousy issue, she turned on me. Accused me of leading her on. Arguments intensified. She kept packing my bags.
She had self harmed before while with me, but this time she punched herself in the face and took a picture of it. Then said she would go to the police and say I did it. She also threatened to poison the relationship with my ex so she would stop me seeing my kids. I started recording our arguments as I was terrified. She threatened to kill herself.
I sent her a message saying the suicide threats and self harm needed to stop, that I'm not qualified to treat mental health issues but I would support her, and that her jealousy was killing our relationship. She phoned me at work and said she hoped me and my "little rats" died in a car crash and that my fat c**t of a mum dies of a heart attack. My mum had warned her that I would leave if we kept arguing and she took that badly and resented her for it. In response to my message, she threatened to drive to my work with all my things and create a scene.
To be honest, after the threats were made I checked out and was purely thinking about self preservation. At that point, I admit i was leading her on by saying we could fix things, but inwardly I was planning my escape.
She hit me several times and smashed the house up when I left. Tried to take an overdose, went for the knives to cut herself, and said she'd ruin me if I left.
Now she's messaging me as if I caused this mental breakdown. That I led her on about marriage and it was all lies and mind games. That I'm a narcissist and faked the promises. That i was using her and I've destroyed her family. I was just trying to stop her being jealous and reassuring her about future plans and marriage, but now I'm questioning whether I brought this on myself.
She was lovely and very kind to me and my children outside of the arguing about my ex. The threats only started when I tried to temporarily pull the plug on marriage and future plans until our issues were resolved.
Have I done this? I really don't know if it was fair to commit to future plans and withdraw them because i didn't like her jealousy.