Starting no contact fresh

Hi guys. I just recently found this site, its been pretty therapeutic for me in such a rough time.

We were together for 6 months and its no exaggeration to say those were the best 6 months of my life by far. Our relationship was almost perfect, we were always honest and open with each other, I felt like I could share anything with her and she’d be there to listen. Not to say there weren’t any bumps along the way but I would say that everything was really great. It might have been a little early but we had both come to the conclusion that we would be happy spending the rest of our lives together (she brought it up not me). Things were like that until the last month or so.

She had always been stressed with her job (hours weren’t bad but the nature of it really took a toll on her) and sometimes that stress would leak into our relationship a bit and she’d get kinda grumpy and short with me. I won’t lie and say it didn’t irritate me but I always understood that it was never anything big or something she was doing to hurt me. Towards the last month though she started having some other problems in her life (completely out of either of our control) and this grumpiness started happening more frequently. It got to the point where she’d be upset and snippy with me even after not seeing her for a few days.

Maybe I reacted in the wrong way to this but, my reaction was to try to spend more time with her to try to keep us feeling close. Now obviously this didn’t work or else I wouldn’t be here. It pretty much had the opposite effect as she told me to give her more space and not smother her. I did exactly what she asked because I wanted everything to be great.

It got to the point though that I just didn’t feel very connected to her anymore and she was so stressed that she would cry all the time over little stuff and it would break my heart. I wanted so badly to just lift all these problems off her and fix everything, but I couldn’t.

So ~3ish weeks ago she came over with all my stuff and said she want’s to break up. She gave me a nice hand written note telling me how great I was and how none of this was my fault. She just didn’t feel like she had the emotional energy for a relationship right now with everything going on.

Obviously this kinda destroyed me because I felt like I just lost my future. I texted her (this was before I made it here) and got to talk to her for a few minutes in person. It was a nice conversation where I just let her know that I was there and even if we’re not together I still care about her and would be there for her if she needs it. She gave me a hug and I left her there.

I’ve talked to her a couple times since then, she initiated contact most of the time but she kinda got angry when I asked about how things were going because she didn’t want to talk about it. After that I left a note and some snacks letting her know I was thinking about her ect. That was over a week ago now because I really did try to avoid contacting her other than that initial post breakup conversation we had.

So I want to follow the steps here now to maximize my chances of things working out but I don’t know how long the no contact should continue. Contact has been really minimal and I haven’t talked to her in over a week as hard as that is (I miss her soooooo much haha). I want to avoid being needy but I also don’t want to leave her hanging in such a rough time in her life. How much longer should I wait? Any input from you guys would be great!