**CW: Discussions of Intrusive Thoughts, Breakups.**

I was just curious, I ended a relationship of 2 years around 6 months ago. A month before we broke up, I was consumed with self doubt and intrusive thoughts about "do I really love her? What if she's not the one?". I genuinely didn't know if I was still in love because I had no idea that you aren't supposed to have that burning love in your chest 24/7. It was horrible, to have doubts like that about someone you **know** you love, but couldn't understand at the time. 

I had asked her for space in the relationship. By space, I didn't want to see other people but I needed physical distance, time away. She had fallen victim to the BPD "favourite person" situation, I had essentially fallen out of contact with most of my friends and depended on her for all the social interaction and emotional needs. It wasn't fair on her. I went between this feeling of needing space apart (we had seen each other every day for over a year and a half as we lived together and spent most of covid together) but also feeling completely lost without her. 

Recently, she contacted me and asked if I had needed space because I wanted to see other people at the time. She didn't get that I meant physical space, almost to kind of catch my breath and reestablish my old friendships i'd let fall away. I had tried to communicate this to her at the time but she believed it was a polite way of saying I wanted to shop around. Yes, I  looked at other women. No, I had no intention of cheating (I wanted to marry this girl).

Did anyone else experience this feeling? I never wanted to see anyone else. I literally just meant I needed a couple of weeks of physical distance for both our sakes and to figure out what was going on (I was undiagnosed at the time). Is this something out of the ordinary?