Hi everyone, I’ll try to keep this short. My ex and I had been dating for 7 months. We broke up about a month ago. She’s lied to me many times and I’ve always forgiven her. She’s done many abusive things to me and has admitted that she purposely would do things or say things that she knows would hurt me so that I’d leave her or to prove that I really do care if she gets a reaction. I’d always been patient and forgiving. I’d always reassure her and remind her that I’m not leaving. I pushed her to get help. She finally saw a therapist, got diagnosed, and only got put on antidepressants for now until she sees a psychiatrist. Things got better for some time, but she later said therapy was stupid and stopped going, she said her meds weren’t working much, and she started to get very snappy and mean again which were always followed by apologies and tears within hours. I couldn’t take the ups and downs anymore as I do have my own things going on. She started to say that she feels that she is too toxic for me and should sometimes just leave to stop hurting me. She has said that I’m the only person who has ever truly loved her and cared for her, as all her exes just called her crazy and left. She said that she knows if we break up, she feels in her heart that we’ll end up together years from now when we’ve matured and we aren’t both emotionally unstable and that she’s never felt that way about anyone she’s dated (even though she keeps them around as validation that they still like her). Well... she wouldn’t let me break up with her until she finally broke up with me a few weeks after this. She said it’s too much on her mental health to be fixing all the damage she’s caused and she can’t keep hurting me because it also makes her feel worse. She said we need to grow as individuals and come back together as friends, and hopefully as more if chemistry is still there, but to not hold onto that so we can truly be ourselves. She called me a day after we broke up crying and saying she doesn’t want to do this, but we need to and that it’ll be amazing if we end up together and really know we were meant to be. She said she still loves me and is so lucky to have had someone like me and now she can’t date anyone who doesn’t treat her like royalty like I did etc... but soon after the breakup I saw her go back into her old ways of “adrenaline chasing” and not getting better at all (drugs, using people, etc). I know I’ve done all that I could to help her but I still have that hope that we will end up together.

My question is: how do I let this hope go? It’s not in my nature to hate her or resent her so I don’t know how to let go of her. I can’t hate someone who is hurting and projecting; it had nothing to do with me.  I have separated myself from thinking it’s about me. It’s just so sad because I believe that she really loves me and tried to get better, but the breakup was a situation of “if you love someone let them go, if they come back it’s meant to be.” I know she said she wants me to live my life, experience things and be happy, but she’s on my mind everyday. I know I need to love myself and have boundaries of honesty and stuff, but I’m still holding onto the fact that she would lie out of fear that I’d leave etc and I still see the good in her. I just can’t get it out of my head that we will eventually be together and I know that’ll affect any relationship I have in the future and affect us being friends if that ends up happening.