She just left my house again after a big fight (we don't live together even though it's always been something we wanted just because we were too unstable). It didn't get nearly as crazy as in the past, but wasn't good either. She's actually been WAY better lately. It's such a long story, substance abuse, mental illness, addiction, codependency, past trauma and projection, etc etc.
For a little background, I'm 39, she's 10 years younger. We are both recovering addicts, me booze, her heroin. We didn't meet through rehab or anything related to our addictions so it's not one of THOSE relationships fortunately. We've both talked about a future together many times, have admitted to looking at each other as potential life-long partners, which is something we both want and believe in. We've been together for just about 2 years.
I'm for the first time during those 2 years starting to feel we shouldn't be together any more, there's something about me that triggers her and she flips out and can't control her temper no matter how calm and rational I stay. I know, "she's a woman" but this goes beyond the norm, I've had my share of serious relationships and was even married for 7 years at one point.
I've really tried as hard as I can to figure this out, lots of reading, talking to people I feel have more wisdom and experience than myself, staying patient and trying to control my own emotions. I've never in my life felt anything close to the connection we have. I feel like it's the kind of thing people see in the movies and think is bullshit. But I believe it's true. I believe what we have is something most people go their entire lives hoping for but never find.
It's one of those things where there's been so much invested and it's so obvious to everyone around us how much we love each other and how extremely rare our connection is and the level of comfort we have with each other but we just can't seem to figure out how to talk through disagreements or differences in opinion sometimes and it really really sucks. Sometimes she seems like the most compassionate, empathetic, caring person I've ever met and other times she's gets out of control angry and completely unreasonable, to the point where literally anything I say she finds a way to twist around in a way that she can be angry about. Neither of us want to have to end things but it's really starting to seem like we just can't make it work.
She's a fucking amazing girl but has some serious issues that she's still working through. Some of the worst shit you can imagine, just the fact she's still here and fighting for a better life after what she's been through gets all the respect I can give. It's been really hard but I always believed in the potential, I know where her heart is at and we've both been through so much together I'd feel awful leaving at this point. Part of me is afraid she might self destruct and go back to her old ways as well.
Just rambling really. I know some of you will actually have some great insight and advice because there are a lot of genuinely good people in here. The rest of you can fuck off, I'm not in the mood.
TLDR; My gf and I have been together for almost 2 years, got off to a really rough start, love each other dearly and don't want to break up but have a lot of resentments from the past, there's a lot of damage done and we can't stop fighting.
Oh, PS I'm drunk