Thanks for reading,

I have never posted on a forum like this before, never been in this situation before, but just a quick look round shows me I'm not alone. I'd appreciate any opinions, advice, tips or ideas that anyone has that may help me.
It is a week today since my beloved girlfriend just abandoned our relationship saying that she still loved me but no longer wanted her life with me. We have been together for 5 years. I feel completely lost and empty, not lonely, actually empty, like all of the feelings have been drained from my body. I feel a physical pain in my stomach that I can't really describe, I miss her and cannot seem to stop thinking about her even for a few minutes. I use sleeping tablets and drink just to help me sleep, which I know is not good but it's the only thing that works right now. I have thoughts of taking enough tablets so that I don't wake up and am no longer in pain.

A bit of background for you; We are both in our 40's both been married before and met in the summer of 07. We both felt an immediate connection and fell quickly in love. After a year we moved in together and were very happy. We hit a few problems when I lost my job and money was tight. After a few months of this she left briefly but we got back together within a few weeks and things have been steady for us since. Both have great jobs, no money worries. She has always been very tactile and affectionate and often talked of how happy she was. We had even talked about getting married.

In February this year she started having counselling following a car accident she had a few years ago. The counselling brought out things about her childhood, such as her mum being violent to her and she found this very difficult.
Almost immediately she started becoming withdrawn and less affectionate and spending more time with her friends and less together. She said she was okay just needed time to process all the things from her counselling. So I didn't push it. As time went on she started to withdraw from me more and more to the point there was nothing left. When I tried to talk to her she would shut down. I asked her if we could get some counselling for us but she refused. She started spending more and more time with her friends, filling up every spare moment and not making any time for us. She would stay out late and get drunk and then when she was at home was either too tired from work or recovering from a hangover.
I told her that we needed time together and to talk. She said she would make time but didn't.

Last week she came home from work and said that she loved me but no longer wanted her life with me. She apologised for not handling things well and said that she wasn't happy about the things she was saying to me and doing to me which were not her usual behaviour but could not give any more to us and just wanted to do what she wants when she wants.

She then left and I haven't heard anything from her since.

I'm really struggling to get my head around this. Please can anyone help?

Is she still in counseling, or has she given that up too?

Is she still in counseling, or has she given that up too?

She's still in counselling

Counseling has opened up emotional holes that she was unaware of or had ignored or had filled with various pleasurable things and with lots of "noise" so she doesn't hear her soul crying out for help. You were probably one of those things. Now reopening the emotional holes has caused her to seek new ways to fill them up, so this time she has chosen the fillers and noise of partying and friends. My hope is that, as counseling progresses, she will find more constructive ways to deal with those emotional holes--not to temporarily fill them up so she doesn't have to think about them, but to permanently stitch them closed and allow them to heal.

This may take a long time, and there's no guarantee she will return to you once she has begun to heal. She may consider you part of her dysfunctional history. You too must begin to heal and to move forward without her. Perhaps now's the time to find your own counselor and sit down for a few sessions in order to get your own emotional holes stitched up.

I agree with Wondergirl
Good advice

Its going to take a while to adjust and accept the changes you have been through as they were sudden, and drastic. Pills and drinking are poor substitutes for the guidance you really need. You trade one misery for another.

A check up and a not isolating yourself with your misery is my suggestions to be properly taken care of and friends around you. You cannot wallow in those feelings and be lost, but vent and channel them so you get through this as you got through your divorce.

Won't be so easy though, It's a helluva challenge, but in time you will put it together and the healing process will begin. Trust me, you do have to rise to meet this challenge, and you may not succeed at first, and maybe it will be a while, but hang in there for yourself.

You will recover, and rebuild. This isn't the first time you have had to.