Girlfriend wants a break out of the blue.
Hi, I've never asked advice like this before on a forum but I don't have anyone to talk to about it right now. This is a little long but I want to include all the details which have made me so confused. My girlfriend and I have been dating for almost two years. Im almost 22 and she's almost 21. We've had some rough patches but not in over 6 months. We spend anywhere from 1-4 nights a week together and she gets upset if I don't call her every night at least for a few minutes and she texts me all the time. We used to fight a lot but don't much anymore. Things are a little difficult because of my schedule and hers, but we found a system that seems to work. I work 3rd shift and go to school 3 evenings a week (Sr. in College). She doesn't go to school and works full time 1st and 2nd shift on an inconsistent schedule. About 4 months ago she had an accident and injured her back and was out of work the whole time. She had to stay in bed rest for 2 of those months during which I helped a lot in taking care of her and helping her recuperate. Things seemed to be better than ever those 4 months she was out of work and we were spending more time together. Well her attitude towards me changed the very same week she started working again. The was in a bad mood everyday after work and after a short time of hearing the same complaints over and over I nicely suggested she look for a job that she enjoys more pointing out my observations about her mood and attitude change since returning. This made me the enemy so I tried my best not to bring it up anymore and let her figure it out on her own. This was about 3 weeks ago. We had a rough Valentines last week. She was stuck at work till 9pm and had a bad day which she took out on me, but we made up quickly after she got off with her apologizing for taking it out on me and telling me she felt better being able to see me and we had a great weekend after that(apologizing I thought so). She often says seeing me makes everything better and her mood does generally come up quickly upon seeing me. Which brings me to the all of a sudden 'break'. I called her after school while I was getting ready for work 2 days after our last get together to say hey as she always wants me to. The conversation quickly plummeted into confusion on my part. She said that she knows I don't believe in breaks, but she really needs some time to herself. At first I thought she was joking but quickly realized that the nightmare was real. She said things are moving to quickly and that she's too young to be in 'this type of relationship.' I didn't think ours was out of the ordinary. It's not like I purposed or anything or even talked about marriage very much outside of the hypothetical which is bound to come up every now and then. She said she needs time to herself to figure out what she wants to do with her life. She said that people at her work told her that she needed to "seed her wild oats" while she was still young. My mind of course locked onto "wild" and I accused her of wanting to sleep around. She said she didn't want to sleep around but did wonder if there was anyone else out there. She said she wanted to see what was out there before she deciding if she wants to be with me. That hurt A LOT. If things were going bad I could see her having this attitude but as far as I could tell they appeared to be great. She said she started thinking about this "a few days ago." She also said things like I deserved better than her which I felt was complete BS in order to soften the blow. I was resistant, but decided to give her her month alone she is asking for. She said no promises that she was coming back. I feel like despite how great things were and how much I love her that she is using the break to breakup with out confrontation. She did it over the phone couldn't even do it to my face. She says she loves me and cares about me very much and that I didn't do anything wrong that this is about her space and nothing I did. I don't know how much stock to put in that. She seemed sincere. I've been dumped from long term relationships before but I've never taken it this hard. I really do love her and I thought she really loved me. Am I wrong in thinking there's no hope?
BTW the only thing I'm contacting her about is to get back some of my possessions from her place. I told her what they were and said she could leave them on my doorstep if she preferred.