Another major issue, despite me talking to her about it numerous times, was her lack of any interest in having a relationship with my 5 year old daughter. She claims she “tried” but my daughter I could tell didn’t like having her around because my GF could be somewhat cold and ambivalent towards her. Basically if I had my daughter on my “days” my GF generally would not ever be with us unless it was very briefly for a lunch or something. This is fine in LTR in the early stages - but after 2.5 years.
I've personal experience on this one, but from the other side. I can tell you it's a red flag. When you decide to enter a LTR with a single parent, you accept the whole package and accept the child fully and whole heartedly from the start, everything else is compromising and settling. I wasn't and at the same time i was somewhat jealous of the attention always going to the child, instead of me, as a partner, to build on our relationship. The child became an obstacle in my mind. Even though it's abit different between the genders, it highlights one issue of being with a single parent - you're never no.1.
But just spending time with children, no matter whose child it is, will increase feelings. In men because of our protective instincts and for women the mother instincts kick in.
2.5 years in and acting like this, it's a huge problem and indicative of medium interest at best.
For me, i started to accept and like the child more and more as time went on just by spending time together, but i never made it 2.5 years.
Then - the relationship always came second. She had her own life and literally felt like everything took priority. She would become detached/distant frequently throughout the relationship (this was the source of some of my posts here about it in 2019). If I told her I thought that things weren’t going well and maybe we should move on she always would then put on a full court press for us to stay together - but this got exhausting and the change in behavior would only last about a week at most. This cycle had been going on for probably a good year and I was really tired. We had actually broken up in May and then for back together in June - so this isn’t even the first time
No genuine desire, feels more like she was settling and didn't want to be alone tbh.
It's only natural to miss someone you've been with for such a long time but trust me, this was for the best. Especially when it comes to your daughter, which is your biggest priority here. There are women out there who will give you what you want and die to get to know your daughter, i promise. As the old maxim goes - only be with high interest women. They will add value to your life.
Regarding the ultimatum; you acted from a place of fear, that's never good but you seem to have identified what happend and how you should have acted.
"sure, take the time you need".. then if she doesn't get back with you in reasonable amount of time, you detach and move on fully (the medium is the message).
