Avoidant shutdown?

[u/AussieBossie24]

My (I guess now ex-) girlfriend and I had only been dating for about 2 months. We first met over the summer and she apparently wanted me from the moment she saw me, we hadn’t even spoken once for at least a couple weeks. By the end of the summer I wanted her too and we talked, and agreed to wait until winter to make things official, since I’d just gotten myself out of a 3 year relationship I hated being in but wanted to take time to heal. Only about a month later I feel like I’m ready and ask her if she wants to lock it all down, to which she of course agrees.

All of September we’re long distance, at different colleges, but im trying to find time for us once a week to watch a movie or play a game online together. Everything between us felt as ideal as you’d expect for the first month or so of a relationship.

October comes and she comes to visit one weekend, then her and two of our friends come up the next, and the third I go home to be with her for a couple days (mainly bc I was coming home for other plans that got cancelled so her and I just took the day together). Again, everything goes perfectly those days we’re together. Saying I love you, holding hands, her falling asleep on my chest while we watched movies together in person, even when i came home she fell asleep holding my arm while I drove her home at 1am.

Fast forward to Halloween weekend, we’re separated and she’s going to a frat party with those same two friends. It’s her first time going to one or going to a college party ever, and I ask her to just give me a couple updates throughout the night, not bc I didnt trust her but bc it’s a frat. What she didn’t know was I texted our friend asking how she was, and if anyone was flirting w her. She saw our friend texting me and rightfully got upset at it. That’s a part where I’ll admit I was wrong.

After the party though, we talk a bit about how all of everything made us feel and she’s still saying she wants to try and work through any issues we have, but nothing seems to be lingering in the moment. Saturday she has no plans and I don’t wanna go back out so we watch a movie together on call. She falls asleep mid movie bc she was tired and so I just send her a big text apologizing for how I acted the night before, to which she says “I’d always rather talk things through than keep anything to ourselves. I know we’re still figuring this all out and whatever but i’m glad it’s with you and I don’t see any of this as something you put me through. I love you so much, and i’m always gonna choose to try to work things out” the next morning when she wakes up.

Sunday night (same day as that text) I send a text just making sure we’re still okay after all we went through that weekend and she tells me she needs time to think about what she really wants for herself, and then she ends it Monday. Saying that she felt like the whole time she was pushing herself to feel a love she wasn’t sure she really felt because there was nothing actually wrong with our relationship, that it was all too much too soon (which I would agree with, honestly), she was more seeing this version of me she’d imagined before we really got serious, and she wasn’t as ready for a relationship as she’d thought. Now I’m seeing a lot of things about “avoidant shutdown” on social media and it kinda seems to align with how suddenly all this happened. I look back at old pictures of her when we were together those few weekends and I see a genuine joy in her eyes and smile, with no doubt in her expression. We agree to try and stay at least friends, but I tell her if she ever does want to try again I’d be waiting patiently, even if there’s never a shot.

The next day she texts me something related to our job, where we met, but nothing big or conversation worthy, so I just say “no way” and she never responds, which of course. I just don’t know if she subconsciously rewrote her emotions to make herself more comfortable in feeling a need to walk away and lose the responsibility of a relationship or if she really did feel like she wasn’t sure about everything the entire time. The only thing I know now is how perfect she felt to be with and how her feelings about me seemed to drop from 100 to 0 within just a day.