Expert: Azure - 8/30/2007

Question
My girlfriend of two and a half years left me five weeks ago. She says I was abusive and has told everyone she knows the same thing, I initially denied this but I guess when you've been told something so many times you start to wonder. We had our fair share of fights and yes I did fire put downs at her, I also pushed her once, I regret all of them. She seems to remember every single one, including when I said her mother was a "dragon" and has been dredging them up everytime we talk. I really loved this girl and thought she was the girl I would marry. I still love her. We bought a house together just over a year ago it has now been sold. It needed renovating and I had almost finished it. We work in the same place, and when we took time off I would work on the house while she would go home to her parents. I was under a lot of pressure to get the work done, from not just her but also her mother. Hence stress levels were high. She constantly set deadlines for the work to be done, and had threatened to leave in one breath but in the same sentence requested new floor coverings for the kitchen. If I went for drinks after work, which she was always invited I would get text messages saying how alone she felt in the relationship. When I got home all hell would break lose because I "had kept her up". She has an issue with food and I did my best to help her, but in the last few months of our relationship I found empty peanut butter jars in her drawers, I have since mentioned that and that is my fault too.
She continually told me I was bad with money, that I had mental health problems, etc etc. Sure when I did crack I was nasty, another of her examples is when she was raging at me at 3am in the morning, I was saying I need to sleep but it wasn't stopping I said something about running her over. She now uses that as an example of me threatening her life. Since she left on July 24, my life has been hell, her mother and her moved all of her stuff out of the house four days later while I was out, we had been invited to a wedding _ she threw the invitations away. The next day the electricity and phone were disconnected. She went home for a week which gave me a break, but on her return she came around to the house five times, one of those times I was in the shower, so she read the messages on my phone and went ballistic saying that I was "playing the victim".
The house was sold a week ago. The following day, August 24, was my birthday, it was a hard day for me but she decided to invite all my workmates out for drinks, I told them it was my birthday and I thought that was cruel. She now says she was only "being nice" and that I was stirring and flew into another rage that saw her cancel my newspaper. She has never invited anyone from work out for drinks before. Some of my colleagues at work no longer speak to me. I can't sleep, I can't eat, I'd take her back tomorrow, but still she says I was emotionally and physically abusive. I pushed her once and I'm deeply ashamed of that, I said some bad things to her, she did the same to me. Am I abusive? If I read all the symptoms of an abuse victim, they are all things she's told me I've done. What can I do? If I am abusive, how do I live with myself?

Answer
let's try to get beyond whether the behavior technically qualifies as abusive; the important thing is you HAVE acted badly, though it doesn't sound like she's been much better; i'm not here to judge, plus, i only have YOUR side of the story..the advice; thought i understand you miss her, it really sounded like a co-dependent arrangement that would continue as conflict even if she came back; your only chance is to show her you're sincere by getting into counseling, and suggesting that it become couples counseling after a period of time...if she sees you're making a REAL effort to shape up, she might reconsider..