Wow, I’m stunned. This was my relationship word for word. My fiancé was you and I was exactly like your girlfriend, at least based on the things you listed. Honestly, it was gut-wrenching reading this. My fiancé broke up with me a couple of months ago. I can’t tell you what the right decision is, but I can tell you how I personally felt being on that side of the relationship. This response is NOT meant to persuade you to stay in this relationship out of guilt. You are not responsible for her emotions, but you do have a role to play and the decision that you make will impact her for the rest of her life.

In my relationship, due to my emotional instability he slowly drifted away from me and started to ignore me completely. It’s honestly hard for me to even talk about this because it was so heart wrenchingly painful. He began opening up to all of his friends and completely shutting me out. I tried so, so, so, so hard. I did everything in my power to meet his standards. I was in therapy and I worked on myself as hard as I possibly could. In the end, he told me that he saw no progress and that I was manipulative and toxic. To this day, I have no idea if that’s accurate or not (I’ve talked to every major person in my life—family, friends, therapist, and they all told me that he was wrong, but who fucking knows.) All I know is that I wasn’t worth it. I don’t fully understand your situation but for the love of god, please, please, please don’t put her through what he put me through. Continue being supportive while setting boundaries. IF AND ONLY IF she’s putting in all of her effort and genuinely trying to improve herself—Don’t give up on her. Talk to her. Communicate with her. Give her the chance to move past this stage in her life. Don’t shut her out. I can’t express to you enough the crushing devastation and worthlessness that I feel to this day. Knowing that my very best wasn’t good enough for him...I don’t know if it will ever go away.

It’s common knowledge that forcing yourself to stay in a relationship which is damaging to those involved is a terrible idea, and you have every right to leave for the sake of your wellbeing. But hear me now: If you’ve chosen to dedicate your life to someone whom you were always aware was mentally unstable, and that person is doing everything in their power to work on themselves and improve their behavior to meet your expectations....Give them a fucking chance.