Ending a relationship

I've (37M) been in a relationship for 5-6 months with someone (35F) I met on Hinge.

Things have been mostly positive but I've noticed a few issues that have really concerned me and the last couple of weeks have distressingly been filled with doubt.

My partner is recently divorced and the experience of the breakdown of her marriage and the divorce and the perceived expectation from her Catholic upbringing has clearly traumatised her. On more than a few occasions it's occurred to me that maybe she wasn't ready for a new relationship so soon.

I'm not making that assertion for her, it is entirely up to her how quickly she feels capable of moving on. However, it definitely affects me when she talks about being a failure because she isn't in a happy marriage. I've tried to help turn her thoughts around and support her, but I have brought up that it is painful to me that she puts so much emphasis on her last relationship rather than this one.

Her trauma has had other manifestations too. I've been told not to listen to certain songs or say certain names or make certain jokes. I have changed what I say or do to suit her and agree to those compromises but the longer the relationship has lasted the more concerned I've got about what it means for the future. I'm a very empathetic and sympathetic person and I tend to put others happiness before my own, but I'm aware it's a slippery slope to sacrificing my own identity and happiness, having been there before.

A good example of this was a conversation a couple of months ago where I was talking about Jehovah's Witnesses that had called at the door. I described them as "theists" in the same way that I am atheist. My partner however immediately bit back at me that she thought I was being arrogant using that word because she hadn't heard it before and didn't know what it meant and told me not to use it. I was quite hurt that I was being censored and accused of behaving in a way that wasn't intended in something that I hadn't even considered to be an issue.

This behaviour also reoccurred last weekend. I was sent a link to a show she wants to go to next week. I was working on renovating my house but I stopped to read the link. I misread the top of the page where it said London Palladium to believe that was the venue for the show. I replied back saying I would check my holiday entitlement and book it off. She replied back saying she thought it was local, and was clearly irritated saying that we wouldn't go then.

I reread the link and realised she was right. Apologised for misreading it and admitted my mistake but she accused me of gaslighting her. The argument went on for some time. I consider gaslighting to be abusive behaviour and certainly not what I was trying to do. It left a bad taste in my mouth that not only would I flsee this sort of thing in future where honest mistakes seemingly fly wouldn't even be forgiven with acknowledgement and apology but could be accompanied by accusations of abuse.

She late told me that night that her friend had also been putting doubts in her mind about me which hadn't helped.

On top of that our lifestyles don't seem compatible. The worst of this is that I have to work early mornings and she drags out evenings till very late despite my insistence that I need to sleep. I've been very sleep deprived as a result and it's affecting my performance at work and driving in the morning has been hazardous on more than a few occasions.

I do love her, but I don't think the relationship is going to work out. The doubts in my mind are making it hard to see past things and I think have done lasting damage to the relationship.

I realised this week that my reticence to do anything about it has been that I don't want to see her upset regardless of how it makes me feel. I'm still putting her feelings before mine.

The facts is that I got out of an abusive relationship two years ago and it's taken me a long time to recover from it. I can see myself slipping into that again and I'm forcing myself to be mindful and cautious. It fucking sucks though. I know I'm going to upset her and I don't want to.

Edit - Update

Thank you everyone for commenting on this thread. I've been reading every one and the consensus is, as I expected, that I should get out of the relationship before it drags me down.

I went over to her house this morning to talk and end everything. However when I arrived she was in tears and honestly my heart broke and I started myself. We talked for a few hours about all of the things I mentioned above and she wants to change and fix things.

I struggled between hurting her and getting a clean break away and found that face to face I couldn't do it. She is very insistent that she loves me and that she doesn't want things to end. She was pleasing with me to give her chance to put things right.

I didn't have it in me to break her heart. I'm going to give it a chance for the wounds to heal but I don't think I've done the right thing. I think I've been weak.

Maybe things will improve. If they don't then I'll need to find a way to push through my lack of confidence. I know that I'm part of the problem here.

Truth be told I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to see past the doubts I've been having and that it's going to colour my opinion of the rest of the relationship.

Edit 2: Update

Yesterday i ended things.

For both nights at the weekend I slept badly because my now ex kept moving over my side of the bed in her sleep. I opted to move to the spare room both nights after she had woken me up. In the mornings though she was quite irritable with me.

We spent much of yesterday retreading old ground and talking through problems with the relationship. She demanded I wrote a list of all the things I was concerned about so that she could "avoid doing them again" but as you can imagine this was just a tool to talk through so she could try and draw a line under them.

She could not understand that just because we talked about something didn't mean it would go away.

This morning she immediately started the same conversation back up. I didn't want to and I didn't intend for it to end the relationship. She kept saying "it's over isn't it?" And I kept ignoring it and trying not to let the sentence turn into something else.

Eventually she dropped off to sleep and I got up to get dressed and take some paracetamol. I messaged some friends because I felt that I had to get out of there.

She woke up and was angry with me for not being in bed. I wasn't sure what to say and she told me to leave.

When I went to leave she suddenly changed her mind and carried on the conversation and got upset. This happened multiple times. Eventually I did leave and went back to my Mum's.

Since then she has tried to phone me 14 times and has sent about 20 messages most of which have been trying to manipulate me like threatening to do some unnamed something that we will not be able to come back from or making comments that are wrong in am attempt to get me to reply to them.

I still feel bad for hurting her but I definitely see that the unhealthy behaviours would have done me a lot of hurt in the long run.