TLDR: Burned by a deceitful plate; Lesson learned

So, I was spinning plates for years, and this very attractive one came along and I started to let the others drop. Eventually I became lazy about replacing them and focused on this ONE. I didn't intend it to be that way, but hey I'm a single dad, not a lot of extra time, and she seemed to want to get move involved. So she met my kids, spent holidays, birthdays, vacations together.

We traveled somewhere about every few months. I got to know her friends, she got to know mine. Seemed like a LTR was developing. This occurred over the course of about 18 months. Oh, and we had dated short term a couple other times, but she flaked and ran away when it became too intense.

My nagging doubt this time was that she was going through a midlife crisis, with her only child finally out of college, so she was looking for purpose. Her career and job sucked, so she kept interviewing around and no one would hire her. She would complain all the time how smart she was vs how stupid everyone was at her work. I was never sure if it would abruptly end or not. It began to create some anxiety in me.

So, the holidays pass and this new year starts. We start talking about summer vacations. Maybe meeting her extended family overseas, maybe taking the kids somewhere. We take a quick vacation to Miami in February. We come back and within a few weeks she explains that she is interviewing on the west coast. I keep cool and say sure, I get it - more career opportunities there.

But then she says that we can maintain a LDR. I figure, ok, what do I have to lose. Sure. But I asked if she was sure because you know, it will be hard to do that, and you will want to date someone out there. She says, oh, no, I'm not moving there for a relationship. She would say this about five more times by the time she moves out there.

Fast forward - she gets an offer, continues to see me up til the day she leaves, and sleeps over on the last day. Even tells the kids they have to visit her out there. She calls me on her drive out there, 'oh we will be fine', 'it will be almost the same as it was'. The day she arrives out there, I hear nothing for about a week. Crickets. I finally text and say, give me a call about setting up a visit.

She calls and explains, oh I'm so busy, there's so much going on, maybe sometime in a couple months? I say, sounds like you aren't into this. And she says, well it will just be stressful right now - you should do your own thing, it's not fair to you. So I say, ok, I guess this is goodbye.

Within a few weeks, she posts on FB that she is 'in a relationship' and they post a picture of them together. LOL!

I blame myself for giving her far more credit than she ever deserved. She had a lot of childhood trauma. She'd been married 3 times, a number of failed relationships. I can't imagine this one will be any different. She just runs and runs.

Anyway, I learned that by the time they're in their 40s and haven't had a stable relationship yet, they are probably pretty f*cked up. She was exhibit A. Low quality woman with zero conscience. Good riddance!