TLDR; Saw my ex-gf (were together 4 years, broken up for over a year) over the weekend with her new bf and have been feeling depressed.

This is my first post since discovering the red pill a few months ago. I think I have always been somewhat purple pill (beta but with a few alpha traits). After doing a lot of reading I have some questions about how my last LTR ended and what I can change going forward.

Met her during my last year of university. She was my first ever real gf (HB 7) and I had little experience with women before her. She had only been with one guy before me. She was hesitant to commit to a relationship early on and I had told her flat out I didn't want to just "see her" I wanted her to be my gf. She agreed and things were great for a few months. At that point I'd never had the feeling of being in love before or being close to someone intimately and sexually.

Out of the blue she texts me and says, we need to talk; that the hesitation she had to commit early on had come back and she didn't want to be in a relationship anymore. I don't contact her after that and though I was upset I felt like I moved on.

Several months later she contacts me again, saying she wants to get back together and she has things she never told me about before. At this point I had finished undergrad and moved away to med school in a different city. We meet up on the weekend, she tells me she misses me, she fucked up, and that she was insecure and felt like she wasn't good enough for me and dealt with some mental health/eating disorder issues as a result. I still found her attractive and at some level wished things had worked out. We started dating but this time I was hesitant because of how she treated me the last time. This time she wanted commitment, but I was hesitant this went on for a few month and she at one point confessed 'I think you like me less than I like you' - in retrospect I was applying inadverdtant dread game. She moved away to a city 5 hrs away for work and would drive down on weekends to spend together and fuck. Life was great, and I eventually fell in love with her. This went on for the next 2 years. We took vacations, had fun, her parents loved me and her mom would jokingly ask when I was going to put a ring on it.

Flash forward to my 4th year and I'm applying to residency. At this point I'm doing away electives in cities across the country and applying to my top choice programs. This is when our relationship starts to decline. She becomes more distant and less affectionate. We spend two weeks away together while im doing an elective and large parts of it were miserable. She retreats to the bedroom and doesn't want to talk, doesn't engage in sex. Things sort of cycle like this for several weeks. Over christmas break we go on vacation and same thing, she feels so distant like she doesn't want to be near me.

We come back and have a long talk and I finally call her out on her shit, she breaks down crying saying she's been pulling away because she's terrified I'm going to leave her for someone better and she wanted to push me away so I would break up with her because she couldn't do it herself. (Side note, her first bf cheated on her and I think she was always afraid of abandonment). I was pissed but I still loved her. At that point I tried being a better bf - doing more comfort game. Things get better for a bit then go back to the way they were. I eventually end up matching to my first choice program in our hometown. Things should be great but shes still distant. We have another talk and she says shes been pulling away and scared because going through my residency match I was non-committal on our future together and whether if I ended up in a new city I would want her to move with me. I told her I was waiting to have that convo until after I found out where I ended up. We talk for a few hours, and I ended out relationship that night, something I had been thinking of doing but hadn't planned as I was still wanting it to work.

She texts me a few days later to meet up and talk. Shes upset, she wants us to get back together, wants it to work, but says she can tell I'm over it. I told her that I loved her but what we've had for the past months wasn't my idea of a relationship and I don't see us going back to what we were.

I start residency and am pretty much consumed by work. I never contacted her after that, although I did see her occasionally through mutual friends over the next year. We would chat and catch up. I still found her attractive and remembered all the good times we had together, and although I had little free time was working tinder and went on occasional dates with girls. I wan't hung up on her or so I thought.

Then last weekend I see her at a friends party and she's there with her new bf (didn't know she was dating anyone) and I just felt rattled, like I got kicked in the stomach. I haven't been able to stop thinking about her and our relationship even though I thought I'd moved on. My best friend tried to console me, told me I was far better than her I was good looking, put on a bunch of muscle since focusing on lifting, and was a doctor to boot. Basically told me that she was "alpha widowed" so to speak and that she (not me) should be the one looking back on our relationship with regret.

I've been trying to figure out why I feel this way and what I can do to snap out of it. I think much of it has to do with the fact that although I've hooked up I haven't found the level of emotional intimacy and I know she's emotionally invested in someone else. Maybe part of me still held out hope we would work things out and get back together but now I know I've been replaced.