Erratic Behavior during Breakup

I’m wondering if anyone here with knowledge of mental health disorders can explain a bizarre situation I just experienced.

My boyfriend of 11 years is a Medivac float pilot who works around the country. He has been living with my parents and I during his off-duty weeks. He began travelling for work 3 years into our relationship.  

He has untreated PTSD from his career as a first responder, and he had a traumatic childhood involving abandonment.

He has been trying to find us a house for the past 4 years in this brutal housing market. 5 years ago, I learned I have a serious chronic illness (MCAS) caused by chronic mold exposure from living in my parents’ moldy, flood damaged house. My disease has been progressing and has become quite severe. He has continually assured me he will remain at my side and has been helpful and supportive.

He has remained friends with an ex-girlfriend from high school. They got together once per year when he visited his home state for the holidays. I’m unsure how often they conversed via phone. Her parents didn’t approve of him, so their relationship abruptly ended while in high school.

In November, her boyfriend of 15 years committed suicide. My boyfriend took emergency leave from work and rushed to his home state to comfort her. He told me a bunch of friends were going to take turns staying with her to offer emotional support. As soon as he got to her house, he cut off contact with me for a week. I have never been unable to reach him before. He finally called, said “my mind has been here” when I asked why he hadn’t been in contact, and said he was coming home for a day to repair my car before heading back to work. While here, he told my father and I that the last week had been “so nice in spite of the tragedy” because there was “also a lot of good”. I found it very odd he would speak fondly of a week when his friend’s partner had committed suicide and attempted to murder their roommate, as if he had found peace there or something.

In December, he went into a rage and started yelling at me over the phone, saying he wasn’t coming home for Christmas. He complained about my depression associated with my serious chronic illness, and that I turned down a house he liked a year ago (the house was in flood zone, but he refused to believe the house could flood because only the adjacent garage was marked on the flood map. It is imperative I avoid further flood zones for health reasons). He said he cannot follow my father’s footsteps into a pit of misery where he becomes so depressed he gives up on everything because nothing is ever good enough for me. (My father wrongly blames my mother for the unsanitary living conditions of the house. His terrible neglect of the home has everything to do with whatever his own issues are, and nothing to do with my mother). He yelled that he has given me 20% of his life and driven millions of miles over the years for our f***ed up relationship.

I started to cry and asked if the reason he didn’t want to see me is because he is unhappy with me and doesn’t want me because of my chronic illness. He said he is unhappy with himself and it is because of himself, due to him never having a home of his own and being one medical away from losing his career. He freaked out about being 51 and being unable to pay off a 15-year mortgage by the time he is 65. He stopped shouting and gently said, “I think I do” when I asked if he still loves me. He said he is sad for me and is frustrated because he doesn’t know how to help me regarding my health (He does know; he knows I need a healthy living environment to help my immune system to stabilize. I have a severe mast cell disease that has been progressing). He also said he has been missing me for a long time, and he needs a partner. He said he’d show up later that week to take our dog to the vet.

He showed up, took our dog to the vet and for a hike, had dinner with me, left some gifts for my family, took a few of his favorite items of clothing, and promptly left, refusing to have a discussion with me about what was going on. He sent some brief e-mails during the week and some photos of our dog on their hike.

On our Amazon account, I saw he had begun ordering items in his name to his female friend’s house immediately following her boyfriend’s. My father, who is good friends with him, was certain he was trying to be a good friend and replacing items in her house that had been destroyed during the violent attempted murder and suicide. I knew something wasn’t right.

During his next week off, I saw he had ordered a grocery pickup in his hometown. I texted him and asked if I should assume our relationship is over. He replied the following day and said relationship is a broad term, he felt we had checked our romantically some time ago, and that we were no longer a couple because he couldn’t end up like my father. I called and asked what the hell was going on. He said he hadn’t felt loved by me or my parents for the past year, claimed I only wanted him for fiscal support (this is a real oddity…he earns six figures now but when we met, he had no money as he was just starting a new career and renting a room in a dumpy shack and driving a beaten down old pickup truck. Clearly, if I had only wanted a man for his money, I’d have chosen someone else). I asked if he was in love with his female friend and he said yes! I replied, “Wow, you moved in with her before her boyfriend’s blood was even dry on those walls. You want a free house so you don’t have to take responsibility” and slammed down the phone.

He worked at a reservation a few years ago and hasn’t acted the same since. He has been becoming increasingly emotionally withdrawn, stonewalling regularly during conversations, having increased angry outbursts and yelling. Over the past several months, he lost interest in any form of physical intimacy and would not even hug or kiss me. He would sleep in the dog’s bed with him if the dog wasn’t sleeping in bed between us.

What would cause a person to erratically abandon a long-term relationship immediately after his high school girlfriend’s boyfriend commits suicide? He knows I am very sick, and he was the only one who could help me get into a healthy living environment and improve my health. It’s worth mentioning her mortgage is more than half paid off in a state where he cannot afford property. His adoptive father, who he is very close to, was recently diagnosed with cancer. His mother put his childhood home on the market this fall, and this seems to have caused his abandonment and displacement issues to resurface.

Is he truly in love with his high school girlfriend, or is this some type of regression triggered by trauma? Has he primarily decided to leave me for her because he wants her house? Is their new romantic relationship that seemingly formed immediately following an awful tragedy likely to last? Her mother also died a month before, so her life has been very chaotic recently.

I have never heard of anyone leaving a long-term relationship and entering another in such an erratic manner. Does anyone have any insight into this type of behavior?