Blindsided after 7 years of marriage promises

I (31F) was with my now-ex (37M) for 7 years since 2018. He brought up marriage one year in but I said I needed to know him better. In 2022 (3.5 years in) he asked if I’d marry him, and I said yes. I expected an actual proposal on a holiday that summer, but it never happened.

Over the next 3 years he kept saying we were waiting for his parents’ visas so they could come to the wedding (it was a special type of visa for being allowed to stay in the UK). I believed we were both working towards marriage. We picked out a wedding venue 5 years in and he told my dad about it. My dad congratulated us and said he’d wait for a formal announcement.

I didn’t want to move in with him before marriage because that was a hard boundary for me, so I didn’t despite him insisting over the years.

I sometimes became quiet and very withdrawn when overwhelmed, especially by family stress and later due to lack of relationship progression. I had “major” episodes of giving him this “silent treatment” about twice a year. I’d come back up to a week later and explain what was wrong. We both went to individual therapy in the final year of the relationship and I worked hard on improving my communication because he told me it was an issue. He told me I had improved a lot.

When he broke up with me one year ago, I was blindsided. During couples therapy shortly before the breakup, he revealed for the first time that he had actually intended to propose in 2022 but changed his mind because he thought I was “stonewalling.” (This wasn’t true, and it’s likely as a result of his developed hyper-vigilance to my “moods”). He had never told me this before and instead continued blaming the delay on his parents’ visas for years. He also said he couldn’t bring himself to face my parents, since I shared with him how my parents thought he was stringing me along after it’s been so long.

I moved on and started a new relationship. Now, 11 months after the breakup, despite me requesting no contact, he sent me a long regretful email saying breaking up with me was his BIGGEST regret. He wrote that he even came to my house with the ring but couldn’t bring himself to knock, and that he felt jealous imagining me moving on (somehow he found out about my new relationship).

The email has reopened old wounds. Part of me thinks he genuinely wanted me back. Another part thinks it’s just another example of him describing things he almost did (e.g. proposal) but never actually followed through with.

Does this sound like genuine regret, or someone who still couldn’t commit?

Was I naive to trust his repeated promises about marriage?

At what point would you have walked away from this relationship?

Note: genuine post but I got chatGPT to summarise this for me after analysing the long email he sent me two weeks ago.

TL;DR; : I (31F) was with my ex for 7 years and believed we were working towards marriage. He repeatedly blamed delays on external circumstances, but after breaking up with me revealed he’d changed his mind about proposing years earlier because of concerns he never fully communicated. Eleven months later, he emailed saying ending the relationship was his biggest regret and that he’d even come to my house with a ring but couldn’t knock. I’m struggling to understand whether this was genuine regret from someone who wanted me back, or just another example of indecision and “almost” actions that ultimately left me waiting for years.