Leaving to "figure things out"?

I am a 31 year old man, divorced with a 3 year old daughter and a 5 year old son.

My girlfriend is 23 years old and I am absolutely head over heels for her.

We’ve been dating for 10 months, living together for 9 of those months – we moved very quickly. We’ve discussed marriage, and both feel we would like to head towards that direction together at some point. We see eye to eye on almost everything, almost never argue, and are very passionate about the same things, as well as each other.

She treats my children very lovingly and wonderful.

She lived in Los Angeles for 3 years, for school and adventure. Her family is in Illinois.

When we met, she had expressed great interest in leaving Los Angeles, as she was no longer interested in such a fast paced lifestyle, partying, etc. I felt the same way. I owned a house in San Diego, and my children lived part-time in San Diego with their mother, so I thought it was a good fit to move to my house there. She liked the idea of a new place, but wasn’t sure how she would feel living so close to my ex-wife, but she decided to give it a shot.

It’s now been 5 months in San Diego, and she is not happy. She says she still wants to get married in the long run, but she misses her own family. She has also run out of money and stopped going to school. She says she feels like everything in San Diego is for me – my house, my friends, my city, my kids, my ex-wife (who I almost never talk to after the bitter divorce). She hasn’t been social or made any friends here yet, and she quit the part-time job she had.

She said she needs some time to go figure things out. So she decided to move back to Illinois. She left yesterday on a cross country drive with her father, who was more than happy to come and rescue her. She says she badly wants us to stay together, while she figures out if she would prefer to live near her family for the rest of her life, or if she wants to live in San Diego and start a family with me, and just visit her family.

She knows it would be difficult for me to move anywhere with her, due to the children and joint custody.

She keeps emphasizing that she does not want to break up.

Her family is very interested in getting her back. They have offered to pay for the rest of her schooling (2 years), but only if she moves back home. They also very openly don’t like the idea of their daughter living with a divorced man with kids either.

So now, I don’t know what to do. She estimates she needs 6 months there to decide what she ultimately wants. And in the meantime, she wants me to wait for her decision, and have a long distance monogamous relationship. I know the odds of a long distance relationship working are slim, but possible. She says if we are meant to be, then I will wait for her decision.

In a way I’m proud of her. And in another way, I feel like she walked out on me. As if our life wasn’t good enough for her, so she needs to go see if she’s missing something, while I sit here waiting and hoping.

For the past 24 hours I’ve either been constantly crying, or fuming mad – trying my best not to send a hasty text message telling her its over.

I would just like to know, from an unbiased outsider, what do you think of this situation?