Still feeling guilty long after a breakup

[ababila]

Hi everyone,

 

I've been feeling really guilty lately about a 6-year relationship that ended last year. My ex was the one who called it off, so my guilt is not about leaving him, but more about things I did/didn't do while we were together.

 

Here's some background about our relationship. It's long so I'll try to highlight the important points:

 

We were together for 6 years but I had felt miserable for most of that time, and I felt that he really wasn't the right guy for me. However, he was really good to me, and is really sweet; he also has a very broken family and doesn't really have anyone to count on, so I couldn't get myself to leave him. I know this was a mistake, but I just couldn't do it. Instead, as the years went on, I just felt more and more miserable, and more and more resentful.

 

For most of our relationship, I did not do my best or appreciate him. I'd try to pick fights, blame him for things that weren't really his fault, and said a lot of things I wish I could take back. Whether consciously or subconsciously, I think I was hoping he would just leave. And late last year, he said he wanted to leave; he said he knew I wasn't happy, and he wasn't happy; he knew that he brought out the worst in me, which is probably true. In the end then, I think I basically got what I'd always wanted--I'd hoped he would leave because I didn't have the heart to leave him. And now that I'd gotten what I'd hoped, I regret having done it that way.

 

(I should add that our relationship was quite miserable and frustrating for me, so my frustrations weren't always intentional. As the years rolled by, I did feel more and more resentful, and I could feel my energy and happiness just being drained right out of me.)

 

For the first few months after the breakup, I felt free, relieved, and I'd say almost happy. It's weird because I'm normally very sensitive--I cry over every little thing. Yes, I shed a few tears, but it wasn't bad. I was so surprised at how easily I reacted. I thought maybe the relationship was over for me long before that, so that's why I felt almost nothing.

 

But last week, out of nowhere, things took a big, big, U-turn. Fond memories of my ex came back, and then I found myself digging for more. I cried, and I felt really guilty. I dug out old emails, and felt guilty that I didn't really do my part.

 

Just to clarify though--I don't have thoughts about getting back together with my ex. It really wasn't a good relationship on any level, both physically, intellectually, emotionally. Nonetheless, there are those tender moments, inside jokes, funny faces that he makes, gifts and cards, places we explored together, and nice things that he did.

 

Even though he was the one who ultimately ended it, I couldn't help feeling really guilty about some of things I said, things that I didn't do. That's making me really sad. I really hope that I'd have the chance to make up to him for all those times when I lost my temper; all those times when I blamed him for things that really weren't his fault; all those times when I didn't appreciate the nice things he did.

 

When we had our breakup discussions, I did apologize to him for everything (and I always do after we fight), and I told him that I did appreciate the times we spent together. But I really wanted to say a real, heartfelt "sorry" to him. Yet I can't do this because I don't want to keep in contact with him (I could easily contact him if I wanted to, and I think he wanted to, but I don't want to).

 

I basically feel like I wanted to do something anonymously for him--something that would make his life better--without us having to get in contact.

 

I don't know what I can do, so instead, I just had to keep this all to myself. I tried to remind myself that his life is, in my honest opinion, much better now than it was when we first met. I tried to remind myself about things that I did for him. It's helping, but I can still feel my guilt tearing me apart inside, from out of nowhere, and that scares me.

 

If you're still reading, thank you. If you have any thoughts or advice, I'd really appreciate you sharing them.

[Bumaga vsyo sterpit]

Well if I understand this correctly...

 

1. For six years he was wonderful to you, while you were unhappy for pretty much no reason.

 

2. You hated him for no reason, made him unhappy and sabotaged his efforts to improve the relationship.

 

3. Now you feel like a bad person and you want to do something nice to make yourself feel better (throw him some breadcrumbs). But you don't even want to do that personally.

[ababila]

1. For six years he was wonderful to you, while you were unhappy for pretty much no reason.

 

2. You hated him for no reason, made him unhappy and sabotaged his efforts to improve the relationship.

 

Well, in all fairness to myself, this is not an accurate assessment of my situation. I was not unhappy for no reason, nor did I hate him for no reason. My own post is quite unfairly biased against myself because I didn't want to further my guilt by saying anything bad about him. However, I did have plenty of fairly legitimate reasons for feeling bitter and resentful while we were together. So I'll give more details to defend my case:

 

1. He lied to me a lot about who he was when we first got together; everything from his education, hobbies, income, family, to past jobs... He probably lied to me because he felt insecure about himself, and so I actually felt a bit sorry for him. I thought I didn't really care about those things, and so I just let it go. But as the years went on, I just felt that I was betrayed, or tricked. I couldn't let go of the thought that, maybe if I'd known him for who he really was, I could have made a better choice. I basically thought that I was a victim of a bait and switch. This made me bitter because I didn't get to choose to accept him.

 

2. He is very defensive about himself, doesn't take criticisms, and therefore I can never get him to improve on things that bother me. For example, he is very messy, leaves coins, trash, dryer lint, and what-have-you, just laying everywhere, which drives me crazy. When I tried to talk to him about it, he would never acknowledge that he could perhaps just *try* to put trash in the trash bin. Instead, he thinks that I'm too neurotic and too OCD, and that I should just put up with it. One of his favorite lines is always, "why can't you just love me for who I am?"

 

3. I cannot communicate with him. We are one of those couples that play on their phones while eating together at a restaurant. I would have to assign blame to him on this one, because he never seems to have a genuine interest in what anyone has to say. Every time I start to talk about something, his response always tries to drive the discussion back to him. After a while, this gets very frustrating, and we end up not talking about much. We would go travel and walk together, in silence.

 

4. He would promise to do things but never do them. We literally waited A YEAR to have cable installed, and it was still never done. The worst part is, if I would then offer to do it, he would say no, that he would do it the next day; and then days and months go by, and things are left undone. We probably got into most of our fights because of this. Most of these fights would end with me totally blowing up and yelling, draining me of all energy. Yes, I feel bad about losing my temper all those times, but it wasn't without reason. And when I try to talk to him about it, he gets really defensive (#2 above), and would always make up some lame, bogus excuse.

 

 

I keep a private journal, and I've written a lot more reasons about why our relationship would never work, but I'll list these few as some examples of what made me so resentful and bitter as our relationship dragged on. Maybe you'd disagree--I don't know--but I don't think that I was exactly just a crazy neurotic bitch that got angry and hated him for no reason.

 

I think I have reasons for feeling frustrated and resentful, and I expressed my frustrations and resentment by picking fights and getting angry. Yes, the right thing to do would have been to leave the relationship early on, but I could not do it, and I admit that that fault is mine. And because I'm not normally a person who likes to pick fights, yell, or get angry at others, I feel guilty that I've done so and hurt him, and for that I feel regret.

[JustC]

I get what you're saying, I believe. I feel regret over certain things in a past relationship or two. The thing is, apologizing at this point is only to make YOU feel better. If it's been a year and he did the breaking up, let him be. The way I look at it, not digging up all of my old bfs to apologize for not being a better gf is me doing them a solid. Instead of an apology, I let them live their lives and I just suck it up as knowledge and a learning experience.