ExpatInItaly Posted October 27, 2015 Posted October 27, 2015 Good that you posted it here instead of sending it. Now I really encourage you not to send it, for a couple reasons: 1) It is way too long and most probably wouldn't bother reading the entire letter 2) You are getting too personal on the details of the relationship with you ex; a lot of what you wrote has nothing to do with anyone other than you and your ex and it would honestly make me quite uncomfortable to read something like that (if I were one of the recipients) It's awkward, you know? It reads more like a journal entry than an apology for bad behavior. Again, it was great that you put it here and got your thoughts out. But please, don't send it. 1
Author jrode23 Posted October 27, 2015 Author Posted October 27, 2015 Good that you posted it here instead of sending it. Now I really encourage you not to send it, for a couple reasons: 1) It is way too long and most probably wouldn't bother reading the entire letter 2) You are getting too personal on the details of the relationship with you ex; a lot of what you wrote has nothing to do with anyone other than you and your ex and it would honestly make me quite uncomfortable to read something like that (if I were one of the recipients) It's awkward, you know? It reads more like a journal entry than an apology for bad behavior. Again, it was great that you put it here and got your thoughts out. But please, don't send it. Valid point. Along those lines, though, I don't think it would be incredibly awkward given that I spoken pretty intensively with several of them post-breakup. Her friends were the ones who knew us/the relationship the best, so they were the ones I turned to after she broke up with me. If I had never gone to them with similar thoughts, I definitely would agree with you.
anna121 Posted October 27, 2015 Posted October 27, 2015 Definitely don't send that letter to anyone. It WILL make most people very uncomfortable, even if you have talked to them about this stuff before. You may think it shows you in a good light, but IMO it just makes you seem desperate for attention and validation. It will not help your standing with these people (to the extent that standing has been damaged) at all. I agree with a suggestion upthread - wait until you actually bump into some of these people in person. At that time, assess the situation and if you feel there is an appropriate opening, apologize for dragging the person into your personal stuff. Say that you hope things are cool between you. I know it sucks, but it's very hard to change people's opinion of you. They think what they think. Your best ally is time. 1
mightycpa Posted October 27, 2015 Posted October 27, 2015 I pretended I was one of your ex's friends, I couldn't get farther than "All," because I wasn't interested. You did the right thing by posting it here. Like almost everybody's letters, it's too long, with too much detail, too much explanation, and without looking, I suspect you go over your lessons learned. You're still trying to make sense of everything, and that's what these kinds of letters are really all about. You can't see it for what it is until you're over the pain and obsession. Again, gold stars for your restraint and good judgment.
frigginlost Posted October 27, 2015 Posted October 27, 2015 Nice work posting it here instead of sending it. Honestly, that letter would do far more damage than helping anything. It is entirely too long, and you go way into what went down with you and your ex. It reads as if you are looking for validation and not apologizing for what happened. I had to force myself to continue reading till the end. I shut down when you started talking about what happened and how you felt about the ex. All the feeling you are feelings right now are normal though! We all get it. Stay strong.
ExpatInItaly Posted October 27, 2015 Posted October 27, 2015 Valid point. Along those lines, though, I don't think it would be incredibly awkward given that I spoken pretty intensively with several of them post-breakup. Her friends were the ones who knew us/the relationship the best, so they were the ones I turned to after she broke up with me. If I had never gone to them with similar thoughts, I definitely would agree with you. Then this is further reason not to re-hash it all in a letter. Totally unnecessary and it takes away from the original intention, which was to apologize. This is what makes it awkward.
Simon Phoenix Posted October 27, 2015 Posted October 27, 2015 Yeah, way too long and way too detailed and I would be like "WTF?" if got that from you. An apology is a quick apology, not a synopsis of what happened. Please never send that.
EricWorm Posted October 28, 2015 Posted October 28, 2015 (edited) The Letter which was going to be sent: http://www.loveshack.org/forums/breaking-up-reconciliation-coping/breaks-breaking-up/554607-apology-email-ex-s-friends-good-bad-idea-2.html#post6615483 okay, I had to write this reply - I don't know you my friend, but you seriously need to read this and understand the possible ramifications of that letter. Items in "" are what you wrote. Items prefixed with - are either the point of view of one your ex's friends in the "group"/ some nuggets of info from me - you will have to read all the way through to figure it out. In the end, this post is to give you an idea of what could happen, but you do not know. You Do Not Know - and whatever the bf of your ex's gf's says, he may be telling you what they tell him - You Do Not Know. I hope this helps you understand where this could have went very very badly for you. "Now that time has passed, things have hopefully cooled down" - Never say this - it implies that they were hot-headed. They could say that YOU were the one who started it all by MAKING THEM hot-headed because YOU didn't stop asking for "all the details". Think before you act. "and I have been able to think clearly" - Which implies that how you acted with this group of people in the break-up wasn't you It says, that you don't think when situations go bad (ie. the breakup) and tend to be reactionary instead of thoughtful (a very hard thing to do, mind). "I'm ready to send it." - oh god oh god, what is he going to say now - I don't want to know - delete email! "There's no motive behind it" - but there is, you are sending it for a reason "it's nothing more than me writing to get these thoughts off my chest" - read: you being selfish "apologize to you all" - thank you, end of email, delete "just give myself and the situation the final closure it needs, from my perspective." - completely selfish and unwilling to accept the situation as it stands Most of the time, you will never find out - best solution is to talk on this forum/your friends (and not her friends) "It's not my goal to get a response or a reaction from any of you" - but you will, we are human, and we can do whatever we want it could be grounds for a lawyer to initiate a lawsuit or a judge to grant a barring order You never know how someone will interpret what you say/do. "I wish I was the type of person who could just forget about things and not care what people think, but that's just not me." - EVERYBODY is like this, they may not show it until they're in their own room, alone with noone to see. "I do care, for better or worse, and I know that regardless of how you view this, it will help me feel more at ease knowing that I sent it." - basically, you do not care for the feelings of the people you are sending this to. This burns, and you will get ire back from anyone you send this to. - once again, you want closure, and you don't care how they feel about it - What happens if they call the cops on you for harrassment? "Maybe I wouldn't care if I sort of just tolerated the group or it was a shorter period of time, but I feel like it was a good chunk of time and we all got along quite well." - you "tolerated" the group? Think about how you word sentences, it doesn't matter what point you are making, the fact that you said "tolerated the group" is what this group of people will pick up on. "Obviously I didn't handle the whole break up thing very well " - No need to overstate the obvious - if they think think this, they already know it - sounding like a broken record - someone who can't let go of the past and move on especially if it has been a few weeks since the breakup "in the end, it turned out pretty messy" - no need to say how it turned out this group of people know how it turned out, and they will feel for/support their friend, not you "But I've moved on and so has she" - never ever assume the feelings/thoughts of someone else - it is not fair - period. You have not spoken to her, so you have no idea if she has moved on - you can only see your actions and draw your assumptions from there. - know that the boyfriend of her friend would possibly tell his gf that he is seeing you - you have not moved on, you are on this forum and you are writing this letter - Also, this group will ask the same, if you have moved on, why are you sending this letter?? "That doesn't change the fact that I honestly regret, every day, how I handled things." - ok, this doesn't read good, as it means you could be a stalker unable to accept that life moves on re-living every day, being suicidal, crying your eyes out - how do you know what people will think of you when they read this?? The next time you meet someone, will they know this group of friends, and will they slowly walk backwards from you and not want to meet you again?.. you cannot know. "I couldn't let it go and I kept pressing for answers," - this email reads like that again - why am I reading this? Get to the point of this email! "which kind of sent the situation out of control." - we don't need to re-live the past, and remember what we went through with our friend "It absolutely sucks knowing that I destroyed the respect she may have had left for me and maybe any you all had left for me." - Assumptions! Assuming!! You cannot know what they think or feel, but we can get an idea of what they will think if they read this letter. "There's nothing I can say that will ever be satisfactory for her," - you are assuming again, never assume the workings of someone's mind - This shows that in the 14 months you were with her, you didn't get to know her - There is something you can say to her that will be satisfactory: nothing. "I know she likely doesn't care/want to look back anyway" - never assume what women think - you will never win any battles thinking like this "What I can tell you all," - At last, getting to the point... " now that I have had time to look at things from a clear perspective, is that I didn't know what to do/how to accept it. I refused to allow myself to accept that it was done. It doesn't excuse my wrongdoings, but it was because I cared about her that much and was scared she was no longer in my life." - so are you scared that she would leave you when you were in the relationship? - Are you clingy? Needy? - if after the relationship is over you want to know everything, where you like this during the relationship too? Is that why it failed? "Prior to meeting [..." - we don't need to know this, jeez, I'm so glad my BFF got out of this relationship with him!! - People do not need to know your past, just you in the present, here and now. If you can make her happy, then that is all her friends want "Like I said, I really hate that it ended as messy as it did, " - you said this already, why are you drilling this into us, what did we do to deserve this email? "I'd do anything to go back in time" - we all have regrets - but will you be able to move on and take the good from this relationship and work on the bad stuff so you don't repeat it again in your next relationship? "and tell myself" - so tell yourself, and stop telling us in this email - are you going to keep saying this over and over like a broken record and not actually DO anything?? "Because, honestly, it wasn't a heated breakup at that point." - oh we know what it was at that point, she was devastated!! (Noone knows this, noone can, but you're not thinking about the whole picture, you're only thinking about you) "I also really regret that now [ex's name] may think about her time with me as a waste." - she doesn't, she loved all the brilliant moments and will be torn up that there is no longer a future with you - anger is the easiest emotion to show, as hurt is really hard to show, and for us humans, we all lash out at times.. it is through experience and learning about ourselves that we show real emotions.. but this takes experience (enter the loop) "It sucks that she, and maybe some of you, might refer to or think of me as the crazy ex." - If we didn't before, now we do. Thank you for pigeon-holing your email into something tangible for us to understand. We never knew where this letter was going, now we do - please continue so we can ridicule, laugh and go Thank God they split up before something even crazier happened. "Again, my fault" - There are always two in a relationship, argument, break-up - do not take the blame for everything, you will go crazy. "and I can't change how she or anyone thinks," - but yet you make assumptions on how she feels/thinks? You're a hypocrite! "another reason I have major regrets about the breakup seeing as we had a really great run together with few problems." - So? "She was never great about communicating her emotions" - OMG - you did not write this?? Please?? "and I was afraid to bring stuff up because I thought she'd bolt. " - but yet she left anyways - what have you learned? - Be honest, be brave to counter your fears - if you cannot do this, then don't bother to be in a relationship with someone - you are just a sheep that follows and will be ground to dust as people walk all over you! "Maybe had we talked about things more" - You could have, when you were with her - we don't need to know this, it shows you in a bad light "She's honestly the first person I ever said that to and 100% meant it." - so you are a freak! - it means nothing now because you two are split up, and we're happy our friend has nothing to do with you "I just didn't know how to do it." - hopefully with this experience you'll know better next time "I couldn't just leave it be without trying to put up a fight for her. " - Ahh, the juicy bits - we're going to talk about this for a long time - You dragged us in because you couldn't handle talking with her instead - very gentlemanly. "that was stubborn on my part and it just escalated things to the point of no return." - you think? - When did you figure that out Einstein?! "But I treated her the best throughout the relationship because that's who I am and that's what I thought she deserved." - but yet you failed when the relationship was over, and this statement means nothing as we can only see our friend now, devastated with the breakup!! "Anyway, without dragging this out too long" - yay, the end of this letter is in sight "I just want to say I am really sorry for bringing you all into it and fracturing whatever friendship we had/could have had moving forward" - wow, if you had said this in the first paragraph and left it at that, we would have been happier and might talk to you on the street.. but after all the stuff above, wow, we're so not going to stop talking negatively about you for a few weeks amongst ourselves. "I wish I could have let the relationship end on a sad, but quiet note" - Sad? Oh yes, this letter is sad alright! Grow up! " I don't have any animosity towards her, or any of you." - why should you have animosity towards us!? We were trying to help you out and you dragged us in!! - wtf!! Edited October 28, 2015 by EricWorm 1
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