what if its less about blame or fault, but about two people who werent meant to be?
my ex and i didnt see each other much in our last three months together. things had gotten so rough, i just couldnt take it. i wanted and needed as much time away as i could get. i remember loved ones telling me i was neglecting her...that i could lose her. i shrugged it off. mostly because by then, my ex seemed okay with it too. little did i know what might be helping her through the distance, at the time
when she did break up with me, it came as such a shock, and it felt so sudden and out of nowhere. i couldnt get my head around it. i had actually made up my mind to reinvest in the relationship shortly before. the last time wed seen each other went great, and she said it was as if she fell in love with me all over again.
those same loved ones, very gently, suggested to me that maybe it wasnt so sudden. that theyd kind of warned me this could happen.
and that thought, that id screwed it all up, would send me into such a total tailspin at the time.
was there a lesson to be learned? absolutely, several. neither my ex nor i had the guts to end the relationship, so i emotionally abandoned it, and she went looking elsewhere. did my actions contribute to the downfall of my relationship? of course it did.
was it all my fault? were my actions the cause of the breakup? no. we had serious problems from day one, and we were headed toward a breakup for at least the final year.
you can see from my old posts that that kind of detached outlook on what happened is very different than how i felt at the time.
a relationship is a series of interactions between two people. when a breakup happens, there are always going to be factors, from both sides, that contributed to the downfall of the relationship. and sometimes, we really regret some of those things, wish we could take them back, undo them. but the breakup, usually, wasnt about those specific things. it was, ultimately, about two people that werent the right fit.
this is from your very first post here:
I started to progressively feel more and more insecure.
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I also noticed that she would criticise my insecurity (which she caused) frequently.
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Citing that it isn't going to work, she doesn't love me, etc. I pleaded of course, being short of confidence and self esteem, but it didn't work.
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She said my confidence was the only thing that was wrong.
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Things were good for a while. My confidence started to return.
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These would dent my confidence even further and in hindsight, this made me act needy as I thought at the time I didn't want to lose her.
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I felt like I'd been used, and then discarded when I'd outlived my usefulness. I recognise that being needy and lacking confidence are not attractive traits but she caused that, with her behaviour.
from one man who has struggled on and off with confidence in his life to another, Plucky, this is the wound of all wounds that you must detach from. and this wound did not begin with her. it wasnt caused by her. she exacerbated it, to be sure, and somewhere, deep down, i suspect you feel that she confirmed those very fears about yourself.
ive been there myself. my second serious girlfriend seemed to be crazy about me when i felt on, cool, confident. and when she/i wasnt, i frantically tried to put on that attitude, to get those feelings of hers back...i wasnt totally aware thats what i was doing, at the time...i just wondered what was wrong with me that was turning her off, and tried even harder. and she kinda reinforced all of that, putting it on me.
it is very easy to feel on top of the world, and full of confidence, with a fun, attractive girl that pursues you, that tells you youre the love of her life, that tells you she wants to marry you, and pushes for a future. and its very easy to feel like something is deeply wrong with you when she takes it all back.
but my friend, that is shaky confidence that pivots on the external, and the reactions of others.
youre struggling now not because she took your confidence away, but because you, on some level, believe your confidence comes from others.
believe it or not, this person came into your life to awaken you to that, and to give you the opportunity to find healing through finding your real confidence.