Disappointed that i’ll forever be seen as the bad guy

[NeedCoffee]

I just had a break up with my partner.

In the end, i feel like i accepted all responsibility. I apologized for everything, and i even ended up being the one to do the breaking up because they posed an ultimatum i wasn’t comfortable making a decision on, which of course, in and of itself, was not choosing them from their perspective

But it’s just sad to me. I loved them and they loved me and we had so many good times, but it feels like it’ll forever be overshadowed by this. And in some ways, maybe it’s better that they’re mad, because it’s better than being devastated, but i’m left feeling incorrectly represented.

What hurts is that i tried to establish healthy boundaries, but the moment i enforced them when i felt they were being crossed, i was “punished” by them soft-breaking up with me and saying they need a break. I’m all for needing space, but it was phrased as giving me time to “think about how important they are to me,” almost like being on time out.

They held “mistakes” I’d made over my head long after i apologized and we came to a (seeming) agreement. It made me feel like i had to constantly make up for my errors, like i had catching up to do, like I’d failed them and had to fix it.
Part of the reason i didn’t “choose them” in the ultimatum, too, was because i knew it wouldn’t fix anything about our relationship. It would without a doubt become that i should have done it sooner, that i need to make up for all the time lost. A new problem would replace this one.

I also just felt sick all the time, constantly worried about how my actions would be interpreted, assuming the worst possible narrative was being written about me in their mind. And all of that is still lingering.

I guess it just sucks feeling like all the good things didn’t matter or weren’t enough. That i’ll forever be a stain on their life. The worst of myself. And that my side of the story will never be known because it just wasn’t worth telling.
I know i’ll just have to live with that, but does anyone have any other advice to offer? Similar experiences? I feel heartbroken and villainized.

[HoratioX]

Just my opinion, but I don't think we should ever apologize when we're not at fault. This weird predilection for saying "I'm sorry" is tossed around a lot in countries like the U.S., at least by the mainstream. It's often a placeholder for not really having to do anything else, a kind of lazy way of trying to repair something without really doing anything. In some other cultures, they don't say I'm sorry -- they fix the problem they caused. That's how they demonstrate that they are sorry.

So my feelings are always if you didn't cause a problem and therefore you can't fix it, don't say you're sorry. You can say you're sympathetic, you can say you feel for someone's pain. That's fair. That's being human. But if ownership of the problem is not yours, saying you're sorry just makes the other person think you do have ownership.

That said, the custom of saying "I'm sorry" is supposed to be met with someone accepting that for what it is. In theory, it's supposed to smooth over bad feelings, at least as much as they can be. It may not fix the problem -- it usually doesn't -- but it might help the relationship. If the other person doesn't feel that way, though, then that's a sign to move on.

So, if you said you're sorry and they now think that you're 100% responsible for the problems in the relationship, then you might not want to expect them to think of you in a positive way. You might not want to expect your side of the story to be told. If you said "I'm sorry" and they did not, you took ownership of the problems while they did not (or at least their percentage of them). Doing that should help you -- or anyone -- to understand what you are dealing with in the other person. And in that case, it's probably best to move on and not be concerned about what they think. If you did the breaking up with someone with profound issues, that is probably best.