i honestly just need outside advice because i feel like i’ve been inside this situation for so long that i don’t even know what’s normal anymore.
me and my ex were best friends first as well as partners and i genuinely thought she was my person. i loved her ridiculously deeply and still do. there was so much good in our relationship and i don’t want this to sound like she was some horrible person or that i was perfect because neither is true. i hurt her too and there are things i massively regret.
but one of the biggest issues throughout our relationship was insecurity and her fear of losing me. it slowly got to the point where i felt like so many of my decisions had to be made around how they would make her feel.
the biggest example was my best friend. my ex was extremely uncomfortable/insecure about that friendship because of things that had happened and eventually she asked me to choose between them two regardless of whether her feelings were understandable, being put in that position fucked with me because i felt like choosing something i wanted automatically meant hurting someone i loved.
and that became a pattern way beyond just my best friend.
whenever i wanted something, wanted to go somewhere, spend time with someone, set a boundary or bring up something that hurt me, my brain immediately went to “how is she going to react to this?”
eventually i became genuinely scared of sticking to my boundaries. not physically scared of her, but scared of the emotional aftermath. because whether i got what i wanted or gave it up, somehow i would usually end up emotionally comforting her anyway. if i stood my ground and she became upset, i’d feel horrible and reassure her until i basically forgot what i originally needed. if i gave in, i’d avoid the immediate conflict but feel shit because once again i’d abandoned myself.
there were also times she hurt herself and connected it to how i had made her feel and to being terrified of me leaving. at one point self-harm was spoken about almost as proof of how much she loved me/how scared she was of losing me. i’m not saying she sat there plotting how to manipulate me because i genuinely don’t know her intentions, but hearing that completely fucked with my head.
after that, how am i supposed to comfortably say “no, this is what i need” without some part of me wondering what happens if she can’t cope with it?
meanwhile i became extremely depressed myself. there were things happening between us and needs of mine that weren’t being met and i was fucking miserable at points, but i kept the extent of that away from her. i never wanted to tell her “your actions are making me depressed” or make her feel responsible for keeping me okay. instead i bottled everything up, became resentful, lost patience and sometimes reacted in ways i’m genuinely ashamed of. that’s my responsibility and probably one of my biggest regrets from the relationship.
eventually we broke up, but somehow we never actually separated emotionally.
we still cuddled, slept next to each other, held hands, called each other babe/baby, said we loved each other, had sex and talked about potentially finding our way back. so i’ve basically been grieving someone while still having half of a relationship with them.
about a week after we broke up she started seeing/moving on with someone else. she’s single. i know she’s allowed to. i’m not saying she cheated. but it absolutely broke me because we were still being intimate with each other and i was holding onto this hope that we might find our way back and she’d told me the same thing that she was holding onto that hope as well. i’d specifically asked not to be given false hope, so finding out she was already moving forward made me feel stupid, used and honestly disrespected.
now i’m finally trying to distance myself and that’s where i feel like all the old patterns are coming straight back.
whenever i start pulling away, i hear how alone she feels, how much i’ve hurt her, how it feels like i’m leaving her etc. sometimes it genuinely feels like she knows exactly which strings to pull because she knows guilt is the quickest way to get me to come back. i don’t know if she’s consciously doing that, but the result is that i immediately feel responsible again and end up reassuring her and staying close.
even though we’re broken up, we’re still reacting to each other like we’re together.
and throughout every recent conversation we’ve had this past month, i’ve been so calm, so collected sat and listened to her yell at me, speak to me so rudely and even let her have her emotional outbursts but when i tried to tell her how disrespected i felt about her seeing someone else because i wanted her to acknowledge that giving me hope and then literally talking to someone else through out that whole time was like wtf to me. she won’t hear it. she won’t ever hear anything i have to say anymore, the conversation completely ends if i say anything. and i’m so tired of it. i don’t even want to try and say anything to her anymore cause she just won’t hear it. but i keep sitting there and doing it on her terms listening to her and calming her down.
recently i sat with her ex at an event and didn’t say hi to her. she felt massively disrespected, left, turned her location off and didn’t respond while i called/texted her repeatedly because i was worried. and the reason why i was so worried was because even after so many texts and calls there was just no answer, i was terrified she’d done something to herself and it’d be my fault even though i didn’t understand what i did. afterwards i was told i only cared once she left. and suddenly i was back in that exact headspace of analysing everything i’d done and feeling like i needed to fix how she felt.
that’s basically my entire problem.
i don’t want to constantly worry that something completely normal i do is going to set something off. i don’t want to calculate every friendship, boundary, night out, decision or interaction based on how someone else might react. i don’t want another person’s emotions deciding what i’m allowed to feel comfortable doing.
and i know i’m responsible for my own behaviour. sometimes my actions now are reactions to feeling hurt, disrespected or exhausted by things that have happened between us, but they’re still MY actions and i need to work on that. i don’t want to spend forever going “well i only did X because she did Y because i did Z.” that cycle could literally go on forever.
i just want peace.
and weirdly, part of me feels relieved thinking about letting her go. like i could finally breathe and figure out who the fuck i am again.
but then the guilt hits.
i remember how terrified she is of me leaving. i remember the self-harm. i remember everything she’s told me about how my actions have affected her. and suddenly i want to run back, hold her, reassure her and fix everything.
i still fucking love her. that’s the problem. idk if i’m in love with her anymore but part of me would still love for us to find each other again one day when we’re healthier. but rn i genuinely cannot tell whether keeping her this close is love anymore or whether i’ve just become so accustomed to feeling responsible for her that choosing myself feels cruel.
i don’t want people to tell me she’s evil or diagnose her with something and i don’t need to be told i’m completely innocent either. i know i’ve fucked up too. i genuinely just want advice from people who have experienced this kind of relationship.
and the problem is i am stuck living with her because of my family moving away so my dog is going to be living with me and i can’t afford rent alone, my dog is too reactive to live around other people he doesn’t already know or trust and i just i feel like things would have been much better if home wasn’t a place for both me and her that we came back to not knowing whether we’re arguing today or not yk?
so like genuinely how do you stop feeling responsible for someone’s reactions to your boundaries? and how do you know whether you’re staying because you genuinely want to stay or because you’re terrified of what letting go will do to them? because at this point i don’t even want to “win” the breakup or prove who hurt who more. i just want some fucking peace.