Dear canary,

I’m just wondering how one can cope with old feelings of sadness and anger that come from my past with a person that has hurt me. Although I’ve forgiven them completely and understand where they were coming from, I have randomly been hit with the thoughts and feelings from this person.

Right now, I’m not angry at him for not being able to “fix” me, or give me the proper love during our relationship. I’m really just upset at the insults and disrespect I tolerated after the breakup, that is what my mind keeps going back to!!

On your previous thread, we’ve talked about the possible reasons for your boyfriend’s change of behavior from super loving and supportive to rude and hostile. I offered two possible explanations: one is that in the beginning he was trying to help you and “save” you, but after a while he got tired of it and grew increasingly resentful towards you (as anita quoted above). The other explanation –  which is less likely in my opinion – was that he is a narcissistic person and was love-bombing you in the beginning of your relationship, but then turned against you.

These are my words (from July 22, 2021):

“Having read everything you wrote, I see two possibilities: 1) one is that he truly isn’t able to empathize with people and is extremely self-centered (it would be true if he were a narcissist, or someone with antisocial disorder), or 2) that he isn’t able to show as much empathy for you as you would want it – however that it’s not a failure of his character, but rather that due to your anxiety, you are very sensitive and in a big need of empathy and soothing, which he isn’t able to meet (and then reacts with resentment, and lately, is extremely hostile and disrespectful).”

To which you replied:

I think these two possibilities are true.

At the time I was surprised by your reply, because those two possibilities cannot be true at the same time. Either he is a narcissist, or he is a regular guy who just couldn’t help you with your anxiety, then became frustrated (partly because you were accusing him of not being empathic enough), and eventually turned quite hostile, because he felt attacked, and becoming rude was his (not too enlightened) defense strategy.

If you couldn’t tell whether he is a narcissist (i.e. a selfish person with no empathy and remorse), or a regular guy with good intentions but with issues and limitations of his own – then I don’t think that you know were he is coming from. And if you don’t know where he is coming from, and why things happened like they happened, it will be very hard for you to forgive him too.

On the other thread you asked me to comment on some of the things that were expressed on this thread. Well, I don’t think that you are lying and making things up. You did say on your earlier threads too that he was rude with you after the breakup. It is possible that he behaved quite differently at the beginning of your relationship and after the breakup. It’s quite common actually – when the honeymoon phase wears off, people can turn quite nasty with each other.

I would say your problem is that you don’t see his reasons – you don’t know where he is coming from – and so you get hung up on his rude behavior after the breakup, and you start getting angry at him, you start believing he is a bad person altogether. You seem to forget your own actions (e.g. blaming him for not being empathic enough), which resulted in him getting rude with you. If you could see what happened more realistically, you would understand him and his actions better, and they wouldn’t hurt you so much. You would understand that he too reacted from his own wound.

Another reason why I think you are so angry at him is that you are actually angry at your parents, specially your father, but you are projecting that anger on your ex boyfriend. Your ex probably hurt you much less than your father did, and yet, from our previous discussions, you don’t seem to allow yourself to actually feel anger or any negative emotions towards your father. You are quite protective of him and always stress that he has changed.

But the truth is that your father’s bullying, lack of empathy and denying you the right to show vulnerability – left a big scar on you. You are still traumatized by it, and you are still angry because of it. It’s a justified anger of a child and teenager that you were, whose legitimate needs weren’t met. I think this is what actually makes you angry, and why you can’t shake off your anger now. Your boyfriend’s lack of empathy after the breakup is just a trigger for this old anger to come out.