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In the aftermath of my recent break-up with a woman who meant the world to me, I needed some closure – as we all do. Weeks of messages and phone calls, telling her how I still felt, going over old stuff, etc didn’t help matters. Although I acknowledged that things had been difficult, I couldn’t really understand where it had all gone wrong. We’re both intelligent enough to be beyond the blame game. We both know that we have mental health issues that, whilst respectfully acknowledging them in one another, were still setting us against one another and triggering one another. Finally… I asked her if she could tell me, plainly and honestly, why she had broken our engagement and left. She replied, plainly and honestly. It was hard reading. As someone with Asperger’s, I’ve often had problems understanding other viewpoints and properly empathising; I accept that can lead to self-absorption, misunderstanding, irrational thinking. And this made it doubly-hard. But I’m so grateful to her for what she told me. I firmly believe that when someone is doing something wrong – even if it’s blatantly obvious that it’s wrong to everyone else – that person may not realise it if they’re never told. And I’ve never been told before (or I have, but haven’t listened). But I have now.
In the relationship, I was: controlling, distrustful, disrespectful, bullying. I didn’t communicate properly because I didn’t listen – only really seeing my side of an issue, and endlessly repeating tired old arguments, like I was just digging up more stuff to use against her. I was abusive to her (not physically – I could NEVER physically hurt someone) in my language and tone (and, as a consequence, emotionally). She felt her freedom limited by me. She said I was paternalistic in my regard for her (she is much younger than I am). She said that all of these factors combined to demean her and diminish her and weaken her to the point that she felt depersonalised. And I didn’t seem to be able to see it – drinking, as I often was towards the end, to take myself out of what, in my messed-up head, seemed like her irrational behaviour towards me.
Reading this letter gave me long pause for reflection. It had me in tears. It had me knotted up in guilt and regret and remorse. And the truth is… she is absolutely RIGHT in every respect. I see it now, with the benefit of space and time, and the clarity that often comes after the event. And all of these things that she said – the bullying, controlling, abuse, paternalism – are all things I’ve also been subject to in my life, and things that I heartily DETEST. And now… I’m guilty of them myself.
It’s a salutary lesson to learn. I’m sharing it because I want to acknowledge and accept it, and for other people to know this. I’m not a bad person. I’m a good person – but I’m capable of bad things. The drink, of course, used to turn me from Dr Jekyll into Mr Hyde. And, if I’m honest – I LIKE aspects of Mr Hyde. I like letting go a bit, and bringing out a side of myself that would otherwise be repressed.
But to do damage like this to another human being – and one I loved so dearly. This is something I cannot like or tolerate. This is something that drink won’t help me to deal with, either. I need to deal with it properly, soberly, on its own terms.
I needed to be told what she told me. I want to show her the respect now that I should have shown her when it really mattered. I want to take this hard, hard lesson on board. I want to redeem myself – FOR myself. Even if we did set one another off, and blame can never be one-sided, I acknowledge my part in this – and it was a very big part I played. The leading role. I feel ashamed, and guilty and remorseful, as I should. I feel loss, as I deserve to.
I accept all of this. But I won’t beat myself up any longer. And I shall move on from it
A sadder, but wiser person. And hopefully a better person.
Thank you, Anita 🙂 I value your words.
It was a very special relationship for a number of reasons. It had a ‘fairy-tale’ beginning, for one thing. I wrote a novel, loosely autobiographical, about the struggles of living with borderline personality disorder. I belonged to an online writers’ site at the time, and one day decided to post a short passage. This was on precisely the same day that a young French woman, who also wrote, and was trying to find English-speaking writers’ sites, logged onto the site for the first time. And mine was the first post she read. Having similar issues herself as those portrayed in the passage, she felt the post was speaking to her directly. She got in touch to find out more about the novel, and I mentioned I was having it published a few months from then. She asked her to let me know, so I did. She purchased a copy when it came out, then got in touch again… and we continued a long and intense correspondence – getting more and more intimate – over the next few months. Both being vulnerable people, and loners, and both having the same issues, we came to depend on one another more and more. Eventually, she came over to meet me. The connection was tremendous and overwhelming. Neither of us had known anything like it. Bear in mind, too – she was 27 at the time, and I was 55. But we adored each other. Within a month, she’d given up her job and home near Paris and came over here to live with me. She had no money, so living together (I had some savings at the time and could keep her) was the only option.
It was great for 6 or 8 months. But in that time, many tensions crept in because of our differences. I’m very neat and ordered (an aspect of my Asperger’s), and become anxious with disruption. She was untidy. She had moods which conflicted with mine. Sometimes she just wanted space and to be alone – which, although I understood it because I am the same – I nevertheless mistook for her shunning me. There are many, many other examples where our differences brought us to misunderstandings and clashes. In the end, after about 8 months of this, and with both of us getting more and more frustrated with the fact that our circumstances weren’t changing (we were both working, but not earning enough to be able to afford to move, and we both realised we needed much more space because of our needs), things started to go wrong. We fought more.
So… I started to drink more to cope with the anxiety this was producing, she started to shut off more from me, and we fought more and more. It got to the stage where we were two people simply sharing the same space. It was bad.
But…. I still loved her hugely. She, in all my years and relationships, will always remain the special love. And I knew that she loved me, even though I chose to ignore the fact that my behaviour was increasingly alienating her from me. And I just took her love for granted. I took her for granted. I just always expected the love to overcome everything. It’s a true measure of how out of touch and focus I was that I was blind to the inevitable. The more she detached from me as a protection, the more frustrated and irrational I became. Add drink to that, and there you are.
The rest is history. I still have very strong feelings for her. But she has none left for me. I damaged her too much. We’re both damaged by it, of course – but her more so, I feel. She’s suffered much trauma at the hands of others in her short life, but she came into this – given all the foregrounding we had before we actually met – with total trust for me, and all her defences down.
We both knew from the beginning that there were risks. We both knew there was a good possibility that we’d hurt one another. Neither of us really expected this, though.
The other thing is… when you’re in the very thick of it, it’s difficult to either see out or properly see what’s happening – and the pressure we were both feeling to make it work when it was failing finally destroyed it.
I’ll always regret losing her. But at least never regret – and nor will she, I think – that we tried. It had to happen. And maybe it was doomed from the start.
But it had to happen.
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