Dear Anita,

Thank you for your kind words at the end. Slowly but steadily the narrative in my mind is changing from “I can’t believe I scr***d this up” to “I did everything I could with what I had in the end” and “there were toxic patterns on both sides and what we need is not to pick up the relationship  where we left it but instead to see if there is a way to evolve it into something healthier”;.

You’re right about the passive-aggressive behavior preceding me; that’s actually something I remember telling her multiple times during the course of our relationship (“You can’t be upset because of me not reading your mind”… ” You say something is ok but you act like you’re not ok”). She did acknowledge that trait in herself and was making efforts to be more straightforward when something bothered her (although sometimes that meant straight up “aggressive”).

She did apologize to me for certain reactions/behaviors through the course of our relationship (and so did I before). I really believes she is a good, honest, decent, thoughtful woman. This doesn’t make her current approach less frustrating/hurtful to me, but perhaps her withdrawing has something to do with how she deals with upsetting experiences based on her childhood trauma (without getting into details, she was physically abused as a child), trauma that perhaps have shaped some of her “withdrawal” instincts which are still unresolved today and which were triggered by the situation (she mentioned a few weeks ago she felt “empty inside when it came to thinking of me or responding to my messages, like her brain was “Shutting down”).

I have accepted that if there is ever a path forward for her and I, it will mean we have both worked on/are both working on our unresolved insecurities and issues. Yet I still cannot harbor any resentment or feeling that she “does not deserve me” – how could I blame her for unhealthy reactions coming from unresolved issues, when my anxiety stemmed from my own unresolved issues?

The hopeless romantic in me is having a hard time not seeing the “tragedy” of the situation (perhaps that in itself is part of my unresolved issues – the idea that with love and passion and willingness to make things work together we can overcome any relationship difficulty). Perhaps this is how we learn that a relationship also has pre-requisites on timing, external factors, and emotional health of both partners. I feel like I have / am definitely learning a lot of from this experience – I will approach my future relationships with a more balanced and mature perspective. I just hope the feeling of “disillusionment” about the nature of love and relationship will subside.

ME

• This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by Me2445.