Hi Bee

It is a good thing that you care about unintentionally hurting your ex. It means that you are a caring person and would never intentionally hurt someone! As you experienced, a side effect of abuse is that you can learn some bad habits. Being a victim of abuse is not your fault and only when we are conscious and aware of our behaviour can we correct it. As soon as your partner spoke to you, the issue was immediately addressed. It should be noted that your partner also had issues with communication. They should have told you much sooner that this was how they felt so you could address the problem. For the reasons listed above are likely the reasons why they forgave you. I’m guessing there were also good parts of the relationship as well as the unhealthy parts.

The only thing I can add about learning to forgive yourself is what does continuing to beat yourself up achieve? Upsetting you as far as I can tell. What good does that do? You have learned from the experience, apologised and corrected your behaviour. Will you ever do the same thing again? What would you say to a friend if they confided in you what you just shared? Would you condemn them or comfort them? If the answer differs from how you treat yourself the issue isn’t really about forgiving yourself. The truth would be that you have a behaviour of self-criticism and this might ultimately be the source of the thoughts. Do you think you might want to learn to overcome behaviours of self-criticism? This is a form of self-abuse.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by Helcat.