Dear Anita,

“if your purpose in texting him was indeed just this, to get your passport and snow gear back, it’d make sense that you were not interested in how he’s feeling beyond the  superficial (“keeping things light”), starting a conversational with the customary how are you?”

• this is interesting because as the week went on I asked myself why I really texted him and concluded that there was a wishful part of me that wanted him to have considered what he did wrong and be a new communicative person that wanted to speak and maybe even resume the relationship as a more self aware person. The urgency for my things did impact hitting send, but the words I wrote had my wishes of what response I wanted.

S: “I want to know if you have any desire to talk”- this could be understood as you wanting him to talk, inviting him to talk about his feelings regarding the relationship and breakup.

• yes this is what I was implying, I knew there was a 99% chance he would not want to talk, but I wanted to give him a window without pressure.

“you didn’t talk with him about his feelings, about him.. but about you. You didn’t invite him to elaborate on his 1-sentence answer above.”

• when he said ““words can’t describe how you’ve made me feel and I have no desire to waste any more energy with you” he said it, “words can’t describe…” After reading that I knew I wasn’t going to hear anymore elaboration, that was it, he could not describe it. Just as in our relationship, he does not have the words or capacity to express himself beyond that sentence, that short sentence, like you said “he talked about his feelings in a sentence” I would have loved for him to express more, and if I didn’t say the right thing to get that from him, I mean this was the pattern of our conversations, me trying to get him to express and him lacking the ability to volunteer information on how he felt, I have run out of ways to get him to express himself so I didn’t try very hard here I have him a small window by inviting him to express himself by asking if he had a desire to talk, which he responded, “words can’t describe” that was the only answer I was gonna get.

And “I’m really sorry for any pain I caused you” is a blanket apology, not specifying what pain you caused him, if any, and not inviting him to clarify the nature of his pain.”

• To me, it is his responsibility “to clarify the nature of his pain,” I am not a therapist for him, something I felt like in the relationship, trying to help him express himself. My apology was certainly heart felt, his sentence of how he felt made me feel bad. Like we have said, N was a good friend, Seaturtle could have been friends with him longer and D is a good friendship for them both. I feel bad for ending the friendship, and that is where my pain came from when he said I hurt him, I hurt a friend and I do feel badly about that, but I also know that we weren’t just a friendship, the fact we were attempting a love relationship made the ending necessary.

S: “Ok, I’m sorry to bother you. I know I left stuff at your house..”- finally, you stated the purpose of contacting him.

• After he said to leave him along, after the very brief conversation he was capable of, I wanted to respect his space. It is not that I was trying to get to the topic quickly, but he asked me to leave him alone so for him, I removed emotion and stated factually what I needed, that is since he did not desire to talk.

“- angry that he wouldn’t return your belongings.”

Yes, angry, confused and disappointed at his immaturity and his anger. The fact he did that, then went dark annoys me, because it tells me he thinks I deserved that, which means he likely blames me for the end of the relationship which is just so not true. To me, he pushed me away, and so I left. We had the same conversation, that we had at the breakup, several times. Other times it ended with me saying we should take a break, and him saying no, or me suggesting therapy and him saying no. We may still be together if he was willing to do anything I suggested out of a desire to stay with him, so I blame him for it having to end.

I haven’t stated that blame out loud or written before. Recently I told you how I feel like this breakup is tossing me around, sad and fearful I ended it too soon, to the next day more anger towards him, and I am sure you can feel in my writing today I am leaning on the anger at him. I wrote the last two posts above, yesterday, I was sad yesterday as it was his birthday and my emotions were higher, today I feel less emotional and more factual.

“it’s not the thought that you don’t know what love is that hurts you, but that he thinks he knows what love is…(?)”

It is the combination of both. It hurts me that he doesn’t think I know what love is, because I showed him love in every way I could and fought for our love, in my opinion more that he did. But that isn’t because he didn’t want to fight, but he didn’t see a need to fight for our love because he thought it was all fine and dandy, which also hurts me because he really just did not regard the things I said to him. Show me you love me by being on time and saying kind words as opposed to negative words, the fact he thought he was “loving me” upsets me. He was not, that C-word incident was among many times, that was the first incident with him repeating a crude word, but in the past if something bothered me and I reacted, he would continue to do it and tell me my reactions were the problem not his actions. I just fell for that every time, thinking I was too sensitive, it wasn’t until the c-word that I realized he was literally doing the opposite of love me, he was attacking me, “attack” feels like an extreme word but I can’t think of another word that suggests him coming “at” me, not being there with and for me…aka loving me.

I will respond to the second half of your third post in another reply.

Seaturtle