Like the other posters said, you’ve handled yourself perfectly in a tough situation. Well done Lucy.

With your ex, it sounds like he is confused about his own emotions. When the relationship ended, he feel in control over the situation because he was the one who broke up with you. But when you didn’t react in a way he expected you to (like crying or begging him to get back together), he became confused and thought, hey maybe she is just angry. Hence the apology text, again hoping to provoke some kind of reaction. When you didn’t respond, you took that sense of control from him and he starts to wonder. Suddenly, you feature more and more in his mind and he may even start to remember the good times you two had together. But instead of regreting how the relationship ended, he turned it into anger because generally speaking, men find it a lot easier to handle anger than hurt. This is evident when he over looked all the awful things he did to you while justifying his anger by focusing on you not texting him back. Keeping your things is a way for him to maintain a sense of control and a connection to you. When that was cut off, he acted out his pain by verbally abusing you because he wants you to feel hurt to make himself feel better.

In the next couple of weeks, he will probably try to contact you through text or social media. In my experience, these attempts usually come in two flavors: angry and/or full grovel apology wanting to get back together, promising that he will change etc. You might be tempted by the full grovel offer but remember that he didn’t do this for you, it’s just a way for him to feel good about himself again. As soon as he “got” you again, he will return to his old ways.

This is not something that you can help him with (or should). How we handle post break up emotions is part of growing up and in this case you’ve emerged as a woman, while your ex sounds like a child throwing a tantrum.