Three
I am not an innocent person.
Today, she came over to grab her stuff, and we ended up talking for a while, which quickly led to crying and hugging each other. We talked about everything, and we both took turns saying our POVs. I showed her the video I had saved, and she understood. She even said she was sorry about the pain she had caused me in that, and I didn’t expect that at all. She also told me her side of things.
One was how much she was terrified after I had told her my fear about her being in person when we talked the night we broke up. I told her that I set the boundary on not being in person for that talk since I was terrified with how much I was hurting with the recent loss of my mom, and the agonizing breakup conversation, if something went too far for me and she pushed past my request to stop talking, I was afraid about potentially killing myself with the medications in my cabinet. I want to be clear and say that I don’t think this would happen, but I also know that at least once before in a conversation at lower stakes she had pushed past my request to stop talking and I locked myself in the bathroom to get away. But that being said, I said my reasoning for the boundary as an explanation of why, rather than a warning or anything like that. But that, in combination with the lack of communication after we agreed to break up left her in a paralyzing fear that I had killed myself. It broke my heart to hear that and I couldn’t even come to imagine how terrifying that must have been for her.
But more importantly, she told me that some of the things that I had said weren’t things that she could forget. I remember what she was talking about. The conversation all revolved around how she had unintentionally said something that hurt me in all the worst places, and to me it felt like she didn’t understand how much it had hurt me. I felt like if she had understood how much I was hurt, she would understand that I needed her to just validate my feelings and to be there for me rather than argue about how she didn’t mean to do that. In my frustration and rage, I told her that I could make her understand how hurt I was, and she told me to do it. I cannot begin to say how much shame and regret I hold for doing that. I then used the information that she had confided in me from a position of vulnerability to push on those fears and pains, all to try to get her to understand how an ‘innocent’ sentence on the surface could cause such horribly deep pain. In the moment I knew that this would hurt her, but I justified it by thinking about how she had hurt me so badly and she just couldn’t understand how deep that wound ran. I knew that there was a difference, in the fact that her comment was unintentional and mine wasn’t. Even though the end result was meant to be the same, she didn’t say that knowing that it would hurt me like that. But I did. I said that with the intention of hurting her that deeply. There are no other words to describe this but cruel. How horrific must it be to have someone you love use the information you trusted them with to craft a dagger to cut you to the core. I know I was hurt badly by what she said. And I know that I was hurting more because she wasn’t supporting me but hurting me more. But she didn’t mean to. She just didn’t know better at the time. I consciously chose to hurt someone I love in such a cruel betrayal. I’m so fucking sorry. I’m so fucking sorry A. Words cannot even begin to describe how much my heart breaks for realizing what that must have felt like for her. I wish I held that back but I didn’t, and the second best thing I can do is try to make it right if I can. I just don’t know how.
I know that she did things that hurt me, but I am not innocent in this either. I’m truly sorry for the hurt I’ve caused her.