Relationship anxiety sabotaging my realtionships, and destroying myself.

Hi @Kepler314 I just wanted to stop by and welcome you to the forums

I know it can be a hard thing to share something so vulnerable, so firstly I want to say good on you for taking that step and opening up about what's been going on for you.

It sounds as though you have a lot of awareness around what happened and the best way to move forward, even if you're not exactly sure where that side of yourself came from in the moment. I hear that you're wanting to understand why you behaved the way you did, and are doing what you can to give your ex and their family time and space to move forward - both of these show strength and a real desire to make positive steps after behaving in a way that wasn't aligned with who you are.

I look forward to seeing how the community can relate to your experience, but until then I just wanted to let you know that it really sounds like you're doing all the right things. We all make mistakes, but it's how we learn and grow from them that matters.

Hey @Kepler314

I want to start off by thanking you for being so honest. It takes so much strength to admit to the moments where we didn't show up as the people we want to be 💚

What you have described in your post (specifically the breakdown after an amicable split) is more common than people realise. Sometimes, the smoothness of a breakup actually makes the internal cognitive dissonance harder to bear. Your brain is trying to reconcile 'we love each other' with 'we are over,' and that friction can spark a fight-or-flight response that leads to self-destruction.

It is natural to want to redeem yourself in your ex's or their family's eyes, but, as you rightly noted, pushing for that now usually backfires. Redemption starts with the quiet, boring work of choosing better behaviours today than you did yesterday.

You mentioned these actions betray your character. If they were truly who you were, you wouldn't be feeling this much remorse. This was a season of your life, not the whole story.

And another point I want to make is that it’s okay to hold two truths at once. You can be a good person and still handle a crisis poorly. Acknowledging the damage without drowning in shame is the hardest, but most necessary, part of moving forward.

Be gentle with yourself. The silence of an empty house is loud, but it’s also the space where you get to rebuild. You aren't alone in this experience 💚

Hi @Kepler314 ! I see your name and the science fanatic in me is pleased. 🙂

Regarding what you posted, that is very brave to share with people, especially when you're trying to cope with that degree of shame and guilt. Please understand that you're not alone in this - we all make big mistakes at some point in our lives that are hard to grapple with later, even if we might not always like to share or admit it. You're only human, so you have permission to breathe and give yourself some grace.

I think you did well, all things considered. You had enough maturity to get past the first part of the breakup process - lots of people struggle even at this point, and there's no shaming in struggling because we're all learning at different paces. You were respectful of the decision made and were intent on creating a clean end for both of you.

What seems to have happened is you hit a wall after the loss physically hit you - something which, especially if not experienced prior, you cannot be so hard on yourself for. You didn't have the experience to equip you with how to approach that, and in those moments of uncertainty, unchecked emotions get the better of us very easily. There's a fine line between feeling those emotions and not letting them consume you. It's not an easy thing to master after a loss. Even I'm struggling with that as we speak.

My situation is a bit different, but I had a lot of tension with a person I was formerly involved with. When things shifted between us, I felt like my needs were being dismissed despite communicating endlessly and meeting theirs to excess. I was abandoning myself, and holding them accountable for something that, honestly, I should've resolved by walking away sooner. I endured that for years and ended up lashing out more times than I care to admit.

It was a chain of emotional abuse on both sides, but I managed to end the cycle years ago. I felt deep shame, like you, but I realised what I was feeling was still valid, even if my actions weren't. I have become a better person since. I'm much more careful of how my actions impact others, how to respect my own needs and have found ways to redirect anger healthily.

In my experience, people won't always forgive you (my "ex" didn't), but you can make peace with that after realising their opinion is skewed by their hurt feelings... and those aren't something you're responsible for. You can only apologise and forgive yourself enough to let the guilt go. If they aren't ready to heal, you can't force them to. It's kinder to let them come around on their own terms - for them, and yourself.

This was a very long response, but I hope it helped some. You're doing very well. Being this self-reflective and contrite are strengths that show you possess the emotional intelligence to realign with your values and be more mindful the next time. Take care. 🙂

Hey @Ru-bee

Thank you for welcoming me here. I'm glad to have found a space to share this. I've been writing a lot down on paper and trying to lean on my support network, as limited as it is at this time in my life. Being able to share it in a safe space like this and have people engage with my struggles is of great help.

Hey @MatchaToad

I appreciate your perspective on this. After a lot of agonising rumination, perhaps more than is healthy, I usually reach a perspective of the right steps to take. I only wish that having an idea of what I should do was the same as being able to do it; that part is certainly much harder.

I am trying to start that boring, quiet task of working on myself. I have had to impose a lot of restrictions on myself, and have been pretty ruthless in distancing myself from anything related to the pain.

As you mentioned, the fight or flight response certainly kicked into overdrive, and simply would not go away. It is almost amusing, in a kind of, helpless way, I have a decent background in pysiology, and I knew my parasympathetic nervous system responsable for resting and disgestion was simply non functional. However; even if I understood what my body was doing, I continued to have a complete breakdown, to the point that eating and sleeping became almost impossible for me for a number of the worst days.

The extreme reaction is a large part of my motivation to seek professional help with the issue, as my reaction was so significant, it feels almost surrel to me now that the worst of it has passed. I want to better understand myself, so I can help myself with this in the future.

Thank you for the reply

Hey @WretchedKid

Thanks for noticing the name. I thought something related to my budding astronomy hobby would be appropriate as a name here. It's something I've been doing in my spare time to reclaim my life, amongst the other struggles of late.

My emotions certainly consumed me on this occasion. I think that my past breakups...were either crushingly definitive, or in an extreme case, a necessity for my safety to get out. That certainly did not help this situation; it was clear love was still present on both sides, at least at first...and that seemed to betray my prior concept of what a breakup was fundamentally. The idea of removing someone from my life who is, as they are, even in that very moment, better to me than anyone I have known seemed to almost short-circuit my brain, for lack of a better explanation.

Thank you for sharing about your own situation, I can actually relate very strongly to your words, as they read with a striking similarity to what lead to my situation, in this case we both agreed to bring it to an end. Honestly, I think the way things reached their end, having been at the end of my rope emotionally and physically before the end even arrived, certainly had it's part to play. I'm very glad to hear you are doing better with it now, I hope to be able to heal the same way myself, as outside of how the more recent events occured, there was a lot throughout the realtionship I also could have handled better.

I do not mind the long response, I hope it is okay that I continued it. I am greatful for any input I get, and more than happy reading.

Thank you for the reply, take care of yourself as well

Very cool! Astronomy is my weakness where it comes to physics, so you have great taste!

I’m sorry you’ve had bad experiences with breakups. It seems we’ve both had a history of uncomfortable ones. What you’re saying makes a lot of sense, regarding your initial conceptualisation being challenged. I honestly think, if I were in your shoes, I’d struggle as much too. That would be more painful to deal with, because you’re not losing something and finding relief from the loss… You were distancing yourself from something where attachment was still alive and significant to you. That’s far more complicated and messy by nature.

I mentioned before how you had done your best to make a clean break. But with that clarification, I can see now why a truly “clean” break would be much harder in practice. Seriously, you did your very best in the moment. Asking any more of yourself would have been added strain on top of the heaping you were already facing.

I’m sure you will grow. As I’ve said, you’ve got the traits that will make it possible to derive and implement. The most striking lessons are often the most transformative. If anything, have a bit of faith in this and yourself.

I’m also glad for the read. It’s nice to have a distraction or some connectivity in moments like this. I’m wishing you the best in your recovery and your astronomical pursuits. ⭐️

Hi there @Kepler314

Man do l hear you.

Could've written your post myself regards my ex and l.

l wasn't proud of the way l'd acted , or ended things, not proud at all.

l understand why l was like that and what's caused it all but nevertheless, that doesn't lesson it.

On one hand in my case luckily for me l did get the chance to explain and apologize but in her case, she just didn't even understand the cause and effect anyway and so the why l was like that soooo, it didn't really change much.

Tbh l felt like a bit of a fool even bothering after that except for the fact l know she isn't capable of understanding it .

Cause and effects never was her strong point.

We do still talk a bit though of late, been 5mths or so, but in my case it has also been with a bit of rug sweeping knowing that really, none of what happened was really ever understood.

mista.