Ever since my first long term relationship ended about 5 years ago, I've carried a lot of guilt about it. To recap, her and I met in college back when I was mostly identifying as gay. After a year of becoming close friends, she started to flirt with me and my curiosity about being with a girl (since I never had) made me figure why not, let's go for it. Was supposed to be a hookup, but we ended up dating for 7 years. I was always open and honest with her. Always felt like I could be myself. She was my best friend and she knew about my sexuality. She let us have an open relationship so I could still sleep with guys, though she never took advantage of it herself. It was far from a perfect relationship - we were around each other 24/7, had all the same friends, same hobbies, etc. We became pretty codependent on each other. But I didn't see that at the time. After 7 years, she broke up with me. Said she wasn't in love with me anymore and hadn't been in 2 years. I also know that she became close emotionally with another friend. They started dating in some capacity a month after we were broken up. I've felt in some way for a long time like the relationship failing was my fault. First because I tend to be extra hard on myself (I'm sure my therapist would say this comes from my childhood, that I subconsciously blame myself for being rejected by my mother as a baby and for having an awful relationship with my father). But also, my ex made sure I knew that it was all my fault that we broke up too. That I ruined things. That she didn't trust me. She also made sure all of our friends knew it was all my fault by writing a blog about the issues she had with me in the months leading up to when she finally ended it and sharing said blog only with our closest friends. It mostly backfired on her and they thought she was awful to have done this, but that's another story. It worked on me plenty. I just found out over the weekend that her and her husband (the aforementioned mutual friend she started seeing a month after she dumped me) have split up. One of our mutual friends who works with the husband told me all of the details that the husband shared. It sounds eerily familiar to the way things ended between her and I, just minus the sexuality (he is completely straight and never tried to be in an open relationship with her or cheat on her far as I know). I'm not happy that they broke up or for her misery. I actually feel bad about that. But there is a part of me that feels happy hearing this. I realized this morning it is because it means my relationship with her ending wasn't all my fault like I've believed for the longest time. Like she said it was. It doesn't mean it wasn't my fault at all, but it does mean we were equally involved in the problems that our relationship had and in it ultimately failing. For a long time I felt like it was all on me, like that was the perfect relationship for me because I had the emotional love I wanted with her, plus a great sex life with her (she fed into my high libido), plus permission to sleep with guys too. It felt situation-ally perfect for me. And "I" ruined it. That was a lot to carry. And it made me feel that way when things went bad with my ex-fiancee ("I ruined another one") or even with my friend/roommate ("I ruined that too, just like I ruined things with my ex"). So now that I'm having a moment of seeing that hey, I didn't ruin things with my ex. I didn't cheat, I didn't abuse her or hurt her. I wasn't perfect and I'm responsible for things not working out, but I'm not the only one. She is responsible too. She is not perfect. If she were, she wouldn't be going through another break up. Another where she wasn't cheated on or abused. Another where she had to be responsible too. It feels freeing. Like a weight I didn't even know I was carrying is lifted off my shoulders.
This is CLOSURE!!!! And the power of closure, as I have stated in other threads, is enormous! Now that you recognize how powerful closure can be, consider seeking closer on the various other emotional traumas you have experienced which go to holding you back from progressing on your journey. Well Done!
Ha, thanks! I guess this is closure and I didn't even realize that I didn't have closure from the situation. I'm over her, so I thought that was closure, but I suppose the relationship itself and the outcome still has/had some lingering effects for me. I mean, she even tried to blame my sexuality for our relationship ending, which really was unfair and made no sense since she knew from the start. It is the reason why I didn't want to tell my ex-fiancee about my sexuality when we started dating, as I feared being rejected for it. She only found out because of the aforementioned blog that my ex wrote. I didn't exactly seek this closure, it just kind of happened. I think the other situations, even closure about my parents, are things I will have to find on my own. ---------- Post added 12th Apr 2017 at 09:24 AM ---------- Thanks!
Often, closure does just happen without even seeking it out. But the impact on self esteem and confidence is all the same as if you had sought it out. As well, given the journey you are on, where you are now focused on building confidence and self esteem working through shame, you are now paying more attention to situations that might bring closure. Previously, you might have simply ignored the same situation and not taking the time to understand it as you have now just done. Your senses are raised and your antennas are up. This is how should be!
So, one thing this has helped me realize that I've been able to apply to the other relationships in my life is that I'm also not 100% responsible for ruining them either. As well as realizing that sometimes the decisions the other person makes doesn't have to do with me per se but rather the things they are going through. Their personal issues. That is also very freeing to feel because I really do tend to take other people's decisions to be about me and it has me wonder what can I do different to change their mind, when the truth is sometimes it is just about them and their decision has nothing to do with me.
So the hardest part of that is that relationship, and the one with my father, are the only two where not only am I not 100% responsible, but I'm 0% responsible for their rejection. Zero. I know I hold my half of responsibility for my failed romantic relationships, but that's because I was an adult and made decisions that impacted the way I acted as much as the other person did. My mother rejected me as a baby. I had zero control over anything. She suffered from postpartum and literally pushed me towards my aunts as people to care for me. That is huge. And there was never anything I could have done about that. Even with my dad, we're talking about me from before I was 17 years old. I did nothing to warrant him never being there for me, and being jealous of me, etc. That was all his issues and unfortunately I was just a casualty of it all.
I am curious, did the way you act in your failed relationships have anything to do with a feeling on your part, even subconsciously, that you might have been responsible for how your mother and father behaved?
I honestly don't know that I see a correlation per se in the actual relationships. Moreso in the rejections, that feeling of desperation to not have the other person reject me because I just can't take them giving up on me for what I deemed to be all my fault (which, it wasn't). My relationship with my first ex, I don't actually think we had many problems really. We got into debt together (even though it was all in my name) so that was stressful. And as I said before, we spent 24/7 around each other and had all the same friends and everything, so the codependency was quite something. But I never cheated on her or abused her. I wasn't perfect, but I was imperfect in the way most people are in relationships. I was human. Nothing extreme. End of the day I don't know why she wasn't happy, though I'm guessing the lack of individuality had a lot to do with it. That was on her (she did the same thing with the husband she's separated from now) though I know at a certain point if she tried to be more independent I would have likely fought against it feeling like it was a rejection. But that was after 6+ years of being in that attached at the hip relationship that we had and both fed into. With my friend/roommate, I think a lot of that relationship comes down to he was too young, I was not single, and we just ended up having lots of problems once those realities sunk in. The two months of fun sex and getting close with each other eventually became not enough. We both started to have feelings for each other. He said to me once with no uncertain words that he felt himself falling in love with me. He's tried to take that back since, saying he was confused, not sure what he was feeling, which given his age could even be true, but it also totally makes sense that he could have started falling for me and then felt rejected by the realization that I wouldn't leave my fiancee for him. Once he started to move on and date other guys seriously, I felt really rejected and jealous and fought him all the time about it. That was rough. The fear of rejection definitely ties into my parents, and I'm sure so does the feeling that once again I messed the relationship up (when really again so much of it was just not going to work because of timing as much as anything else). With my ex-fiancee, I think again it falls into the same realm. Being scared of being rejected by her. She was a tougher one because she had her own life and was a very independent person. And she rejected me like 4 times at the start of us dating, mostly over my sexuality. It felt like a constant struggle for her to just love me and want me. And it always felt like my fault. I definitely adapted myself to be what she wanted so that she wouldn't reject me. If my friend/roommate hadn't come along, I may have always just gone along with the things I was unhappy with, like her putting her job ahead of me and not ever wanting to do the things that I enjoyed doing. I was getting frustrated by it and maybe even feeling unhappy about it without realizing it entirely. It wasn't about wishing I could be with a man at that point, not consciously anyway. First because I was cheating on her and having sex with men on the side. And second because I didn't see guys as romantic interests. It wasn't until my friend that I actually had feelings for a guy. Spending time with him, having him have tons of free time that he wanted to spend with me and wanting to do the things that I wanted to do like going to concerts of bands I liked, it just opened my eyes to feeling like I could have that with someone. Plus I even felt like I could just be openly and honestly myself with him. Something I couldn't with her. I think that's the main reason learning that he was lying to me recently really hurt, because I valued being honest with him all this time and hoped he was being honest as well (we've talked and sort of resolved this, but I definitely don't feel as close to him at the moment). Anyway, I think I answered your question...maybe? :roflmao:
Most definitely! You have been giving this all a lot of thought. Fantastic! How does the realizations effect your thoughts on your sexuality and where you want to go From here?
One step at a time Honestly, I haven't been thinking much about my sexuality this week as I've been thinking about all this stuff. Realizing I don't ruin everything and I'm not solely responsible for every failed relationship in my life has been huge.
