Last night, he texted:
“There’s one thing I’ve requested, and I don’t ever need it from you. If you’re interested and capable, you may let me know.
I’m starting to think you are unwell. This is not going to continue.
After you fuck up, do a proper apology, make sure you make it right, then move the fuck on.
Months, Kirsten.
Get your head on straight or leave me alone.”
I utterly broke down. Lost. My heart is so broken and in spiraling loss. Kristin was there for me and has told me to text her whenever I want to talk to him, to say what I want to say to him to her instead. Because he can’t hear me anymore. Because if I say it to him he will only respond with more strategies of hurting me. This is what I want to say.
“I’ve offered what you’ve asked for, from my heart. I have expressed understanding that when I was hurt and withdrawn in response to your rage, my behavior hit you in your most vulnerable place. Seeing how my actions have affected you, I have expressed that I feel regret and sadness that I didn’t get clearer sooner, because I care about you and have compassion for your pain. When I pushed my feelings down and unskillfully tried to keep being there for you, instead of getting in touch with my deeper needs, I was unskillfully trying to meet your needs for connection and closeness though I was not truly ready. I have expressed sadness and regret for how lost and confused I was, and how this hurt us both. I have expressed understanding of how this mirrored your trauma wounds. How that was real and terrible for you. How I never wanted this for you, and was trying my very best to be there for you, though that was not your experience. I have expressed how much I hate that this is how things unfolded. And though I hate it, I was doing the best I could. So were you. I believe your pain is too thick for you to see me clearly or receive what I have offered. I take responsibility for myself and my actions but I cannot be responsible for your pain. Just as you cannot be responsible for mine. I agree that this cannot continue. It’s hurting us both too much. I wish healing for us both.
I want to say, I’m so heartbroken you could ever think I would want to hurt you. I am heartbroken that my response to being hurt, hurts you so deeply. Though I am heartbroken, the wiser part of me knows that you seeing me as someone with intent to harm you is tangled up in your trauma, and is not about me. It is the way you have seen the world in order to survive up to now. I am no longer an exception to that worldview. This must be extremely painful for you. I am glad you still have other exceptions in your life. I hope one day a shift happens and you come to see the world with more softness and love. It saddens me that what has happened between us is now contributing to your “old way” and this painful perspective. It saddens me that I don’t think there is anything I could say or do to change this perspective for you. Of course there isn’t. The truth is, that is not my responsibility. The only person you can save is yourself.
I see that my continuing to engage at this point is tangled up in my own codependent patterns of childhood, enmeshment, and feeling deep failure and pain when I let someone down. You not being able to see and accept me as a flawed human, but still a good person, is perpetuating my own cycle of hurt, and it is not good for me. Just as me “taking the love away” is the shape of your trauma and continues you on your cycle of hurt. I have become one of your enemies, one among the giant world of “fuck you,” and the pain between us makes it difficult for you to remember me and know that I could never want that for you.
Though I’m human and have made many, many mistakes, I have never once once acted towards you out of conscious malicious intent to make you feel pain, punish you, pay you back, etc. for the pain I have received from you. I have never felt that kind of vengeance for anyone, let alone the greatest love of my life.
Once I got clear on all of this, I knew there was no hope for us. Not now. I need to be free to feel pain when I am wounded. Free to take time to heal. You need to not be at threat of deep trauma being triggered when I am hurt.
I’m heartbroken that you have so much pain. That you believe so much that the world is against you. It’s so unfair that you have been hurt so much. I used to be able to hold this with healthy separation. We have since become codependent, and I can’t hold it in the same way.
I am heartbroken that you believe that I, who have loved you, seen you, held you in your most vulnerable moments, and known the true heart of you, could ever want more pain for you. Could ever think you hadn’t already had enough. That I could ever be that cruel. I know that cruelty is what you have come to expect. I just never thought you would expect it from me.
That I could be capable of that.
My heart is utterly shattered by your forgetting of who I am and how I have loved you. By your believing I could ever forget who you are. I would have to forget who you are to ever want to cause you such pain. I have not forgotten. I won’t.
But I know, in your pain, you are doing your best. It is all you can do. You are protecting yourself, and it’s the best strategy you have to not hurt as much. And you’ve certainly had enough of hurt for several lifetimes. Maybe I need to be wrong for you to survive this. Maybe it’s too painful to watch me walk away if I’m not ‘the one who wanted to hurt you.’
And it breaks my heart. It hurts so much. It hurts so much that you can’t accept that I’m not bad and you’re not bad, we just can’t figure this out. We just can’t give each other what we each need right now. We are imperfect humans, and no one is wrong here.
It breaks my heart that in your hurt, you can’t do anything but just keep hurting me, who has known you, loved you, seen you, accepted you, forgiven you, wants to be forgiven, wants to see you through the other side of your pain, thriving and well. I believe you want to be seen and accepted, just as I do. I see and accept you. But I don’t believe you can see that. I feel that I will never be able to give you what you are looking for. I need to stop trying. It hurts too much. I hope you discover what you need within yourself.
I see in you such beauty and strength. This darkness and pain can’t win over you. I’m so sad and heartbroken that it’s winning now.
Please remember me. Please remember who you are, too.”
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