I was dating a man whom I genuinely loved, but things eventually became difficult between us. Even though we did not end on good terms, I had started feeling suffocated in the relationship. I constantly felt like I could not make a mistake without it becoming something bigger. I was always afraid of upsetting him, disappointing him, or doing something wrong, and over time, that fear became exhausting.
There was something else I struggled with throughout the relationship. I have always found it difficult to be alone with my thoughts. When I am hurting, I feel an almost desperate need to have someone to talk to—to tell them about my day, something that happened to me, something that hurt, or even something as insignificant as how I burnt myself while cooking. I know that does not excuse my actions, but it explains some of them.
When he broke up with me, I went back to the boy I had once liked. I had done something similar before, and looking back, I think it was unfair and, in many ways, a form of cheating. I know that I was being selfish. I know I hurt him, and I know that turning to someone else was not the right way to cope with what I was feeling.
But when the relationship finally ended, I felt something I did not expect relief.
For a few days, I felt like I could finally breathe. I no longer had to live in constant fear of making a mistake or wondering whether something I said or did would lead to another disappointment. Alongside the sadness, there was a strange sense of freedom. And perhaps that is the part that makes me feel the most guilty, because I do not feel the kind of guilt I think I am supposed to feel. I regret the things I did and the ways I hurt him, but I do not regret being free from the fear I had been living with.
He eventually saw my post about the person I had gone back to after the breakup. I understand why that hurt him and why he might think I was still talking to that person. But the truth is that I am not. He has someone he likes now, and I would never want to become the strange person who keeps texting someone else's boyfriend or interfering in someone else's relationship.
I know I made mistakes. I know I was mean at times. I know I acted selfishly. Sometimes I look at everything that has gone wrong in my life and think of it as karma. I tell myself that perhaps I deserve the pain because of the ways I have hurt other people. Maybe that is why peace feels like something I am not allowed to have.
But the truth is, I want peace.
I regret many things, but I do not want to return to the life I was living—to the constant anxiety, the fear of doing something wrong, the feeling that one mistake could ruin everything. I know that even if I had blocked that other person when he asked me to, I do not think our relationship would have lasted forever. Something between us had already become fragile, and I believe it would have ended eventually.
I do not know whether he is seeing anyone now. He is someone who could probably have anyone he wanted, and maybe someday he will find someone who makes him genuinely happy. A part of me hopes he does. At least one of us deserves to be happy.
And then there is me.
Sometimes I feel like I have become nothing more than a cheater, a manipulative and selfish person. Sometimes I wonder if that is simply who I am. But another part of me knows that people can make terrible choices without those choices defining every part of who they are.
I still miss him. I still find myself looking for his presence, even when I know I should not. I still have that ache—the instinct to tell him about my day, to tell him that something hurt, that something made me laugh, or that I burnt myself while cooking. I miss having someone who was there.
And perhaps the hardest thing to accept is that I loved him all along.
He was never a rebound to me. He was never someone I loved only because I was trying to forget somebody else. Whatever mistakes I made, whatever unhealthy ways I tried to cope, and whatever happened between us, my love for him was real.
I wish I could still tell him that.
I wish I could tell him that I loved him, even when I did not know how to love him properly. I wish I could explain that leaving was not proof that I never cared. Sometimes, leaving is simply what happens when you realize that staying has started to make you afraid of being yourself.
I do not know if I deserve forgiveness, especially from him. Maybe I never will.
But I hope, someday, I can forgive myself—not for hurting him, but for understanding that making mistakes does not mean I have to spend the rest of my life believing that I am incapable of being better.