Dear wannieK,

you’ve got a lot of maturity and self-awareness, and I am glad that writing this down helped you gain more clarity. He was very attached to you, even clingy, and you weren’t really in love with him, weren’t attracted to him either. He would have allowed you to date girls and experiment while you were with him, but you had enough respect and empathy for him to refuse such an arrangement:

Ultimately, I told him I wouldn’t allow him to treat himself so low like that and he should know his worth. I didn’t want to settle with him because that would be unfair to him and selfish of me. I told him that I would be hindering his chance on finding the right person for him. I also was honest and told him I never felt attracted to him thus couldn’t love him as much as he loved me

You actually respected him more than he respected himself, and that shows you are a good, caring person. Even though he thought that staying with you while you were not really treating him well is less painful than being without you, you did the right thing and cut things off. I guess he was codependent and you didn’t allow this to continue, for his own sake.

after the breakup he couldnt get out of bed for a month and couldnt focus in secondary school to the point of having to drop out. Hearing that broke my heart, I ruined a person’s life and I had the audacity to re-enter.

Well, it takes two to tango. You didn’t ruin his life – if anyone, he was ruining his own life with his codependency. Yes, he was in great pain because you didn’t give him the love he hoped for. But still, if he actually dropped out of school after the breakup because he was completely broken – it’s not only your responsibility, it’s his too. Because I imagine that he was destroyed like that because he had abandonment issues, stemming most probably from his childhood. So the pain he felt after you left him was augmented by that old pain that he carried inside of him.

Anyway, don’t blame yourself for ruining his life. You did hurt him, but you’re not responsible for the immensity of pain that he felt and for his dropping out of school.

He said he is dating someone now and he seemed genuinely happy. I may regret my decision now bc I just lost a great guy, but I believe it happened for a reason: I wouldn’t be as self-aware of my red flags and my ex would’ve lived in mental turmoil and insecurity if I settled.

Yeah, you were not attracted to him. He might be a great guy, but not a great guy for you. You’re young, you don’t need to settle for people whom you’re not attracted to. You don’t want to be in a relationship out of pity or a sense of guilt. So you did the right thing – you set both of you free.

Writing this gave me a sense of clarity as to why the breakup had to happen, I saved my ex from myself.

Well, you might be a little harsh on yourself here. You’re actually a loving and caring person. But you couldn’t give love to him. And you didn’t want to pretend and force yourself…. You were very honest with him, which is commendable too.

I have a lot of things to fix within myself before I can enter another relationship. I do not want to hurt a person who is willing to give me the world again…

Yes, I guess you do need to find out what you really want and work on some issues. This is as a side note, but you’ve mentioned that you can never apologize in person. One reason for that could be that we were made to apologize a lot in our childhood for things we haven’t done (i.e. unjustly accused). So perhaps this could be why you can’t bear to apologize in person?

I just quit the job we both work at, now there is absolutely zero contact b/w us. This is the start of a new me

I think it’s a good decision you don’t work in the same place. You can give yourself a fresh start, rather than blaming yourself and regretting things. I wish you a great new start with lots of self-discovery and healing! 🙂