regret

My love,

In the last two months, I’ve consumed an unhealthy amount of social media content on narcissistic relationships. Plagued by chronic self-doubt for every action I had taken in the last 6 years, and the final act of no longer fighting to stay with you when you ended our relationship. For the 24th time. That’s an average of 4 per year. No longer assuming the heavy financial responsibility for your decisions. Finally holding you accountable for your broken promises and your decisions. I was fully aware then that doing so meant I was burning the bridge, as it was a boundary I’d never enforced, and that you’d never forgive.

I regret it. Yet I know I’d do the same thing again. Burn that bridge.

After our first break-up, you had said to me how loved you felt that I fought so hard for us to reconcile. You said “I love the way you fought for us”. Those words seared into my very cells, and motivated me each time to fight hard against each impulsive ending, often over very little. And with each reconciliation, you’d tell me, and write me notes that you felt you had “won the lottery of life”, and was grateful I wouldn’t let you “cut your nose off to spite yourself”.

Was that part of a manipulation? A grooming? Or was it love? A realisation? I’ll never know for sure, though my therapist tells me it is refusing to accept evidence.

She is right. Our relationship had never been about us, but about you. Your hopes, your dreams, your anxieties, your depression, your financial set-backs, your needs. What you want, when you want it, how you want it. You’d often said to me you didn’t want to care what I want or what I need. You told me you wanted what you wanted. You told me I had said you could “take and do whatever you wanted” and it is “all about making you happy”. I said that in our bedroom. You’d meant that for even outside our bedroom. That wasn’t clear to me. I attempted to get you to give me what I needed too. That was always a mistake, because that was consistently the catalyst that caused you to end the relationship. I saw the pattern, and accepted that, until I didn’t this last time.

I regret it. Because I no longer get to love you with you in my life. Yet I know I’d do the same thing again. Burn that bridge.

Was I the narcissist? Was I cruel to you? Was I selfish and self-centered? Did I not consider you and yours? Did I not love you enough? Could I have done more? Did I do everything I could? I’m plagued with these questions, and more. And obsessed with finding the answers. Obsessed with knowing it’s me so that I can change, get help. Because if it is me, I can do something about it. I get to have control over changing my behaviour and there will be hope it can be different. Instead of accepting that I can’t. Instead of surrendering to the reality that I have to let go of hope. And you. And us.

If it is me, if it is just me, there would be things to make amends for. I might not feel the shame, the wrongness of my yearning to beg and bargain for us again. I could blame myself for drawing the line, a stupid line, and beg for forgiveness. Again. I didn’t beg this last time.

I regret it. I ache for you in an unholy way. Yet I know I’d do the same thing again. Burn that bridge.

In 6 years, you’d asked me to move across the world multiple times on the expectation, the plan, that you wanted to be with me “forever”. I’d asked you “how long is forever”, and you said “for the rest of my life”. You’d even told my mother that - that you wanted to spend the rest of your life with me. Forever usually lasted only as long as the next thing that annoyed you, and over the years, it was a hairpin-trigger. Getting tighter. Forever was weeks. Sometimes even days. Because I’d ask the wrong question, or asked to be considered, or lost my composure, or took time out to be alone or struggled with isolation, or the lack of knowing where we were heading. Where you were really wanting to take us, if anywhere.

I was too needy, you said. It is incumbent upon me to satisfy my own needs. Not to seek assurances from you when my fears come out to play. Not to ask you to show me it mattered to you that I was struggling. I am responsible for myself. You adored me when I behave gleeful and carefree and looked after you. When I gave and didn’t ask for. When I was good. But it didn’t feel possible - to never be nourished by the other when in a relationship. It was the reason you said you didn’t want to marry me, because you were not sure about me. But you asked me to move for you. You said forever. Were you not sure then when you said it? When promises are repeatedly broken, was it wrong that it started to eat away at my confidence, my trust? Perhaps it was, because here we are. You said it was my fault. It is my fault. And I am sorry.

I regret it. I would trade my soul in an instance to have us again. Yet I know I’d do the same thing again. Burn that bridge.

I’ve also been obsessed with psychic readings. Isn’t that crazy? Aren’t I crazy? A person who loves science. Buying every psychic reading that I came across. Are we soulmates? Twin flames? I don’t even know what that is. Will we get back together? Will you realise - as you once wrote me a heartfelt note that you sent to every messaging platform I had - that you’d deeply reflected and know that you had “royally fucked us up”; that when we tried to repair and you didn’t get “quick results” you’d “give up on us”; that “it was telling that it took psychedelics for me to feel your pain, albeit for a short time”; that “it said more about me than about you”; that you love me and I was “enough”. It moved me. The words were beautiful. I’d not heard from you in 5 months. I was deliriously hopeful. But you asked me to go on HRT meds for my mood swings - only days after we got back together, and broke up with me two weeks after. And I packed my bags again, and had to leave. Is there a crystal ball that can show me that? Is there a manifestation spell I can do that will get us back to that promise? The hope? There has to be because my heart is broken into microscopic pieces and I’ll try anything. Anything. To have you in my life so that I can love you, and care for you and give to you again. For my heart to feel whole again. But I drew that line, didn’t I? I refused to keep paying financially while you broke us up. I burned that bridge. I made this last time the final time I packed my bags and belongings, which already have a higher carbon footprint than a seasoned pilot.

I regret it. I would give you all the money I have in the world to serve at your altar of love. Yet I know I’d do the same thing again. Burn that bridge.

Is it my fault? Am I to blame? Did I add any value to your life? Am I enough for you? Was I anything at all, at anytime? Was it real? Are you real? If it’s real, I’d like to stay. If you’re real, I’d like to stay forever.

I regret it. But if we went back in time to that same day, that final day, when you did what you did, I’d do it again. Burn that bridge. And fill myself with regret for the rest of my life.