Me and my DA (though now I'm wondering whether he is FA) ex are still in contact as a lot of my stuff is still in the country we moved to 8 months ago, before we broke up in Feb.
The details are on another thread. Through the help of this forum, and my own work, I've been trying to understand myself and my behaviours, as well as him him and his behaviours both in and out of the relationship much better, which has helped me be more compassionate towards him.
Post break-up we have had several very emotional conversations, with him and I both breaking down and crying. In one conversation, he apologised for everything he had done (without going into specifics), and was very remorseful. I said i forgave him, because i know he was scared. With much hindsight and clarity, it's clear now that he was terrified i was going to leave him (i was having trouble settling into our new city) and I was terrified he was going to leave me (for someone else).
However, whilst I am treating him with a lot of empathy and compassion, he is being quite cold and closed off towards me in a lot of our dealings.
When I think back to the real trigger situation for the break-up, it was a night that he came home very late without texting me, and I'd been sick and hadn't left the house in 2 days. This was about a month after arriving in our new city. I felt really lonely and isolated and became very triggered and completely overreacted when he did get home, yelling at him and saying maybe i should just go home. The next day I was still upset, and said i was homesick, and sometimes felt like i wanted to go home.
I found out about a week later, that the day after this, he told a girl from his Masters course that we had broken up, made plans with her that weekend (when i had gone out of town) and sent her a text asking her to help find him a girlfriend from the country we were now in. This didn't happen and I never confronted him about this until our break-up.
During the break-up, he made my lack of commitment to moving the main issue.
Looking back, I can't see how we ever could have moved past what he did. My actions were an overreaction, but i think we could have talked through them. However, as soon as he started scouting out other options (out of fear, i know, but still very wrong) surely the relationship was doomed?
I think he feels really guilty about it, but I'm starting to get angrier about it myself - I've blamed myself so much in this, and whilst i don't think i am faultless at all, I feel like it's what he did through his fear, that really ruined things. Now I'm wondering whether being compassionate and empathetic is just excusing this behaviour?
