I’m not trying to convince people that you were just as toxic as me. I’m trying to acknowledge that one of the reasons why it was so difficult to make progress away from my own abusive behaviors was because you also had many toxic behaviors. That is why us taking a break was a really good idea.
And you *had* cursed at me, called me names, and threatened me at points in our relationship. When I said “I’ll kick your fucking face in,” you were using an aggressive voice and threatening me in the dark while I was in bed. I’m not justifying my saying it, but you can’t pretend that you weren’t doing that. And you know what it's like to be triggered into violent reactions.
You are wrong about me thinking that you wanting monogamy was possessive/abusive. That is not the case. I never thought that, and I never wanted to manipulate into anything that you didn’t want to do. I tried to leave to explore a poly lifestyle last year because I knew after talking about it that you didn’t want it, and you stopped me and said that “maybe we could make it work.” How did I manipulate you in that situation, exactly?
I know that I was manipulative at times. I know that I was abusive. But not everything I did can be chalked up to abusive and manipulation. Especially once we were on a break, I had a lot of hope that things could finally be healthy. But my hesitation was because I had unrealistic expectations for you to change things quickly. And in my hesitation to start things back up with you, I was sometimes not as kind as I could have been in order to maintain our boundaries of separation. Regardless, we tried again too soon.
And later, when we were on a break I told you that I only wanted to see you. And then when we got back together too soon, I told you I needed to have more time on our break because I had never had that before. And I wasn’t trying to manipulate you into seeing someone else to justify me doing anything. It was my mistake using the word “date,” and my mistake trying to push the idea that you didn’t need hard boundaries between friends and dates. I had no secret plans of seeing other people though. And when I actually did have that kiss, it wasn’t planned. It wasn’t thought out. It just happened. And I told you about it because I felt guilty and I wanted to tell you about it. I know it wasn’t right. I should have said that. I should not have fought to be technically right by saying ‘it was okay because we were on a break.’ I should have said ‘it is okay, because it was just a kiss and i don’t want it to be anything more and I love you and am committed to you and i would like to move on from what happened.” But I made the wrong choice, and we both said a lot of things in the heat of our emotional reactions, and I didn’t get the chance to do that.
You are not terrible. You have a good heart and you constantly try to better yourself. I have always respected that you are upfront and own up to your mistakes. I have always been trying to be more like you in that way. I don’t feel like I was given the chance to do that this time, or maybe I just squandered it.
