Never Enough

The next day, I told my Ex that I’m sorry and that I love her, even if I had wronged her in a weak moment. While telling this, I felt sad and tiny. My Ex pointed out how soft-spoken I am at present. I believe this reflects how she wanted me to be: calm, faint and submissive. In this state, I’m not a threat to her and easy to control. She complained that my apartment had started to feel like home for her, but now she feels like sleeping next to her future abuser. As usual, she blamed me for her emotional response instead of my action. She decided for a relationship pause, during which she wanted to focus more on herself.

I acknowledged that I have to work on myself and scheduled an online therapy session on short notice. I tried to save the relationship at all costs. My Ex adviced me to analyze the following four incidents in therapy. In her opinion, these were the main causes for the failure of our relationship.

1. The movie night, during which I got annoyed by her telling me “you don’t understand.”
2. Me getting stressed and short-tempered while cooking.
3. The laundry incident, when I implied she put laundry in the wrong basket.
4. Me yelling at her.

The next few days, I was extremely emotional, anxious about losing my Ex, and cried multiple times. My Ex wanted to watch a TV show about domestic abuse with me. She related to the protagonist, who was a young mother struggling in life after fleeing from her abusive, alcoholic boyfriend. The show was good, but her conveyed message was toxic: this is us and you are the abuser. When the show mentioned that it takes a woman on average seven attempts to leave an abusive relationship, my Ex said that she’s at four now. In her narcissistic mind, being told that she put laundry in the wrong basket was the equivalent of domestic violence.

In the first online therapy session, my therapist and I discussed my goals of the therapy: self-control, frustration tolerance, preventing buildup of anger from small issues into rage. I was nervous before the session and felt relieved afterwards. That night, I burst into tears. My Ex comforted me while I was crying and said to herself: “I don’t know, what’s right or wrong.” She was torn between backing out and giving us a chance. I went to bed early, mentally exhausted. While I was half asleep, I noticed that my Ex held my hand, kissed me compassionately on the cheek and whispered to me: “I love you.” This was the last time that she said it to me.