[hollymel]

So I was dating this girl for a year. I loved her and she loved me, we were mostly happy and whatnot. I suspected she had a crush on my friend for most of our relationship and she did. I went through her phone and found evidence of that (it was wrong, I know). She had been lying to me the whole time and denying everything while simultaneously being heartbroken that my friend didn't like her. She claims to have loved me the entire time. When I found out about her crush, I yelled at her really badly and said things I shouldn't. Now the girl has dumped me for being so mean. She says she can never allow herself to be emotionally close to me again. I am devastated and stunned. She basically tried to cheat on me, failed, and then wouldn't forgive me for the mean things I said while upset. She cut herself bc of things I said. Now I have this terrible guilt for making her upset with my words. And she blames everything on me, that I was not loving enough and I didn't understand her depression and I made it worse. I know I need to move on but the guilt I feel is tremendous. I never meant to make anything worse for either of us and I felt I gave her my all. Now I'm lost and consumed with sadness bc of what I did but I know we were both wrong. How can I get over it?

[here today]

My therapist has “treated” my guilt with reality statements. Don’t know if it will help you, I hope it doesn’t seem unempathic, but reality is not empathic, it just is. So, here goes:

You are not perfect.
Your ex-girlfriend is not perfect.
After you discovered the crush, could you have been satisfied with the relationship, knowing how she felt about your friend? If not, then a break-up, in some fashion, was inevitable.

Like all emotions, guilt exists to help us. You did the best you could in this situation, there were some effects you didn’t expect and regret. Guilt helps us learn to be more careful in the future. Nevertheless, you are not responsible for your ex-girlfriend’s feelings. Her blaming you doesn’t make it your responsibility. That’s just her point of view, maybe so she doesn’t have to look at her part in the situation.

Getting over something like this takes time, like the flu. Life is just hard sometimes. It hurts and does get better but not overnight. One day at a time.