I posted about this earlier, but about a month ago, my ex broke up with me over the phone. On Monday, after a month of no contact, I reached out to her to ask if we can exchange our things and our keys. She agreed. I asked her if she wanted to talk further about this, since the last time we talked on the phone, she said she’d talk to me further when we met up. She said she wasn’t ready to talk in person, but would leave a letter. I mulled it over and felt disrespected that after two years, she was just going to leave a letter and was also worried the letter would either hurt me further or give me more questions than answers, so I respectfully declined it. Her best friend dropped off her stuff and my key was wrapped up in the remains of a crumpled envelope with my name on it. I did this for my healing, so why do I feel so terrible? A lot of people I know in real life think that this was done as a means to possibly hurt me, but I also feel like I may have missed an olive branch towards us at least ending things amicably. Was I in the wrong for putting up that boundary?
tl:dr got my things back from my ex, asked if we could talk, she said she’d write me a letter and I said no because I felt like that was sort of disrespectful to me. Not sure why I feel bad for putting up that boundary.
4 comments
It’s okay to have a boundary that you do not want this contact with your ex. And would you even be interested in an olive branch? I have stayed friends with my exes, but that isn’t right for everyone. If you don’t want her in your life further, then what does it matter what she had to say? It doesn’t sound like you two are in a good place to be friends with each other anyway. Sometimes a clean break is best.
You made the right decision and she did the right thing by keeping her boundary.
Time to move forward brother.
You did good. You had reasonable fears about how the letter would make you feel, so you decided that you’d rather not have answers than have answers that hurt you or lead to follow-up questions she isn’t (and may never be) ready to answer. My guess is that you’re feeling bad largely because having any kind of contact with her has reopened the wound of your breakup.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think there’s anything she could say that would make you feel good about this breakup. You’re going to have to figure out a narrative about it for yourself, and find closure for yourself too. Good luck.
It’s over, no letter is needed. Tell her not to bother