Breakup
That Saturday, I prayed we wouldn’t fight. I was on the treadmill trying to figure out how to fake being okay until I actually felt okay. I was jealous, and somewhere between feeling jealous and getting to the gym, I’d already convinced myself I was going to lose him. I was ashamed of how quickly I’d got there. For once, I wanted to keep it to myself.
I’d started to think that every time I had an uncomfortable feeling, I made the whole day uncomfortable for both of us. Sometimes I felt punished for bringing things up. We’d had enough fights that ended in silence that I’d started expecting him to take my feelings as an attack, even on days when he might have heard me out. We were both trying to work through a lot. I wish I could tell you I knew, that Saturday, how much of what I was feeling belonged to that day and how much I’d carried into it.
What I was thinking about at the gym
In an earlier fight, he’d asked, “So what if I found ‘friend’ beautiful?” I kept coming back to that question. I wondered why he’d say it if he hadn’t thought about her in a way that would hurt me. I was angry that he followed her on Instagram. He said she’d followed him first and I remember how uncomfy I felt. I was thinking about the three weeks I’d spent asking him to accept my request, knowing how often he used the app, yet I was still on request even though we were not fighting. That made me angry.
I was insecure. I also didn’t know how to ask about any of it without making him feel pressured to give me the answer I wanted. He’d made innocent remarks about how much I talked before, and even if he hadn’t meant them the way I took them, I’d started to feel self-conscious about how much I had to say, and how I am compared to this girl. So I decided I’d be quiet. I really thought I could keep the feeling to myself and get through the day.
In his message afterward, he said he’d noticed I was uncomfortable ever since we’d met up with our friend. He said he tried to check on me over text that Saturday, and that I was rude and didn’t address what he was asking. I thought I was keeping my feelings to myself. He could already feel them in the way I was talking to him. I didnt think he checked up on me, I felt like he felt defensive. He asked “Kwani I’ve done something wrong” on text and later he asked “Kwani what bad thing have I done that you dont want to talk to me?”. That somehow made me feel less open.
What he saw when he picked me up
He remembers saying hi when he picked me up from the gym and getting no answer. I thought I said hi. I remember talking about laundry and other ordinary things, but I didnt speak much. I didnt yap as I usually do. He poured coffee and I genuinely didnt know what to say besides sorry. I thought we would be comfortable later and talk. He asked me what laundry is dirty, and I got out of the car to remove the dirty pile and he took that as ignoring him. I told him I’ve not answered because it was not straight foward.
I didnt feel him leaning in when I was distant, I became more distant. He just ate pizzas I thought he was going to finish them for me, watched, said nothing.
Later,before he went to have space from me, he asked if he should put my clothes down or hand them to me, I just took them. In my head, I’d answered by taking them. He felt I’d ignored a question he’d asked me directly. I remember thinking I was being cool about everything. He told me later that I was being rude by doing that, when we were arguing. I felt like I had to defend myself from that.
I remember him asking, “What have I done now?” but He says he was concerned. I heard irritation in the now, like whatever I was about to say was already a problem. I think I wanted him to ask, “What’s wrong, baby?” I wanted to feel like he was curious about what had happened to me that day. He had his own reasons for feeling shut out by then, I cant blame him. I could feel him pulling back, and the more he pulled back, the less I wanted to tell him. To him I think it was just him feeling discomfort while I think feelings can coexist.
Then I saw him using Instagram. He had highlights of me on his profile, and the request I’d just sent was still pending. It hurt to think there were pictures of me there for other people to see and I was still waiting to be let in. He said he hadn’t accepted because I’d unfollowed him, when I asked in a very bitter voice why he didnt accept. I started thinking how he was following this girl in relation to him not following me. But I knew I was just being insecure. We started bringing up old fights. I know the way I asked about the highlights came out rude. I remember other parts of the day differently. I thought I’d mostly been quiet. He felt I’d been rude and passive-aggressive.
I asked him to take down the stories he’d posted of me because I thought he’d take them down anyway once I told him what was wrong. If I asked first, at least I wouldn’t have to watch him decide to do it.(Reject before you get rejected)) He explained that when I demanded he take them down, he felt unwanted and gave me space. I can see how he got there, but what he said before he went was he’s going to take space away from me because of my attitude. All the reasoning I’d done on the treadmill was still in my head. What he got was me asking him to take me off his page and I was just having attitude.
What happened in the living room
He went upstairs and told me he didn’t want to be around my energy. We argued, and he told me to decide whether I was going to stay in the living room or go home. I felt like he wanted me gone because of how I’d been that day, and he wanted me to be the one to make the decision. I thought it was his house and that if he wanted me to leave, he should say so.
I said, “Am I your mom?” I said it in anger. In my head, I meant, Why am I making this decision about your house for you? He felt I’d brought his mother into it. I remember him saying, “What did you say, bitch?” That stung. We’d never called each other that before. As he kept saying it again and we argued. He said I was stupid because I didnt see how I brought his mom into it, when I was trying to explain. We shouted at each other then I told him to be quiet because I was afraid he’d say something worse. I gave him space. I thought about going upstairs to apologize, but I thought he’d locked his door. And part of me didn’t want to be the automatic beggar again, the person who goes after him and asks if we can please talk.
When he came downstairs, we got back into it. I talked over him because I disagreed that taking the clothes without saying yes or no was rude. I was still trying to get him to see how ordinary that moment had felt to me. I was also still angry about what he’d called me. I felt like I was going to end up apologizing for the whole day while the things I was upset about got lost.
I remember raising my voice. At first, I would have described it as speaking in anger. Eventually we were both yelling. I remember interrupting him and him throwing the coffee table. I was scared and angry. He told me I had five minutes to get the hell out of his place. I remember him yelling in my face and I pushing him away, I pushed his face away..I just pushed his face from me. He asked, “So you push my face away and stormed upstairs where I followed him?” I regret pushing him. When I found out later that he had a scratch on his nose, I wondered if it happened then. I only found out about the scratch when I read his message, and I’m still unsure how it happened. I have long thumb nails so it might be that.
I remember him repeatedly calling me stupid for failing to see how rude I’d been. I called him a cheating bastard as a counter attack. He has never cheated on me. I don’t fully know why I said it. Maybe I wanted to get a reaction out of him. Maybe I wanted what I said to sting because what he’d said had stung.He told me later that it hurt to hear me call him that and to feel like I’d already decided that was the kind of person he was. He felt I was putting all the blame on him and expecting him to take it.
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II understand why it hurt him to hear me call him a cheater. I’m still sad that when he called me the worst thing that had ever happened to him’’, a bitch, and stupid, there was room for him to have said those things in anger and regret them later, not me though. When I said something cruel, he took it as proof of how I really saw him, even though beforehand I said I didnt mean it. I wanted him to know that I could regret my words and wish I’d never said them, too, he is valid to be hurt (impact still matters)but pushing the narrative that ‘That’s how you’ll forever lebal me” feels unfair.
The drive home
We eventually got into the car. He drove and didn’t want to talk. I’d been scared when he threw the table and yelled in my face. In the car, I remember panicking about what was going to happen once he dropped me off.
Going home felt like a deadline. After a fight he’d need space, and I’d get home and check whether I was blocked or whether our pictures were still up. Space and breaking up had run together enough times that I couldn’t tell which one was happening until he decided he was ready to speak to me. Sometimes I’d reach out first because I couldn’t bear to keep guessing. By the time I asked him to stop the car, I was already imagining the next few days. I hated that anxiety, and I wanted us to be okay, and I didnt know how to stop him.
I cant tell you whatI was thinking . I wanted to leave, breath, kiss, talk, stop being mad over a mixture of things. I also remember wanting him to pull over so we could calm down and talk, even though I wasnt calm. The clearest thing I remember is wanting the car to stop. I could feel myself losing control, and I thought if we stopped moving, maybe we could pause long enough to hear each other before he took me home.
I hit his thigh multiple times. I reached for his door, .I pressed the unlock button on the driver’s side and opened my door while we were still driving. It was dangerous. It’s the part I regret most. I keep trying to understand how I went from wanting a minute to calm down to doing something that made the situation worse. How do I even explain this to anyone. I didnt even think I was hurting him, by slapping his thigh, I dont even remember how I unlocked the door . He was saying Im either stupid or crazy as I did that and I just …I dont know, he’s right. That was stupid. I was afraid of sleeping mad again. Or breaking up. We stopped soemwhere else and I spoke to him with the crying raising voice, and he got mad and left the car ,so that I leave.
I keep thinking, I should’ve just let him drive me home. I mean I wish I’d made a safer choice. Other times I mean I wish I’d done whatever would have made him want to talk to me the next day. Those are two different regrets. I still get them tangled up. I wish I pretended better, and I wish I acted happy in the first place so that I dont piss him off when I’m pissed off.
What he told me afterward
Afterwards I was driven to breakup too, deliver his stuff and leave him. I was mad and sad and thought I’d feel better if I got rid of his stuff. He called me ridiculous for wanting to return them or foecing it, and maybe I was. I returned them and didnt talk to him.
During the silence after the fight, I accidentally sent him a TikTok on WhatsApp. I worried he’d think I’d sent it on purpose. I wrote to explain, then I kept writing. I asked if we really should break up, when what I wanted to know was whether we could still talk. I deleted messages afterward. I still wanted him to answer.
Later he responded. He said his head had been hurting all day, that he’d been trying to sleep since eight, and that he couldn’t go back and forth with me. He apologized for calling me the worst person ever and said he hadn’t meant it. He told me his finger had hurt for most of the previous day and that he had a scratch on his nose. I hadn’t known about either injury. He said he felt disrespected because I’d put my hands on him, and that he didn’t want to be in a relationship where that could happen. He also said he couldn’t keep being called a cheater or being blamed for everything. He’d reached a point of acceptance. He didn’t think we could make it work again.
I got confused and disagreed on the part where he said he’d tried to hold space for me. From his side, he saw I was uncomfortable, tried to check in, felt shut out, and backed away. From mine, I was afraid to tell him how I felt because I was already expecting him to back away. I heard his curiosity as defensiveness and irritation. When I said the silence felt like punishment, I think he heard me saying he’d gone quiet on purpose to hurt me. I can understand why that sounded absurd to him when, in his mind, he was taking space because he was hurt too. What I wanted him to understand was what it felt like to be the person at home with no idea when we’d speak again. I wish we could’ve talked about why he needed space and what the uncertainty was doing to me. We spent so much time arguing about whether I was right to call it punishment that I felt like I had to prove he meant to hurt me before I could say that it hurt.
What I’m left with
Before I read his message, I wanted to explain the stories and the clothes and what I meant when I asked him to pull over. I wanted him to know I was scared, and I didnt want to slap his thigh or push him away. I didnt know why I was forcing the door open. I wanted to jump at the same time I wanted it all to stop. Idk. I regret doing what I did .After I read his message I was also trying to take in that he’d been hurt. I know I pushed him away and hit his thigh, and I’m sorry I did those things. I’m still piecing together how he hurt his finger and got the scratch. There are parts of the day I remember differently from him, even after reading how it felt to him.
Even on good days, I used to catch myself deciding whether we were having too nice a time for me to bring up something that still bothered me. Most of the time I’d let it pass because I wanted to have a nice day with him. That Saturday on the treadmill, I thought I was doing the same thing. I thought if I could keep quiet long enough, we might get to have a good day.
I wish I’d said, in plain words, that I was jealous and embarrassed and wanted to talk about it. I don’t know what he would have said. I spent so much of that day answering for him in my head, based off previous fights. Now he’s told me he’s done, and I still catch myself looking at my phone like tomorrow might be the day we finally finish the conversation.
I understand why he doesn’t want to be with me anymore. He gets to decide that. I can respect his decision and still feel gutted by it. Right now I feel so guilty about losing him that I can turn almost any moment from that day into the moment I ruined everything. If I’d just said what I felt. If I’d let him finish. If I’d just let him drive me home. I go through the list like there’s still a version of Saturday I can get back to. I wish I could turn back time.
He said he felt like I blamed him for everything. I don’t remember thinking the whole fight was his fault. I can see how it might have sounded that way when I was interrupting him . But God knows how much I’ve blamed myself since. Sometimes I think the kindest thing I can do for him is leave him alone. Leave him alone and carry the whole thing yourself. I can give him the distance he wants. I’m still figuring out why it feels like I owe him a lifetime of feeling this bad.
I’ve been looking up whether relationships survive fights like ours, whether what I did was abusive, and why I blew up when I’d spent the whole morning trying so hard to keep it together. I keep typing am I abusive? because I want a word that will settle what I’m supposed to think about myself. The things I can say for sure are harder to sit with. I pushed him. I hit his thigh. I opened the car door while we were moving. He told me he is hurt. I regret what I did, and I never want to get to that point again. Part of me wants to beg for forgiveness , wants to be understood too despite being still hurt, part of me still feels shame that I felt these feelings in the first place, and I decided to act like I did. Part of me wants to know where he is hurt and to be sorry. God . Part of me wants to off myself because I dont understand how I got here. I never want to do that again. Part of me still feels like I had valid feelings and bad reactions. Part of me still feels hurt too, and feels guilty for being hurt.
All I know is I can only turn back and work on what I regret, like raising my voice when Im upset, crushing out like that and opening the door, throwing things, throwing hands, know when things are about to escalate, be in a space where I can have conflict without fearing it will end or constant space, while still being comfortable with reasonable space because it doesnt mean it’s over.
