Not appreciating what I had and realising my faults late on

[Sammy777]

So me and my girlfriend of 1 year recently broke up. It has obviously been an intense year due to the Covid pandemic, so we had to make some quite extreme decisions when the relationship initially began. We'd began talking in early May of 2020 and met up for the first time later that month. I lived down south with my parents at the time and she lived in London, so getting there was a difficult journey, but was very worth it. We initially spent 3 weeks together alone in her new flat (I know longest first date ever right!) and left things open, both clearly wanting a relationship as we'd both said we loved each other, but not putting any pressure on the relationship to grow. The next few weeks were tough as we didn't see each other for about 2 weeks until I came up for my birthday and we spent another few weeks together which were great. I then came back down for a bit and we were really struggling, around this time we were about to go into lockdown so we made the quite extreme decision that I would just move in with her and her now flat mates that had also moved in. Initially this was great, if a little awkward at times with less privacy than we'd initially had. Our relationship really bloomed through the next few months, but as time went on I realised more about her that would put a strain on things. She has a complicated mental illness which made some aspects of the relationship difficult and suddenly came to terms with a lot of her trauma around Christmas time which drastically changed her behaviour and the dynamic of the relationship. By the time January had come round things were very different and due to the pressure, we tried to break things off and I remember us both feeling a great sense of relief. However I have some physical health issues, chronic fatigue etc. and needed to be in London so we agreed that we could just be friends and continue to live together and support each other. This was fine for a while but we kept slipping in and out of relationship patterns as we were still sharing the same room, bed etc. This dragged on for a few months until about a week ago where things got incredibly explosive and I said some quite hurtful things in the heat of the moment, that I obviously didn't mean, but once said cannot be unsaid. I am struggling to forgive myself for them and it has affected her very badly to a point where she cannot even face talking to me, so I am giving her as much space as I possibly can to recover, but ultimately feel powerless. I guess, going into the relationship I believed that I was okay, I'd had health issues for a while, but I was starting to find a good balance and was looking forward to creating a life there....with her. However I have realised since the relationship ended that I wasn't as okay as I thought I was and I definitely put way too much pressure on her to fulfill my needs and "fix me". She also put a lot of pressure on me too, but never expected me to fix her, that was something she always wanted to figure out on her own and now hopefully can. I think what is bothering me the most right now is that I have really hurt someone I care very deeply about and want to ultimately be friends with, but I know she needs, weeks, months maybe even years of space to figure out whether she can trust me and be vulnerable around me again because of the impact of what I said and how I treated her towards the end. I'm trying to process how to let go, forgive myself, but also learn from this relationship. We fell out of love a while ago, but still loved each other as human beings, but the last few weeks I spent with her, I just felt like a ghost, watching her start to put the pieces of her life back together, while I was there feeling abandoned and like a burden, which she reassured me I was not. She did a lot for me and I did a lot for her, but I know I held it over her head whenever she did something wrong, that I moved my whole life there to be with her and am now seeing how controlling and manipulative that is. I know I am going to hurt for a long time because of this, and to an extent so is she. I just want to figure out how to become a better person from this experience and work on my own issues, while also finding a balance with my health issues and making sure I stay healthy and productive. 

[Alfano]

You were dumped, that seems clear although you seem to be trying to convince us and yourself that the breakup was mutual.

Answer this question to yourself- if she asked you to come back, what would your answer be?

Anyway if you've learned anything about yourself then you should know that your statement "obviously I didn't mean the hurtful things I said to her" makes no sense.

If you didn't mean them then why did you say them? Why would you unnecessarily want to inflict pain and hurt on the woman you love?