I don’t understand how you can believe that “I’m sorry” sufficiently makes up for all the damage you’ve done. You saved up every criticism, every perceived flaw, every believed failure, and then let them all boil over with your anger… and you think “sorry” can patch everything up.
Well I am truly sorry, but “I’m sorry” doesn’t cut it this time.
You were someone I trusted completely, and then you said that I was failing in just about everything. You said I let my family down, and that I was ungrateful and entitled. You told me I had gained ten pounds and looked “horrible” in a dress I felt happy and comfortable in for once. You told me I was weak to feel depressed, weak to feel suicidal, weak to need help, and weak to feel alone. You put down my significant other and my friends. You called them losers, said they didn’t actually care about me, said that they were using me, and said that they were going “nowhere” in life…like me, apparently.
How do you think it felt when someone I deeply cared about told me that I was right to believe that everything was going wrong? I was barely staying above the flood of my insecurities, and you shoved me under even though I begged you not to. You took advantage of the close relationship I thought we had, and used it against me.
Are you actually sorry for any of those remarks? Are you sorry for making me cry? Are you sorry for making me retreat into myself again and validating all of my self-doubts? Exactly what are you “sorry” for?
“Why did you do this?” is the question that runs through my brain every time you’ve finished flinging words at me like knives. But I already know the answer: you do it because you want to hurt me at any cost in those moments. You let your temper flare up, and you never thought you were wrong for not controlling it because you believed that your anger was justified. For you, it is okay to hurl insults if someone stands up to you – they were wrong, and you were right to begin with. It is okay to criticize and criticize someone until they feel like nothing – the same was done to you, and you survived.
I know that you developed this warped logic because you have scars from what others have said and done to you. Defending yourself with anger and abuse is how you deal with the leftover pain. You were hurt, you were told that you were nothing, and you were told that you were a failure. But, even so, you had the option – and still have the option – to change…but you haven’t taken it. If anything, you should be breaking the cycle instead of transitioning from abused to abuser, but is that too difficult for you and your pride?
You’re two-worded apology can’t make up for the hundreds of words you used to sting me with. In fact, it’s insulting that you thought two words could repair everything you did and make me forget. How can I forget when the two words you say to me, without meeting my eyes, are as good as a used band-aid provided to a gunshot-wound victim?
I’ve tried to tell myself for years that your comments are just lies, and that you made them up in anger. As you might expect, saying those words to myself and believing them are two very different things. Deep down I know you’re wrong, and I still love you despite everything. But I want you to know that your “sorry” isn’t worth anything to me. What will be worth something to me is when you realize the damage you’ve done, and decide to never inflict it again.
You might not have the courage to break this cycle, but I do, and I will.