I can relate to this in a way.

My ex died last year from breast cancer. She was 33.

Our relationship came to an end 4 years before she died and 2 years before her diagnosis.

She did horrible, horrible things to me for the last 3ish years of our relationship. She’d cheat, lie, gaslight, convince me our family was going back to normal and then smack me again with something.

We were horrible for each other. I knew we would be when we were still kids. We were great friends, but our personalities weren’t right for building a life together.

She moved in with me as soon as she turned 18. She was my closest friend and my roommate. We slept in the same bed for months without touching each other, and once we did, we were inseparable for years.

I ended up developing a drug problem. She had to deal with that. She never got her license and wouldn’t help around the house. I drove her everywhere she had to go. We worked at the same place and she worked on my days off. I couldn’t move forward in any way because she refused to get her license and pull herself together. She would fake sick and I’d have to go work in her place, clocked in as her because overtime wasn’t allowed and they’d send someone else in if I didn’t. We needed the money so I did.

I resented her so much. I’d get drunk and occasionally let her know it too. “I can’t do shit because I’m responsible for everything in this house. Get your license for the love of god!” She resented me, and she let me know it.

When I finally got myself together, her resentment had already reached a boiling point. I was ready to just forget everything and focus on my family and doing the right thing. She was cheating and looking for a way out.

When I first caught her I knew I was partly to blame. I went into overdrive trying to fix things. After catching her about the 5th time, I was done trying. I left.

She lost her shit. Stalked me, threatened me, you name it. She ended up getting committed by her mom for a week stay in a hospital when I started seeing someone else. She wanted to fix it then, but it was too late. Timing and circumstances. I was in love with someone else. She got diagnosed with BPD, started getting treatment and making changes.

The last guy I caught her with ended up with her. He’s a really great guy and she was lucky to find him. He still goes out of his way to spend time with my daughter because he genuinely loves her. I’m so thankful that she found him. With BPD she really did get lucky finding the guy.

Both of us got our lives together. I don’t take the girl I’m with for granted at all. My ex got her license, a job she loved, a house, a car. Then, cancer.

It eats me alive that she had a terrible childhood where she was abused and treated like no one, then we had the misfortune of meeting each other and dragging each other down. She spent all of her life living in misery and hell, finally had two good years, suffered horribly and died.

I deserve to feel guilt. I really do. I couldn’t have known that we could do so much better if we just got away from each other. I had to experience something else to know it. I had to see her experience something else to know it.

If she had left me when her mother came to try to get her to come home when she was 18, she could have had a decent life. She could have been the person she dreamed of being and I could have been the person I dreamed of being.

Instead she sat in misery for the only shot she had, for the entirety of her one life, and I was a source of that misery.

I’m here, living a wonderful life with a great woman and beautiful family. I have everything a person could ever want.

We were both shit to each other. That girl never got a chance.

If I could go back in time, I would have walked away when our daughter was an infant.

I can’t do that. All I can do is be as kind as I can be to the people I love and do my best to never live a life like that again. Her words echo in my head though sometimes, “You made my life hell and now you’re just gonna walk away and be a goddamn prince for someone else? For someone who didn’t stay up all night making sure you didn’t fucking overdose and die? She’ll never know what a monster you truly are because I got the pleasure of being some big goddamn life lesson for you? Well horrah! Treat her good then. I hope you both die. I really do.”

It sucks we can’t be born knowing how to treat people.