Hey guys looking for some help. I’m so sorry for the long post! Basically I’ve been eating myself alive with guilt and convinced I am a bad person and don’t deserve to be happy ? basically about 5 months ago my ex partner broke up with me. Some stuff had happened in her personal life her mother passed away suddenly and she had also just moved away for a new job - the plan was that I would move in a few months. I’ll be the first to admit prior to theses two events the relationship wasn’t perfect tiffs here and there but nothing major. I thought it was because of the distance to begin with during which time her mother died my partner then came back for a month during this time and understandably was not herself. After a month a bit she had returned to her new home and work. We were keeping up the long distance thing going over phone calls etc but it was hard. She returned for a night out for her bday which I got upset on after some drinks and her acting like she wasn’t really interested in me at all. I had felt like this for a while anyway and was having doubts about moving away. Anyway - about a week later once she had returned we got into an argument over the phone and she said she was sorry she just didn’t feel right anymore about things and was taking it out on me - due to the situation with her mum. She didn’t know how to feel about the relationship and that we would be better off apart - I attempted to salvage things over the phone and was devastated when she said she thought we should end it - she said various things about us not getting on anyway which I thought could be salvaged when I moved to where she was. However she said repeatedly over the phone it’s not going to work and threw in something from over a year ago when I had been drunk and said some things and acted like a dick. Wish I apologised deeply for but I had been upset in general at that time because of some things that she had said or acted when sober. She used this example in why she was breaking up with me. There have been instances where we both drank too much and have said things out of line however I just have this horrible guilt about what has happened each time we were drunk and feel now I don’t deserve to be happy because of my behaviour despite being supportive and willing to move everything for her. I am interested in someone else who I am so excited about and we just click! And I now fully recognise that me and my ex were not meant to be but how the hell do I shift the guilt and allow myself to feel a happy with this other person without thinking about past things said and done? Any help?

I will be straight forward and honest. I have cheated in the past. My last relationship was long term, and I had begged and begged for him to change and in the end he never did. I don’t know why I cheated. And I’m not going to make excuses for myself for why I did. I messed up. The cheating was online, it was never in person. But now, I’m in a new relationship. And he’s everything I have ever wanted in a boyfriend, husband, and best friend. I want this man to be with me the rest of our lives, and I want to see him help raise our future children. But I can’t help but feel such immense guilt, because although I have never cheated on him, his ex had cheated on him. And I truly don’t understand how or why she would…but that’s not my place to comment on. Such a big part of me wants to tell him, and tell him that that’s not me anymore, and I know that we will communicate healthily and openly, unlike my last relationship, which he never wanted to. Not only this, my brain just won’t. stop. thinking…about how I had cheated. I regret doing what I had done, I don’t WANT to cheat anymore, or ever again. Especially with the love of my life I have now. But I’m scared of what do I do if I have a compulsion, or anything revolving around cheating. I want to tell him about it, but I know I shouldn’t, and can’t really tell him as it’s complicated, and I know I would only make things worse. I feel like such a terrible person, and girlfriend, for what I have done and what I’m worried about ‘if I do’, even though I don’t want to. I want to be better, I want to grow. Any advice please would be amazing.

I’m disappointed and upset with myself. Growing up in an immigrant household that didn’t believe in therapy as much, I mostly only really took care of my mental health when it came to playing sports. I was not a great communicator when it came to my feelings or being vulnerable with my partners and friends.The world makes you feel like it’s normal to not say what you mean and that you have to be indirect with a lot of the things you say. It caused a lot of fights, hurt feelings, and words I should have never said between me and my recently ex girlfriend. We had broken up about a week ago, but today is the day she said she did not want to talk to me anymore. I wish I did more than journal and meditate. I wish I got treatment for my OCD earlier, or just any therapy at all. I wish I learned to be better at communication way before I met her. Maybe I wouldn’t have lost her, maybe if I had been more honest and more direct about my feelings, our fights wouldn’t have happened. I wish I could have been more for her. I wish I could have been more for myself. I wish I took mental health, growing, and healing more seriously. I am disappointed for my skepticism and being okay with stagnating as a person. I should have healed and addressed my issues sooner. I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know how to move on. It feels like I blew my one chance to be with the one person I really loved and the first partner I planned on something really long term with. I feel both the weight and pain of disappointment in myself, and losing her. I know the breakup is hitting her too, and I am worried about her wellbeing. They say there are 5 stages of grief, I wonder what stage this one is. And I wonder how long it’ll take me to just come to acceptance. I want to be better. I want to not hurt people I care about. I want to be the man I am supposed to become.

I feel like I really need help right now. I keep reminiscing on my old relationship and comparing it to my current one. For context, within my old relationship I had been with him for a pretty awful year and 3 months. Within the first 3 months I realized that I didn't actually want to be with him, but I felt sorry for him. So, I stupidly started self sabotaging the relationship. I know that it was stupid, and I tried to break up with him but every time I felt bad. His mental health was already bad and I hate any possibility that I can make someone's mental health worse. That whole "relationship" was so toxic on both ends though. All of that alone has me so messed up. But with that I also had this false attraction to him. Like, I would always be figuring out what I wanted in a relationship and tried to do that with him despite knowing that I didn't actually want to be with him. Now my mind keeps trying to convince me that I'm doing that with my current relationship. I know that I'm not. This one feels genuine and it's pretty healthy. We have our bumps, but we both have this want to fix it and it's just so nice. I hate that my brain is trying to ruin this for me.