Kelly,
I know you will probably never read this, but i dont think you’ll ever talk to me again so this is my only outlet to you.
I said through our entire relationship that first and foremost we were best friends. I still hold that to be true. We have been best friends this whole time, and even though i’m not attracted to you anymore i still deeply care about you.
I think that one of a guy’s many responsibilities to his girlfriend is to bring her much happiness and joy. I tried many many times to do this, but i never felt i quite got it right. Everytime i looked at you i just felt like a failure as a boyfriend.
I still feel bad about what i did to you, but i still think it was better for both us then living in an empty or one-way relationship.
Marc
20 years later and almost ten years of marriage has given me a much better perspective on this.
I have no idea how I was socialized with this “make her happy” mentality (probably Hollywood movies), but it served me very poorly at the beginning of my marriage. I would often see my wife’s bad moods as a personal failure since I felt at a deep level that it was my primary job to keep a “happy wife; happy life”. Had to let go of that so that I could just allow her to be stressed and unhappy instead of constantly trying to “fix it”.