How do I stop punishing myself for past actions?

TW: Sex, Cheating I do believe i deserve some amount of flame for my actions. However, i am tired of running around in circles and pretending I'm okay when I'm not.. i do think that even though I was wrong I should forgive myself and move on but i have not been able to get anywhere near coming to terms with it. I 21F cheated on my boyfriend of 2 years 29M. He ended it (rightfully so), but now I'm here ruminating on my actions. It was with an acquaintance I knew for a while. We went to school together and were fairly familiar up until recently. My ex was a good guy. Thoughtful, caring, great chef, had a plan to have his own family (stay at home wife with 4 kids), nice job with an okay income and side hustles to boot— Everything you're supposed to want in your future husband as a young woman. At the point of the cheating i desperately wanted out of the relationship. Why? • I had to clean up after him all the time. He was a messy eater & spilled food regularly, mixed his clean clothes with dirty clothes, left rubbish on his bed, would leave dirty dishes wherever they were until it was mentioned. • After getting sick from eating a breakfast burrito with pork (I don't eat pork, grew up not eatingit and would like to keep it that way) he confessed to me that he's fed it to me food and found it amusing that I liked it and didn't know. • He kept forgetting important things about me and my family members (like my mom's allergy to shellfish when he'd bring shrimp over regularly or that fact that I didn't like chocolate and only buy chocolatecakes and pastries 'for me') • He continously drove over the speed limit which caused me anxiety but couldn't be bothered if I was late to work (Which he usually was the hold back for) • Wanted to have children too early and thought me having an unplanned pregnancy was hot (I got on Birth Control to prevent that) • Told me that condoms hurt so we would continue having unprotected sex. • Rejoined WhatsApp p0rn groups after I asked him to leave them. • Would not fix or get rid of his car that had a failing transmission despite having the money to. • Gambled and made aggravating financial decisions— Like buying that same car with bad transmission (I do give credit it was a beautiful CRV) • My vibrator went missing and he was the only one in my room regularly enough to know where I kept it. • I'd always be bruised, swollen and in pain for days after sexual intercourse. And many other minor trivial offences. The nail in the coffin was us having sex and him "not hearing" the safe word for the third time in a row... Which i must admit.. I didn't speak up about immediately and only did after wanting to initiate a couple weeks after but breaking down because i didn't want him to touch me. I should have just ended the relationship but instead I tried to hold on to it with all those resentments and jumped into someone else's bed at the first opportunity. There's nothing in this world that justifies it and he didn't deserve to be betrayed like that. Despite all this I don't feel sorry, or guilty about the cheating itself. Just embarrassed that I stayed that long, tolerated all that BS and it took me being involved with another person for him to end it than me just ending it. My pride is bruised, ego in shambles and I lowered myself to that level for mostly nothing. And this is what I keep ruminating on. Why did I do all that? Why hurt him? Why disrespect him? Why degrade myself? I do have low self esteem & that did influence a lot of my choices. But I also managed to reinforce the fact that I don't deserve to be loved because truly, look at the type of person I am and the choices I managed to make just as I am entering adulthood. I am not faultless in the failing of this relationship but I definitely did fail him and myself more than anything. Its all stupid. I am tired and I want to move on. I want to stop beating myself up over this. I want to do better and change but... now i'm starting to wonder if that's even possible for me or if I even deserve to continue trying to be better. TLDR; I have to come to terms that I might be the scum of the earth.. how do I go about doing that? •Therapy is half my weekly salary and I can't afford to pay that out right now.

It’s all good to look for professional therapy etc & if you look hard enough, you’ll find it at your local churches or community centres depending on where you live. It’s not all pay as you go. Regardless, none of them can help you solve anything unless your head is in the right place & when that happens everything is achievable. No counselling or therapy will solve your issue for you, rather they’ll point you in the right direction & it’ll be your efforts which will see you succeed. You don’t have to justify yourself for ending a relationship regardless if people judge you because no matter who you are or what you do, you’ll be judged whatever you do in life. Flame you? forget about it as you don’t deserve to be. It’s your actions which decided which way your relationship was going to go. When you decided to go elsewhere, you were making a decision then to end your relationship; you’d had enough & you were moving on then & there...& so again, it’s your actions which do all of your talking no matter how you try & explain it with words & it’s up to you to accept the responsibility of those actions without any shame. You need to deal with the past without dwelling in it & once you do that then you will have set yourself some successful boundaries without you even knowing it. You will empower yourself but taking control & ignoring the obvious negatives. At the moment, you’re not setting yourself boundaries as you’re reliving everything through your mind asking yourself the same what ifs over again. You’re still looking for a closure to a past event, but you’re in charge of that closure as there’s no one else to close it for you. That’s you running around in circles as you posted & it’s a self-defeating behaviour. You’re basically making yourself a victim with this attitude & mindset & it’s preventing you from healing & moving forward. You don’t have to change & just because your ex was a good guy, it doesn’t mean that you’re not a good person underneath it all no matter what’s gone down & how it happened. If you can nurture & mature your inner self, then that’s you kicking more positive goals. The light at the end of the tunnel is a positive you, dealing with different problems which will arise during your life, as a more responsible & confident person with solid self-esteem..not to mention your communication & your interpersonal skills which will become some of your best strengths. As they say, lift your chin up, sort your head & get on with it.

Hi Lemon, I don't see a good guy. I see a Disrespectful, thus non-cooperative-to-point-of-Antagonistic, come, downright Sadistic Forrest Gump Pretender of a - oft Sadistic as well as Huge Risk-Taking, Poisoning-Practising BULLY, both Covert AND Overt....and that was 'Date Rape'. I don't have the time now but I'm going to log-on at some point over the weekend - with links. Narcissistic Sociopath (or Sociopathic Narcissist - AsPD). 'Why did I cheat....'. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?! Good guy my arse. WAKE-UP YOU TWO!!!

Oh, and you didn't cheat, you Reactively Abused (Self-Defense) AS you grabbed for a frame of reference, to know - is it him or IS it me (like he insists)?? Him. It. Pretending to be a Him. Sorry for this bombshell but you're the one that literally listed-out all of his N-Spath traits and characteristics. YOU KNEW. Deep down, I mean. So... the 'getting over' attempt, not quite working, as if that had been a normal relationship where he were normal-healthy too, rather than a long-drawn-out domestic crime in-motion with a secret nutter (and dinosaur-misogynist) (STAY AT HOME?....oh, don't get me started). And that's why. The Healing Into Recovery path is DIFFERENT with/after a Narc (any type). As I say - I'll be back with links/extracts so that you don't have to just take my word for it (brainwashing is repetition; to de-brainwash you need years-worth of repetition OF TRUTH/FACTS/EVIDENCE in fast succession to undo it. Simple que ca! Laters Lemonygater... (PSSST! Good for YOU, I'm SO GLAD you hit him back, FINALLY! Whooooar - muscles....)

And meanwhile repeat after me (because by god do you need de-virusing!!!): Cheating is GENERALLY wrong. But SOMETIMES it's not. And SOMETIMES it's your only escape hatch from the 'smiling'n monster's torture chamber. So SOMETIMES, it's clever targetting (in self-defence). Context is everything. Take a ganders at this to see what I mean... THE most intelligent and creatively brilliant advert ever made, IMO (won awards)... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9YiEu6eNOA PS: N-Spaths are the Poisoners. (Sit for this one, please...) He was practising/experimenting. You are now a member of the Elite. I'll splain at the weekend. Meanwhile - if you could say Hi back so I know you're still there? Cheers!

You can NOT change it - you ARE a cheater - accept it > What type/kind ... of cheater do you want to be remembered for being? This IS your opportunity > a cheater who always wears a hat - get a hat - style, colour the rose / flower cheater get a rose / flower - leave around town, so get a couple > strike of, the rose / flower cheater

🤣 thank you MISSGUIDED79. I can't control what they remember me as and i won't ask.. but in my memory, I'd like to be able to see myself change.

Hi Lemon! Don't wait for me to post back first (if that's what you're doing?) - I'm screamingly short on posting-time at the mo. due to circs in RL outside of my control.

Hi Soulmate! No. I've sent a couple replies but I think i reloaded the website before actually allowing them to be sent. You honestly put a lot of stuff into perspective for me and a weight i didnt realize was present has lifted off my chest. Instead of trying to 'attone for my sins' and hoping for some sign of forgiveness, I've been talking myself through what actually happened and giving myself grace for all this. Because yeah, I did cheat (don't even know whether to call it that anymore). But I also didn't do to him all the things he did to me. You'd have to have a near non-existent amount of respect for someone to do those things to them. I didn't deserve that. I've since been working on Setting boundaries and standing up for myself regardless of how much it 'inconveniences' the people who would prefer i be quiet and roll with the punches. My ex recently called but I was asleep when he did. So I later asked through WhatsApp why and he replied; > "Good afternoon. Yes, i was at a party in [Nearby Area] where i played a drinking game, and they dared me to call my ex and ask to make back up." Which to me, was extremely disrespectful. Because after near raising his hand to me, blasting me in front of my mother, and sending a plethora of voice notes wishing me divine punishment, tellimg me I'm as bad as his father who all-round abused him and his family, telling me that I killed him and putting me akin to the dirt he walks and a brothel worker.... Why would he even reach out? And because other men deared him to?? The same men who's opinions mattered more than mine... While I cradle and apologise to myself with kisses and pats for staying so long and accepting hurt i otherwise wouldn't. I am left with an anger that is yet to name itself. However it is freeing and with time and understanding all will be well. I truly appreciate all the responses, perspectives, and resources you've led me to search for. Because without them I'd still be punishing myself with his words— without understanding what had happened.

Re: How do I stop punishing myself for past actions? If nothin changes, everythin remains the same > You NEED to draw a line - a reference point, a marker Everythin before the line was the old you Everythin after the line is the new you - the time to make that change