I had the One and I blew it.
We had shared goals and enjoyed doing some, but not all of the same things, we had fun together. We both knew from early on, got engaged after 18 months (I consider that to be quick, others may not!), and we made each other better (not just my opinion, something that friends and family said to us). We had a moment on an early date where I was lying down and she was just lying with her head on my chest (fully-clothed, non-sexual) and it was time for her to go home, and she said "I don't want to get up, this spot here and now just feels perfect". We actually took 3 weeks from meeting to having a date because she told me she had a date with someone else so I wouldn't ask her out, but in that time we went out for work drinks and I told her that there's no way he was right for her in front of about 6 people because we were talking as a group - which for me was such an out of character level of being up front (was early, still sober), and she was having a second date with him that night, went to it and left shortly afterwards and went home.
Unfortunately, when various challenges in life came around I didn't provide the right support (I provided support, just not the right type), and I also let myself be dragged down emotionally by the experience, lost my self-confidence, lost my direction/ambition (decided my career at the time wasn't actually what I wanted but kept dragging myself in to a job I hated every day) and the happiness faded.
She brought many of the problems to the party, but had I not been so naive, and been more emotionally resilient I should have handled them better. I think that's the worst bit, at the time we finally called it a day, I was very much in the "but you did this, and you did this, and I've wasted 10 years of my life" mind set, but learning and researching about relationships since then I realise that pretty much everything had been in my control to do something about it. If I could go back and advise a 20yo me on one thing to change in life, I'd tell him to spend $ on self-improvement courses, and not hope life teaches him the right lessons at the right time.
The underlying problem is I was raised in a very risk-averse environment, and as some one who's a good boy and sticks to the rules (so me and Taylor Swift have one thing in common, for anyone that's seen her documentary lol), so when faced with situations where I had to defy the rules or take big risks, I froze and became a victim instead of putting my big boy pants on and taking the challenge.
But the pandemic has left me no choice but to put those pants on now simply to survive, so next time I'll be prepared, and I'm investing time (since I don't have the $ at the moment) in self-coaching.
And to end on a positive note, I'd been in love before I met her, but never that sort of love, I just thought it was something you saw in the movies, so just knowing it's out there is still a beautiful thing. Also we have two great little girls.