Reading something here has struck me. Can you look back and see a mistake you made that ruined a perfectly good relationship? And did you never do it again?
When I was about 17 and very naive, young and harmed, fresh out of a terrible childhood, I started going out with a boy who had recently split with another girl. They were still in touch etc. We met and started going out, but I always wondered if she were better than me or he liked her more.
I had not been loved or wanted as a child. I'd been physically hurt a lot and shamed, hated on, ostracised. I took over where my mother left off, especially when I felt sad or bad.
I started asking this boy about his ex, her happy family, about things they did together etc. I went on about it so much, I pushed him back to her.
Afterwards, I really saw that I'd ruined it myself with my thinking. I hadn't respectfully given them space, I hadn't given their relationship the right to exist on its own, I probed it. I put myself down, I grieved about my lack of family, I compared us and found myself wanting. It was a form of emotional abuse of myself really.
But when it ended I never ever did it again. It took a long time to get the childhood sorted, but that experience really taught me that self harming in this way is not useful in any way. I had to grow up and become a woman in my own right, with my own gifts that are not to be compared to others. Life can be hard enough without a person putting their own self down too.
Started the thread as a look back I suppose, to see good stuff people learned.