Hey all. How do you forgive yourself for hurting someone? I ask because of this situation and this will be long.

My ex and I broke up 4 years ago. It was my first relationship. She broke up with me because she said she was going to rehab the next day. Instead, she drunk texted me and said she missed her bus to go...I'm not sure if that was true or not but that's what she said. She reached out to apologize but I just couldn't accept the apology at the time so I never responded. Afterwards, I found out that she had a death in the family so I reached out to send my condolences. We spoke for a bit and cleared things ups. Then I stopped talking to her because things didn't really change. A while passed and I felt like I owed her an explanation for disappearing. I apologized, I was honest (told her I still had feelings for her) and that was about it. She reached back out saying that it was okay. We spoke some more...and she ended up telling me she liked another girl but she didn't know how to approach the situation. So I was giving her advice to help her out a bit until I noticed what I was doing. I got a bit upset and told her, "I don't understand why you would talk about someone else you have feelings for right after I told you about my feelings." She said that she didn't even know how she felt half of the time and she asked if I would still be her friend even though she wasn't sure of things. I said I would...and then I ghosted on her the next day. This happened about 2-3 years ago and we haven't been in contact since. I feel so guilty about it as of late. I don't know why I keep thinking about it now.

I've grown a LOT since then. I've accepted the fact that I have flaws and that there are things I have to constantly work on. Therapy has helped and I practice being more self-aware everyday. Instead of responding with anger like I did in that relationship, I step back and try to figure out how I can verbalize things in my head. I still mess up at times, I won't lie. But I've grown since then.

I'm not a saint. There were things I said in that relationship that I shouldn't have said. I kept my feelings inside to the point where they just came out in bad ways. I handled the situation poorly and I should have been open. I deeply regret ghosting on her for the last time and not just saying, "I'm sorry but my feelings are too strong for you and I think I need to focus on myself. I apologize for all of the hurt I've caused you. I truly do. You're wonderful and I wish you all the best. You deserve it." I don't know, something like that? But the time has passed. It's been over 2 years.

I've had people tell me that there's no point in apologizing and I've had people tell me that apologizing might be a good thing. I have to agree with the former. I don't think I should just pop back into her life and apologize. I'm not good for her. We're not good for each other. I trigger her, and she seems to be doing just fine, from what I can tell because we have mutual friends. She's dated other people and the last time we spoke, she was actually sober for the first time in 4 months. I'm proud of her and I don't want to hold her back from improving her life even more.

My main question is: How can I accept the fact that I hurt someone and engaged in such negative behavior? How can I forgive myself? I have all of this guilt that's not going away. I forgive people but when it comes to myself? I have so much trouble doing that. I've learned from this and I know how to handle things in any future relationships I might have but still.

I hope people on here don't view me differently. I don't have too many people to talk about it because people don't take the relationship seriously, considering that it was my first one but short lived.

If you got this far, thanks for reading.