I can relate

I feel sad about your statement. Whatever your ex did, surely created a deep wound! There is a possibility you are still in a state of grief. If that is true, allow yourself to heal from all your losses! Your love, your dreams, belonging and a future that you wanted with someone special! Re-visit the person you were before your ex, came into your life! And, reinvent yourself using who you are, not the ideas that your ex (or anyone), may have forced upon you! When your thinking wonders off to what she did or said, challenge your thoughts and don’t waste your energy on them! Replace those ideas with ones about leaving behind what was not good for you and face into the future toward that which gives you joy! And, if it appears that joy is in short supply...it very well may be, but head in that direction anyway! You deserve it! You will heal!

@Freedompath I am too critical of myself to get past what I did wrong. I'm over her, I just can't let go of my mistakes. Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat history. Idle hands and all, but I have nothing but room for improvement.

@stinklizard I cannot know what happen, but I do know that you will need to ‘own’ what you did wrong and try and make amends. Sometimes all you can do is admit your mistake and apologize. The other person may still not get over it, but that is not your job! Your only job is to search your own self, and correct your thinking and behaving! When I first realized what harm I did to my 5 young children, I wrote it all down and sent a letter to each of them! I worked hard from that point on to try and be a good and understanding mother to each of them! But, their wounds were many and deep and even though I could see that they wanted to forgive me and let’s all move forward with love and affection...it has not worked out so smoothly! And that will always be a disappointment to me. However,, my job is to work on myself and what I need to feel like and behave like...a decent human being! I have learned to carry my grief over this...because it can never be erased! But, hopefully at some future date, it will make a difference in the eyes of children that I love..,that i did apply myself to correct where I went wrong!

@Freedompath it warms my heart to hear you are making positive steps to moving forward and trying to rebuild bridges. I hope only positive results will be your biggest problem.

Upvoted for username. Carry on.

On the other hand, it seems to me that both physical and verbal abuse lead to emotional abuse. And probably the abuser either conciously or subconciously intends their physical or verbal abuse to cause emotional harm. I can't say that I was ever physically abused (that I remember), but did suffer verbal abuse from my alcoholic father, and I'm sure his intention was to hurt me emotionally. Although I've always referred to this as psychological abuse, it amounts to the same thing.

@bingst Absolutely. You never have to lay a hand on someone to cause them unending harm. I saw way too much of this. (working with clients).

And in my book - it being done to a kid who usually has no decision making power over leaving? That is the worst.

At least an adult has some decision over staying or going.
Even when they believe they don't.

Yes.

I did not put a All of the Above..because obviously they are all bad but I wanted to see what people thought...about them individually

Often emotional or verbal abuse is much worse than physical abuse!

It has taken me many years to even confront the verbal/emotional abuse. It has been so damaging. forgiving and stopping the cycles has helped me heal quite a bit. We can be much better humans.

Agree...why I left my ex years ago

This ^^

@RavenCT Thank you.