Hey everyone,

My ex-partner (who I’ll be referring to simply as M to avoid sending any unwanted attention their way) has recently made public some very important grievances they have with me regarding the way I behaved during our relationship and after the breakup. I want to apologize for the harm I caused them as well as for taking so long to address this in detail. Thank you in advance to those who will take the time to read this in full.

While several aspects of what I’ve been accused of are not accurate, I want to make two things clear: nothing I’m saying absolves me of causing harm. Secondly, I don’t believe that any of the inaccuracies I’ll be addressing were made out of malice and I want to state in the strongest possible terms that no one should use anything I say here to harass or in any way attack M who, as I understand it, is simply trying to move on with their life. No one is under any obligation to believe me and I wouldn’t want you to uncritically accept what I’m about to say. All accusations should be taken seriously and my statements should be examined with a critical eye. With that said, there’s nothing I can do but give my honest account of what happened and take responsibility. The following is the truth to the best of my knowledge.

From February 2021 to May 2022 I was in a long distance relationship that by all accounts didn’t work. This was in no small part due to me being an awful partner. Some of the things I’ve always struggled with in relationships are communication, listening, prioritizing my partner, as well as being forgetful and a flake; all things that are especially important when you’re in a long distance relationship. I was extremely neglectful which would lead to fights, leading to me promising to do better and then failing, rinse and repeat.

My partner had every right to be unhappy in the relationship and ultimately we broke up in a way that we both agree was extremely messy. I’m not bringing that up to play the victim but to explain why I was sad, angry, and believed that I’d been wronged which led to me acting in ways that were embarrassing, immature, and petty. I made sophomoric tweets, posted break-up song lyrics, and privately trashed them to our friends. While my actions were bad in their own right, having subsequently found out the true reason for the breakup, I now realize that how I acted hurt M far more than I realized and I’m deeply sorry for that.

Around a month after the breakup M reached out to discuss issues in our relationship. They gave me their perspective on an incident that occurred during the last time they visited me. That night M went to bed several hours earlier than me as I stayed up late editing a video. When I got into bed I tried to wake them up to initiate sex, forgetting that they take powerful medications to help them sleep. When they didn’t respond I stopped and went to sleep.

My understanding from M was that they viewed this as a “drunken mistake”, but that it was extremely frightening and made them uncomfortable for the rest of their visit. I took it seriously and apologized but didn’t realize how much it had affected them, as it was brought up only as a small part of a larger discussion about our relationship. Had I known then how deeply this had traumatized M, I would have immediately committed to an accountability process and worked to aid in M’s healing in whatever way they saw fit.

What happened was a serious error on my part but the motives which M has ascribed to me are entirely inaccurate and deeply upsetting. I tried to initiate sex that night out of a genuine desire for connection with my partner, in one of the ways that we often initiated sex with each other. I stopped as soon as I realized that M was not responding. I do not dispute M’s claim that they did not want sex that night – a person can not want sex in a relationship for any reason and it should always be respected. But it is important to make clear that, before I tried to initiate sex, M did not in any way indicate that they were withholding it as they’ve claimed. If they had, I would never have touched them. M has now published an account of what happened that is simply not what happened.

About two months later, a mutual friend reached out to tell me that M had said that I had assaulted them. The mutual friend told me that both they and M believed that this was caused by me having a drinking problem. The friend said that in order to make things right I needed to quit drinking, start attending AA, and down the line have a mediated reconciliation with M. My understanding now is that the reconciliation was something that the friend was pushing for but M didn’t want. This was not made clear to me at the time.

M has since repeatedly stated that I am an alcoholic. I believe that where this comes from is that they drink very little but would see me at the times I’d drink the most, ie: when I’d take a week off from work and want to go out partying because my long distance partner was visiting. I recognise that this belief comes from a place of concern, but it is not true. I know it’s difficult to prove, and I’m definitely in no position to ask for trust, but I am not an alcoholic. My therapist, who coincidentally specializes in alcoholism among other things, doesn’t think I’m an alcoholic. I don’t meet the criteria. Alcohol does not have a disruptive role in my life. My friends and family don’t think I am an alcoholic.  While I am a social drinker, I don’t drink to numb my emotions or feel compelled to drink at any time.

Regardless, I went to my first AA meeting that night, when I told them that I didn’t think I was an alcoholic, they suggested I try quitting drinking for 90 days to see. I did that with no real difficulty other than a bit of awkwardness at social events stemming from feeling weird being the only person not drinking. If anyone reading this who’s spent any significant amount of time with me honestly thinks that I’m an alcoholic, please reach out to me.

I genuinely want to show that I am committed to being better, and it is imperative to me that nothing remotely like this happens again. But I don’t think the correct path to making that happen is to be sober, because the problem was not alcohol. When I told the mutual friend, now acting as a mediator, about this, their response was that in order for me to set things right I needed to make some kind of change that demonstrated that this could never happen again. They said that unless I could prove that I was making a clear change in some other way (therapy, which I’d started attending at this time, didn’t count) I needed to be in AA.

I believe very strongly in accountability. Regardless of my intentions, one thing that's undeniable is that real and very serious harm was done and M deserves to see me taking steps to ensure I never behave this way again, but I don’t know how to achieve that. I haven’t directly asked M, because of their trauma from my actions and not wanting to retrigger it or make it worse. I have reached out to several people to try and find out this information from M, but they indicated they don’t want to be involved further. I have asked what I should do to make things right but am told that I need to get that from M. I am not saying that any of these other people are responsible for helping me appropriately address this. But my previous attempt at making this right has been called insufficient, and so at this point I’m unsure of what I can do.

During the mediation, I was working on a video about pick-up artists. I asked the mediator if releasing a video on this topic would be alright with M or if I should scrap it. I was told that making the video would be fine but only if I acknowledged this situation in the video. I had assumed that this was coming from M and while I was still hesitant about making it I trusted in the instructions given to me by the mediator and proceeded with the video. I’ve seen a lot of criticism of me having done this video claiming that I was “making content” out of the situation. Let me clarify that I agree that doing so would have been entirely inappropriate and so the video makes no specific references to this situation. Furthermore, the only reason why any reference is included, and why the video exists at all, is because I was following the instructions that I had received from the mediator.

Around the time I was working on the video M travelled to the city I live in. They went to a bar that a friend of mine worked at who recognized them and told me. At this time I still thought that friendly reconciliation was their goal, and, due to serious life events outside of their control, our mediator was extremely hard to get in touch with.  I figured I’d reach out to M directly to offer them the reconciliation that I believed they wanted as well as to, yes, ask them if they’d be ok with my video (not for them to appear in it - I’m not sure where that idea got started). In retrospect, this was a huge mistake and I should not have directly contacted them. The unexpected contact after months of silence understandably was very upsetting to them and for that I deeply apologize.

Communication with the mediator was made difficult and infrequent by continued circumstances outside of their control, and around the end of August I stopped hearing from them. In the first week of September M made a public post stating that I had sexually assaulted them. I responded by releasing an apology that has since been viewed as inadequate. The mediator has never spoken to me about any of this since the end of August. I probably could have done more to stay in touch but it seemed better to just finish my 90 days of sobriety and continue doing the work on myself in therapy instead.

M has indicated that I should have reached out to apologize, from our last correspondence I had assumed that this was something they definitely didn’t want but I’m open to doing so it could help them heal from this. As I said, I don’t know what accountability should look like here, but things haven’t been made right yet and I will commit myself to doing that. I want to do what I can to help M in their recovery process and understand that that means more than just an apology.

Ultimately this is between M and I, this should go without saying but any harassment towards them is entirely unacceptable. On that same note I do not plan to make public updates about this process and I ask that you please respect that this is not simply internet drama or entertainment but real people’s lives. I won’t be posting any videos and will be staying off of social media for the time being.

To M, I’m sincerely sorry for the harm that I've caused you. I wish that an apology could heal your pain but unfortunately I don’t think life works that way and so I’ll be taking time to put in effort towards aiding in your healing and being a positive force in the world, whatever form that may take.

Sam