Examine your role in the demise of a relationship. This is an exercise in self-awareness, so direct your learning toward you. This is such an important thing to learn in life, especially if you are seeking more love. I've seen many people spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out what went wrong, and getting stuck when they concentrate on the other person's part in the breakup and neglect focusing on their own role.
Everyone has had at least one relationship that ended. Whether you are fifteen or fifty, whether you are a loner, a social butterfly, or somewhere in between, there was a time when you had a relationship with someone and it ended. Perhaps it was not an intimate involvement but a friendship or a business connection. That's not important. What matters is your role, what you did or didn't do, said or didn't say that contributed to the end of this liaison.
This exercise is not about blame but about responsibility. It is recognizing that you freely chose to get involved with this person, and that once you did, a combination of many forces contributed at first to maintaining the relationship and eventually to ending it. What was your role? Did you change? Did he or she change? How did you react? Was the relationship less than honest from the beginning and did things end when you became more frank?
Were there things about this person that you really didn't like and merely tolerated for a while? Did you decide one day you didn't want to endure them any longer? Had you given up on the relationship but let the other person make the break?
These are the questions you need to ask yourself. If you learn how to take responsibility for your part in a relationship, especially when it ends, you take a giant leap toward ensuring that you will not make the same mistakes again — even if you only learn not to get involved with the same sort of person. Acknowledge your part. See what role you played. A relationship, even the most casual one, is not a one-person affair. If you examine your role, you learn that your life is your creation. You are not a victim of circumstances. You create them.
— Alan Epstein in How to Have More Love in Your Life