Well, he's admitted that it was pretty stupid. I don't think he really knows what he was thinking.

If I try to think further into what his intentions were, then it comes across really, really bad. So I've opted to simply think that he is an idiot. It's the best possible light in which I can frame this situation. Of course, I am a bit of a smart arse about calling him one, but I'm less guilty about that than having told him things about my own life.

I still don't think that people deserve to be hurt and such. I think that's dangerous thinking really. To believe that a person must deserve it, to believe that they must have done something to get their "just desserts" to me is very dangerous thinking.

I prefer to take ownership of my actions. I admit that they were very poor. I am sorry that I lashed out in that way, used undisclosed information in such a way as to hurt somebody when I had no actual need to disclose it. I don't think that he deserved it.

Course, I'm very funny about the idea of people "deserving" things, and getting their "just desserts". There's a cognitive bias that people have called the Just World Phenomenon. It comes out of people's need to see the world as orderly, predictable and just and that people get what they deserve. It's good to an extent because we need that to be able to plan our lives and our goals -- however, when we encounter evidence that the world is not just, we either seek to resolve the justice by helping the victim, or by convincing ourselves that no injustice has occurred.

I think the actions of my ex and I are much more complex than that. I don't think either of us deserved what was done to the other, and I think we should both take ownership of our separate parts in it.

I'm disappointed in myself that I've not the integrity to behave better. I like to consider myself more scrupulous than that.

____________________
"...and, in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make"