As long as we were together, I could simply rely on her to be the avatar of my anger and insecurity. Now it isn't so simple, we're broken up, and all the verbal abuse and screaming has gone away, and I realize now that so much of what kept me in the relationship is that she could express anger, and I couldn't. She could express her insecurity, talk about it, ask me to change my behavior (sometimes inappropriately) and I couldn't. I buried things deep down and minimized them, she bubbled and exaggerated them immediately.

Where she would ask others to change, I would internally carve myself until I was the shape others wanted. When she would defend her ego, I would pre-emptively deflate mine so no one else could do it. I realize how much we had been working as two overdriven parts of a whole individual. As I started to assert myself more towards the end of the relationship, I realized that my attraction and chemistry with her also lessened. I felt less 'pull', I felt strong enough to be able to get up and walk away when the situation was bad for me, though it was definitely a lot of two steps forward, one step back.

Now that I am alone, all of my insecurities have come back - is the pretty girl in the office actually into me? Is she hooking up with others? Why is no one hooking up with me? Why don't women ever see me for who I am? Why don't they like me? etc. etc.

My anger has come back, I lay down and think about yelling at people. I think about really going to town and tearing someone apart.

I'd outsourced key parts of my being to her. Just like she could dump all her emptiness, shame and sadness on me, I could dump my anger and insecurity on her. The only way it gets better is that I admit that anger and insecurity are a natural part of being human. That there is nothing wrong with feeling those things at some point - surely you shouldn't feel that way all the time, or even frequently, but sterilizing yourself of that emotion does no good.