Lost the love of my life because of my emotional stunting

My partner of 15 years (F30) and I (F30) are taking a break after some things happened that forced me to confront my incapacity to communicate as well as issues with emotional dysregulation and, way back in the past, anger, while she finally confronted her own unhappiness from carrying the emotional labor in our relationship and me refusing to step up and change for so long.

Now that I’m working on the things she had always said she needed, she’s expressed she can’t do it anymore (‘where was this version of you years ago?’ ‘I enabled your complacency by making excuses in my head for your emotional unavailability’ ‘I don’t want to keep begging for your patience and attention anymore’), and I understand. I keep wishing for one last chance but I know I had all those years and all those chances and I regret not being a better partner. I’m not sure I was even a partner to begin with knowing now how she must have felt so alone.

She is my best friend and the only person I feel will ever truly know me. We grew up in highschool and struggled with our homophobic families and teachers and peers together, moved cities for uni together, navigated unemployment and toxic jobs and mental health and other illness together, got 2 cats together, and have been living with each other for the better part of 13 years.

She says she’ll always be my friend and still believes we’re soulmates, but that she just doesn’t have the energy to extend herself any further in that capacity for me anymore.

I’m devastated knowing I’ve lost her thanks to the consequences of things I have and haven’t done and the grief and heartbreak are unbearable; I keep wanting to punish myself.

I’m in no way looking for sympathy. I recognize my contribution to the end of our relationship and wanted to get other people’s perspectives on how I could do better and take accountability without sinking into self-hatred. If you feel the need to express your anger for what my actions represent in your own contexts/histories, that’s valid, too.