26d • Relationships
1 Step Forward, 2 Steps Back
This is going to be a very long post, but ive been having a hard time processing what im experiencing and just need to get my story out because everyone views this man as a saint and a perfect partner. And that is just so far from my experience with him and i feel so manipulated. Im sorry this isnt the successful self growth progress update i wanted my 1 month marker to be.
Ive officially hit one month post breakup and i thought i was heading in the right direction but the last few days have been a huge struggle for me. For context: (I am 28, he is 30) i was recently broken up with over text by my partner of 3.5 years after living together for 2/2.5 ish years. It has been a very confusing time for me and through self reflection ive realized that i was put through a lot of mental and emotional abuse that im honestly embarrassed by. I wasn’t ignoring the red flags, i literally could not see them at all. This last month has had me in a mental spiral trying to decipher the reality i had perceived was happening and the reality of the man he was actually being behind his mask. Ive felt like i have been on the verge of a mental breakdown trying to comprehend any of this (i am safe and in therapy)
I went no contact with him immediately but had a friend that got left behind on one of his social medias accidentally. (This friend is no longer on his socials and i have no further attachment to him now) This accidental tether to my ex was the reason i found out that not only has my ex already hard launched his new girlfriend, but he was actually officially with her exactly 2 weeks after the breakup.
He had spent most of our relationship confiding in me about his traumas, especially his trauma around his fathers affair. Because of this i foolishly trusted him to be faithful without a single doubt. This lead to him having the ability to micro cheat on me with all of his little internet ladies and overall disrespecting me and my boundaries. (Examples include: love confessions from these women, nudes from these women, woman blatantly asking when he was going to leave me for them or if they could be his second girlfriend ect) i know about all of this because he would either sit me down and tell me to be “transparent that he shut them down” (i now realize this was him trying to show me he had options) and he would also be on live public tiktok streams with these women on speakerphone while i was in the room. I would hear them making fun of my appearance and my weight and while he would never encourage it he would “laugh it off” and when i would talk to him about how it hurt that he didnt set boundaries/defend me it would start an argument about how i didnt hear everything and that he does defend me when im not overhearing the conversations. This had me feeling crazy and controlling and i didnt want to dictate his friendships so i trusted his word.
I was never allowed to meet his online friends, he always had a vague reason. Though he would throw a fit if i was ever in any online spaces without him (like my women-run bookclub) until one day last year he was so excited to introduce me to one of his newer friends. I was just excited to be included and i was happy to meet her. She was married and very possessive of her husband/child/marriage so i thought i could trust their friendship. She and i ended up following eachother on socials. Turns out they were having an emotional affair the entire time. He admitted this affair to me 4 days before Christmas, crying, begging me to stay, saying hed do anything to work it out, and that nothing like this would ever happen again. However when i called it what it was: an affair, he denied that thats what it was. (This woman sent him $200 when he and i were on our anniversary trip in October… a trip that my mother funded for us and he didnt pay a dime for, she would call him at 11-12 at night practically in tears because she hated his other female friends and hated that she wasnt the most important woman in his life -i heard this conversation myself but at the time was delusional and didnt understand the context-, they both confessed love to eachother, and when i had stated out of upset “why did it have to be her” after he told me about the cheating he went into a detailed explanation of how and why he fell in love with her. So yes, it was an affair.) i chose to forgive and stay on the condition that he blocked her. Little did i know this was when he started bringing a burner phone to work. (I didnt find this out until post break up)
Soon everything went from “ill do anything to make this work” to me being the problem. He started ramping up the frequency he would make comments about how i dont do my makeup anymore (he stopped taking me places i could get dolled up for) and things he once said were the reasons he loved me were now the reasons he couldnt stand to look at me. All while also shopping for engagement rings at the same time. He said he wanted to work things out and try couples therapy but refused to help me look for therapists, he also requested i get fertility testing done (im disabled and while i want nothing more than to be a mother, pregnancy may be harmful to my body) He also started viewing me as a financial burden even though they only money he ever spent on me was for frivolous gifts or food i never asked for. He was never financially responsible for me at all because i had made sure that wouldnt be a point of resentment for him and my disability.
Now that ive found out that he moved on so fast im realizing that he was talking to her before he left me. He was looking me in the eye and dehumanizing me, pointing out all my flaws and asking me to go through rigorous and violating medical testing all while fulling setting up his next victim. And i dont say victim lightly. A look at her socials (i went to block her) and she is VERY vocal about surviving an abusive partner that put her through EVERYTHING my ex put me through. Her entire page is about the abuse. He picked her because of that. He also picked her because she has 3 children. And i just feel sick to my stomach. I feel like all the healing i managed to do over the last month has completely regressed and im back to square one. I feel like im going insane and theres not a single thing that i can do without making myself fill the roll of the crazy ex that hes painting me out to be. Its devastating.
Im not sure how to pick myself up and move forward. I lost so much of myself to him. Poured way too much much into him while all he did was move goal posts and say that i wasnt supporting him. I know what i need to be focusing on right now is pouring back into me but i just dont have the capacity to do that right now. I feel like im falling into a void and cant claw myself out. He gaslit me into believing he was perfect until i put a roof over his head, became his personal uber driver, fed and clothed him, bought him all the jewelry he wanted, helped him find himself and his confidence, and got him a full time job with full benefits (he was working 12 hr weeks in retail at minimum wage for years. I got him a job where my mother works that fully changed his life and bank account. His lack of work ethic and ambition is very quickly putting him on thin ice with his boss now that he no longer has me motivating him to even show up for his shifts. Hes taken a total of a week and a half off since the breakup happened) i changed his life for the better and he took that and thought that i was no longer on his level. That i was no longer worthy. That just because i was disabled that all my effort wasnt equal to his. Even though i am the only reason he is where he is now. It shatters me knowing that i am his success and he just tossed me away so he can show off and flex for another woman who didnt invest any emotional or physical effort into his temporary growth.
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1 Step Forward, 2 Steps Back
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