Need to pour this out……

I ended my relationship 3 days ago. I don’t think he was a raging sociopath or narcissist, but definite controlling and manipulative tendencies. These are painful days and I am struggling. Just need to get it off my chest and maybe hear some of your thoughts.

I was a single parent for a long time, had been on my own for 12 years bringing up my two daughters when I met A. He absolutely love bombed me, but at the time I was just swept off my feet and starry eyed. He was generous, caring, made me feel amazing, all that usual stuff. Red flags first appeared about 6 weeks in, and I’m kicking myself that I didn’t pay heed, especially after previous nightmare relationship experiences. I saw glimpses of another side of him: demanding, critical, unreasonable – things would escalate quite quickly and his tone would become sarcastic, I’d suspect at times he was provoking me. But that was far outweighed by the positives – he made me feel secure and loved etc. Nonetheless, it was a bit of a rollercoaster emotionally.

He moved in with me after 4 months – I wouldn’t have chosen for that to happen so soon but his accommodation was connected to his job and as he was changing roles and in a difficult spot I allowed it to happen. 6 months in we went on a holiday to Thailand and he proposed. I accepted, shushing the alarm bells in my head that were trying to alert me to the amount of drama, arguing and nonsense in the relationship. The number of times I’d ended up crying in the toilets at work, spending ages messaging back and forth desperately trying to resolve ridiculous issues with him.

8 months in I discovered that he had considerable debts that he hadn’t mentioned to me. I’d made it clear that complete honesty was essential for me in a relationship, and the fact that he had kept his debts hidden and that he had shown poor judgment bothered me deeply. I ended things. It wasn’t the debts that bothered me as much as the hiding, the damage to trust. He turned on the full groveling, crying, begging mess and I took him back. Looking back there was a lot of emotional manipulation about me turning my back on him and our family, being cold and unsympathetic, lacking understanding etc.

After we got back together things were mostly better, but there were still concerns for me: mostly, him demanding to know where I am and what I’m doing, not in a friendly, tell me about your day sort of way, but in a suspicious, demanding way. Implying that I’m cheating on him and lying to him. Didn’t like me having a seated, fully-clothed back and shoulder massage at work because the masseur is a man. Any time I mentioned my closest peer at work – male – there would be a reaction of some sort, so in the end I stopped doing it. Every time I worked late or socialized with my colleagues he made an issue of it, expected me to answer his messages even mid-meal. I’m an introvert who needs time alone, but every time I tried to take any there would be horrible consequences, mostly him being convinced that I was with another man. I could see that he was staring to characterize me as an over-sensitive, over-dramatic, over-reacting woman any time I took issue with things like this. Our arguments would be protracted and circular, he used a lot of sarcasm and ridiculous, childish behavior. My head would feel fried.

The final straw was when I was at a gym class, and in a break between work-out tracks I answered a message from him. That was it – how could I be messaging if I was in a gym class? Where was I really? He even sent me a screen shot of the gym timetable. I looked at myself in the gym mirror and just thought: no. I shouldn’t have to justify myself, prove myself. Even if I’d changed my mind and gone shopping instead, so what? I told him to F-off. And of course then it was all about how my reaction was so rude, all I had to do was answer the question. He actually said “I would have accepted a simple, polite explanation”.

I am trying to stay strong. After about 12 hours he sent a message apologizing, admitting that he’d messed up, saying “jealousy is a strange and difficult thing”. I’ve had to block him on social media as he wouldn’t stop begging, reminding me how good we were, how sorry he was etc, even when I asked him repeatedly to stop.

This has all come tumbling out of me, and I feel like I’ve written so much now, not in an orderly way at all. Thank you to anyone who reads this – just the writing of it has been therapeutic.

The loss of this relationship feels like a hammer blow to me. Being with someone after so long on my own was amazing and despite all of the rubbish I miss him. But I am made of tough stuff and know I deserve better.

Love to you all xxx