What just happened?

[sarg]

I just “got out of” a 2 year relationship with a man. The relationship was on again off again the entire 2 years. I’m so confused, hurt, and angry about so many things. The biggest one being why I kept staying in the relationship. Even now I find myself wanting to try to “fix” things and justify my points of view. He has 1 child and I have 3. It took a year and a half before we started getting our kids together as well. And even then, they were only “allowed” to think that it was just getting them together as friends. I never met his family, and only met 1 of his friends. Whenever I questioned him on this he would tell me that it was because our relationship was so important and they all were so important that he was afraid to cause more pain for all of us having to lose each other If the relationship ended, he said it scared him to hurt any of us. We rarely presented to the public eye as a couple, and he never showed to anyone that I mattered. But to me he’d act/say that the relationship mattered intensely to him. He had a sarcastic joking way but if his jokes made me uncomfortable I was overly sensitive but if he took offense to one of my jokes he’d get irrationally upset with me. When I tried to bring up my feelings/emotions on a topic he never wanted to talk about things. He’d tell me things like, well it can matter and get in the way of the relationship or you can just let it go. Or he’d say I don’t understand why it’s do or die with you, you act like everything that upsets you should end the relationship (which contradicted his other statements). He’d also always tell me, well I hear you say you feel that way, but those are your own emotions, you have to figure out why you feel that way and what to do about it. It’s not my job to make you feel better about that or more secure. If I tried to stand my ground and say something was important to talk about it would end up in a huge fight, most times leading to him screaming in my face. I tried to walk away so many times but could never actually do it and would come back. It was almost crippling to think about leaving him. He would then tell me “he needed space” and would say we couldn’t talk for days. I really struggled with these time periods as I felt muzzled and that even to reach out to him for normal things would jeapordize the relationship. The last few months of the relationship he formed a friendship with another woman, I also knew this woman from the gym and was friendly with her on multiple occasions. They were starting to meet up at the gym on nights I wouldn’t be there, he said in order for the kids to play together. Eventually it became weird as she was baking things for him and they began texting regularly. I started to look at the texts, which I know was wrong. And they were having long intimate conversations about her relationship with her husband. If I tried to turn to him about stressors in my life he was not a source of comfort or support so it was confusing and hurtful to me that they were having these conversations. It eventually became clear that she was attracted to him, at one point she and her husband split briefly and all I was ever told was that he was suspicious of an affair. Her attitude towards me changed and she eventually stopped talking to me altogether and started to be rude to me. At the gym if I was ever there at the same time as the 2 of them they wouldn’t speak to each other. But once instance I had forgotten my water bottle and came back in and they were talking. He started to lie to me about them planning “play dates” for the kids at the Y and about how much they conversed. A friend told me she had seen the woman walking away from his house on at least 2 occasions. I never accused my ex of physically cheating with this woman. But the entire situation made me incredibly uncomfortable and he was unwilling to listen to my point of view. If I tried to bring it up he’d tell me I was crazy or irrational or that something was deeply broken in my fromy marriage and loss of marriage and that I needed to fix that in order to be healthy. I found myself looking at their texts, I was physically ill all the time, I was having panic attacks, I was irritable, and I wasn’t sleeping. He’d tell me he wouldn’t want to get together right away on a weekend, but as soon as I would make plans with someone else he would change his mind and I’d feel guilty. I felt like every free second I had, needed to be spent with him, but it was always on his terms. One particularly bad argument after hours of yelling and crying and him telling me repeatedly that I was broken and I needed to fix it. And he had gotten in my face multiple times screaming at me, I reached out and slapped him. It was the lowest of lows for me. I’m not an aggressive person and I know what I did was wrong and I felt absolutely horrible for it afterwards and have apologized multiple times. But recently he tells me that he doesn’t think I ever really loved him because I lost trust in him. I take my close relationships very seriously, love is not a word I throw around. I’m an empath and find joy in pouring into those that I love and care about, he knows this. So to imply that I was never genuine in my love was a very hurtful comment. He also said I was the toxic one. His exact wording was, you hit me, accused me endlessly, researched beyond your boundaries, and didn’t respect my space. I know have been battling inside my head that maybe I really am the “bad” one here. Maybe I am toxic, maybe I created an unhealthy relationship, maybe I really do need a lot of fixing.

[Donna Andersen]

Sarg – There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s him. The guy is a sociopath who is toying with you. He is gaslighting, blame shifting, accusing, cheating – all of the typical sociopath behaviors.

As an empath, you sense what is going on. You sense that he is cheating, even though he denies it. So you know the truth of his behavior.

But these relationships are highly addictive. That’s why you feel like you must be in touch with him – it’s the addiction. We have lots of information about this on Lovefraud and in my webinars.

You need to treat this like an addiction. That means you should go No Contact with him – and remain No Contact. The longer you stay away from him, the better you will feel.

Please understand that he never loved you and he will never change. You need to free yourself from him.

[slimone]

Sarg..Donna is right. You are not the problem, not at all.

The problem is you got entangled in a relationship with a disordered human being. Someone who is hardwired to use and abuse other people, and then blame the victim for everything that happens. They are experts at manipulation, lying, blaming, and pretending. This is how their brains work.

This is what all of us here at Lovefraud have experienced, so we TOTALLY get it.

It is normal, at this phase, for you to feel like you might be the problem. And, he has certainly tried to brainwash you into feeling it is all your fault. BUT IT IS NOT. This feeling is all created by his manipulations and ‘projection’.

Projection is a deeply embedded defense mechanism that protects the person from awareness of their own flaws and actions. People with personality disorders have IRON STRONG defense mechanisms that protect them from personal awareness of ALL of their negative behaviors. These mechanisms CANNOT be overcome or fixed by love, care, understanding, medications, or therapy. They are PERMANENT.

Projection means the abuser accuses the abused of doing all the things that the abuser is doing. It means they accuse us of all the crappy things they have done, and all the horrible feelings they have. They simply will not take the responsibility for ANYTHING, EVER.

If they pretend to take responsibility, they will then turn around, and do something even worse…to ‘even the score’. EVERYTHING is to make sure they are at an advantage, and have the upper hand. AND, if we get all worked up, emotional, and confused, then they get a big hit of energy off of us. This is what they love, to manipulate and get all that energy from us. It is the only real way they can ‘feel’ much of anything.

Please stay with us and learn. This is a super safe place to understand what is happening.

Hugs, Slim

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