I was in a relationship with an ex of mine for 4 years… For the first few months the relationship was good, despite the ups and downs. I quickly fell in love with him. However 10 months into the relationship, I found out that he cheated on me with my two best friends, whilst I was on holiday visiting my relatives in a completely different country within the first week of our relationship… It was a shock, and I was devastated, however, I decided to give him a second chance.
The relationship began being rocky, he moved into a house with our mutual friend and things began turning. He began emotionally black-mailing me, speaking to me like trash, treating me like a house maid. And unfortunately I put up with it, I don’t know how, but I loved him, and I thought that it will pass… But it didn’t. We had good days, and it would be nice to cuddle and game together, however there was always something there. He began speaking to one of his ex’s again, and began telling her lies about how I forced him to not speak to her, how I took away his phone, snapped his sim card and blocked her off his facebook, how he wanted to be with her instead of me, and how he wanted kids with her… All of their conversations occurred whilst he was drunk, and after I confronted him about it, they stopped and things got a bit better. Things were good, we weren’t arguing, and we were happy, the only time there was ever arguments was when I wanted to go see certain friends that he didn’t approve of, which at the time I thought was just out of concern but now I see that it was just to purely control me. Then 2 years into the relationship, he makes out with another girl that he met up with, I was aware of them meeting up however never expected that to happen purely because of the way he spoke about her. Anyway, she was a year younger than me and already had a child. This further decreased my self-confidence and I slowly fell into a phase that I can only call depression (I never went to the doctors about it because I didn’t think it was serious). He rang me and told me about it… and instead of leaving, I chose to stay… Because he begged me to… Because I loved him and believed that he could eventually love me the same as I love him. I stayed, unfortunately instead of cutting off all ties with her… they would text each other, one day I saw what they were texting; they would call each other cute nicknames and tell each other about their love… I confronted him, I got apologies, promises of change, he said none of that was true and the only reason that he was saying stuff like that was because she threatened to commit suicide if he didn’t… I believed him… Because I was blind to it all. I was oblivious and stupid. I lived in my own little bubble, where I expected things to be good, fine and dandy…
I thought I could climb out of my weird phase of “depression”, but it only got worse… I became deflated. The only thing that got me up was the need to hide how I am feeling from everyone. I didn’t sleep much, I cried myself to sleep a lot… Sex became of no interest to me… I was disgusted in my own appearance. Often I would want to take out all of my emotions on myself, but this wasn’t an option because it would be too visible… When I took it out on myself before, those around me quickly found out, and told me to stop and be happy. So I pretended. I pretended to be happy when in fact, I was dying inside.
I don’t often cry in front of people, but within the last few months of the relationship, I would often break down at college, and my friends would tell me that I need to leave as soon as I can because I am breaking myself… But I still believed he could love me… It got to a point where I wanted to go out with some of my friends on a day that I was meant to be seeing him (he demanded me to see him twice during the college week, and stay round his house during the weekend), bearing in mind that I don’t go out or see other people ever, because I have no time due to college and looking after my sister and seeing him, and he would blow his top…
I gained strength in June to finally end it… And it has been 3 months since we broke up. He hit rock bottom and attempted to commit suicide because of me… Therefore I’m trying to stay in his life as a friend and help him realise that he can’t depend on me to be there. I care for people a lot more than I care for myself… I am still at my “depression”, or what ever the hell it is, phase or what not, and although I am able to get out of bed normally, without having to force myself and although some days I can smile without having to force it, inside, I am not happy. I am broken. I’m filled with so many different emotions and everyone is just telling me to just “get on with it” and to just “listen to them” and to just “deal with it”…
Within these 3 months of our separation I noticed a change in him. He has become happier. He actually pays attention and wants to help when I show that I am upset. However, when he’s had a drink, all of his old features just come right out… And I don’t know, if he is actually bettering himself as a person, or if he is just putting on a front to try and woo me back in, just to control me again?
I am exceptionally confused about everything, and today we had sex. It was a stupid mistake, but it happened… We were just chilling out together, as friends, and something just ticked in both of us… And I cried afterwards… Because I am stupid, and I shouldn’t have done that… But at the same time, I can’t make my feelings for him go away… I tried, so hard… But every now and then they just come shooting back…
One side of me doesn’t want to get back with him, because I don’t deserve to be treated the way I was, and I deserve happiness. The other side of me however, is looking at the changes and saying “it can work. He’s different. He actually realised that you are the love of his life”… We both spoke about what we want to happen after we had sex, and both agreed that we need to find inner happiness by ourselves before we can even think about a relationship with anyone else, let alone each other.
Has anyone got any previous experience in a situation like this and can help or suggest or just at least say that they understand? Because I can’t speak to anyone about it as all they say to me is “well I already told you what you need to do, it’s not my fault you just choose not to listen to any of it” which unfortunately really doesn’t help and just makes me close up even more…
