whathurtsthemost Posted April 6, 2010 Posted April 6, 2010 Seen and read so many posts here... Just need to write. I am 33, male, divorced and have 2 young kids. Shortly after separating from my wife in 2007, 3 months later I met this beautiful and charming so incredibly funny southamerican girl. She was an immigrant here in Spain and she moved in with me pretty quickly. I was new on the dating scene and I guess things moved to quickly and I let myself get carried away. I dont mean to diss my now ex fiancee. I had some of the most incredible and rewarding times of my life with her. But I had some of the worst also. I guess there were a lot of red flags, that I ignored because I was so in awe of her, wanted to be with somebody and subsequently because I fell so much in love with her. I dont consider myself to be a great guy, or a bad guy. I am not perfect, but I dont think I am an abusive partner. I can express things that come out wrong, and sometimes my words can hurt other people but its not my intention. This is something I am working on. I come from a very broken home, I was kidnapped by my father when I was 6 from the UK and lost all ties with my mother. My childhood was not fantastic but not terrible, but my father was an alcoholic and was quite abusive and I was the oldest of 4 kids and had to grow up pretty quickly. He was always leaving home, or threatening too, and it was pretty awful. I now realise that these past trends made me more susceptible to reliving an abusive relationship in my adulthood. Not good. But al least I know now. Love blinds you. I now live in the post trauma recovery mode, and its one year on from the separation in May. My ex fiancee was great -but when she was bad, she was awful - it was either her way or the highway. My opinion was never valid, some of my words were never accepted as what I wanted to say, but more like what she wanted to hear. The manipulation was so subtle I cant even begin to explain it. But the ups were great! Shortly after moving in together, she started what I now know to be abuse. Silent treatment for hours on end, me begging for us to talk and resolve things. Sometimes she would actually pack her bags and leave. We are talking about a girl I looked after, provided for, she was an immigrant, had no work, no papers, no family here. But nevertheless she had the temper to actually walk out the house, struggling with her things whilst I would beg her to reconsider as I felt so responsible for her wellbeing and thought she was just under a lot of stress or something. The leaving me happened over and over again. And stupidly I took her back over and over again. I loved her so much and wanted to fix her if that makes sense. She started getting panic attacks and it was not nice to see the person I loved so much suffering and I couldnt make it go away. She setup a prositution ring in an apartment. Apparently it was a good business that could make a lot of money, so I let her go on with it... I knew I should have told her to leave then but I didnt... I didnt want to believe she was prostituting herself... She told me she wasnt, she told me she hired a couple of girls for it... nevertheless that was the beginning of mistrust... To this day I cant conciously accept she prostituted herself... I just cant believe that or dont want to. (NOTE: Her dad was a cocaine addict and used to beat her mum - I think she turned into a man hater and I paid for it) I also found correspondence of hers with an ex boyfriend... she told me that he had made her feel bad in the past and she wanted to lead him on and then dump him. She is now married to him. She left me the day after my birthday May 2009. Never gave me a birthday present and I noticed she was getting more distant for a month prior. I now know she had restarted her relationship with that guy but I did not find out till November 2009. She came back to collect her stuff in June, and in a fit of rage she took my 2008 birthday present. Was I supposed to stop her and restrain her?? So no, I took the abuse and let her run around my house in a fit and collect it and box it and meanwhile I am begging her to be rational. So sad. Despite our ups and downs, we had talked about getting married in December 2009. We were going to go back to Chile and marry. I was happy but this person kept leaving me over and over again for no valid reasons except fits of rage. The repeated leaving me situations left me very insecure and I was so mistrusting of her - About a month prior to her leaving, she got a job in a restaurant and day after my birthday I found a note saying she was ill and she left me and I deserved better. I was devastated and sunk into a massive depression. Shortly before leaving, she told me that I had terrible jealousy problems (remember she set up a prostitution business!!) so I thought maybe I do, so I go to therapy which in the end proved to be more beneficial in identifying the abuse I was receiving. She never accepted responsibility for anything wrong. Tried getting her back, tried to reason with her, I thought she loved me, but I got no response till one month later. We started seeing each other on her terms, once a week and she made me feel terrible about contacting her, it was plain awful. I bought her gifts, wrote love letters, gave her an engagement ring (my divorce came through whilst we were separated and I felt i couldnt give her a ring in good faith until I had finalised that aspect), made her gluten free cheesecakes, took her to restaurants, beach picnics, great times but something didnt feel right. I could see longing in her eyes for me but when I went to kiss her she wouldnt let me. I went back and forth to the UK to see my family, trying to keep myself together, not understanding what was going on. She lost her job in october and I she was trying to get her spanish papers so she could be legal and work. I told her, listen, circumstances in this relationship were not on our side - being an illegal immigrant is not easy, so I said I would marry her so she could get her papers. She agreed but told me there was this new person in the equation... I told her to think it through and not waste my time... of course, I hoped that once she was stable she would be able to see clearer and then make a decision on what she wanted as she would be independent. She agreed and was real excited. She asked to sleep with me, so we did, and she told me in any case that this other guy was a stupid distraction. Then she turned on me again, I should point out that she threatened the police on me 3 times... God, I should have walked away from this nutcase but I never did! I also started to think, well, if you are willing to sleep with me whilst you are with him, what does that say about your integrity? So the last part of the story, 4 weeks after sleeping with her and having good times, she is engaged and goes back to Chile, marries this guy who is an ex of hers who lives in New Zealand, they marry on the day of the earthquake and according to mutual friends the church shook!! Now she lives in New Zealand. I cant say I love her, I cant say I hate her. But the person I trusted the most treated me like a piece of **** when all I did was try to love and understand her. I hate her though for making me feel so bad about myself, to make me go to a psychologist, when all the while she was planning and deceiving and manipulating me. Soooo sad, still recovering, todays a bad day, any nice warm comments welcome... Loads of lessons learnt and not as naive anymore! Bye!
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