Broke up and NC with cheating bf after 4 years, but want him back...

[nocontactsummer]

Hey All,

 

I posted some of this on barese's thread, and then realised I should maybe post my own thread (I've never done this before, sorry for getting it wrong).

 

I'm sort of going out of my mind right now, sleeping badly, worrying. I'm just reaching day three of NC, and it was me who did the dumping -- but really I felt there was no other option.

 

We were together four years, and before that he was my closest friend. A year ago, I found out he had been cheating on me for the entire relationship - he never physically cheated, but he was sexting and webcamming and swopping pictures with so many girls, from co-workers to friends to random girls he just chatted up on the internet.

 

I was devastated and did not know what to do -- the love of my life, the man who talked about us getting married next summer, who treated me like a princess, who everyone remarked on how much he obviously loved me... I could not believe it. It was like I discovered a whole different person.

 

Well somehow I forgave him, but a short while later, by which time I was pregnant, I found out he was doing it again. More fool me I listened to his apologies again, but of course he just carried right on. I lost the baby, and I know there are many reasons to lose a baby, but I can't help thinking the stress played a part here.

 

This past year has been 12 months of me losing my mind, spying on his phone, his computer, watching who he is friends with on social media, getting nervy when he goes out with friends or co-workers. I have driven myself crazy. By spring, I had not checked his phone/computer since the new year, but I was having panic attacks every day.

 

Then I did the craziest thing and set up a fake facebook to try to catch him. I still can't believe I did it, except I genuinely think I was really on the edge of a nervous breakdown by then. Of course he realised it was me, and got as mad at me for doing that as perhaps I should have got at him for cheating on me. I moved out, we got back together, but I caught him IMing a heap of the same girls again, and even though he said it was innocent... yeah right.

 

Well he moved out of our apartment, been gone two months now. Didn't even tell me straight that he wasn't coming back. Then he got mad at me for not telling our landlord we were moving out (I didn't even know we were moving out). But still he didn't break up with me, just all the time 'I don't know..... I don't know.... You spy on me....' But at the same time mad at me cos I told him I would not, could not be friends if we split.

 

We've been in touch every day since he left. Sometimes to argue, sometimes to say how much we miss each other. We've met up, spent time together, slept together. A few weeks back he stayed over and told me in the morning how he felt more content than he had felt in a long time. Then later that week he flipped out because I said when he asked if I was free for a beer I couldn't meet him. After that things have gone downhill.

 

In a huge row we had one night he said to me that I only ever want to talk about what he's done wrong (the cheating) and focus on his weaknesses, and he didn't want to be close to be someone who only does that. It isn't true, but I understand some of what made him cheat in the first place -- or carry on cheating, was that he felt unappreciated and in the dog house. He's a guy who needs a lot of adoration 24/7. So I made a big effort to show him how much I appreciate and adore him, and wrote him a letter setting out all the things I loved. He said it was overwhelmingly sweet and romantic but he found it hard to articulate his response.

 

Finally on Friday he started saying how he didn't see how we could work out, but that he didn't want to lose me... that I am his favourite person, best friend, everything. He said he felt frozen by the idea of losing me -- I don't know if this meant too frozen to try mending things - we were meant to meet the following day, but he said he felt it was all on him to make it work, and he was feeling the pressure. He said he couldn't handle the stress and craziness of our relationship, but that he wanted to be close to me.

 

In the end I had to tell him it was over. He hasn't put up a fight except being mad and saying 'Is that it?'. Of course part of me wants him to come running back, and much of me is beating myself up for all the crazy psychogirl things I did this past year (have never been that kind of gf EVER before, I've always been the laidback girl) and how I could have saved it. But I guess I have to think of how fixated he got on MY behaviour without ever making any attempt to fix his own. I don't think a single week went by in four years without him cheating on me.

 

Still I miss him, want him back. I move place this week to an apartment on my own. I'm making all these plans to do things, take trips, and in some way I feel a relief for taking control, for the first time in a long year I feel like myself again, like I have my sanity back, but... I hurt so much and am so sad. For all the bad things he did, in all other ways he was an incredible guy who everyone loved, the kindest, sweetest boyfriend, the most amazing sex, so crazy handsome, great taste in everything, I loved all things about him -- except for his weak grasp of monogamy.

 

I've been crying a lot these past two days. I deleted him from all social media, but the accounts of his that are public I can still see, and I went crazy today and looked at one of them and saw that in these past two days he started following a girl he cheated on me with. She has a boyfriend and hasn't followed him back, but... it hurt. And then along with that hurt I felt mad at myself for even looking.

 

I'm also thinking maybe I should have said we could be friends so that we could at least have spent time together, and maybe we could have rekindled things in an unpressurised way. I had suggested we take a step back anyway and just hang out, date, not live together, but he didn't seem to go for this. I guess he must want to date other girls. I guess he wants to be with someone where the situation isn't complicated.

 

All this said, he's a rich boy who's used to getting what he wants, and who is used to having all these girls come running when he clicks his fingers, so maybe a little NC will work to make him want me again, as the thing he can't have. That's kind of how we got together in the first place, come to think of it.

 

Well anyway. These are early days. I have no clue if he'll try to get in touch at all, no idea of what he's thinking. I'm just trying to find my steel and hold tight. I guess if we've been in touch nearly every day for six years there is a good chance he will be in touch at some point.

 

But what do you think? Is it worth holding out for? Have I blown it completely? Should I have said we could be friends?

[Ruby65]

Why do you want to be with someone who has cybersex with other women while supposedly being in an exclusive relationship with you?

 

Breaking up is hard and painful, but in this case I don't see any alternative for you.

 

He's a cheater. Are you really willing to settle for that?

[nocontactsummer]

I guess I feel I didn't give him enough opportunity to explain why he did it. I came down on him like a tonne o'bricks, was angry and raging, and only focused on how the things he had done made me feel. I didn't look at how he was feeling to do them, what was missing in the relationship.

 

I want him back because aside from this I love him, I've never felt so much like myself as I do in his company, and apart from this, we really just got each other.

[Ruby65]

How much like yourself do you feel when you see him contacting other women for cybersex?

 

Is that love -- the way he treats you? The way his cheating makes you feel?

 

You can fall in love and have an intense emotiona/physical/spiritual/mental connection with many many people.... are you really ready to settle for a cheater?

 

Because if you go back to him, you're showing him that he can still cheat and you'll put up with it.... it even sounds like you're ready to take part of the blame for it!

 

It's YOUR life and your choice..... it just seems like you're ASKING for more pain by sticking with someone like this.