Trying to deal.

[Aryn_Sunn]

Hi, I'm new and normally wouldn't sign up for a forum but I needed a place to vent. This may be a long story and I hope you'll bear with me.

 

This is all about a relationship with a guy I met on both Match.com and found on facebook. He was eight years older than me (met him when I was twenty-one), lived an hour away, had two bachelor degrees, had his own law practice, and was completely different from other guys I had dated. I was still completing my degree at the time we met and working a part time job to pay for school. Sure, I was busy and there were weeks when I couldn't see him but we made it work. He was sweet, attentive, seemed to get along with my family, and a year went by without much difficulty. I thought things were great because by our second/third month of dating he told me he loved me and by our sixth month of dating, flew me across the country to attend his best friend's wedding with him. This was a sign for me that things were serious with this guy and I felt safe.

 

Then things went to hell. It started off as small things that I started to notice. He never invited me out with him to his social gatherings, I learned more about his day and his plans through facebook; he wouldn't let me help him with things like moving from on place to another (he moved his office three times and moved living situations twice when we were together). It started to seem that the only things I could do with him was have the occasional day together, sleep together, and just be happy with the attentions he gave me. When I brought up this issue, he took it in stride by asking if he should check in with me on every little decision and if he should really defend his choices with someone he loved. I was suddenly self concious about being controlling so I backed off.

 

At the time, he was living with a couple around his age that were driving him crazy with their drama. The woman was someone I found myself jealous and cautious of. She had no issue with sleeping with someone just because it seemed like something she should do (like for repaying a favor) and the fact that she was there every day when I couldn't be was a sore point. Suddenly he was spending more time at my place because he didn't want to "expose [me] to the madness" but then he stopped coming over all together. He skipped going to a show where I had artwork in and didn't allow me to visit when his best friend (the one whose wedding I attended) was up for a couple of weeks. His mother also came to town and I was kept at a distence. He went to his roommate's birthday but sent me a text and called me the day after on mine. To be fair, he was moving into his new apartment with the couple (who got him kicked out of the last place and was mooching rent off of him) around the same time but there was no real effort anymore. He even stopped staying over at my place.

 

Things came to a head around Thanksgiving because he mentioned he might come to my family's but didn't inform me of what he was actually doing until afternoon that day. He was doing work at home where his female roommate, now single, was. I had enough and launched into an arguement the next day about how he was treating me. It went on for days because we weren't resolving anything and then everything that I had a problem with got put on hold when there was drama going on with his business and his family. I bit my tongue and helped him through that but it became one thing after another. He moved into his new apartment in October and I wasn't allowed to visit. First it was because there was no furniture. Then it was because the female roommate was there and he didn't want her to cause any drama. He complained about her alot and talked about evicting her since she wasn't paying rent but it never really seemed to happen. He stopped seeing me all together because he didn't trust leaving her alone in the apartment ("she might damage it") and suddenly we only had time to have lunch or dinner out every other week. I bit my tongue and beared through it - buying him and his mother christmas stuff (and him, birthday stuff with a very expensive dinner out). Even my family got him stuff for christmas and he told me every so often that he was still "waiting" on or that he "forgot" about my "birthday gift". The whole month of Janurary, our entire conversations were based around drama or problems he was having and I would try to get us to spend real time together. Or at least for him to call me - he would only text at that point.

 

Finally, a week into Feburary, I had enough and told him we needed to address these issues. I hadn't seen him in three weeks, we hadn't been intimate in four months, and I felt like a mistress more than a girlfriend. I gave him an ultimatium (something I hate but did) - I needed to see his apartment and once a week I wanted either a phone call or some real time together. He said that it "wasn't possible" and I broke up with him. It hurt because I did love him - or at least the him that he presented in the beginning - and wanted to make it work. Even though it was me that broke up with him, I entertained fantasies of eventually getting back together or having him realize how truly wrong he was. (In his reply email to my break up, he said he "knew all the mistakes [he] made and it wasn't going to come as a shock months later".) I wondered if maybe he was right when in the end he called me unsupportive and emotionally manipulative. I distracted myself by volunteering at an animal humane society and started taking the steps to get over it.

 

Then we come to yesterday. There's an event in Boston in a couple of weeks that I was concerned that his female roommate would be a participant of. She wasn't someone I really wanted to run into but couldn't remember her name well enough to pick her out in the list of participants so I looked her up on facebook. Low and behold, what's her profile picture? Her and my ex getting cozy in a photobooth. It had been two months to the day that I broke up with him and there he was with a woman he claimed he would never ever sleep with (for reasons that do make sense but is an even longer story). Our relationship came into perspective and I felt that I was right to be worried that he would cheat on me with her. For what I knew, he had been and it's one of the few times I hate being right about.

 

I feel humiliated, angry, jealous, and want to hurt him. I want to ask him which aspect of his father is he: the part that cheats or the part where he can't stand being alone so he goes after whoever is available? I want to know why he would choose his mooching roommate over someone who actually loved him. When he told me (multiple times) that he didn't deserve me and that he was an awful boyfriend, why he didn't actually try to be good to me? Why did I hold out for so long waiting for things to get better and why - if he was cheating on me with her - didn't he take the out that I offered to him back in November. I'm hurt and feel like a fool. I actually thought he was the one for me when things were good and I thought the nine months of decline was just something relationships go through, that I could endure it. I just want to shake him and scream. My parents - who are aware of the whole situation - tell me that someone will come along and treat me the way I deserve but it doesn't make me feel any better. If I'm as good of a girlfriend as my ex and my parents believe, why did I end up with nothing but the bag of heartache?

 

Thanks for reading.

[Aryn_Sunn]

tldr

 

The guy I went out with for two years, who I was in love with but treated me poorly, may have been cheating on me with his mooching female roommate and I found this out two months after breaking up with him. Not sure where to go from here.