heva423 Posted June 8, 2015 Posted June 8, 2015 I just want to take the time to share the experience of my first relationship (and break up) to maybe help others not fall into the same traps that I have. After almost a year, I am free. Free of the weight of a toxic relationship that I just couldn't seem to let go of. I posted on here 3 years ago regarding a relationship that I was in. He had cheated on me and I KNEW it. He even admitted to it. Despite what everyone said, I decided to work things out. I was young and dumb. I'm still young and dumb. Thing is, he was not. He was almost 8 years older than me and had plenty of experience at playing women. He was handsome, charming and had a unique personality. Everything a 18 years old could ever wish for. He was a man and didn't make me feel like the little girl that my family always treated me as. I was goofy and awkward, and to have a man like that show interest in me was actually mind boggling. We started dating and it as incredible. He was romantic and did everything that a perfect boyfriend would do. The relationship took off and I started staying with him part time. I had no experience with dating and just wanted to be the perfect girlfriend, even if that sometimes meant putting my own needs aside. I didn't care. I was in love. The relationship deepened and our time spent together grew. Looking back, I can not believe how blind I was, how could I not see how vindictive he was? I caught him cheating for the first time after 6 months in the relationship. He was hooking up with someone while I was on a vacation with my family. I rationalized working it out because it happened only 3 weeks after we started dating. Maybe we weren't official then? I never really clarified with him that we were dating when I first started seeing him. Maybe it was only official we got to the "i love you" stage. Stupid. I was so stupid. I wanted to desperately to be everything my parents weren't. Divorced with 2 kids and miserable. So I wanted to fight for the relationship I had. If only I realized I was fighting for the wrong reasons. In the mean time, my dad caught wind of my growing relationship and immediately forbid me from seeing him due to some rumors he heard about him and our age gap. I was furious and for the first time in my life, I did what I wanted, except behind his back. I denied seeing him and even went as far as not posting things to Facebook. I even drove different ways to his house and parked in his garage so my family didn't know I was there. That was mistake 2 of the relationship. Keeping us an absolute secret. I literally gave him the perfect opportunity to cheat. Things seemed fine for a while. Calm and real. Until I noticed how secretive he was acting over his phone. Always changing his password, never letting me stand behind him, turning it away while I was sitting next to him. Strange, and all classic signs of a cheater. But maybe I was just paranoid. One day, while talking on his phone I ended the call. And for the first time ever, I had his unlocked phone in my hands. I could not resist the temptation of looking. Into his messages I went. And there was exactly what I was afraid of. Flirting and sexting.....even some nudes of other women. After confronting him, he fed me this story about how he was sick and wanted to get help and that he had an addiction to women. He claimed he would do anything to not loose our relationship. Mistake 3, a second chance. I started blowing off my friends and avoiding my family to spend time with him. I was letting my relationship with him destroy my outside life. Leaving myself with nothing if the relationship ended. My family stopped asking me to do thing and my friends stopped trying. They were giving up. I was turning into something I did not recognize, I was becoming so weak and clouded. Mistake 4 More months rolled by and I realized how much I resented him. How much I hated when we were apart because I didn't even trust him alone for 2 hours. I assumed every unanswered call was him cheating on me. And I wasn't exactly wrong. We were practically living together at this point and he occasionally would politely ask me to stay on a campus or at home for a few nights. I knew what he was up to but so desperately wanted to be the one to change him, to help him....I wanted so badly to prove the world wrong about him. To prove he was a good person. I would ignore what he was probably doing. Mistake 5: if I didn't ask questions or snoop, I wouldn't know if he was cheating or not. The last year of our relationship I learned something about him. I learned that he was mentally unstable and refused to get help after he was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and BiPolar disorder. I didn't want to abandon him, I just wanted to help him. I promised him I wasn't going tto leave him and that I would help him.... Which was mistake 6 The last 3 months of the relationship I knew it had to end. I just didn't know how to end it. The cheating got worse and more frequent and people were even coming to me to let me know what he was up to. They were even telling me ways he cheated on me almost a year prior. I was so angry I didn't even want to speak to him. I wanted to leave but felt so stuck. I had nowhere to go and everything I owned was in his house. I started to slowly move out while he was working to make things easier. Whenever he thought I was going to leave, he would threaten suicide and would say his life was not worth living without me in it. Then he made a real attempt. I found him with a gun in his mouth when I came home early from my classes. I thought this was him at his low. That maybe he would finally get the help he needed. I tried to get him to. A few weeks later I saw him outside a bar (when I thought he was at work) making out with another woman. A woman that happened to be his best friend, that I always has trusted. She was married with a family and even pretended to be a friend to me. I finally grew a pair, stormed home and got everything that I needed from his house, sent him a text that I was done with our toxic relationship. That I would no longer be abused by him. We went through the usual break up routine and fighting.....it was over. I thought it was over. I got the rest of my things about a month later. I thought that was it. Then the mental abuse began again, but this time it was fueled by hate and rage. He sent me messages anywhere from wanting to fix things, to promising to never leave me alone for the rest of my life. I was scared. I tried to rationalize with him. I didn't want to be the reason that he killed himself. I didn't want that weight on my shoulders. So I continued to casually talk to him to keep him somewhat at bay. Mistake 7 He thought he had a chance, just because I spoke to him. Even though I never wanted to be with him again. Finally I decided that I couldn't deal with his abuse. I spoke with his family again about his suicide problems and then decided that I can't let him ruin my life anymore. They took him in and got him help. I decided that I had to let go. He was still harassing me through messages and I just couldn't do it anymore. I would end up just as crazy as him if I didn't let go. So I deleted him from every social media I could and blocked him from everything else. It was the only way to truly get away from him. I asked his family once and a while how he was, he is getting help and Living a better life now. They told me he was grateful for what I did and understood why I had to shut him out, that damage that deep couldn't be undone. We were better off apart and sometimes I think maybe our relationship lead him to get help. That is my way of feeling at peace. Maybe I did help him after all. But at a cost...... And for the first time in almost 3 years, I felt free. 1
mangetout Posted June 8, 2015 Posted June 8, 2015 Yep. Been there too. Can't believe I wasted my time on such a loser but I have learnt to forgive myself for giving a cheater a second chance ( never again. Never again). Two years later I have met someone else and I am really happy. Life moves on
DexterLS Posted June 8, 2015 Posted June 8, 2015 You did the right thing and you should be proud of yourself for doing that. Keep moving forward!
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