Craziest breakup/relationship ever...how do I deal with the anger??

[tam1984]

So this is the mother of all breakups for me...I'll warn you all this will be long but I am in absolute shock over all of this.

 

I've been dating Steve for about 8 months. We briefly dated in 2013 for a few months, things ended badly, but he came back seemingly a different person. The first few months were amazing, blissful. We were long distance from January through mid-March (where, for a month, he was in another country with no internet access and we basically corresponded via text) and, honestly, I thought that after being long distance for so long with limited contact...the fact we were still together meant a lot. I thought it meant both of us were equally dedicated and I honestly saw quite a future with him.

 

We had a few problems but they were always resolved. A female friend being inappropriate with him etc...and he was very good at resolving things with me and, as I said, we really were happy together. He suffered a sudden genital herpes outbreak upon returning home, I assumed it had been dormant for some time (I got checked and did not have it) and didn't let it become an issue (because I'm an idiot haha).

 

When he got back in mid-March he stayed with me for a few weeks until he found a new place and found a new job. After finding a man who was willing to rent out a room to him, he continued to stay at my place every night.

 

Things got bad in May.

 

First, a friend of Steve, who i'll call Paul, experienced a sudden breakup. Paul was living with his girlfriend but was not on the lease. She up and left him without warning and he had nowhere to go. Paul is from out of town and Steve is one of his only friends, and asked him for help, as he was on the verge of becoming homeless. As a favor, I took Paul in for a few weeks as well as lent him a cell phone. Paul was one of the reasons me and Steve started dating (he basically encouraged Steve to start up a relationship with me again) and we always got along.

 

Little did I know, however, that Paul was severely bipolar and unmedicated. To medicate himself, he smoked weed literally from dawn until dusk. I personally have no problems with weed (it is legal in the state I live in), but the marijuana seemed to make his manic symptoms much worse and he was very stressful to be around. He drove me pretty crazy...and Steve, who continued to stay at my place despite having a room of his own, complained constantly about Paul's erratic (and at times very disrespectful) behavior. It was during this time that, sexually, me and Steve started having issues. At the time I attributed it to stress from Paul being around. It felt as if he was in another world during sex, if that made sense. Further, Paul and Steve would constantly smoke to the point where Paul would be talking a mile a minute while Steve would essentially just be a zombie on the couch. it got to the point that, once Steve got off work, I couldn't truly interact with him because he would be completely blitzed out of his mind. I was very happy when Paul finally had the means to leave, to put it mildly!

 

Steve and I continued to experience sexual problems but, again, I thought it was us recovering from the strain of Paul's presence. Paul continued to show up at my place to smoke with Steve, and I grew contemptuous of him because I felt like I had a third wheel in the relationship. I discussed this with Steve and he agreed, and told me that he really didn't enjoy Paul's company and didn't really want to be friends with him anymore.

 

His sexual tastes started to change and become quite bizarre. He would sext me constantly while at work. At first I found this playful, but soon found it odd. he would mention to me that he would sneak off to the bathroom during his breaks (he had one every hour) to masturbate and watch porn. His sex drive skyrocketed and he would want to have sex 2, 3 times a night. Again, it felt very odd and disconnected. Soon, he started texting me at work saying he wanted me to start being sexually dominant toward him. I felt uncomfortable with this, but didn't really judge...I myself had a sadomasochistic relationship in which i was submissive, so I really felt I had no right to judge him for possibly having similar sexual tastes as me. However, he texts to me became quite bizarre. He ordered a strapon for me without telling me he had done so, and when it arrived at my apartment expected me to use it, which i refused to do.

 

He started showing me pornography he watched at work. It is called "sissy hypno" porn. Honestly, I knew nothing about this until he showed me. For those who don't know...it is pornography that features transgendered women (which he insensitively referred to as "shemales" or "trannies"). The pornography features sort of "subliminal" messages throughout that are meant to "hypnotize" the viewer (presumably directed at cis males) into become a "sissy"...or, rather, to be feminized (and more than feminized...made into a hypersexualized, porn version of a woman) as a form of ultimate humiliation. At first I tried to understand but eventually told him I wasn't comfortable with anything of that nature being incorporated into the bedroom. For one, it doesn't interest me sexually. More importantly, though, I found it very disturbing. I found it misogynistic in the sense that it implied that all that it meant to be feminized, i.e. a woman, was to be a sexual object who only wanted sex. I also found it cruel that he was objectifying transgender individuals in such a way.

 

There was a day I was on my laptop and, for some reason, chose to open a different browser than usual to check my email. It was still logged into his email account and I instantly saw messages from a person on craigslist. I looked and it was a transsexual individual he invited to visit him at his job on his lunchbreak for sex. I immediately called him and, as I told him what I saw, he attempted to delete his emails. I had forwarded the emails to myself and sent them back to him. He claimed that someone had hacked his emails years prior and liked to play pranks on him, which was clearly a lie. He then admitted he did write the emails...but had done it as a prank on the person on craigslist and admitted it was a cruel and odd thing to do.

 

I didn't continue to look through his email because I was so upset, and also because I really felt uncomfortable going through any of his things. It escalated into a rather nasty fight later. of course, Paul decided to show up half way through the fight and the two of them went off together (since they were still friends despite Steve stating that he no longer wanted to be his friend). For some reason or another (again, I'm an idiot!) we made up and he again claimed he no longer wanted to be Paul's friend because Paul was saying rather nasty things about me.

 

After we made up we went through a few weeks where we were doing really great. He seemed very transparent in his actions. I felt like sex was becoming less odd and disconnected. One night, we went out and he got a little too drunk. We got home from the bar and he started interrogating me about my previous sex partners. When I refused to talk about it (it is really none of his business and I could care less about his sexual past) he started calling me a slut, whore. He started saying that he loved me, but that he was only 99.9% sure he wanted a future with me. .1% of him wanted to see if there was someone out there better for him. He stated he didn't find me very attractive. For reference, I am a healthy weight and hourglass-y. Curiously, Steve used to say that he loved my body because it reminded him of Sophia Loren. That night, however, he claimed that his "type" was very slender women, that he found me fat, that I wasn't really that attractive facially and he sometimes wondered if he could find anyone more attractive. He stated that, if I loved him, I would allow him a few months to pursue another sexual partner and, if he felt he couldn't have anybody better than me, he would come back to me. Naturally, I was very hurt and burst into tears, to which he responded "I really feel nothing when you cry. i just feel very annoyed." Steve isn't by any means conventionally handsome. Many friends of mine have called him ugly, and he is overweight. However, I've always found him attractive and never found the need to criticize him, even after he gained a significant amount of weight since dating me.

 

He woke up the next day hung over and apologetic, stating he didn't mean anything he had said. However, him saying those things about my appearance really stuck and really made me feel constantly self-conscious. Further, he started telling me what Paul was saying about me behind my back...all of this did a number on my self-esteem. I started comparing myself to every woman I'd see. Of course, my self-consciousness did not help our sex life. Every time we would attempt to have sex, I'd feel like he was just thinking about women in porn (as in specific porn stars he referred to as his "type") and using me as a sex doll, essentially. He attempted to tell me he found me attractive as often as he wanted to, but I felt like he was being dishonest or doing such to get me to have sex with him. He got very angry at me for not just being "over" the things he said only days after the event.

 

 

There was a day when my computer crashed and I needed to access something in my email box desperately. Steve was at work, but agreed to let me use his laptop. On the screen, instantly, was a folder containing pornographic images. Honestly, I don't care if my partner watches porn. I don't consider it cheating at all and don't feel offended by it unless it interferes with the relationship. However, what caught my eye was the fact that some of the pornography (hentai...so, drawings)depicted VERY young looking females, under the age of 10. I found this odd, but not all of the photos in the folder showed such so I thought it was maybe just some odd photos that got mixed in with the other photos. Many other folders were open, mostly containing transsexual porn. I found another folder open, and again saw photos of numerous women. Among those, however, were photos of girls that looked about 12-13. None of them were engaged in explicit acts. There were a few nudes, though I could not determine if the actresses were underage or just looked very underage. Other, however, disturbed me in that they were seemingly innocent photos of females who were DEFINITELY 12 or so. Think photos of girls playing at a park or sitting on the beach. Not sexual, not nude, but in a folder meant to be masturbation material. I felt really sick by this.

 

As I saw this material, Steve was sexting me from work essentially begging me to be sexually dominant with him. I was in such shock that I couldnt even bring up what I had seen. He came home,placed his cellphone on the counter, and immediately went into my bedroom. I noticed that Paul was texting him and (I'm not proud of this) took his phone and glanced at their conversation. It turns out Steve was saying things about me to Paul...really terrible things about my appearance, my weight, my family...saying he was only with me because I had "manipulated" him into the relationship etc. All of these texts were sent within hours of him texting me saying he loved me and that he wanted to start looking for apartments to share with me.

 

I confronted him about the texts and he slapped me across the face and stormed out before I could even bring up the pornography I found.

 

He has since tried to reconcile. We met up at a restaurant because he wanted "closure". I mentioned to him that I was upset that he hit me and asked if he would ever hit me again...to which he said "Of course not...but you wouldn't go through my phone, right?" No apology. Nothing. I ended up just walking out. We have been NC ever since.

 

While I had no proof he cheated at all, I recalled that he had at least attempted to through craigslist and got checked. Lo and behold, I got a (luckily treatable) STD that I did not have months prior. Finding this out I was so livid that I really did not care about invading his privacy and accessed his email through the browser I previously accessed his email on. After some digging I saw that he had been cheating with transsexual women on craigslist, some of which were escorts he paid. Times he claimed he was at work...he actually took half days to see them. A few went by his office and he had sex with them in the bathroom on a floor in the building that isn't occupied.

 

As if this news wasn't devastating enough...the same day a friend of mine called me, as he had heard late about me and Steve breaking up. This friend of mine works in the leasing office of the apartment/student housing building Steve used to live in (where we initially met). When I told this friend about the nature of our breakup and all of its complications...this friend told me that Steve has been evicted from the apartment building about a month prior to us dating. I had absolutely no idea. Supposedly, he would masturbate standing at his window, looking at women in an office building across the street. The women reported the incident to the apartment leasing office. Management at the apartment assumed it was maybe a mistake and told him to shut his blinds. However, he continued doing such and got reported two more times (where it was stated he was very intentionally exposing himself to these people) and he got evicted. Soon after, he moved in with a female friend of his and her boyfriend without being on the lease, where he got thrown out within a month for his "behavior" (they never stated what he did but I can only imagine). It makes sense...since when he got his own place it was a room in some guy's house he found on craigslist that did not require a background check.

 

I anonymously tipped off law enforcement about the photos I saw. i don't know if they're incriminating (they weren't especially explicit)...but I feel as if this person is a sex offender waiting to happen.

 

Throughout all of this, he was smoking marijuana at work heavily as well. I found out that when he was overseas for "work" (a job my father provided for him)...it got back to my family that Steve did not once go to the job, but rather sat around the home of the family who took him in for his trip, smoking weed all day. I also suspect he cheated when he was in this other country...as I said, he had a sudden herpes outbreak when he returned.

 

So, I am glad to have this guy out of my life...but MY GOD am I angry. I have so much anger towards him and I don't know how to vent it. I don't know how to express how betrayed, disgusted I am. This was a person I loved very much, who I really saw a future with...and I feel like he conned me and then abused me. How do I deal with this anger in a healthy way? I swear it is eating away at me.

Edited July 10, 2015 by tam1984

[DrReplyInRhymes]

Excuse some of my words, but I am flabbergasted at what I just read.

Some people in this world disgust me, and this one nails it on the head.

My normal suggestion for a breakup would include time and hobbies until the pain will cease,

In your case, I think you need to really look deep in order to find peace.

 

Not at the actions he chose, or decisions he made, but rather focus on you,

The reasons why you think you love this guy, and why you even considered a second chance too,

You should really look at this whole experience and make a list of the qualities of this 'man',

Make sure to date someone who is the complete opposite of every entry on that list, understand?

[tam1984]

It is really quite terrifying because I had no idea about this side of him...even the first time we dated. the first time we dated he was, as he put it, "scared" by our connection (we vibed incredibly up until when things got bad, even strangers would comment). When he pursued me again he apologized for how things had been. He seemed much less selfish, more kind, more open about his emotions. What terrifies me now is that, honestly, I feel as if all of those things were him acting. I think he covers up a very dark side of himself with this act...and I fell in love with how he portrayed himself. I think much of my anger stems from that. I feel very used and upset that I was lied to for 8 months straight.

 

I failed to mention that, whenever he drank, he would have these bizarre episodes where he would describe wanting to inflict acts of torture on various people. It was very disturbing. When he was sober he would joke about it...but when drunk the details he would say were very convincing. I feel there's a lot of darkness he is incredibly, terrifyingly, great at covering up.

 

The things that initially attracted me to him were not sinister things. He seemed like an amazing guy. Until he wasn't. And I was so in love with how he seemed to be, how he pretended to be...I made excuses for his behavior toward me. Ugh.

Edited July 10, 2015 by tam1984

[pidgeon1010]

WOW. I have no words. Just Terrible. Have you considered talking to a professional?

 

Best wishes!

[tam1984]

I actually already see a therapist. He was just as shocked as I was by how this relationship went. He too thought the relationship had great potential early on!

 

I'm really in shock and unsure who he really even is. It's just the craziest situation.

[54JA]

Wow. This is like the episode of "Who the (bleep) Did I Marry?" I am so sorry you had to go through this. But I am so glad that you reported him. Great job!

[wizer]

There were tons of red flags throughout the entire relationship, you kept brushing it under the rug until it was so obvious that you couldn't deny it anymore. Well, better late than never I suppose.

 

Hopefully you won't let another man do this to you in the future, keep your eyes open and if something doesn't seem right, it probably isn't.