My much older first love...

[UltimateSoprano1]

Hi everyone! I'm new here, although my breakup is not lol. I really hope that you all find the time to read my story. It is so complex and long, but I really feel I need the support. I've been too embarrassed to tell anyone my full thing in person.

 

I've broken NC plenty of times and I honestly don't think I can stop. I've gone into the drastic habit of leaving my phone home all day (sending important texts in the morning and not coming home until ~7 at night) and writing hand notes in class instead of using my laptop (iMessage). But it isn't enough.

 

2 years ago I made the worst decision of my life. I began talking to a man 12 years older than me over a state away. I was a freshman in college and he owned his own three bedroom home. I should've known then that this could not have ended well .

 

He was broken. He was suffering from a lot of mental illnesses as a result of his childhood and needed constant reassurance, mostly in the form of other women. We got serious after a year. I had lost my virginity to him, he was my second kiss and my first love. I was so inexperienced in every way and I felt as if I had jumped into something that required much more knowledge than I had. I looked through his phone last winter and saw the long list of women he had been in contact with. My heart has been broken into a million pieces ever since.

 

I was once a self-assured, fierce 19 year old. But he had made me feel so insecure and not enough of a woman to keep him. Throughout our relationship, he hardly ever took me out. He hardly made love to me and he most often belittled me in every way possible. He told me I was replaceable. That I wasn't the only woman in the world (cried for days). But I stayed for the few seconds I could feel his lips. Or when he'd laugh with me about something funny I'd said. Those few seconds were worth the hours of abuse.

 

Throughout the summer following last winter, I was very busy and he was always trying to contact me. He had a girlfriend for a few months in May. I slept with him then and I had mistakenly left a belonging at his house. His girlfriend saw and he texted me at 1am, enraged. That was the lowest point of my life. He had done things to protect her, he had never done for me. He deleted his online dating, and tried to cut off contact with me. I had never gotten the same consideration-- even considering he cheated on her. She still got more than me.

 

We spoke Christmas ever (TERRIBLE MISTAKE) and he is now in a new relationship. He thanked me for helping him get through his darkest points (at my expense). He often tells me how unhappy he is. He says I was the only woman ever to make him laugh. He told me I was the only woman to make him think of marriage. I was the only woman he wanted to keep. But he was in a very bad place at the time we tried and that he couldn't do what he needed to keep me.

He doesn't talk to any woman for longer than 3 months. I'm willing to bet he had slept with up to 100 women within the last 2 years (He was in a 10 year relationship before me, who he cheated on). I gave him hell. I was an insecure mess but I admit- he dealt with me. He installed a tracker on his phone (LOL) so I got his texts, emails, location and phone calls sent to me every day. That was before I knew about the dating site.

 

He often held it over my head that we could be together if I just stopped being crazy. I couldn't stop lol. And I looked through his phone again 4 months ago. He was dating up to 6 women at the time. And I mean, on Tuesday he'd go to the movies with one, Thursday Red Lobsters with another and he was having sex with one on his day off Saturday. It was a constant rotation that did not include me. I was saved as "My sweet baby" and I stupidly took pride in that. I was always grasping for ways to be better than them.

 

It's been 4 months and I haven't been healing. If anything, I'm sinking more in love with him. He has been open and honest without any expectation of forgiveness. He just wants to check on me and know that I'm okay. He asks if a storm he saw on TV is affecting me. If I'm happy with my life without him. He told me he took advantage of me because of my age. He didn't take me out and I should've been treated like I were his own age.

 

I don't know how I could give 110% to someone- literally *everything I have* and it not be enough. I was driving an hour every weekend with no money. He never offered to pay for gas and he never visited me. He took advantage of all the love I had to offer and he now says it was the best he ever had. I was the best thing for him and I had tried so hard to be kept. I have not had successful dating since and I think that is also hurting me.

 

I just don't know what I'm doing wrong. This should be so easy but I feel deep in my heart that I will always love him this way.

[requiem1]

I was once a self-assured, fierce 19 year old. But he had made me feel so insecure and not enough of a woman to keep him. Throughout our relationship, he hardly ever took me out. He hardly made love to me and he most often belittled me in every way possible. He told me I was replaceable. That I wasn't the only woman in the world (cried for days). But I stayed for the few seconds I could feel his lips. Or when he'd laugh with me about something funny I'd said. Those few seconds were worth the hours of abuse.

 

You need to be really careful here. If someone else is making you feel insecure, then you need out of the relationship, no question. People change, but the abusive types are quite consistent. And, to be honest, you're not the only woman in the world, just as he is not the only man in the world. That romanticized notion will not by itself save a relationship.

 

If you're worried enough to install spy software on his phone, then why would you even want to stay in contact? He seems terribly broken. Maybe you want to "fix" him?

 

You might always love him in the way you describe. But here is what I would suggest. Cut all ties with him. Block him from your phone, social media, etc., for a long period of time. Long enough for you to go at least a day without the thought of him on your mind. Once you lose those feelings for him, then you'll be in a place to assess the relationship logically, and see that it is/was a nightmare.

[Logan787]

You need to drop him and find a way to get him out of your life. He will never change and only cause you heartache. You have that strong bond to him only because of sex. You deserve better.