mjssmom
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What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Ex-romantic partner
Posts: 77
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« on: January 24, 2017, 01:49:52 PM » |
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Hello, I'm a newbie. I originally posted this in Saving \ Break Up board but someone suggested this board as well. It's long but thank you for reading.
My now ex-bf and I are both 45. We dated 8 months and he dumped me officially I guess 1/1. It was a total shock to me. He behaved madly in love me with during our entire relationship right up until the very end. I always knew he was insecure and needed validation from me but I was secure in that he loved me deeply. He pushed very fast for a commitment. He always wanted me with him. But when he was stressed he'd have panic attacks or furious outbursts screaming that no one cared about him. After he mistook a panic attack for a heart attack, his family doc put him on an anti-depressant. He also was extremely jealous and would accuse me of cheating at times if we argued about something and then tell me if I didn't want to be punished, not to make him angry. He was a bit of a drama queen and would overreact if something bothered him like frusteration while working on his house or at work. Mind you, yes this behavior is extreme when it occurs but it wasn't frequent. But he did things like changed jobs 3 times because he felt harassed and picked on whereas other people just write it off as sometimes you work with a jerk. Things like a rude waitress could set him off on a tirad about being disrespected and treated rudely and he would go on and on about it. He had a hard time letting things go. But overall, I thought we had a stable and happy relationship and he would talk about our future and he was sweet and protectivie and affectionate with me. In some ways he was immature and needy like a 15 year old boy needing me to take care of him. His self worth seemed dependent on me at times.
In the end of November and for the month of December 2016, I sensed a small change but couldn't quite put my finger on it. I sensed he was dropping hints he needed me even more like a cry for help and he was needing his self esteem massaged. He'd plead with me to be with him and try to hold on tighter but I just had stuff I had to do and little time to do it. I work 3rd shift, 10 hours for 7 days on , Wednesday night through the following Wednesday morning, and then I'm 7 days off. He really wanted us on the same schedule and for me to switch shifts. I was busy with work every other week and preparing for the holidays and I have a 15 y.o and a 17 y.o. so I just couldn't be with him all the time. But I felt like he was gripping tighter to me and then suddenly it seemed like switched and was playing mind games a bit like trying to get me to chase him by ignoring my phone calls and texts. In turn I would get angry not understanding this. And yes, I must admit I said some things that would hit him where it would hurt the most making him feel even worse. I always told him I would never chase a man, and now it looks like he's turned the tables because he's proved me wrong and I think it might be exactly what he wanted to validate himself.
He had asked me to move in with him back in September and we started planning slowly as I have two kids to think about and we live an hour apart. He started remodeling some in his house to make it comfortable for us and we helped here and there. Jumping ahead, on 12/29/16, my work week, he called before I left for work when after his cat and mouse game with me trying call him, ended up with me texting him that either he call me or we were done. He called immediately as if he was panicked. We had a nice heart to heart talk. I asked him if he really wanted me to move in and he gave a very firm "yes". I asked him did he want me to go to bed at night with him everyday and wake up with him every morning and he said yes. I asked him if he wanted a future with me and he firmly told me yes. He said to me that next week I'm off, "we were talking about the move whether I like it or not." That he wanted me to commit to it. I said I guess and he said "what do you mean you guess? We are talking about it." I told him I felt neglected lately because he didn't spend Christmas with us and he said he was working on the house getting it ready for us. He said that just because he didn't answer the phone or a text, that didn't mean he doesn't care. This is almost verbatim. I keep replaying it like it was yesterday. He also mentioned a med he was put on for depression wasn't making him feel right but we'd talk about it then. I had to get ready to leave for work and I told him I loved him. He sounded sad as he told me he loved me too. As I was driving to work he sent me a text saying"I know it's late but is it too late for you to call in? I miss you and I just want to hold you." I couldn't call in though even though I told him I wish I could.
The next night on 12/30, I woke up at 6:30 pm to a text he had sent around noon saying "change of plans. Tomorrow I'm working an extra shift, it's an extra $100. Then I'm going up north to spend New Year's Eve with my sister and her boyfriend and I'lll grab her key so you have one for the house. Then I'll make sure I'll be home so I can spend Sunday and Monday with you (even though I was asleep, he'd often come over just to nap with me so we had some time together on days I'd work). I was coming down with a cold and wanted to talk to him about his message. I tried calling. I tried texting. I chaulked it up to sometimes he loses cell service at his sisters. I texted his sister saying please have him call me. She responded "Um ok I will." Immediately I suspected she didn't know what I was talking about. The next day, Saturday, 12/31/16, I sent a few texts and left a couple voice mails. Finally around noon he sent a text saying "Stop texting, I'm busy". That finally set off my radar and I panicked. I knew in my gut that he wasn't anywhere near his sister's house. I sent more texts and tried to call. Something just wasn't right. Finally on Sunday after calling and texting, I received another text stating, "this is Daryl's girlfriend and I don't know what this is about, but he says if you don't stop harassing him, he's calling the police." And of course I panicked and kept texting. He finally called me around 2 pm and I answered the phone to him screaming at me saying he "hated me and he never wanted to see me again and that if I were in front of him, he'd bash my face in. I found somebody new." And I managed to ask him why while in shock and crying and he screamed at me that he didn't owe me an explanation and that if he ever saw me in public he didn't want anything to do with me and he'd bash my face in. At 5:45 pm, on his FB he posted a picture of him and this woman to Facebook. I was just devastated. I had to call into work Sunday night and Monday I was so in shock and hysterical. This man and I had just spoken about our future only 3 days before and here was acting as if he we never had that conversation and that it was him pushing me to settle down with him. He wanted a real future. He had told me he'll love me forever. And now he was running around just 2 days later as if we never talked the other day?
I made it to work Tuesday and Wednesday I just needed my best friend so I hopped in my car and drove 800 miles from WI to TN to be with her. I left to go home that Saturday 1/7/17. I couldn't help it. He posts everything publically on FB and I know he and this woman had to only see each other on weekends because they live over 100 miles apart and work weekdays. I saw he posted they were at a bar he always took me to. I couldn't help it. I had to see for myself and I detoured on the way home and went to the bar. I watched from across the bar and they seemed so generic together. I was heartbroken. He stepped away to go to the bathroom and I walked up to her and very calmy said "Hello Christina. I'm Dawn." She freaked waving her arms around and started yelling at me. I managed to remain calm and asked her how long was this going on and she said a month. That means this was only the second weekend they could have been together because the prior month I had him accounted for. I said to her doesn't it bother you he's been sticking his d*** in both of us at the same time? Don't you think both you and I deserve better than that? And then I realized she knew about me the whole time. Her only response was I called him a loser. Where that came from I don't know but obviously he is saying stuff about me to her and making her feel sorry for him. In the meantime he came back. He was behind her and turned away from both us just standing at bar looking across it the other way. She's yelling and I just said I'm leaving. You two can have each other. He made his only comment "she's crazy" as I was walking out. Someone, either that woman or one of the bartenders or him followed me but I made to my car and left. I got down the street and pulled over to calm down and I looked at his FB and they had just taken a close up of them smiling right in the bar obviously minutes after I left. He was going to use FB to rub it in my face.
I admit, I went temporarily insane with texting and calling on Sunday and Monday still in shock and heartbroken and now trying to get my stuff back and some money he owed me. I got one text stating if I didn't stop he'd call the police. I didn't stop. He changed his phone number on Monday and called the cops. A officer called me and I told him the truth that yeah I was going nuts over this. And I wanted my stuff back. The cop actually felt really bad for me and understood. He called Daryl and asked him to return my stuff to the station at least and Daryl told him no that I didn't have anything there and he didn't owe me any money. The cop told me he advised him he could file a restraining order and that I could take him also to court for my stuff. I guess we called it a draw because neither of has done either as of yet.
I just couldn't take it anymore. He still had a pic of us on FB and had posted another of him in a group with his arms around that woman. I did write a comment regarding him being a cheater and a liar and her knowing he was already in a relationship and he had just told me he loved me and wanted me to move in. It was public for all his friends to see. It sat there all night into the next morning and by his work lunch time he blocked me.
My cousin who was helping me through this cleared my computer of all pictures. Quite frankly I was still in shock and hysterical and embarrassed that I had been obsessive about this and acting like a crazy fool. My future and my plans were just thrown away overnight viciously with no regard to just breaking up with me gently. He could have done this without me ever finding out about this woman. Instead he was parading her around on FB assuming I was watching him probably through other people like he was intentionally smearing it in my face. My cousin FB messaged him to please remove his pics of me and to do the right thing and pay me back and give me back my stuff. Just seeing his profile pic, a pic I took of him when we were out together, hurt like hell to see. He saw her message but blocked her from writing again but didn't block her profile.
I have since went to see a therapist that I went to when I was going through my divorce. I am going to continue to see her. She wants to start some therapy with rapid eye movement to treat PTSD. I was abused in two relationships, one being my marriage, before Daryl and she thinks I'm having symptoms again. I'm eating Xanax like it's candy my anxiety is so high. I'm heartbroken and confused but strangely I'm not angry yet. I've already lost 13 pounds. I have so many questions. I'm obsessive about this. I can't let it go. I miss him so much. If he came back to me now, I know I'd be weak and give in.
Why do I miss him so much? Why did he do this? Did he ever love me? Was our whole relationship a lie? Why don't I even care about the cheating? Is it a rebound? Did his self esteem require he have someone in his back pocket because the whole month of December I feel like in hindsight after hashing this out with the counselor and she agrees, that he was dropping hints that he wanted to chose me and he was sad for some reason but pride or something stopped him from telling me that he needed me and didn't want to have to chose to leave me. So he got angry and he's getting revenge is the best we can come up with. The counselor thinks he probably has PTSD and BPD or NPD. I am leaning towards BPD in reading up on behaviors that remarkably I either ignored or didn't see during our relationship that he exhibits. His sister has told me he has always been that way and they've pretty much given up on coddling him and trying to help him. Before this all happened when he had a panic attack in November that sent him to an ER, he and I planned on getting him into a psychiatrist and a counselor for his temper and some past trauma. He was really self aware he needed to do something but he switched jobs recently and this happened before his new insurance kicked in. So now he'll be left untreated because from what I can tell, he's in denial and putting on a happy face for the world as if what he's done to me doesn't matter.
Is he remorseful or ashamed at all? I wonder if he misses me at all? Is this a cover up or way of not dealing with his anxieties and fear I would maybe abandon him? Is he punishing me for some perceived wrong? Why is he so angry? The counselor said his anger is the anger of someone who is hurting and his blame is directed at me. That the opposite of love is indifference. That he wouldn't be angry if I had never mattered and he didn't love me. Maybe he felt he wasn't getting the attention he needed? But now I'm completely cut off. Does that mean he's over it already? Is this the indifference part? He couldn't have spent more than 18 days with this woman at most over the course of going on two months. Why was he telling me he wanted me to move in and have a future together only days before dumping me so hurtfully?
Now the issue is getting me through this and giving myself closure. Everyone says he'll try to contact me again. Some have suggested he kept my stuff and refused to give it back so he has an in later when this relationship he's in falls apart and everything that played out kicks in and he needs me to be his rock again. I don't understand that. If my attention wasn't enough, what's he going to really gain by being involved with someone with kids younger than mine (he never married and has no kids) that he can only see on weekends? Apparently I wasn't enough for him, how is she going to be?
I just can't believe he doesn't still love me. Ironically from what we can gather this venom from him, this anger, this silent treatment I'm being told stems from his anger at being insecure and dependent on me and fear of abandonment. That even though he's purposely punishing me it seems, that only people who love you put that much effort into what he's done. That doesn't make sense to me. So now my big fear is, will he try to come back to me? I'm weak right now. I'd cave in. I know I would. But I can't allow myself to tolerate being treated like this either. My self esteem has taken a beating. I don't know how I can still love this man and miss him and while I know I'd want to take him back in a heartbeat, my biggest fear is that he will try to come back. My self respect is already beaten up. Am I justified in needing to be prepared for that possibility? My counselor and my friends say I should be prepared for that. But I can't imagine if he's behaved this way, that he ever would want to see me again. But also I can't imagine this relationship he's in is going to go anywhere. It will implode. I've been more bonded and closer to him than anyone has been in years and he discarded me overnight. I doubt she's anything more than a distraction from him having to deal and cope with his feelings regarding us. Somebody please say something to give me clarity and keep me logical. Please if you have any insight regarding my questions, please help me. I feel like I'm falling apart and I'm going insane with grief. I'm not typically this type of person that simply just falls apart and is obsessive like this. I don't know how to cope.
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