Yes, that does help. It's so frustrating because I know logically that this is a person who did all.of those things and pretty severely abused me yet I feel at fault. I know that is by design. And i know crazy makes crazy. It is very hard to keep your cool in those situations.
Absolutely, it is maddening and it's so hard to know which way is up when your partner is disordered and just wanting to fight about something. I lived that as well.
Just know that how I felt a few weeks after breaking up was very different than how I felt a few months later, or even a few years later. You're so close to this right now that it feels like it's worth fighting for...which is normal. If you love someone, you fight for them and forgive them. But that brings us back to mental illness; he's not fighting for you because in many ways, he was incapable.
Quick glimpse into his thinking. He's having a terrible day but trying to hide it. His thoughts are everywhere. He comes home, starts ranting, and you try to silently back away. You don't want to do that, not again! And he senses that. But instead of thinking what a normal person would think- maybe I'm being overly drammatic, his mind goes the opposite direction and blames you. How could she not understand how much pain I'm in? How could she reject me when I'm feeling like this? What sort of person would look at me that way when I ask them an important question?
Again, mental illness is leading this parade. His thoughts are jumbled and before long, he's convincing himself that you're going to leave him, that you never cared to begin with. He can't face rejection, he can't handle it at all, so he sabotages the relationship and either leaves, or forces you to leave. Why? Because you can't abandon him if he kicks you out.
This disordered way of thinking drives his every action, defines his entire life. He's always looking for the slightest hint of a problem and when he sees it (regardless if it's real or not), he fixates on it until he's built a completely different narrative in his head. One random thought leads to another and before long, what he thinks about the relationship is nothing like the reality before him. He must fight or flee.
The cheating, the abuse, all the other stuff comes from this cycle. In his mind, you were the mean one and he did what he had to do in order to survive. In reality, his own brain was working against him and he was simply running from all the pain. The problem wasn't you though, it was always within him and that's the scariest thing in the world for him to even consider.


