Realizing that I've met a lot of new people within the past few months means people are perceiving me, but that also means they know very little about my past abusive relationship. I actually rarely talk about it because it was so traumatizing. Read more below. TW for a very abusive relationship.
What's most important is that he lied about everything. Literally everything. He lied to his family, our friends, me. He had manipulated and deceived everyone to make me seem like some batshit crazy person, and most people believed him. I wasn't innocent, but word got back to me about what he had been telling people for years, and they were all straight-up lies, literally from 2011 to now.
We broke up the first time so he could ask out another girl. When she rejected him, he came back to me because he knew I was miserable and had a deeply broken heart. And because I was so lonely (because he lied to everyone about why we broke up), I just went along with it. He literally just kept me around for sex. Like that was literally it. Like, I do not like having sex. It hurts; I'm miserable; I just didn't like it. He knew that, but still pressured me into it. I had no self-respect, so again, I just went along with it.
We got into a ton of fights because we weren't compatible at all (I was growing as a person with life experience, he just stagnated)
He would meet other girls, start ignoring me, and then, when things didn't go the way he wanted (because he sucks), the cycle repeated. My breaking point was when he completely ghosted me, wouldn't let me eat at the restaurant he worked at, and just all around shittiness. So again, keep in mind, he wanted me as a backup, would lie to me that he wanted me as his friend and cared about it, and would often love bomb me. Well, he decided he would start sleeping with a married woman with kids. He didn't even have the nerve to tell me. Well, he did tell me. He told me when he called me crying about how she cheated on him (she slept with her husband). This was me first finding out. I was devastated.
I eventually told him that I wanted no part in his life if he was going to keep stringing me along and trying to get with other women. He freaked out and started to cry, saying he wouldn't do it again. So I gave him another chance. BTW everyone thought I was the asshole for setting this boundary.
I think it was like a year? later (it was 2015), I just randomly started watching gaming YouTubers (Markiplier, the Grumps, etc) and like...it just snapped me out of my misery. I was laughing again. I was happy, and my self-respect just hit me in the chest. I realized that I was miserable and that I didn't love this ass; I was just incredibly lonely and in shitty situations (I was still living with my parents at the time). Eventually, I finally grew a spine and told him I was no longer comfortable with our situation, that we could still be friends, but that was it. I no longer wanted to sleep with him.
Well, he started crying. Said things like "we were together the whole time, and you're breaking up with me," which switched to anger: "I just bought a new pack of condoms; you need to sleep with me until they're gone". I told him maybe and cried on the way home. He convinced me to have a nice dinner and hotel room with him, and I was like, "Sure, whatever, but this is it" (my relationship with sex was long-since ruined), and I meant it. Well, he got mad at me AGAIN because I didn't want to keep sleeping with him. I had already told our friends what happened, and they believed me at first.
Eventually, I snapped at him, saying that I told him I was uncomfortable and he keeps pressuring me into sex. So then he lied to our friends about what happened, blocked me on everything, and then the past six years hit me like a truck, but I didn't care. I was finally free. I had accepted that all I was to him was a sex doll. It's really fucked with me, but therapy is helping, and maybe one day I'll have a healthy relationship with sex (doubtful).
So anyway. I've been blissfully single for years. Sometimes I feel a bit lonely, but things have happened to get me out of a funk (rereading One Piece, playing BG3, moving out of Texas, my bipolar diagnosis). I'm very happy with where I'm at. I always knew that I would move out of Texas and start over. And I did. I struggled financially, with my mental health, with my physical health, and got to experience bedbugs (nightmare scenario), but I am doing much better.
I am very glad to meet all of y'all and see you all as friends. I hope we remain friends and I can learn more about you all. I enjoy reading your fics and seeing your art.