Title: Led to betrayal
Your Story: My ex and initially I had a passionate, committed relationship, where our families were both involved, we had gone away on trips together, and we got to know many of each other’s friends. After he initially broke up with me, he would message me and say that he misses me, still loves me and wants to work things out, then the following day he would tell me that we’ve made a mistake and we shouldn’t be together. This happened 3 times over the course of a month. In the end, after I had blocked him on everything he decided to make a fake profile on Instagram and beg me to take him back, even though he knew how much this back and forth dynamic had hurt me, and even though I was so close to getting over him, but still I put myself in the line of fire again, and for about a week we were seeing each other again.
He was an extremely jealous person and could become verbally and emotionally abusive when he was drunk (which was almost every single night). The day before he cheated on me he was jealous of the friends that I had reconnected with (people who I hadn’t been able to speak to during our relationship) during our initial breakup and told me to get rid of them, to which I refused as I had lost so many friends during our relationship because of his jealousy. For context, I also wasn’t allowed to go to gym during the time that we dated, he had made me delete Instagram, and me made me share my live location during all hours of the day when we weren’t together. When I set that boundary and refused to lose anymore connections and friendships, the emotional abuse started, saying that I was willing to throw everything away for these older friends that “didn’t care about me” and just “enjoyed having a 22 year old around”. I could tell that he was drunk and I said that I couldn’t do this anymore and blocked him because the swearing and character degradation escalated. He then sent me an email saying that I “trick people into caring for me” and that I’m “broken” and can’t give him what he wants.
The following day I unblocked him and called him. He said that he was out with his friends (people who I had met before) and he would call me later. I heard an unfamiliar voice in the background and tried to phone back so many times…he messaged me saying that he’s not on a date and he’s just trying to have a good time with friends and that he doesn’t want me to worry. 2 hours later he said said he had arrived back home, and then apologised for saying all of those things to me and that he wanted to try again and work things out. I had a feeling that something was off and phoned him again later that night, saying that I didn’t believe him. He then came clean, saying that he was on a date, and the other person came back to his apartment afterwards where they kissed etc etc.
For a month I had been put through a back and forth of getting back together, breaking up, and repeating it all over again until he found someone new, someone more attractive, younger, someone who was obviously able to go to gym and exercise when I couldn’t. For a month he kept me on a leash, breaking up with me and then creating new profiles and emailing me, saying that he “can’t live without me”, all until he cheated on me…and left me feeling absolutely expendable. He felt no remorse for cheating on me. I FaceTimed him and he just looked annoyed. He said that I shouldn’t involve the other guy because he didn’t know.
Like a fool I messaged the person that he cheated on me with, informing them of the situation in case he had lied to them too, but their response might as well have been, “sorry you’re hurting but I’m going to continue £&@^ing the guy who cheated on you, good luck getting over it”. The worst part is that this was the day before my graduation, and he made sure that one of the most important moments of my life was scarred with the image of someone else in his apartment, the words that he had said to me, and losing a love that I had worked so hard on. All of the pain, trauma, and sacrifices suddenly became meaningless. And every achievement that I had gained suddenly felt so little… I know for sure that the relationship should have ended a long time ago, but through the pain and the trauma, I can feel grateful for the fact that I he can no longer diminish me.