My ex girlfriend dumped me a year ago (with a text message, a week before Christmas). I was with my ex girlfriend for almost 3 years when it ended. We talked and planned about; marriage, kids and spending the rest of our lives together. Hell, I was a week away from asking her to marry me when she left. I tried so hard to save my relationship.
I became extremely dependent on her. She was my best friend. I trusted her completely and I never questioned her. She was everything to me. The reason I got up in the morning. The reason I went to the gym. She gave me a purpose. No matter what happened to me, I knew I was going to be OK because I had her by my side. I cannot put into words how much I loved her or how important she was to me. I put her needs in front of everything else in my life. I would've moved heaven and earth for her. When she left, I didn't know who I was anymore.
I didn't see it at the time, but she treated me terribly. She was horribly emotionally and mentally abusive to me. The entire relationship was on her terms and I was basically her boyfriend when it was convenient for her or she needed something (ie: emotional support, sometimes I felt like her therapist). After she left me (she said that I was the one abusing her. I believed her and went to get help. I didn't want to be a man who abuses the ones he loves. I quickly found out that I was the one being abused) I found out that she had been cheating on me for months. On top of that, I found out that pretty much everything that she ever told me was a lie and that I never really knew the real her. It's a strange and awful feeling to realize that the person you fell in love with, the person you truly believed was your soul mate was never real.
I know I'm much better off without her. When I told her that I'd never talk to her or see her again, she said "What the hell? But you're my best friend! I need you in my life! You promised that no matter what happened, you'd always be there for me". When I told her that it would just be to painful for me, that I couldn't go from being a week away from asking her to marry me to being just friends, she told me that wasn't normal and just another reason why she had to leave me. I know now that she has an extremely bad personality disorder (Borderline Personality Disorder/Sociopath). But...I still miss her. I still want her. There's still a part of me that believes we were meant to be together. I know that was never real, that it was part of her personality disorder but it's incredibly difficult to separate that. It hurts so much to tell my story and have people say "wow, I never would've left you" or "she'll never find a guy who will treat her as well as you did". Or to have your therapist say "you are absolutely marriage material and you're going to make some woman extremely happy one day". It hurts because it just leads me to think "Why? Why, if I'm so great. If I treated her so well...why did she leave me? Why did she hurt me so much?"
It's been a year now. I'm still single and I just turned 30. I'm terrified I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life alone. I'm terrified I'm never going to find someone I'll love as much or want to spend the rest of my life as much as I did with her. I'm slowly (with the help of therapy) rebuilding myself. I'm slowly starting to feel like my old self again. But, when someone is involved with ever aspect of your life, a lot reminds you of them. I still find myself going "Huh, I wish I could tell/show her this or that" or "I bet she'd find this funny".
I've learned that emotional and mental abuse...is odd. Odd is the best way I can describe it. It's like being trapped in our my head. I know that xyz is not true and I have overwhelming proof that xyz is not true. But there's this voice, her voice telling me that we're wrong. That xyz is true and that I'm a horrible person and a monster.
My ex convinced me I was a monster. She convinced me that I was not only solely responsible for the death of our relationship, I was responsible for everything wrong in her life. Her depression, anxiety, social troubles (she had a very hard time making and keeping friends. At the time I could never understand why. I figured she was misunderstood), school trouble...everything was because of me. She said that I had sexually assaulted her. She said I was mentally and emotionally abusing her. She said I was controlling her by keeping her from seeing her friends and family (nothing could be further from the truth. I hardly saw her. I didn't want her to be forced to see me, if that makes sense. I believed her when she said she really wanted to see me but she was busy. She was always busy. I felt forgotten. When I told her this she said "I don't forget about you. I'm just busy and I had my entire life to see you!" The last year we were together, we only saw each other 30 times. The rest was text and phone calls). She refused to even see me in person because "she was afraid of what her reaction would be if I tried to comfort her and that she no longer felt safe around me". She threatened to beat the shit out of me and told me that it would be my fault because I had the audacity to ask one of her few friends if he was dating her (the same guy she was cheating on me with). She said that I had left her no other choice but to leave me and told me "I hope you learn from this because this is all your fault. You took something that was once so beautiful and turned it into something ugly and painful". And I believed every single word she said.
I was beyond crushed. I almost killed myself that night. I couldn't even stomach my own reflection in the mirror. For months I cried every single day. Then she tormented me by making sure it got back to me how happy she was or how she has a new boyfriend. My depression got so bad I had my local Crisis and Suicide Prevention line calling me every day to check on me.
The road has been very long but I have gotten better over the past year. I haven't cried for a few months now and that's a good thing. She no longer consumes my ever thought, but she's still very present in my mind because of the hole she left both in me and my life. People tell me that I'll find someone far better than her but if I'm being honest, I don't know if I believe that. After all, I really thought she was my soul mate. How do you find that again?
The scary part is, being completely honest...if she were to try to come back, I'm not sure if I'd say "No".
I didn't just loose a girlfriend. I lost my best friend. I lost my future wife. I lost the mother of my children. I lost my partner who I couldn't wait to share the rest of my life with. Above all else I lost my future, something I am slowly starting to get back, even if I have a hard time believing that.
Well...that's my horrible breakup. I just wanted to share what I went trough.
