Hey there.
As you know I'm very new around here so my views obviously don't reflect those of the community and you should also know that I have had no training in counselling people whatsoever, nor have I studied much psychology, so please evaluate what I'm telling you critically and decide how much is applicable to your own life.
I'm so glad that you ended that, I've had friends with similar situations in the past - people like that man disgust me.
But this doesn't mean that everything is over now, far from it.
You've got to look at how you got into that. Where you came from and where you're going.
Ok, how do you know that the guy was a total dick?
1) He wanted sex without any responsibility or commitment and
2) He blamed you.
My one and only "real relationship" with sex and romance (for a while at least) was with a woman who had literally spend more of her adult life in a psychiatric facility than outside it.
She seemed to think a "relationship" consisted of getting drunk, picking fights (trying to escalate them into physical violence) and then having makeup sex, rinse and repeat.
Ending the relationship I had with her was very, very difficult but necessary.
Even at my loneliest and most depressed, even when I felt worthless and completely unwanted and unattractive to everyone, even then I could not consider getting back with her.
So someone saying "we can have sex, but that's it, you're too unbalanced" is ...somewhat distasteful.
I'm interested to know how you got into this situation? What did you see in this guy which made you want to be with him?
Was it physical attraction or the prospect of love, did you want someone you would accept you and were you prepared to give up anything for this? Did he show an interest and you liked the attention?
How did is start?
Then what are you looking for in a partner?
Then I want to know what you will look for or be open to in future?
There is not right answer to the last question, but there is a wrong one - "I'm done with this whole scene, I don't want anyone else in my life, it only leads to hurt" - in my experience, few who have said that have been able to follow through and those who did weren't any happier for doing so.
You know, so many people live with their heads on the wrong way round, they look at where they have been, obsess over little mistakes they have made all those years ago and they don't look where they're actually going, so they stumble into the same situations again.
Then there is the sad and ugly situation where someone has been living with depression for so long that the most important thing in their lives becomes how they are feeling in this particular moment. They become monsters who hurt people because they put everything below feeling "better" now. Also, they do stupid things like jump into a sexual relationship with someone they don't know out of desperation to feel loved and wanted and actually, just to feel anything more than depression and self-loathing.
Now I don't know you well enough to even guess whether you are the sort of person who would make this kind of mistake, but I'm inviting you to consider the way forward so that you don't become someone like this.
Here are some suggestions (again, for what they are worth) if applicable:
1) don't look for acceptance, love and companionship only in romantic-sexual relationships, there are thousands of people who will love and accept you as you are (although they will hopefully offer support if you want to make a change for the better in your life) without needing a romantic-sexual relationship. Learn to value these people in your life, they aren't doing it out of duty and most of them aren't doing it because they want to drag you into something.
2) (please!) don't use sex as a form of 'insurance' - a way of 'paying up front' for love, emotional security and commitment. You know, as much as women dread men using kind words and deeds to 'pay up front' for sex and then suddenly spring the "you owe me sex" attitude on them, ruing friendships and trust in men, so men dread women who do what I have described, if you use sex to 'pay in advance' for something you want in a relationship, you turn it from sharing yourself at the most intimate and personal level with someone, from an expression of absolute love and trust, into a cheap trick, a way of getting what you want. Not only is this amoral and dishonest, but it makes you having sex with someone and by extension you, appear worthless.
3) don't base your self-esteem and self-worth on your relationship status - this poisoned ideal which so many women (even those who claim to be feminists) in our society adhere to - that you're not somebody unless you're with somebody - is frankly disgusting. And yet, so many women think about what friends, family, parents, etc think of them for ending a relationship or not being in one. This is so sad. There are men who are like this too, but of course with men it is phrased in terms of sex - "why can't you find a sex partner? what's wrong with you?"
Then this same thing might come across as women thinking that getting into a relationship will protect them from unwanted attention from men. Again, what people think of you, only now it's that you "vulnerable", not "a failure". Firstly, being in a relationship does not protect women from unwanted attention from men any more than identifying yourself as lesbian does, secondly, yes "I have an adult Bengal tiger in my living room, I don't have to worry about burglars"...
4) Don't focus on "mistakes" and ways you have been hurt in previous relationships. In every relationship from your parents forwards, wherever possible, try to think of something the person in your life did right, try to think of what they gave you that you needed and what was good for you. This is difficult when people have really hurt and disappointed you, but look for one thing they did right. If you look only at what people did to hurt you, "mistakes", you will look for qualities they don't have (or don't show) and you will, as I have said before, live with your head on the wrong way round and so stumble into things because you are looking at the past and not the present or future.
5) Learn to love an value yourself, this can be very hard for many people and when you've been treated like garbage, it can be doubly hard. But like it or not, whether you asked them to or not, there are people who do love and value you- and you kick them in the stomach ever time you tell yourself "I don't deserve better", "it's your fault he's like this", " well what did you expect?" etc... Apart from this, there are the other women to consider. Women who are in abusive relationships sometimes get this very upsetting notion that they are being heroines, that they are saving others from this monster because "if he wasn't hurting me, he'd be hurting someone else" - this warped form of thinking comes from an extremely low self-worth. Actually, what will happen is that he will destroy or even in some cases kill you and then move on feeling that it is easy, that it is ok because you let him get away with it, so that means you wanted it and that means that all women secretly want to be treated like trash.
If you don't stand up to men who treat women badly, which you did by getting out of that situation - and I'm so glad you did! - you let yourself be consumed and discarded and then you let a monster loose on someone else.
And don't say "It's not abuse, he's only telling me I'm not worth anything more than being used for sex until he grows tired of me, it's not like he's [insert traumatic event from your past]..." - if you say "I've been through worse, I can handle this" you are saying to yourself that you deserve it and you definitely don't. So love and value yourself, nobody can or will ever give you love which is strong enough and pure enough to make up for you not loving yourself and nobody can ever worship you like a goddess so that the value they put in you makes up for you not valuing yourself.
Start of small and find ways to make it work, loving and valuing yourself, it is like an exercise, a way of getting stronger - you can't help anyone if you can't help yourself or if you won't because you feel that you don't deserve to be helped.
So those were just my opinions and suggestions based on a few experiences and my own imperfect understanding, I don't know how much of that is applicable in your case and I don't know how much you will find helpful and how much you will find irritating or infuriating (as people making assumptions without knowing you or your situation can often be!)
But for what it's worth, I would recommend that you evaluate yourself and think about how you get into ugly relationships, then think about moving forward and not dwell on everything "wrong with you or in your life".
I don't know you well enough to say this for sure, but I believe that whatever you have been through, you have a lot to offer someone, the question is, will they appreciate it?
