Romantic Relationship #4: The Story
Because this is so long, I'm putting the story of what happened here and my feelings in another post. You don't have to read this part, I just have to get it out. And I'm a chick, if you decide to actually read this and need that context.
I refer to D. as "my ex", even though we never were officially dating. I had only been with one person consensually before him, and that wasn't so good. Short story shorter, I was partying with a bunch of guys I didn't know, got drunk, had sex I didn't want because I didn't think anyone I found attractive would ever touch me ever and the guy coming on to me was decent looking. My exact thought before I let him was "I think this is as good as it's going to get". The experience was hideously embarrassing and I hate myself a little for it still.
Anywho, I met D. when we were 19, working on a mutual acquaintances artistic endeavor. We hit it off at the start of the project, immediately hanging out and IMing constantly, talking for hours at a time about anything and everything. I really liked him and was severely infatuated. No one had ever seemed that mutually interested in me before, not even my friends or past girlfriends.
A month into our friendship he proposed that we make it sexual; he said that he really liked me, but didn't want to date anyone because he was having a hard time trusting women. I heard he had been dating someone after the fact, but he assured me that the relationship ended before this "idea" sprang to mind. I am currently doubtful.
Since we gave each other so much attention I went with his proposal because I was hopeful that it would eventually turn into something more. It never did, but when I would say I loved him and needed more from him he would tell me that I was selfish and if I wanted to end "it" (he never wanted to call what was between us a relationship of any sort), he would respect it, but he would be saddened and miss me. He said I was the one that had the power to stop it, but I was too scared to even though I was ashamed of our "relationship". I felt I needed him because I felt like he was the only person I could trust.
This went on for four and a half years. He demanded that I be monogamous (I only had eyes for him, so it wasn't an issue) and he insisted that he too was monogamous--another thing I currently doubt. He said he never told his friends about me and never told his family about me. I was under strict orders to never approach them or talk to them, even if they approached me. He didn't want me telling my friends about him.
If he didn't have his friends around (like the three years he spent at his parents home), he would get upset if I took time to hang out with mine instead of spend evenings talking to him.
Through out the relationship he would often request to take lurid pictures or videos of me. I didn't want to, but I wanted his approval, so I let him. He said it would make him happy. I am now terrified, and frequently wonder what he still has and what he has done with it.
About a year before he "broke up" with me, he talked me into going with his idea of having a threesome. He knew I liked girls, and had kept pushing it the entire time we were "together". When I said yes, we didn't have a third person in mind. I told him he'd have to find someone, but he said that it would cause me to distrust him.
He didn't make me ask my friends if they knew someone willing to have a threesome, but he highly encouraged me and would get mad at me if I told him I didn't go through with asking Person A or B. He would berate me for being too meek and unconfident, or for trying to sabotage his desires. He didn't make me buy a subscription to a swingers website or message people, but he highly encouraged me and acted hurt until I complied. He didn't make me upload compromising photos of myself, but he accused me not trying hard enough until I did.
I tried to back out a couple of times, but he called me an "indian giver" until I stepped down.
After little under a year later and no success, I told him that I had to stop with that and there was no room for argument. The subscriptions cost too much (I was unemployed and in school at the time and living off my quickly dwindling savings) and it really was something I didn't want to do. Through out our relationship he would belittle me for associating sex with love, and couldn't comprehend that I wouldn't want to have sex with someone that I didn't know. When I used sex = love to explain why I didn't want a threesome, he tried using my loss of virginity against me in that argument, but I still stood firm.
He acted devastated and told me I was killing his fantasy, that I was his last hope to live it out, I was keeping him from it, and he needed it so he would have something later on in life to look back upon fondly because the rest of his life was so crappy.
Soon after this he made his facebook wall private. When I asked him why I couldn't see his wall, he told me there was no reason and that I was paranoid for no reason. He then started talking to me less and less. Our nightly talks became fewer and for shorter periods of time, and stories involving "a random friend" became more prominent. He didn't address her by name and gender, but would say "I went on a hike with a friend and their dogs".
I finally asked him if this person was female, and he got defensive, saying that I had no right to ask him. But he told me yes, it was a chick, and I knew it was over. Not because he never hung out with women (he did, frequently), but the fact that he hid her gender from me seemed really significant. I told him again that I was in love with him, and he told me he had no idea I felt that way. He wasn't being sarcastic. I asked him if he missed all the other times I told him that and he told me that I never told him ever, that he didn't know.
I stopped initiating contact with him as frequently as I had been, and he stopped initiating contact with me completely. I still called, but I started hanging out more with people on campus.
The night he broke up with me (two weeks before finals @_@), he started out with he just didn't return my feelings, but it turned into he returned my feelings but didn't want that kind of relationship, then turned into he "accidentally" had sex with this girl and wanted to see where it would go from there. I told him that I needed to see him to talk it out, so he drove out. He said he still wanted me in his life, that I was invaluable to him, and that this girl meant nothing. It was just sex.
I had a downward spiral after that. I was crying all the time. My friend K., when I told her what happened, told me that I was pathetic and got what I deserved, even though she had been supportive of our "relationship" prior. She started telling me what a slut I was and how mentally unstable I was, and how he left me because he knew what a weak and ugly person I was. She said if I was stronger he would have stayed.
I felt I couldn't trust my friends, so I kept talking to D, who started telling me things like I was his rock and only true friend.
My therapist at the time told me D. was just sowing his oats, to hold out and that he would be back, and that the things he was saying were only said because he loved me. She said to never give up on him, because he had been in my life for so long and I shouldn't want to waste the connection we had. She said him coming to visit me when he "broke up" with me was proof he loved me too.
My grandmother died a few weeks after the semester ended, and at her funeral K. continued to berate me and tell me what a god awful family I had and that they all "deserve to die too". She said she didn't know why she was friends with such an unstable person, and when I told her to stop saying this at my grandmothers funeral of all places, she told me I was overreacting. I was always calm and placating with her because she was always quick to anger and I was always afraid she was going to hurt me physically. Realizing I wasn't overreacting in an angry way with her, and her saying I was, was an eye opening moment. I didn't stop being friends with her, I just stopped thinking of her as "the sane one" in our friendship.
I started to let things with D. go, even though I was literally alone, when he changed his relationship status on facebook to in a relationship with E. He also made his wall visible again and I saw all the comments she had been leaving him prior to him breaking up with me (they weren't lurid, but were less than platonic and made mention of all the gifts he gave her). I unfriended him and told him if we were to remain friends I would need time to myself. He told me I was over reacting and being a bitch, and that he only changed his status so their mutual friends wouldn't think she was being a slut for their sex-only relationship.
I asked him why he didn't care what my friends thought, and he told them that was my problem for telling them about us in the first place. When I started getting defensive, he told me if I cut him out of my life he would be hurt so badly, he didn't know what he would do to himself, and that he needed me, and that he knew that I needed him. We still talked a little after that because I felt guilty.
K. and our friend M. confronted me again when I started seeing U. K. said all the same things she said at my grandmothers funeral, but in a very calm and collected manner. She wanted me to agree with her that I was a crazy slut and that my family was trash, and hanging out with U., who would become my boyfriend, was a sign of this (ironically, because I wasn't using U. as a one night stand... It still doesn't make sense to me). I agreed, because I wanted her to stay my friend because I thought I needed her support, as I was trying to phase D. out of my life... even though I had already been realizing she was a few eggs short of a dozen.
D. didn't want me dating other people. He told me I didn't really love him if I was seeing someone else. I told him he didn't love me if he was sleeping with someone else, and he said that was different. At this time he also didn't want to call me, but insisted that I had to call him, and if I didn't, it hurt his feelings.
U. knew I was talking to D. I told him that I was aware that D. was being weird (I hesitate to say abusive, but I know it wasn't good), but that he seemed to need me. I was honest about it, but U's a little bit of a push over too (also a victim of a lot of the same shit I was as a kid--prior to him D. was the only person that told me how appalled they were at my childhood) and wouldn't have told me if it bothered him.
As U. and I started getting closer, I realized I had to make a choice, so I made it.
It boggles my mind in so many ways; I can't believe I was that insensitive to U and I can't believe I didn't realize just how much of a dick I was being.
Last winter, after a few months of not talking, out of the blue K. told me to never contact her again. I tried to salvage the relationship because of our mutual friends (I don't think I need her for her anymore; but I thought if we weren't friends all our mutual friends would side with her--and I was right), but gave up. She expects me to grovel. I'm tired of her verbal diarrhea. Like, literally, tired. I feel helpless in that arena.
So the break up of the relationship with D. was traumatic because of the nature of it and essentially losing all of my friends. The only people I really talk to now are my parents, my current roommate, my boyfriend, and his roommate, who I don't consider a friend anymore. Aside from being a sociopath (that's another post entirely), he's friends with K. and M. and wrote off their behavior as K. just taking her issues with her boyfriend out on me (long story short, he's not good for her) and M. doing what K. does because she always does what K. does.
Because this is so long, I'm putting the story of what happened here and my feelings in another post. You don't have to read this part, I just have to get it out. And I'm a chick, if you decide to actually read this and need that context.
I refer to D. as "my ex", even though we never were officially dating. I had only been with one person consensually before him, and that wasn't so good. Short story shorter, I was partying with a bunch of guys I didn't know, got drunk, had sex I didn't want because I didn't think anyone I found attractive would ever touch me ever and the guy coming on to me was decent looking. My exact thought before I let him was "I think this is as good as it's going to get". The experience was hideously embarrassing and I hate myself a little for it still.
Anywho, I met D. when we were 19, working on a mutual acquaintances artistic endeavor. We hit it off at the start of the project, immediately hanging out and IMing constantly, talking for hours at a time about anything and everything. I really liked him and was severely infatuated. No one had ever seemed that mutually interested in me before, not even my friends or past girlfriends.
A month into our friendship he proposed that we make it sexual; he said that he really liked me, but didn't want to date anyone because he was having a hard time trusting women. I heard he had been dating someone after the fact, but he assured me that the relationship ended before this "idea" sprang to mind. I am currently doubtful.
Since we gave each other so much attention I went with his proposal because I was hopeful that it would eventually turn into something more. It never did, but when I would say I loved him and needed more from him he would tell me that I was selfish and if I wanted to end "it" (he never wanted to call what was between us a relationship of any sort), he would respect it, but he would be saddened and miss me. He said I was the one that had the power to stop it, but I was too scared to even though I was ashamed of our "relationship". I felt I needed him because I felt like he was the only person I could trust.
This went on for four and a half years. He demanded that I be monogamous (I only had eyes for him, so it wasn't an issue) and he insisted that he too was monogamous--another thing I currently doubt. He said he never told his friends about me and never told his family about me. I was under strict orders to never approach them or talk to them, even if they approached me. He didn't want me telling my friends about him.
If he didn't have his friends around (like the three years he spent at his parents home), he would get upset if I took time to hang out with mine instead of spend evenings talking to him.
Through out the relationship he would often request to take lurid pictures or videos of me. I didn't want to, but I wanted his approval, so I let him. He said it would make him happy. I am now terrified, and frequently wonder what he still has and what he has done with it.
About a year before he "broke up" with me, he talked me into going with his idea of having a threesome. He knew I liked girls, and had kept pushing it the entire time we were "together". When I said yes, we didn't have a third person in mind. I told him he'd have to find someone, but he said that it would cause me to distrust him.
He didn't make me ask my friends if they knew someone willing to have a threesome, but he highly encouraged me and would get mad at me if I told him I didn't go through with asking Person A or B. He would berate me for being too meek and unconfident, or for trying to sabotage his desires. He didn't make me buy a subscription to a swingers website or message people, but he highly encouraged me and acted hurt until I complied. He didn't make me upload compromising photos of myself, but he accused me not trying hard enough until I did.
I tried to back out a couple of times, but he called me an "indian giver" until I stepped down.
After little under a year later and no success, I told him that I had to stop with that and there was no room for argument. The subscriptions cost too much (I was unemployed and in school at the time and living off my quickly dwindling savings) and it really was something I didn't want to do. Through out our relationship he would belittle me for associating sex with love, and couldn't comprehend that I wouldn't want to have sex with someone that I didn't know. When I used sex = love to explain why I didn't want a threesome, he tried using my loss of virginity against me in that argument, but I still stood firm.
He acted devastated and told me I was killing his fantasy, that I was his last hope to live it out, I was keeping him from it, and he needed it so he would have something later on in life to look back upon fondly because the rest of his life was so crappy.
Soon after this he made his facebook wall private. When I asked him why I couldn't see his wall, he told me there was no reason and that I was paranoid for no reason. He then started talking to me less and less. Our nightly talks became fewer and for shorter periods of time, and stories involving "a random friend" became more prominent. He didn't address her by name and gender, but would say "I went on a hike with a friend and their dogs".
I finally asked him if this person was female, and he got defensive, saying that I had no right to ask him. But he told me yes, it was a chick, and I knew it was over. Not because he never hung out with women (he did, frequently), but the fact that he hid her gender from me seemed really significant. I told him again that I was in love with him, and he told me he had no idea I felt that way. He wasn't being sarcastic. I asked him if he missed all the other times I told him that and he told me that I never told him ever, that he didn't know.
I stopped initiating contact with him as frequently as I had been, and he stopped initiating contact with me completely. I still called, but I started hanging out more with people on campus.
The night he broke up with me (two weeks before finals @_@), he started out with he just didn't return my feelings, but it turned into he returned my feelings but didn't want that kind of relationship, then turned into he "accidentally" had sex with this girl and wanted to see where it would go from there. I told him that I needed to see him to talk it out, so he drove out. He said he still wanted me in his life, that I was invaluable to him, and that this girl meant nothing. It was just sex.
I had a downward spiral after that. I was crying all the time. My friend K., when I told her what happened, told me that I was pathetic and got what I deserved, even though she had been supportive of our "relationship" prior. She started telling me what a slut I was and how mentally unstable I was, and how he left me because he knew what a weak and ugly person I was. She said if I was stronger he would have stayed.
I felt I couldn't trust my friends, so I kept talking to D, who started telling me things like I was his rock and only true friend.
My therapist at the time told me D. was just sowing his oats, to hold out and that he would be back, and that the things he was saying were only said because he loved me. She said to never give up on him, because he had been in my life for so long and I shouldn't want to waste the connection we had. She said him coming to visit me when he "broke up" with me was proof he loved me too.
My grandmother died a few weeks after the semester ended, and at her funeral K. continued to berate me and tell me what a god awful family I had and that they all "deserve to die too". She said she didn't know why she was friends with such an unstable person, and when I told her to stop saying this at my grandmothers funeral of all places, she told me I was overreacting. I was always calm and placating with her because she was always quick to anger and I was always afraid she was going to hurt me physically. Realizing I wasn't overreacting in an angry way with her, and her saying I was, was an eye opening moment. I didn't stop being friends with her, I just stopped thinking of her as "the sane one" in our friendship.
I started to let things with D. go, even though I was literally alone, when he changed his relationship status on facebook to in a relationship with E. He also made his wall visible again and I saw all the comments she had been leaving him prior to him breaking up with me (they weren't lurid, but were less than platonic and made mention of all the gifts he gave her). I unfriended him and told him if we were to remain friends I would need time to myself. He told me I was over reacting and being a bitch, and that he only changed his status so their mutual friends wouldn't think she was being a slut for their sex-only relationship.
I asked him why he didn't care what my friends thought, and he told them that was my problem for telling them about us in the first place. When I started getting defensive, he told me if I cut him out of my life he would be hurt so badly, he didn't know what he would do to himself, and that he needed me, and that he knew that I needed him. We still talked a little after that because I felt guilty.
K. and our friend M. confronted me again when I started seeing U. K. said all the same things she said at my grandmothers funeral, but in a very calm and collected manner. She wanted me to agree with her that I was a crazy slut and that my family was trash, and hanging out with U., who would become my boyfriend, was a sign of this (ironically, because I wasn't using U. as a one night stand... It still doesn't make sense to me). I agreed, because I wanted her to stay my friend because I thought I needed her support, as I was trying to phase D. out of my life... even though I had already been realizing she was a few eggs short of a dozen.
D. didn't want me dating other people. He told me I didn't really love him if I was seeing someone else. I told him he didn't love me if he was sleeping with someone else, and he said that was different. At this time he also didn't want to call me, but insisted that I had to call him, and if I didn't, it hurt his feelings.
U. knew I was talking to D. I told him that I was aware that D. was being weird (I hesitate to say abusive, but I know it wasn't good), but that he seemed to need me. I was honest about it, but U's a little bit of a push over too (also a victim of a lot of the same shit I was as a kid--prior to him D. was the only person that told me how appalled they were at my childhood) and wouldn't have told me if it bothered him.
As U. and I started getting closer, I realized I had to make a choice, so I made it.
It boggles my mind in so many ways; I can't believe I was that insensitive to U and I can't believe I didn't realize just how much of a dick I was being.
Last winter, after a few months of not talking, out of the blue K. told me to never contact her again. I tried to salvage the relationship because of our mutual friends (I don't think I need her for her anymore; but I thought if we weren't friends all our mutual friends would side with her--and I was right), but gave up. She expects me to grovel. I'm tired of her verbal diarrhea. Like, literally, tired. I feel helpless in that arena.
So the break up of the relationship with D. was traumatic because of the nature of it and essentially losing all of my friends. The only people I really talk to now are my parents, my current roommate, my boyfriend, and his roommate, who I don't consider a friend anymore. Aside from being a sociopath (that's another post entirely), he's friends with K. and M. and wrote off their behavior as K. just taking her issues with her boyfriend out on me (long story short, he's not good for her) and M. doing what K. does because she always does what K. does.
