• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

General *sigh* and so it continues - Dealing with the aftermath of ending a toxic relationship

Anon1

Confident
I saw my ex holding hands with another guy today.

She’s allowed to - she’s allowed to move on, she’s my ex.

But what hurts is… she told me the intimate details of her abuse, she cried with me for hours, I held her long into the night… she always accused me of ‘finding things easy while she was anxious’ (apparently I should’ve been anxious too).

She wanted me to be absolutely, 100% deeply intimately invested faaar beyond the normal speed of a healthy relationship, and she blamed me if I wasn’t matching her breakneck speed.

She’s promised to always be there for me on some kind of ‘deep soulmate’ sort of level, and spoken softly about my inner child to me (which no one ever has before, and is very very personal)

BUT she was also abusive.

She went off with two other guys the week after she broke up with me - and then she came back to me with the same old stuff, and I entertained it like an idiot.

Today I happened to see her, and I messaged her to let her know that it was hard for me and that I’d have to disconnect our social media’s and have proper space from her. She just replied “I’ve moved on and have nothing more to say.”

Everything she put onto me took an absolute toll on me. Even just hearing the fine details of her trauma so soon in.. it’s some of the worst stuff I’ve ever heard in my life.

Couple that with threatening to beat me up and trying to force me to sleep with her almost every time I saw her, and all the other stuff… and you have a pretty strong concoction of stuff.

And the big problem?

It all seems so unfair.

She doesn’t seem to know or care, and if I try to tell her too hard it just feels like I’m beating up on someone who’s probably very genuinely ill- which I don’t feel right about at all.

Or it looks like I’m a jealous guy who’s sulking because she has a boyfriend (it isn’t that - it’s all of the incredibly deep stuff followed by a total disconnect, meaning that it was all meaningless and I was sucked in like a loser).

So I’m left with the pain while she goes off without a second thought, and I guess absolutely none of it meant anything.

And once again, I’m the idiot for thinking it did.

There’s no resolution, no solving ….. I’m just left to deal with the agony of it.

If only I could turn back time, I would… I wish I’d never met her…
 
Yeah, but the worst thing is the sense of disconnect between all of the things they said… and all of the things I started to feel… and all of the energy spent trying to be good for them… and all of the times they talked about wanting to be there for me on this absurdly deep level… and then the absolute suddenness of them being with a new person.

They were even texting me two weeks ago… theyve dropped on and off the radar since everything happened - usually when it’s been convenient for them, it’s seemed…

I just… I don’t say things like the things they said to me unless I mean them… and if I say them, my behaviour doesn’t switch in a very short space of time… and I don’t think I’d ever treat someone as haphazardly as I’ve been treated here. There’s a tacit commitment to semi-consistent behaviour that you make, if you’re saying the kinds of things she said. And I feel kind of humiliated - like all the time, I was working off of a premise which was actually a complete illusion - and I took it so sincerely… and she didn’t…

But I don’t think she’ll ever see the nuances, or how this has impacted me, and I don’t know that she’d care even if she did.
 
She sounds like a real mess... and very manipulative...

I don't think it's a PTSD thing...

She sounds like someone who's manipulative and who "uses" trauma she went through as part of her manipulation of people.

I'm sorry you got drawn into her mind-games.

Yeah, everyone around me said exactly the same thing.
Why the hell did I go there? Jeez…

I’m lying in bed having barely slept, and I’ve got an eight hour course to go to now.
Ought to be fun…!!
 
Hey @Anon1

I ended a very long term marriage and I spent quite a long time trying to unravel all of it, trying to understand it. I thought that's what I needed in order to have closure and move on. What I found though was it was best to just accept that I will never understand. That he will never explain or apologize or even acknowledge or admit anything or even care about my feelings or my pain or how it has affected me. I also had to accept that him turning to someone new so fast was just proof he wasn't the one for me afterall.

I was able to move on once I accepted that. In hindsight I know I wasted time focusing on him instead of just picking myself up, brushing myself off and putting the focus on myself.

It's hard and it's painful and I am sorry you went through that.
 
Hey @Anon1

I ended a very long term marriage and I spent quite a long time trying to unravel all of it, trying to understand it. I thought that's what I needed in order to have closure and move on. What I found though was it was best to just accept that I will never understand. That he will never explain or apologize or even acknowledge or admit anything or even care about my feelings or my pain or how it has affected me. I also had to accept that him turning to someone new so fast was just proof he wasn't the one for me afterall.

I was able to move on once I accepted that. In hindsight I know I wasted time focusing on him instead of just picking myself up, brushing myself off and putting the focus on myself.

It's hard and it's painful and I am sorry you went through that.

Thank you - you're right :)

It doesn't help just at this moment, and I can't stand the fact that I look like I'm just annoyed with her for having a boyfriend (because I think she'll see it that way). The burning sense of injustice is one of the worst things about it.

But... in time, I guess...!
 
Some people really do a number on us, don’t they?

If this was your first abusive relationship? They end very differently than healthy relationships end… almost obsessively? Hyper-emotional & Intrusive-thoughts & Magical Thinking & Rumination… often for weeks & months, instead of the few hours & days “bad” breakups tend to kick people in the head for. With a life-or-death urgency/consuming nature to it all. If you’ve ever wondered why otherwise completely rational people keep going back to abuse? This is a big part of why.
 
Block her from everything if you haven’t already, you know yourself that you keep letting yourself get reeled in, it is a choice on your part to continue to let yourself get sucked in. The only way to process and heal is to sever the connection, otherwise you risk being taken into her vortex yet again. And for the love of Pete, do not let her know you are doing it, just do it, otherwise you are inviting her to respond and dollars to doughnuts you will wait until you see a response, or else the lack of one will make a bigger knot in your knickers. The injustice you feel is what you are doing to yourself. I cannot remember if you are seeing a therapist, but it would be in your best interest to do so if you are not. It is normal to grieve, to ruminate a bit, but just from reading, this person was not the person you built her up to be. Hind sight and all, but for your own sake, truly let her go, stay away, quit thinking about the injustice, and think more about yourself and how you can work on yourself so you can have a healthy relationship the next time around. Closure is way over rated. That you were in an abusive, toxic relationship is enough closure. No need to understand more other than how to avoid it the next time.
 
Some people really do a number on us, don’t they?

If this was your first abusive relationship? They end very differently than healthy relationships end… almost obsessively? Hyper-emotional & Intrusive-thoughts & Magical Thinking & Rumination… often for weeks & months, instead of the few hours & days “bad” breakups tend to kick people in the head for. With a life-or-death urgency/consuming nature to it all. If you’ve ever wondered why otherwise completely rational people keep going back to abuse? This is a big part of why.

That’s helpful to know, thanks!

I feel like she’s under my skin somewhere and it’s hard to get her out.

And y’know, I still find it hard to admit that she really was abusive… because how could that happen to me, and isn’t it a bit extreme to say it was that bad?

And maybe it’s just that I was wrong, and wasn’t good enough for her - and this new guy will be perfect, and she’ll say “see - it was just that other guy upsetting me all along.”

I presumed that she’d never find another guy naive enough to take her on, and she’s found one incredibly quickly.
What to make of that…? How did she do it?

But it occurred to me today, that maybe the impact of abuse is that it makes you feel smaller and wrong-er, regardless of what really happened…

I wish I could tell her, but it’s all a bit too late for that now, I guess!
 
Last edited:
Block her from everything if you haven’t already, you know yourself that you keep letting yourself get reeled in, it is a choice on your part to continue to let yourself get sucked in. The only way to process and heal is to sever the connection, otherwise you risk being taken into her vortex yet again. And for the love of Pete, do not let her know you are doing it, just do it, otherwise you are inviting her to respond and dollars to doughnuts you will wait until you see a response, or else the lack of one will make a bigger knot in your knickers. The injustice you feel is what you are doing to yourself. I cannot remember if you are seeing a therapist, but it would be in your best interest to do so if you are not. It is normal to grieve, to ruminate a bit, but just from reading, this person was not the person you built her up to be. Hind sight and all, but for your own sake, truly let her go, stay away, quit thinking about the injustice, and think more about yourself and how you can work on yourself so you can have a healthy relationship the next time around. Closure is way over rated. That you were in an abusive, toxic relationship is enough closure. No need to understand more other than how to avoid it the next time.


Thank you - I probably need to hear this!

I already did let her know that I was doing it, and gave her a couple of days while I’m in her city in case she wants to talk about anything.

Yup - I’m a rookie at this, and clearly kind of stupid.

I will block everything on Sunday if I haven’t heard from her though, and I know I won’t, because I don’t think she cares - she has what she wants, probably.

You’re right though - it was absolutely s*** and I never ever want to do that again - ever.

I don‘t know how I’ll get through it, but I presume that I will!
 
Back
Top