Member- jazzyrhae
- 8 years ago
I dated my ex for over year. We’re both in our early 30s. I broke up with him about a month and a half ago during which time he begged me to go back to him…to marry him. Throughout the course of the relationship, it was a very rocky. Allow me to briefly explain. He was a former drug addict (meth and heroin) for over 10 years. He also was a drug dealer..got busted and was in prison for almost 4 years. We started dating about 5 months after his release (I was not completely aware of his former life when we began dating…he was very charming and funny and smart, etc.). A couple of months into the relationship and then came the red flags. Many blaring red flags with bells and alarms. But I ignored them, hoping (as we often do in fantasizing things will get better). But they did not. He was controlling. Manipulative. CLASSIC EXAMPLE: He didn’t like me to wear high heels (which I wear every day and have done so for the past 15 years of my life) because he said my attitude was different when I wore them. I dress very conservatively and do not wear “street walker heels” (if you know what I mean) but wore nice heels to compliment my very conservative outfits (no short skirts, no plunging necklines, no tight clothing and I always wear dresses/skirt – so no pants and no shorts). ANYWAY, he loved when I was barefooted or in tennis shoes because he said it made me more humble and sweet. WEIRD RIGHT?! He’d also try to get me to change my hairstyle, etc. Another example: He couldn’t keep a steady job – literally lost three job over the course of 7 months, and now he is doing promo type work, i.e. alcohol events, sales of various things, political campaigns, even selling DVDs on the streets to random people, so he doesn’t work for any one company, but just random jobs that require someone to hustle and sell their product.) AND, with his criminal record, it’s difficult for him to pass background checks.
Other things about his behavior, which I believe to be because of his drug abuse, were very bipolar in nature. One moment he would be happy, the next he would literally freak out over the simplest of things. I was very depressed during the time we were together and felt I was being sucked into a black hole. Yet I endured the relationship. Was it out of desperation? I don’t know. I’m not a desperate person and have never been in an abusive relationship, but yet my relationship with him almost destroyed my spirit, my self-esteem, my confidence. My closest friend recently told me I seemed “lost” during the time I was with him. AND, most notably, every one of my family members did NOT like him. AT ALL. My dad (who died very recently, in fact during the time of my break-up) , upon meeting him for the first time July last year, told me that based upon his conversation with my ex, that my ex was a pot of hot oil, waiting to burst. That it would take one thing to set him off and he would probably hit me. My dad knew NOTHING of the problems I was having…this was just the first impression my dad got from simply talking with him.
ANYWAY, my reason for posting this rant is because right before Dad died (he passed August 2nd), the ex, 2 weeks before dad died, begged me to go back to him..that he wished we had married before dad got sick so that dad could walk me down the aisle. But I told him no. That there was too much damage (his own mom, while he was in another room, with tears in her eyes, told me to walk away from her son if I needed to…that I have put up with so much and that they love me but completely understand if I walk away from the relationship). I loved this man…even though he hurt me. I felt by breaking things off with him I would be like every other person in his life who left him in one form or another (his mom sent him away to a boys’ home when he was 11 because she was afraid of him…his behavior was very bad as a kid and his dad walked away when he was only 2 years old). I wanted to stick it out…show him I would not leave him. But here I was hurting during 80% of the time we were together. I was even afraid of having children with him because of his low tolerance to anything stressful (and when children get very fussy and won’t stop crying as infants during long sleepless nights, it can be frustrating..but that’s just a fact of life..you deal with it. But I doubted whether or not he could handle that and I didn’t know if I could ever leave my children alone with him while I worked).
So anyway, he recently started dating this girl (in fact, a “friend” of mine who at one time lived with me, for free, I was helping her while she got on her feet) who is well, she’s a sad girl…all fake body part (breasts and bottom) tattoos all over her body, lost custody of her daughter, has been married and divorced, and has been in several taboo relationships with men, sometimes more than one man at the same time in the same night – without being very detailed, it was a very compromising situation. She’s been known to get in the car with men she meets while driving down the road and on the same day, sleep with him. So he told a friend who then told me that he was going to “date” this girl to make me jealous and lure me back to him. Most recently I learned that this girl got engaged (but did not state to who). He has shown up with her at a recent function that we both attended. They are supposedly getting married and they’ve only known each other for a little over a month.
So, while I know he is not good for me, I still feel the bite. The hurt. Why he won’t leave well enough alone? I have moved on. Yet he persists with sending my friends emails and texts…bringing up our relationship…and it makes it all the more difficult to actually “move on”. I don’t talk about him. I don’t contact him. I have gone on, yes, even during mourning my father’s death, as if all is well.
And yet I still don’t know how to feel…I don’t want him back..but I need to cope..or just hear from somebody who has gone through a similar situation. He would have married me…it was all he talked about…but I just couldn’t bring myself to marry him. And now he is engaged to a girl he has only known for a short while…weeks after I told him we were done.
So Confused.
