u/AnimalAvailable5092

I thought time was supposed to make things better. I know healing is not linear, I remind myself this when I’m feeling extremely low and in the moments I start to feel vengeful or indignant about what I put up with or even when I start to feel hopeful for a better life. I know there will be ups and downs and mostly I am taking them in stride but I feel like overall I am feeling worse and worse with each passing day, not better. Like the finality is really setting in, the loss and the grief gets worse and worse, the sorrow for the little girl in me that I failed to protect. I know life isn’t over and I can keep building and choosing a new life but somehow the pain still gets worse. I know one day I will let go of him but the pain of this trauma still feels like it will linger with me forever, divorced from him but still haunting me, the lies and the hurt and the confusion of how so much callousness and cruelty can exist in the world.

My life is okay. By many accounts it’s wonderful. from the outside looking in I know many people think I have an amazing, interesting, aspirational life. I just feel so embarrassed to feel this way.

I know it’s honestly none of my business, and it’s probably better to just not get involved. But I know my ex is still pursuing these women that he tried to cheat on me with and they didn’t bite. I feel like if I were them, I would want to know that the guy who was always in my messages saying sweet things was actually being unfaithful that whole time. Am I just deluding myself as a means of justifying telling them for some kind of validation or ego or revenge?

I know there’s no guarantee how telling these women would respond, if they’d listen, if they’d ignore, if they’d tell him or if they’d think I was a spiteful lying bitch. I’m not expecting to tell one of them and to become best friends w them. But idk, I feel like if I were them I’d want to know.

I told some of his friends out of anger and honestly it felt unhinged but ultimately good because I felt like he deserved to have these people close to him know. To put even a shadow of doubt about his character in them, even if they wrote me off as crazy. With these women though, I’m not sure, I feel like it may be self serving because they are truly innocent in this. I really would not want to make any of them feel bad (or even worse, daring to even take up an ounce of someone else’s time with my own pity party).

Am I being ridiculous? I feel like this impulse may be acting like a teenager.

I know it’s honestly none of my business, and it’s probably better to just not get involved. But I know my ex is still pursuing these girls that he tried to cheat on me with and they didn’t bite. I feel like if I were them, I would want to know that the guy who was always in my messages saying sweet things was actually being unfaithful that whole time. Am I just deluding myself as a means of justifying telling these girls for some kind of validation or ego or revenge?

I know there’s no guarantee how telling these women would respond, if they’d listen, if they’d ignore, if they’d tell him or if they’d think I was a spiteful lying *****. I’m not expecting to tell one of them and to become best friends w them. But idk, I feel like if I were them I’d want to know.

Am I being ridiculous? I feel like this may be acting like a teenager.

No I do not want to be cheated on again or deprioritized, lied to, stonewalled for hours or days only to have him show up at my house at 3am wanting to be let in, calling me when there’s no one else to pick up and feeling like the absolute last resort.

But I want those good periods back, for a long time I felt very happy, and it was only when he got lazy and obvious with the cheating with the behaviors I just mentioned, just acting like I annoyed him so much, that things were truly bad. I know you can’t just erase the past but I still have hope or wish that he will somehow wake up and realize the gravity of what he did and what he lost and do everything to fix it. I think he understands the weight and is just too ashamed to do the work. We tried very briefly to reconcile and he just couldn’t sustain it or handle it but I believed him when he said all the things to make me think we could make it work.

I’m SO FRUSTRATED 90+% of the time if you speak about these feelings, the reaction is “wow do you hate yourself, get some self respect and therapy.” Like oh my god, if only it was that easy. I don’t even want to talk to my therapist because all she tells me is “you love chaos and you don’t want stability and why are you so focused on him.” No, I didn’t ask for this, I wanted the stable version of what we once had. I relished in the small things of being in a partnership like bringing him lunch on a busy day or just sitting in silence and being completely comfortable. I have to talk to my therapist tonight and I’m just dreading it. I almost feel like you’re just expected to know and get over anything emotionally difficult overnight. You get the same responses over and over about how you have no self esteem and then I feel even worse about myself because I know he cheated and I don’t deserve that and I still want him and apparently I’m the worst because I want him and ugh. And then I hate myself even more because I tell myself stop having this victim mindset you’re so sensitive you can’t even take feedback from your therapist. Ugh.

I remember what it was like being pursued by my ex, and it was the best drug ever. I can’t stop thinking about all the girls he cheated with and tried to cheat with. I hope they’re smarter than me, see through his shit right away. I’m so sick thinking how he’s likely continuing to charm women, constantly filling the gaping holes in his soul that made him so fucked up that he cheats and lies without a care in the world, that led him to manipulate and emotionally abuse me for years. I’m so sick knowing he’ll likely never face justice or his reckoning day because he doesn’t care, there will always be a new woman to fill the void, until she’s “too much” and hard to control and he discards her too. I used to think I had won some prize with my ex, I was the girl he chose to settle down with. Turns out no, I was just the most stupid. I hate it and I hope these girls will be okay or better and smarter and love themselves more than I did to not have this happen to them.

I woke up this morning from a nightmare that I was still thinking I was in a relationship with my ex, we were surrounded by his closest friends, and somehow they all thought I was actually the other woman, or the one getting played because I was being phased out, he had been all over another girl just the day before and was just paying me no more attention than a friend. Somehow in the dream it got out he was obsessed with this new girl, and I cried while everyone just stared at me and told me he wasn’t right for me. I couldn’t tell if everyone thought I was pathetic or crazy, but not one person in that crowd felt sorry for me or negatively about him. It’s just a dream but this is one of the core traumas for me, because I learned that for months my ex was telling people we were just casually seeing each other, all while calling me his girlfriend to my face and to the random men we’d meet out to make sure they knew I was taken. I never want this to happen again so I’m reminding myself I do NOT want him back but wow, this hurt doesn’t just leave.

I’ve posted on here a few times about wanting to tell people in my ex’s circle about what he did. I’ve been so, so angry and hurt. I did tell some people, and folks have been so kind about reminding me that it’s ok to speak the truth. B

The issue is, and I’m really ashamed to say this, but I can’t fucking stop. I’ve said mean and unnecessary stuff about him to the same folks more than once now. Simply saying “he cheated” is one thing, going around trashing him is another, and I’m so humiliated.

Today is one of those people that I’ve already said many things to’s birthday. I’m a baker and we always talk about me making him a birthday cake, but for years every time his birthday rolls around, my ex has broken up with me (we’ve been on and off for years). I drank too much (I’m starting to think I need to be sober while I recover from this), and I texted him happy birthday, apologized for being embarrassing and dragging him into my drama with ex, but also invited him to this party in a few weeks?! I did it because it’s a family friendly thing and he brought his nephew last year, not just a random house party. But still, what the fuck?

I’m super embarrassed. I’m always overzealous when I drink and will message lots of people and I’m able to let that go and remind myself nobody thinks about me as much as I think about me. But this is just humiliating, this guy is not my friend, he is my ex’s friend, and I just look like I’m clawing to stay connected. I’m turning myself into the desperate embarrassing ex instead of the justifiably hurt person who was betrayed. I’m acting like a teenager and I’m almost 30.

Would appreciate any advice how to forgive myself and not dwell on this.

I posted this last night and went to bed, got some replies but seems like it was eventually removed. I don’t think it violates any rules so I am reposting and adding some more now that I’ve slept on it. If this is still not allowed I apologize!

My original post:

I TOLD EVERYONE

I told my ex’s mother. His friends - I already told some, but I doubled down. I don’t care. I do, but I don’t. A few days or maybe a week back I asked for advice from this community, please stop me from telling his mom. I didn’t want to embarrass myself. Many told me it was fair, but don’t do it out of anger.

Tbh, I did it out of anger tonight. I knew as I was doing it that it was embarrassing. But interestingly? I didn’t really care. Yes it’s embarrassing this person has this “power” over me. But also? I’ll never see his friends and family again. So who fucking cares. If I sacrifice some dignity to expose him? My friends and family know who I am. Whatever.

Maybe I’ll wake up and be embarrassed or regret it but honestly I don’t think I’ll think I did anything “wrong.” Maybe inadvisable, but not not justified. All I did was tell the truth.

Anyway, onward and upward. Reason I did all this shit tonight was I was actually feeling some sense of control and acceptance lately. Not happiness, but not feeling disturbed. I was content because it was only day 4 of being apart and in the past every second was agony. And yet day 4 he had the audacity to text me for my help after I thought we ended “amicably” and with the understanding we would NEVER speak again.

Anyway. Tomorrow is a new day.
———-

Now, today is that new day. I did not feel necessarily embarrassed when I woke up but I did feel panicked. I have an issue with feeling like I need to preserve my image to my ex. Like I need them to think I’m a good person. Hating knowing they have this ammo of me being “crazy.” I said I didn’t care if it seemed crazy. I do. Not to his friends or his mother, honestly I still feel angry and petty and vengeful and want him to be exposed, but to him, which is the saddest of all. If this man cared about me or respected me at all we wouldn’t be in this scenario. It doesn’t matter what he thinks today because he didn’t think of me at all, all those times he betrayed me. I tried to call, declined, called again, get this text:

“you really think i am going to talk to you on the phone middle of the day sunday when you just blew up all my closest family and friends phones with craziness”

I mean what else is he going to say. It still hurts. I just want him to know how badly it hurts. I had done all of this because of something he said to me Saturday morning. On Monday night we had a final talk to break up, end things for good. I thought we left things on as amicable note as possible and with the mutual respect and understanding to stay away from each other.

He still couldn’t. That was Monday night and Tuesday-Friday were hard but I told myself this was just the early stages of drug withdrawal. I reminded myself I was missing the feeling of being loved, not missing him. He proceeded to message me Friday asking if I saw him on the street. I ignored. He texted me Saturday asking me to watch a dog he’s babysitting because his roommate was throwing a party that night. I ignored. I felt angry and false hope that he could realize he still needs and wants me. I went out that night, I drank too much, I saw his friends posting at his house party and I caved and I just wanted everyone to know how shitty he is.

I hate this. I just want this feeling to end and for this to be a distant memory.

I told my ex’s mother. His friends - I already told some, but I doubled down. I don’t care. I do, but I don’t. A few days or maybe a week back I asked for advice from this community, please stop me from telling his mom. I didn’t want to embarrass myself. Many told me it was fair, but don’t do it out of anger.

Tbh, I did it out of anger tonight. I knew as I was doing it that it was embarrassing. But interestingly? I didn’t really care. Yes it’s embarrassing this person has this “power” over me. But also? I’ll never see his friends and family again. So who fucking cares. If I sacrifice some dignity to expose him? My friends and family know who I am. Whatever.

Maybe I’ll wake up and be embarrassed or regret it but honestly I don’t think I’ll think I did anything “wrong.” Maybe inadvisable, but not not justified. All I did was tell the truth.

Anyway, onward and upward. Reason I did all this shit tonight was I was actually feeling some sense of control and acceptance lately. Not happiness, but not feeling disturbed. I was content because it was only day 4 of being apart and in the past every second was agony. And yet day 4 he had the audacity to text me for my help after I thought we ended “amicably” and with the understanding we would NEVER speak again.

Anyway. Tomorrow is a new day.

I have been in and out of therapy for 5 years now, from ages 24-29. I’ve tried a number of practitioners, have been in during varying times of my life (extreme crisis, relative boredom or dullness, some periods of contentment), and I’d like to think I am fairly self reflective and open to working on myself and change. However, I haven’t ever really found myself wanting to engage in therapy outside of those moments of extreme crisis. I’m very worried of being a person who thinks my shit doesn’t stink but I do think I’ve given therapy a fair shot in many scenarios.

I just spoke with my therapist and we had a great discussion about needing to want to fix deep seated problems in the moments of calm to avoid those issues manifesting in different moments of panic. She made a fair point that there’s no point in therapy if you don’t really want to be in it. I definitely find that sometimes I do therapy just because I feel like I should. It’s the first advice most people will give you and obviously when it works, it works.

I certainly know I have things I need to work on, generally I suffer from a lot of guilt and anxiety and feeling like I should always be doing more or better. It mostly keeps me from ever feeling quite content. I think it also ended up manifesting in a past romantic relationship where I ended up accepting bad treatment because I’m always quick to judge myself, but that relationship is over and not currently a presenting problem from the underlying condition. My therapist says I need to understand the self beliefs, how it came about and manifests, to break free from it. The thing is, Ive thought ad nauseam about those roots and feel confident I know how my self beliefs came about in the way I was raised, and I know they aren’t rational fact but a learned belief.

My question I suppose is twofold, if you’ve experienced the lack of motivation for therapy in calm periods and broken through, how did you do it? And secondly, if you’ve perhaps felt like me, like you know a lot of the storytelling you do to yourself and may not need help parsing it out, does more therapy necessarily help or are there other ways to tackle letting go of those ideas? Sometimes I wonder if my issue is not understanding or trying to “beat” my issues but just accepting that I have these strengths and weaknesses to my personality and attempt to make peace with them (obviously notwithstanding object bad behavior towards others, I think most of what plagues me is internal thoughts).

Would love any perspectives or stories about your own journey with therapy and to living a content life

Pls. Bc currently idc that it’s a bad idea. I just want justice.

As the title states. I dated my ex on and off for 3.5 years, mostly situationship with pockets of “real” relationship, all the while being love bombed, treated in ways I’d expect only to exist in a serious
relationship, and month over month escalating into a cycle of gaslighting, DARVO, stonewalling, reactive abuse from me, many steps forward and backwards, just a disaster, and never spending more than 2-3 months apart. For 3.5 years.

In Feb/March of last year I felt like we had broken up for the final time and was starting to accept we had to move on. Of course we still came back together and I was adamant things had to change, and we had to go all in or be done for good. This was in mid summertime, around June. To my surprise and happiness, things did change, he wasn’t perfect, but many of the emotionally abusive tactics I endured and which destroyed me for years seemed to melt away. This lasted until about October, he pulled away again, left me, it was dramatic, felt like it was truly the end. Of course, came back together, and from December of 2025 til now I thought we were in truly the healthiest, happiest place we’d ever been in. I stopped having nightmares, felt secure, let go of a lot of the anxious bad habits I had picked up. I was so happy.

Then I learned he was just cheating on me the entire time. And even though I know cheating is wrong, and I didn’t deserve that, I’m just finding it so hard to be upset and angry and want better for myself. I just fixate on how the behavior I spent months and years trying to understand if it was emotional abuse, in therapy, on this sub, in talking to friends and strangers and reading books…it seemed to melt away, and then I wonder if I really was the problem.

I made mistakes. I know I wasn’t the problem. I contributed to problems, but I wasn’t the problem. And still I find myself minimizing the past because one trauma was traded for another. As bad as infidelity is, I can say it feels less bad than the way the stonewalling and blame shifting and crazy making made me feel.

Has anyone had this experience, where the emotionally abusive tactics seemed to go away, another issue taking its place? How do you remind yourself that those issues didn’t really disappear?

I apologize if this is confusing. I’m very much in the thick of it, no sleep, just trying to ground myself and grasp at anything to do so.

Aghhhhhhhhh. I could just scream. I’m laughing even seeing how insane my title looks. Just feeling insane. Learning the same lesson over and over and over. How many times am I going to let this person destroy me?

3.5 years of a toxic relationship. I thought we broke up for good. He told me he would change. I thought for the last 7 months we were happy and things were really different. He cheated on me the entire time. I found out a 3.5 weeks ago. He told me he would earn my trust back. Did everything right for 4 days. Sent signals, took me to lunch with his family. Broke up with me just 4 days after saying he would make it right. After he got on a flight to a foreign country, put an ocean between us, left me.

He comes home a week later. Says he just didn’t know what to do. Says he will make it better. Again, a week of sending strong signals. Investing time into me, answering to my insecurities. One week, then comes over, breaks up with me. I wish I could say I let it happen with dignity but I lost my shit and behaved unbelievably regrettably.

Now here I am just wavering maniacally in between utter despair and absolute hilarity. What the fuck. Nobody to be mad at but myself. I chose this. I chose this time and time again. At this point I deserve this. Not the cheating, the whipsawing, the unloving partner. But the embarrassment, the pain, the having to ask my friends for their forgiveness for making the same mistake over and over. I deserve this. Wtf did I think would happen.

We say “hope is not a strategy” in my work all the time. Idk why it never occurred to me that I commit that very sin every single day in my life.

I found my partner cheating on me because I went through his phone. I had recent suspicions that tipped me off, but I ended up finding months of cheating and betrayal, even in moments I never would’ve suspected. At first, he was saying and doing all the right things to reconcile, and I believed him. Then he changed his mind and said he’d rather break up. Now he says he wants to try again.

Frankly I’m not optimistic at all. He’s already re-followed girls I blocked from his phone that night I found everything. I blocked a bunch of a girls in a fit of rage. It feels like a very pointed action to re follow girls he cheated on me with, claiming they’re just friends. I believed his lies before so why should I believe him now?

I feel like the only thing that could give me some “peace” is an open phone policy, but that makes me sick because I don’t even want to surveil him. Thinking about asking for it and how he might react and DARVO me makes me sick.

Has anyone asked their partner this and how did it go? Please tell me all the bad stories. I can already sense this reconciliation won’t work but I know I just need to consider all the rules of the road I might want because if I just keep the door shut, unfortunately I know myself and I’ll always wonder. I’d love to just be strong and say no I don’t accept cheating I’m done, but I’m just not there yet.

My ex cheated on me for months and nobody in his circle knows he was cheating. He never told them he was committed to me, despite bringing me around nearly everywhere. Everyone he meets thinks he’s golden. He makes friends everywhere he goes. He’s so charming. I know firsthand how special he makes women feel when he tries. His friends have been congratulating him on his sexual conquests all these months not knowing he was cheating on me. I’m so embarrassed and angry.

How do I stop caring? I know none of that matters because I know the truth and my friends support me and his life is no longer mine. But it’s under my skin anyway. It’s so unfair. There’s no justice. I’m so frustrated everyone thinks he’s amazing and has no idea the darkness and cruelty he’s capable of.

And I know this isn’t just me putting him on a pedestal. The reason I even found out he was cheating on me was because we had gone out one day to a bar to watch soccer and had met a couple sitting nearby. We had been having a mild disagreement. He began to snap back at me and be kind of nasty. After the game ended, the girl in the couple came and asked me if I was okay. She said she thought my ex was so cool, but then she was alarmed at how he talked to me. I realized I’d been shoving a lot of uneasiness down for a while, looked at his phone later that night, and saw everything.

She thought he was so cool. I know he only ever drops that mask with me. I was easy to emotionally manipulate and abuse. I was always the punching bag. Everyone else got the picture perfect person.

How do I stop fucking caring what people think about him or me or us? I KNOW I shouldn’t but that doesn’t mean I don’t and I’m so frustrated with my inability to connect thoughts and feelings with this betrayal. Because honestly I just want the life I thou thought I had back. I feel worthless and I’m not even that mad at him, I’m just crumbled and defeated.

Thanks for any advice. Please be gentle, I’m in early stages of grieving this all.

Sorry in advance for sounding so pathetic and clearly grasping at any straw I can think of.

I’m trying to heal and learn from a recent breakup. I was on and off for 3.5 years with my ex, being in what I thought was a serious committed relationship for a brief period during that 3.5 years and most recently for the past 7 months or so. As it turns out, he was cheating on me all along these past months, and obviously 3.5 years of on and off doesn’t scream healthy relationship either.

I know we are all just humans making mistakes and some people make worse ones than others. I’m not perfect and have done bad things but I cant wrap my head around this one. Clearly I wasn’t “the one” but why stick around, come back, even act out the facade of a happy relationship if you never really wanted that? I know I was easy to push around, always there, always reliable, but for over 4 years?

I just couldn’t fake it if I didnt truly feel love for someone, I couldn’t stomach spending so much time together, vacationing, bringing my partner to meet my family, if I was just going through the motions. I wanted to believe every time we came back and tried it was because there was real love deep in there and we just had to work a little more.

Men, if you’ve done this, I’m genuinely curious to understand and to grow from this apparently years long grand old mistake.

Made another post with more of the traumatic details of this relationship if anyone is extremely bored and cares to know more:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskOldPeopleAdvice/s/tG7iXusyGo

I am 1 day into a breakup of a 4.5 year toxic relationship. I will leave some context about the relationship but ultimately I just would like to hear stories from those of you that lived this experience and came out the other side. Unfortunately I don’t have family members or older mentors that I feel I can discuss this with and so I’m hoping to lean on this community and gain some wisdom as I feel very, very untethered. Please tell me how hard it was, how you fought through the pain, how you feel on the other side. Thank you so much

That’s really my question. Some more context about what I’m coming away from, though it’s not necessary to read:

———

For over 3.5 years I endured and continued to go back to a toxic relationship. It was a cycle of anxious-avoidant push pull, love bombing, then breadcrumbing, lies, manipulation, DARVO, stonewalling, truly the most horrific and what felt like most amazing moments of my life. I met my ex when I had just turned 25 and he was 30. We are now 29 and 34. I did not have much life experience and as I floundered to find my footing, started reading, going to therapy, I began to open my eyes and put words to the mistreatment I was experiencing and allowing to happen to me. Slowly I practiced asserting my needs, wants, and boundaries. We would get back together, I would dip my toe into the water of “doing the right thing,” I’d stumble, let him betray my boundaries, we’d break up for a week or a month but never more than 2 months.

Of course I should’ve left many times, but I didn’t, I wanted to believe in his capacity to change, and I had a lot I was working on. I realize that wasn’t the arena for me to work on myself, I should’ve done it independently, but I can’t take that back. I also was willing to forgive and explain away bad behavior because I thought I understood where it stemmed from (his mother, his ex cheating on him, his father dying, insert reason after reason I’d tell myself), and I thought if I can just help him understand, then he’ll realize we are special and he loves me. After a while when I fully couldn’t ignore the horrible treatment, I still stayed, telling myself the good moments were still worth pursuing. He is truly one of one and I know we need to see people for all their parts, good and bad, but I really wanted the good to outweigh the bad.

For 3.5 years we would do this cycle on and off, and always find our way back. Usually me begging, sometimes him coming back, sometimes a combo of the two with him breadcrumbing and me demanding a relationship or no contact (i know, I control no contact for myself). We broke up for what felt like for good last year, I was 28 after all and I just couldn’t keep making the same excuses. I believed he loved me but if he was 34 and didn’t want to change, I couldn’t make him. Yet after Thanksgiving last year, we got back together, and things changed. No more in between situationship while we figured out what we were doing. Full stop relationship for (haha) a whopping 7 consecutive months and I thought we were finally good and had no signs of stopping. I actually stopped having anxiety and nightmares and panic attacks about him stepping out or abandoning me or being disinterested. He made me feel secure. He showed me he could engage in “conflict” and not make it a fight. I genuinely hadn’t been so happy in years.

As it turns out he was cheating this entire time, making it seem to his friends like I wasn’t his girlfriend, spending 6 days with me a week and seeing girls on the 7th day. This past Sunday I saw mountains of evidence of his infidelity and it broke me. But somehow, surprisingly, when I confronted him, he didn’t revert to his old ways. He apologized, took accountability, offered specific things to change and said he knew he’d have to earn back my trust. He’s never done that before. I know it’s a pathetically low bar to set, but it meant something to me, and I believed him. The very same day he invited me to lunch with his brother and stepmom, validated me when I just wanted to ruminate, I genuinely felt like we could overcome this.

That was Monday. We spent Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday nights together, sleeping over at my house. He left for an international trip on Thursday and I continued to shamefully text about all the small details of the cheating I put together. I felt bad. I could sense I “took it too far.” I said I would leave him alone for his trip and I was looking forward to getting some air but I needed to know he was onboard with 3 boundaries. Eventually late last night he said let’s just break up. Over text. That’s just it. 4.5 years down the drain. I know there’s a mountain of evidence that he did bad things and that he clearly didn’t love me but I truly do not want to let this go. It’s so shameful. I can’t bear the idea that this is truly the end and that he really never loved me.

If you read all of this manic diary entry, thank you.

Found my ex cheating this past Sunday. Despite a history of being absolutely horrible in conflict, when I confronted him he didn’t fall into his patterns of denial, blame shifting, manipulation. He owned it and said everything right. All night as I waited for him to wake up and confront him I was mentally preparing for him to immediately pack it in and leave. Yes, I know I should have more self respect and had been the one to leave. But I wanted it to work, and given he has a history of taking every single chance to leave me, when he said he wanted to change, I truly believed him. We were on and off for 3.5 years before we finally entered this past 7 months or so of what I thought was finally a committed, happy, secure relationship. For the first time in years I genuinely felt at peace.

For the 4 days following, he did everything right. Offered solutions, was patient when I wanted to talk and talk and talk and just yell and scream about the pain. Again I know I should’ve had more self respect, but he truly had no capacity for dealing with any negative emotions without shutting down and lashing out, so I was so encouraged he was doing the work.

Thursday night he left for an international trip. I continued my upset texting, feeling bad for disrupting his trip, but hey, he cheated on me and said he knew he’d have to earn my trust back. Radio silence, and then a text “let’s just break up.”

The cheating was horrible. Breakups are always hard. But to give me the emotional whiplash of the most immense pain, promising to fix it and take it away, only just to ultimately leave once he put an ocean between us. I’m so embarrassed I didn’t just leave on the spot when I discovered it.

I put “affair partner” in quotes because my ex cheated on me with multiple women, and this particular woman lives in a different state so it wasn’t physical. She is an old flame that he has never drawn boundaries with. They have continually maintained a sexual texting relationship for years and occasionally visited each other over the last decade or so. They met living in Argentina as young kids in college (he is 34 now, I don’t know her age) and I believe for my ex that she embodies this idea of lust and excitement and youth. They met young and she’s a time capsule. I eventually found that he would often turn to her when the idea of being settled down with me got too much. I always hated it but never wanted to be the girl that said he couldn’t talk to people. I’m projecting but I felt like she relished in knowing she had power and control over him - and me as a consequence. Everything he told me about her paints her as a vapid, slightly air headed, attention obsessed girl that dates shitty men and is desperate for his affection. Once I jokingly said she probably wants you to marry her for a green card and he said she already asked before and I said idk. Ouch.

Anyway. Ex texts me today asking if I threatened to call ICE on one of his friends. Won’t tell me who, what was said. I am stunned. I call, text, no response, he goads me and asks me if I’m sure, don’t play dumb, why am I threatening people.. What’s going on in my country is so shameful. Of all the desperate and crazy things I’ve done during breakups, this would never ever cross my mind. I couldn’t think who could or would want to make up such lies about me, honestly made me fearful of my own safety. I mean, what an accusation. I am also a naturalized but not natural born citizen, which is neither here nor there because even natural born citizens are being targeted for the color of their skin. I digress.

Eventually he tells me it was the girl I speak about. I am still stunned. He says she says it was a joke, thought he knew she was joking. What a disgusting joke to make, and joke or not, what a horribly cheap and nasty thing to insinuate about my character. This girl has never met me. I’m stunned my ex believed her, I’m saddened that he has people like this in his orbit, I hate to say it but I’m even fearful for his wellbeing and her intentions and influence. I’m just so disheartened and I hate that even this doesn’t make me see things clearly. I still want him. I hate it

I’ve been with my soon to be ex for almost a year. Prior to this, we’d been in a very tumultuous off and on situationship. When we finally got back together and committed to each other, I thought (lol) things got a lot better. Anyway, this weekend things unraveled and I finally did the bad thing and looked at his phone. Found dozens of DMs, texts, and photos incriminating him, bragging to his friends, I’m so mortified and even worse just straight up angry that they don’t even know he’s a cheater. I’m not a very flashy or possessive person, so I didn’t care about being posted online or being all over each other in public (not that that matters, my boyfriend is a love bomber. He went on a vacation to an island within 5 weeks of meeting me and introduced me to family and still said he didn’t want to be with me, so we could fully be acting out a committed relationship and no one would be the wiser). But nobody knows we were together. So nobody will know how slimy he really was. Ugh. I know this just doesn’t concern me anymore but there really is no justice.

Finally did the bad thing and looked through his phone, and there’s dozens of messages of him owning up to and bragging about the cheating to his friends. Meanwhile they’ve all looked me in the eyes and spent what I thought was genuine time bonding with me, and it was all a farce. Yes, I knew my relationship was hanging on by threads, but his friends, too? Not that I’m losing anything by seeing their true colors, they are his friends, not mine, but wow. I have to admit it feels really shameful, like everyone was in on this dirty secret but me. I cant help but imagine them laughing about how pathetic I am, even though I know the truth is they don’t think of me at all.