I Thought the Cheating Was the Worst Part. It Wasn't.
TW: Domestic violence, stalking, harassment, sexual coercion, threats.
Long update ahead. I had to cut a lot out to keep this from turning into a novel.
About a year ago, I posted on r/relationship_advice asking strangers why I couldn't leave my boyfriend of 8 years after discovering he was cheating on me.
At the time, I thought the cheating was the biggest issue in our relationship.
A year later, with distance and therapy, I can see that the cheating wasn't even the worst part. Looking back, I had normalized years of abuse, manipulation, intimidation, and control.
At the time, I was devastated. He had been cheating on me with a 19-year-old for months, and I couldn't understand why he was throwing away our relationship. I kept asking myself what she had that I didn't.
I thought the cheating was the worst thing he had done to me.
Looking back now, it wasn't even close.
We met as teenagers and were together for eight years. We lived with my mom for most of that time. When she moved away for school in 2021, we stayed behind to look after the house until she graduated. That house was where we built our life together and where everything eventually fell apart.
Leaving was complicated for reasons that went far beyond the relationship.
Before everything fell apart, we were helping care for my younger siblings in 2024. My mom was dealing with domestic violence, alcohol issues, and drug issues, and a lot of the responsibility fell on us. Looking back, most of it fell on me.
I already had a history of being removed from my mom's care when I was younger, so protecting my siblings was incredibly important to me.
As his drinking got worse and he started disappearing more often, I wasn't just worried about our relationship anymore. I was worried about the kids, too. Every time he came back, there was another apology and another promise that he would change, and every time, I wanted to believe him.
Part of the reason I stayed so long was that leaving felt like losing more than a boyfriend. It felt like losing the family and stability I had spent years trying to hold together.
When I reread my old post from 2025, what stands out isn't the cheating. It's how much abuse I had normalized.
I described physical abuse.
I described being pressured into sex when I didn't want to and eventually giving in because arguing was exhausting.
I described being laughed at, mocked, dismissed, and made to feel like I was always overreacting.
I described him stealing money from me, taking my vehicle without permission, disappearing to drink, expecting me to support him financially, and always having an excuse afterward.
I described myself cleaning up after him, cooking for him, doing his laundry, buying him things, forgiving him repeatedly, and hoping that if I loved him enough, he would finally change.
The entire post was essentially me listing reasons to leave while desperately trying to find reasons to stay.
What I couldn't see back then was how badly my confidence had been destroyed.
My seizures became worse during that time, and looking back now, I can see how much the constant stress, fear, and chaos were affecting my health.
Eventually, I discovered he had been cheating on me with our neighbour's 19-year-old daughter.
At first, I couldn't believe it.
Even when I confronted him, he was so good at manipulating and gaslighting me that I constantly questioned my own reality. I would find evidence, confront him, and somehow walk away feeling confused instead of having confidence in what I had seen.
For a while, he kept coming and going because I allowed it. I wanted him out of the house when he was drinking, but every time he came back there was another apology, another promise that he had changed, and another explanation.
Sometimes he would leave in the middle of the night, and I later found out he was going to see her. Even after discovering the affair, I still wanted to believe him.
What made it even more confusing was that he would get angry if he thought I was talking to other guys while he was actively seeing someone else.
One night, while he was still coming and going, he managed to take my debit card from underneath my pillow while I was sleeping. I didn't even realize it was gone until later. Looking back, it wasn't just the theft that bothered me. It was realizing that nowhere felt private or secure anymore.
Eventually, I kicked him out.
Even after I kicked him out, he continued contacting me.
One day, he showed up at my house crying and wanting to talk. Despite everything, I still cared about him and agreed to hear him out.
During that conversation, I discovered he had a gun in his pocket.
I remember telling him how scared I had become and how unsafe I felt. Even then, part of me was still trying to reason with him, hoping he would finally understand the damage he had caused.
Looking back, it seems crazy to me now. I had just discovered that the man who had cheated on me, manipulated me, stolen from me, and refused to leave me alone was carrying a gun. Yet I was still more focused on explaining how much he had hurt me than I was on my own safety.
I had spent so many years worrying about his feelings that I had stopped paying attention to my own.
Even then, the guilt-tripping didn't stop.
One of the things I struggled with was our dog. He kept telling me how much he missed him and wanted to see him. Despite everything, I felt guilty and agreed to let him take him for a couple of nights.
A couple of nights turned into weeks.
When I finally went to get my dog back, things escalated. During an altercation, he started throwing rocks over my head. One of them ended up smashing my windshield.
Even after that, I was still trying to untangle my life from his. Eventually, I accepted that he was with her and there was nothing I could do to change it. I gathered the rest of his belongings and dropped them off.
I thought that would be the end.
I thought he had made his choice, and everyone would move on.
I was wrong.
Even while he was with her, he continued contacting me. He told me he loved me, missed me, wanted another chance, and that I was the love of his life. He wanted my attention, my sympathy, my emotional support, and reassurance that I still cared about him.
At the time, it was incredibly confusing.
Part of me was trying to accept that the relationship was over, while another part was still hearing apologies, promises, and declarations of love from someone I had spent almost a decade with.
Looking back now, I don't think I was struggling because I didn't know the relationship was over.
I don't think I ever got a chance to properly move on because he was always there. Just when I would start accepting it, he'd message me, show up, apologize, tell me he loved me, or try to make me feel guilty.
After the breakup, I tried creating distance. I started spending time with friends, stopped responding, and tried blocking him.
That is when the harassment got worse. He broke into the house multiple times, stole things, and sometimes would show up in the middle of the night. It felt like there was no way to truly get away from him.
When I stopped giving him access to me, he became angry. He threatened to hurt people I cared about. He threatened to find me. I remember trying to spend time with friends and being scared because I didn't know if he would show up.
At one point, he called me over 400 times within only a few hours. At the time, I wasn't blocking him because I was scared that if I completely cut contact, the situation would escalate even further.
The more I tried to pull away, the more intense the harassment became.
Sometimes he would somehow find out where I was and show up unexpectedly, which made it feel like I could never fully relax. He refused to accept that the relationship was over.
Eventually, I started talking to other people. Then I started consistently talking to one person.
That is when things escalated even further.
Around that time, the side of my house was burned, and stuff was stolen. I was constantly looking over my shoulder, wondering what would happen next. My life felt chaotic, stressful, and unpredictable.
Looking back now, some of the most frightening parts of the relationship didn't happen while we were together.
They happened after I finally tried to leave and move on.
The part that is hardest for people to understand is that even after all of that, I still missed him.
I still loved him.
I still wanted to believe he could change.
That's the part nobody tells you about abusive relationships. Leaving doesn't automatically turn your feelings off. I had spent almost a decade loving this person.
There is another reason I wanted to make this update.
The woman he cheated on me with stayed involved with him after our relationship ended. I tried to warn her. I told her about the drinking, manipulation, abuse, and behavior I had experienced.
She didn't believe he would ever treat her the same way.
Yesterday, I came across a TikTok she posted after leaving him.
In the video, she talked about finally leaving and showed the bruises he had left on her.
Seeing that made me feel sick.
The hardest part was realizing that the same things I had tried to warn her about were the same things she had recently escaped. I remembered the conversations we had when she believed he would never hurt her. I remembered trying to explain what I had experienced and feeling like nobody was listening.
At the same time, my heart broke for her because I knew exactly how hard it is to leave someone you love, even when they are hurting you.
The truth is that nobody could have forced me to leave before I was ready, and I couldn't force her either.
I think that's one of the hardest lessons I've learned.
You can love someone.
You can miss someone.
You can want them to get better.
But you still need to walk away.
A year ago, I was asking strangers why I couldn't leave.
Today I know the answer.
I had spent so many years being told I was overreacting, crazy, dramatic, and wrong that I stopped trusting myself. I kept thinking that if I loved him enough, helped him enough, or forgave him enough, things would finally get better.
Leaving was one of the hardest things I've ever done. It took me years to get there. But looking back now, it was one of the best decisions I've ever made.