u/Evening-Team-3109

I’m struggling with trusting myself and I keep finding myself saying that I’m confused.

We are 36F and 37M and just celebrated our 1 year anniversary. This is also my first relationship since my 10 year marriage and I met my bf during the peak of my divorce.

Early on in the relationship, he was moving incredibly fast and one of my friends called it love bombing. I didn’t agree necessarily because it didn’t feel like that to me. He and I have always had rocky moments, but when I want to talk about the "negative" interactions, he tells me I’m just trying to argue/fight or he used to call me negative. I do feel like when I’ve brought a lot of this up to him, he’s addressed it, but we still have a pattern of really bad fights, he won’t talk to me for a couple of days, then we’re back in love, like nothing happened. Mind you, I moved in with him a few months ago when I lost my job and still needed to pay for my divorce. It felt too soon, but I agreed to take the help because divorces are expensive.

When we fight, he dismisses my feelings or invalidates them completely. He will bring my character into question. Today he "justified" yelling at me because "every man has their limit" and I pushed him passed his because I had asked him one too many times what was wrong after he was displaying strange behavior.

He will make "jokes" that hurt my feelings and when I tell him that they hurt my feelings, he calls me too sensitive and that he’s flirting and this is just who he is and he wants to have a partner he can joke with. Having a partner to joke with isn’t a bad thing but I often feel like it’s at my expense.

I’ve tried to break up with him two or three times now and each time, we end up making up and it’s fine for awhile. I’m struggling because I feel like this is a toxic pattern, we are toxic together, and for whatever reason, I find myself holding onto the good times during the bad.

Even now, I can hear him in the back of my mind about how I’m picking and choosing what to hold onto and how it’s out of context etc etc

I’m just tired of feeling like I can’t talk to him about my feelings/needs without later feeling like I’m an inconvenience. I don’t know what to do and I feel so stuck. Even during our happiest times together, I’m just worried about saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing and setting him off.

Advice welcomed please.

When I stood in front of the judge and before they went through all the questions, I had to take an oath. Something flipped in my brain when I said, "I do" and I was hit with a wave of emotions. I never thought that this man who I loved for over a decade; that I’d be saying "I do", the second time like this.

The judge went through her usual questions and my husband and I said "yes" multiple times in unison. I could feel myself on the verge of tears near the end of it.

In January 2025 we agreed to separate. I told him I wasn’t happy and was dealing with some deeply personal things that I couldn’t talk to him about, but desperately wanted to. We just weren’t each other’s safe space and had grown apart over the years.

The separation was difficult. Finding out three months later that he had a new fiancée and they were expecting a baby was shocking to say the least. And seeing pictures of him with his new daughter in Feb gave me closure where I didn’t feel mad at him anymore. I didn’t feel sad. I felt like it was over. And I felt like I could finally accept it for what it is.

Today was shocking for me even though I knew exactly what I was walking into and what to expect for pretrial. It was surreal and it felt like it all happened so quickly.

I’m just feeling… off. Like even though I haven’t spoken to him in several months, I still was tied to him and now, we just have the divorce nisi and then it’s done. I guess no one gets married thinking that they’re going to get divorced.