My ex and his family ruined my life
I met my ex in 2022 when I was 23F and he was 19M, on our first date he said he takes on other people’s personalities and I should have run away when I heard that , but I didn’t, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and we had a beautiful relationship for a couple months. During these good months I noticed his sister has a personality disorder as she used to fake faint and one day she fainted outside his open bedroom door while him and I were hanging out, I pointed out “I thought it was a lie but this seems pretty real” and after that day everything went down hill, my ex used to cancel our plans because his sister would always have an emergency, even on my birthday and I should have known what was coming for me when my ex’s sister sent her girlfriend to the mental hospital. His mom was also controlling but pushing for him to move in with me pretty quickly, I was living alone at the time.
We ended up living together for a couple months then broke it off. We probably spent 8 months apart and in those months he used to show up constantly and unannounced to drop off flowers and other gifts which put pressure because i felt like I couldn’t date anyone else because he was showing up all the time at my door and the notes with the gifts always gave unwanted information about him going on trips.
Then It came time for me to move cities and he promised me the world and said he had a business and could provide for us , blah blah.
He gave me a ride to look for apartments and offered to co-sign my lease when the apartment I was going to get was very different from the pictures and the time to find an apartment ran out. I made sure to make it clear that he’s co-signing and nothing else but he whistled his was back with more flowers and promised till we were stuck in a new city living together which only lasted 2 months.
In those months he turned into someone I didn’t know. He was lying to his mom about me, he was lying to me about his mom and it got to a point where looking back he was lying about his job. During this time I had cut contact with my mom and felt like she died so I was grieving that relationship and he looked for things to fight and issues every day which broke me to my core and I relapsed on self harm behaviors which brought shame and he acted like a nurse just to break me again in a what felt like never ending cycle.
We got to the beginning of the month and I was buying us universal annual passes and food many times per week so I told him that if we wanted to continue going out and traveling I wasn’t going to be able to pay my half of next months rent and he said it was okay and offered to cover it on full, then one day towards the end of the month we were arguing and he asked for my half of the rent so I reminded him of our agreement and he acted like he didn’t remember and said I kicked him out.
I “kicked him out a couple times”, according to him, but he created the fights and communicated he didn’t want to be there so I said you can leave and he always left dramatically each time. One of the last times he left I begged him to stay, I wanted to comply and not watch him leave again but his mom was waiting for him downstairs and when I went down to talk to her she was having a meltdown like his sister and that’s when I learned the whole family is fucked.
after that, maybe a month later he tried to come back into my life then said he had a business trip with his company as those people that sell phone plans at Costco and this trip was out of state, conveniently the same state and city his dad lives in and he was going to stay with his dad. Now that I’m older (27) I can recognize that didn’t make sense.
I begged him to stay and he did but he lied to his mom about being with his dad when he was with me, the following couple days didn’t go well as he disappeared then called me and I told him I was going to leave to Miami to stay with a friend I had helped in the past, so this mofo called me, riled me up and called a wellness check on me, the officers arrived and I was so hopeless and distressed from the call and because I had no one to put as reference and previous self harm they took me for 24hrs, even though i had contacted domestic violence hotlines in previous days to help relocate me. After being honest with the officers about my sobriety which started when I was 21 and was going strong, I still ended up on a detox center where I was not allowed to cry, and the worst part is that he had said that the worst thing that has happened to him was his mom sending him to a mental hospital after she had told him he could take his own life. So he sent me to a mental hospital when I said I didn’t want to hurt myself anymore and I was leaving, this still is a trauma a carry to this day as I felt they believed him over me.
So after that I didn’t talk to him while he still showed up at my door every once in a while for 6 months. Then when I was finally strong again he whistled his way back into my life and sent me money to get back into my life and since I only had a part time job at the time I agreed. Then I found out he was still living in the city, renting a room and he even got a motorcycle, while I was struggling to pay rent. This felt like a betrayal and one day, after he got done getting all the sex from me he said he couldn’t give me money to feed my cats cause he owes too much money to his mom and he couldn’t help anymore. Then he disappeared which was the point I stopped taking care of myself physically and cleaning my apartment.
I felt like a sex maid that cleaned and cooked for him so doing those things no longer felt easy and became extremely hard. After this he emailed every couple months sending ai made contracts and emails for me to sign because he wanted to take my apartment from me.
I ended up facing a couple eviction notices as the rent is too high and some months I struggled and he was happy to add to the stress pressing not only me but the leasing office. I ended up unemployed after behavioral therapy jobs broke me even more and i developed agoraphobia which made me have horrible body reactions to leaving home as the world doesn’t feel safe anymore. I developed asthma due to the California fires and panic attacks triggered the asthma and I have ended up in the hospital a couple times, uninsured. Because of safety and health concerns I left university too and I’m currently having a hard time getting replies from all the jobs I’ve applied.
Bringing us to current times where I’m still stuck on a lease with this man and I worry about rent every day, I rarely leave the house and this whole situation feels like it rewired my brain from who I used to be to this survival mode and fear that he would do anything else to me.
In the bright side I haven’t self harm and I’m trying really hard every day in hopes my motivation will get better. Now I know believe people when they tell you who they are and leave and stay gone.
While I’m poor and trying to rebuild my life , this man and his family are thriving and him and his sister probably sending more people to the mental hospital. I honestly hope that someone stronger than me exposes them and brings the justice that me and his sisters ex didn’t get. If this story feels familiar to any of you please stay strong , I know is hard but this is not okay and don’t let anyone rewrite the truth. All that matters is walking away and cutting communication and the only communication in writing.
These are just some highlights of what happened as is the only moments I can digest.