Currently reading All Fours, and although I love her prose and the character building and how weird it is overall, I’m not a fan of sex and her affair being such a focal point. Does anyone have any recommendations of similar prose and weirdness without sex being a main focus? Some sex is fine but I’m just personally not into smutty sex in lit!
My ex and I broke up last July. It was a tumultuous relationship where he initiated multiple breakups only to beg to get back together each time, and yes I was emotionally vulnerable and insecure enough to keep taking him back. After one final time though I initiated no contact and kept it, but it was a difficult breakup exacerbated by some challenging circumstances I was dealing with outside of the breakup. By January I felt largely at peace and healed from things.
Only to find out a couple of weeks later in February that he (29M) was doing some truly heinous things to a bunch of 21-24 year old women. I heard directly from one girl who he’s 7 years older than that he was telling her he loved her but would not be monogamous with her because he wanted to be “poly”, but that she didn’t want to be poly, so he would lie to her about sleeping with other people and then eventually come clean after her either figuring out his lies or his feelings of guilt. For reference, he asked to be monogamous with me by the third date. He apparently also would not stop talking about me and how awful I was but also how sad he was about our relationship and me. I am not perfect and was not in the relationship and do not claim to be, but there is not enough time in the world to go through all the shitty things he did as well. This was a cycle apparently being repeated for months and one I found out later he was deliberately lying to his best female friend about so she wouldn’t end their friendship. During this time I also had people tell me he was sleeping around with young girls, ruining entire friend groups, and spreading herpes (something I am clean from). Amongst other things I was told there were other awful events and that details could not be shared to protect these young girls’ privacies, which I of course respect. This man is a practicing therapist, btw lol.
It’s now May and although it’s certainly lessened in pain, I still find myself thinking about this and how disturbing this all is. I’m angry and saddened by it all still. I would’ve never thought he would stoop this low and I truly thought I’d finally dated a guy who was a decent person, just with issues like the rest of us. Now I feel absolutely disgusted, that I once again fell for another monster of a person, and it doesn’t help that other people feel sorry for me that he is my ex and have expressed it to me. I introduced him to my music scene so although I haven’t see him in months we technically run with similar crowds, and meeting people who have heard about him and the shit he is doing and telling me how gross it is and how sorry they are for me does not feel good at all.
I know this isn’t a relationship subreddit but I want to stop thinking about this and him. I was over him in January and I’m tired of him and his gross actions taking up any space at all in my thoughts. Advice would be appreciated for how to do that lol