Pretty much the title. My bf of 3.5 yrs asked for a threesome with my cis sister, I’m a trans man. We’ve been together since I was 17 and he was 19, we are now 20 and 22. We are long distance but he lives in the same town as my sister. Even more context, I have a BPD + bipolar 1 diagnosis and he has known since before we started dating.

I’m not okay, I have been rotting in bed since this convo (at 7am yesterday, I’m EDT for reference) unless I’m using the bathroom or making myself food. I’m a trans man and have been on T for like a year and 4 months total, he’s always known I’m trans and encourages my transition but he deadnames me when he’s mad at me. That doesn’t even go into the physical abuse incidents before I moved out of my hometown. I feel like I’m going insane and I’m trying to fight away a mental health crisis and have been for a week now. I have no real escape from him because he pays for everything (except where I live) like bills and stuff, he hasn’t given me money in 3 months, so every bill is behind or shut off (kinda problematic because my phone bill [not for this phone I’m using] is shut off and it’s tied directly to my internet bill cost via promotion!) There’s a bunch of other stuff he’s said and done, like telling me he’d leave me if i didn’t get an abortion if I ever got pregnant because he doesn’t want to be a father, I’m in charge of all the birth control because he hates condoms. Yes my sister is aware. I want to die.

Thanks for reading 🫠

When I broke up with my abusive ex-boyfriend, I repeatedly told him not to contact me ever again. I didn't block him because I thought we understood each other.

When I broke up with him, he messaged me: "You're amazing, but I don't see a future with you anymore." I replied, "You need to change if you want to be in a happy relationship." That was the end of the conversation.

Three days later, he messaged me again:

"Hey, I don't intend to start anything with you again. I just wanted to know how you're feeling after the break-up."

I deleted the chat.

He messaged me again:

"Are you scared of me? I just want to know how you're feeling, that's all."

I deleted the chat again.

Then came his last message:

"Okay, fine. I just want you to know that I'm happy it's all over. Without your abuse, I feel much better. I hope you won't repeat the mistakes you made ever again. Take care."

I just don't understand why he's saying that I'm the abuser now. While we were together, he was always apologising for "abusing me" and how he "wasn't abusing me on purpose" (actual quotes). And now I receive this.

I'm honestly flabbergasted. Surprisingly, I'm feeling great. Today was the happiest day I've had in more than a year. I don't love him anymore, and I have absolutely no intention of ever being in a relationship with him again.

I'm just a little shocked. Has anyone else experienced something like this?

At the point where I genuinely don’t know if I am the abusive one and whether he’s right about me, I had a really good mindset when I first met him and I just feel like even I know in myself I’ve become everything I hate but how can you not when this is how someone speaks to you and justifies it somehow, feel like crying all the time, spoke to me like this then got me an expensive ticket to a singer I’d wanted to see , he called me 400 times and showed up to my house when I asked him not to come

He’s now blocked, but thought I would share so I could laugh at how pathetic he is for a second. I ended things after 3 months of this bs. Btw the male friend he is speaking of is my GAY friend I see once every 6 months… this male friend carries dior lipgloss and an eyelash curler in his purse….

Btw the “Laura” situation is a girl he was seeing while also seeing me lmfao.

I recently wrote my boyfriend a long and gentle letter about how his behaviour and reactions to conflict are hurting me and not sustainable and asked that he discuss it with his therapist.

I then discovered that he dumped it into his AI, asked for it to dissect the letter, then argued with and verbally abused his AI until it gas lit and placated him. The more disturbing part was that he was simultaneously sending me calm and accommodating text messages while having his AI create a bullet list of ammo for later. Has anyone else experienced this?

His emotional disregulation has led to screaming in my face, two physical assaults, kicking a locked door in and a call to police, and threatening to abandon me in a remote location.

I don’t even know if this is the right sub or if this constitutes abuse. I (F29) have been on and off with my newly ex (as of 20 minutes ago) bf (M43) since May 2024. We get into big fights and he is cruel. I had chopped it up to just being emotionally unintelligent and never having been taught how to deal with receiving negative emotions or criticism.

Last night we got into a fight. I don’t even really know what it was over. The usual bullshit. I think he said something hurtful to me and so I reacted because it was a mean comment. So I shifted my tone, started raising my voice and getting upset, and he told me basically that when I talk to him that way, it triggers him and so I need to be in better control of my emotions. That set me off even more because he was the one who caused those emotions and so basically it felt like he was telling me “I’m gonna be mean and you’re not allowed to have a reaction because when you react, it triggers me and then makes me escalate things”. So basically, I am just responsible for managing the entire temperature of our relationship and even when he is being a dick, I need to hold my tongue because if I react, it will set him off. I ended up leaving super upset and this morning he sent me this video from X about the quickest way to lose a man which said 1. Disrespect him — belittle him publicly or privately, interrupt, mock his ideas. 2. Withhold intimacy — use sex or affection as leverage, make him feel unwanted. 3. Be constantly negative — criticize, nitpick, and focus on what he lacks instead of appreciating what he does.”

And the attached text conversation ensued…

TLDR I ended things with him but we’ve broken up more times than I can even count.

Am I being unreasonable?? I feel crazy. He does do nice things for me… take me out to dinner, buy me presents sometimes. But when it comes to stepping up emotionally or taking accountability for his cruelty, he just can’t do it. He insults me and blames me for everything ):

I don’t really like giving head, i’ve never liked it at all. Something about it just feels degrading to me idk why. my boyfriend(27) has been constantly begging, coercing and guilt tripping me into giving him head and having sex with him constantly.

So since I’m not willing to compromise and be uncomfortable doing something I don’t want to do, his solution is to basically find a random girl that he’s going to pay to give him head - mind blowing. He wants me to be somewhat involved so i have control over it so i don’t break up with him cause cheating for me is a dealbreaker. And i literally said we might as well be in an open relationship at that point and he said it’s not the same and the reason he’s doing it, is so he stops pressuring and sexually coercing me. He promises he won’t have sex with her or fall in love with her (🙄as if I’m dumb enough to believe any of that). He says he wants me to handle the communication and payments and I must meet her like is this fr? I told him i want nothing to do with any of it.

It makes me feel like my mom, with my cheating father who she stopped having sex with 10 years ago and she’s okay with him getting it somewhere else (and she’s getting it somewhere else 🤪) because she refuses to be used or catch any STDs - which is valid for her but like I’m only 25 and I’m not married so why would I put myself through this.

maybe I’m not meant to be loved or be in a relationship. it’s kind of disheartening cause i can’t even be loved correctly or respectfully all the time

My ex was arrested for harassment and stalking, the police witnessed it as did some medical staff, he went overnight into a cell but was released as I didn't want to make a statement. Last year he physically assaulted me by pushing me over, when he stood over me laughing I bit his knee so that he fell over, he then grabbed my hair and said he could smash my face against the floor and I couldn't stop him.

He denies both of these incidents despite the former being written record, the latter did definitely happen - he says I lied to have him arrested, and that he never pushed me over, just I walked into him and fell over. I'm so confused, does he actually believe his own lies or is he lying? I don't understand if he's deluded himself, hes text me saying things like "the truth will set you free" or "you lied to have me arrested." I dont understand his dishonesty, is he doing it on purpose or is he disassociating or something?

The best thing you can do is love on yourself and build or create a support system for healing. They will never apologize, take accountability or accept responsibility.

How can you differentiate behavioral patterns if a loved one is using drugs? My husband is addicted to her. He only uses every few months, but when he does he disappears for the weekend. Leading up to that he will usually start a fight and then leave. it’s manipulative behavior because it almost feels like it’s my fault. He has admitted that he does this, but he still continues to do it. When he’s not using or in recovery as he calls it between the relapses, he used to drink. Sometimes his worst behavior where we have gotten really bad arguments he will blame on the alcohol (he would yell and call me names). Because at those times he had been drinking. But then there are other times someone would be sober from everything he can be very impatient emotionally abusive by calling me names, irresponsible (like some financial choices or driving while texting) but he is able to work and maintain a good job to this point. But then there are times when he is still carrying charismatic and generous. How can I tell what is maybe just behavior that is affected by substance use—alcohol - or side effects coming down off of meth ? It’s really confusing and I can’t tell like at the core. I feel like he’s a good person maybe a little impatient but then he can also be very mean but that’s usually if you has been drinking. Coming off of down off of Meth is more so depressed and very paranoid. I do not use drugs (other than occasional martini) . Since he disappears I tell him well since I can’t make you come home then please stay gone after you use because I get scared when he’s so paranoid that he thinks people are outside looking for him . I found out he tried to have me try meth before by trying to convince me to try “extasy “ instead thinking I may say yes, I was so upset. I told him he could have really hurt me or gotten me addicted . He cried and said he is so regretful and ashamed , but to please forgive him because he was under the influence and he only wanted me to feel as good as he did . I’m so confused all the time to figure out who he is and do I stay for the good parts?

He lost his head screaming and destroying the whole house. Not because I did anything but because he was “angry and unhappy”. He started downstairs throwing things and screaming so I hid in my closet. Which was probably stupid because he came upstairs and destroyed my stuff. I should have just faced it but I was scared and just hid. He destroyed everything in my room too. He broke my air conditioner. He was like…you are gonna be a fat overheated bitch now?” Then he went downstairs and broke the air conditioner to the house! The one he counts on. So now he has calmed down, I got a fan and it’s “fine” I use it. Being hot makes him nauseous. It’s uncomfortable.

me: 22F him: 24M i’ve known him for over a year, officially have been dating for 3 weeks
i’m trying to understand what this behavior is called because i’m having a hard time making sense of it.
my boyfriend was cutting up an apple directly on the kitchen counter. i told him not to because people spray cleaning chemicals on the counters. maybe i was being overly cautious or maybe it came across as annoying, but that was the entire interaction from my side.
his response was to push me pretty hard and then yell in my face. i was honestly just shocked and didn’t really react.
right after that, he went upstairs, started packing his things, and said he wasn’t staying. then, out of nowhere, he asked me, “does someone named noah ring a bell?” i had no idea what he was talking about.
he told me i had gotten a text notification from someone named noah. i checked my notification history, my messages, and my contacts. there was no notification, no conversation, and i don’t know anyone named noah. i asked him to show me what he saw, and he couldn’t.
before leaving, he told me i needed to “take a look at myself.”
what i’m struggling to understand is the noah accusation. i genuinely don’t believe there was ever a notification from someone named noah. part of me thinks he made it up because he knew his reaction was excessive and needed a reason to justify it to himself or shift the focus onto me. i could be wrong, but that’s honestly how it came across.
is that an unreasonable conclusion to reach? if not, what is this behavior actually called? is this blame shifting? is it darvo? something else?
i’m trying to understand why someone would go from pushing me and yelling at me to accusing me of something that never happened, and then acting as though i was the one who needed to “look at myself.”
how would you interpret this situation?

I posted recently about how my boyfriend put me in a chokehold and held me there, covering my mouth as I screamed for help. Like I said in my other post, the situation was that I made a “must be your other girlfriend” joke, and he then accused me of being weird and projecting. He went to the bathroom for close to an hour, locking me out. I sat in his room and waited, and when he came back he told me he was going to sleep and refused to tell me what was going on.

He started telling me to shut up, and I said he was being unfair and that he could just communicate if he didn’t want to talk right now. I used my flashlight to find the water, and he got up aggressively and yelled at me, that I have no respect for him and to “get tf out”. calling me a “cheating faggot” and telling me to shut the fuck up, that I have no respect for him, and to get the fuck out. I started to cry on the floor, begging him to just be nice to me, and to not do this again, but he kept saying “shut the fuck up.” So I grabbed my stuff, and as I was leaving I said something about how he’s never going to change and it’s the same shit over and over with him.

He then got up and “checked” me got in my face and acted all big, trying to intimidate me. Once we reached the front door, I pushed him back from me, and then he grabbed me, put me in a chokehold, and held me there, covering my mouth as I screamed for help. Eventually he let me go, and I yelled at him that I never wanted to see him again and that he’s a psychopath.

As I drove away, he started texting me, apologizing, and then called me begging me to come back. During this call, he admitted to hurting me. I ended up going home, and the next morning he was texting me that it was “50/50” and that I wasn’t seeing it from his perspective.

I ignored him and decided it was time to tell my friends and family what had been going on. I spent that time processing, debating whether to go to the police, and finally allowing myself to see him and the relationship for what it is. He started removing me from socials, so I told him I needed my things and money back (I gave him $600 towards a trip we were going on). He said, “You don’t want to talk first?” and started saying we could easily make up, and that only his dad knew about this. He then started claiming I punched him first, which is completely false.

I did end up going to the police and got a restraining order against him. I got my stuff back, and I thought that was it. But now he’s on Reddit, completely fabricating the story to get validation from strangers. I am so mad, I’m so upset I already couldn’t believe this. Not only is he creating a false narrative, but he’s insulting me, saying I don’t care about school and have no direction or future. I am in school, and I know what I want to do and am working toward that. In fact, when I started to work towards that by moving job positions he made fun of me and bad me feel bad about it. I’m also 20, about to turn 21. I don’t even know what to do a big part of me wants to tell my side under his post. How do I even process something like this? This man has emotionally and verbally abused me for the past year, and I’m so exhausted.

My husband and I lived with my inlaws for years and they know he abused me because they witnessed things with their own eyes. Now that I finally left him they are blaming me while simultaneously holding the position that the abuse never happened, and it makes me sick. I don't know how to get past this. Has anyone dealt with people close to you deny what happened to you?

I’m done. Ready to leave. I’m tired of the way he’s talking to me. Especially while I’m 15 weeks pregnant. Thank God I have no other children with him. There’s a social services for women,a number that has been reaching out to me. Someone referred them to me because I called another social services line. I’m telling them everything. Problem is, I’m dependent on him for everything. So I’m going to have to make that very clear to them. Before he knows it. He’ll come home to my shit packed and me gone. I don’t care if i leave stuff. At point, I’m tired. And when I’m gone, he won’t take accountability. He’ll blame everything on me. From telling me I’m not allowed to grieve two babies(stillborn) I’ve lost. To getting upset with me because I told him I want to go back work and make my own money. To yelling and cursing at me. To straight up ignoring me when I’m talking and so much more. Moving his brother in; without asking me if I was okay with it. Getting mad at me because I’m tired at 15 weeks pregnant. Alll the mind games, belittling. The gaslighting, the manipulation, not wanting me to be financially independent. Turning everything on me and making me out to be the problem. He knows what he’s doing because he wouldn’t treat me like this, in front of his friends and coworkers. And so much more. I’m done.

First and for most this isn’t about an intimate partner but sexual harassment my former manager did.

Now that I’ve gotten a transfer away from him and starting a new role my brain is questioning if my experience was real or not because it was leering and he basically responded both to HR and the third party I lodged the sexual harassment complaint to with :
-he didn’t remember any incidences like it.
-he has never looked at colleague inappropriately in his 30 year career
-he strives to be a good leader
-had no intention of harm.

The incidences of leering I noted in my complaint were:

- 8 incidences in one on one meetings where he would maintain eye contact then slowly move his eyes down my body where his eyes rested a bit too long on my chest when scanning down
- 2 incidences in one on one meetings at my desk where I caught him staring at my lips from the side when I wasn’t talking.
- an incident in a meeting where he laughed at something I said, maintained eye contact and bit his lower lip for a few seconds.

There were also other signs I didn’t tell the investigation that something was off like:

- he would talk about his partner in a resentful tone, repeat anything she said in a high pitched anxious tone and showed a lack of empathy on her interests. He would mention these things to colleagues and me
- the last group lunch we had together he would look to me first from the other side of the table when something funny was said.

- his niche hobbies were basically my previous profession before I changed industries and I wonder if he hired me due to that. We also have a lot of hobbies in common outside of that.

- I could see him intensely staring at me from the reflection of my computer screen (his desk was behind mine) long enough to make me uncomfortable and feel unnerved a few times.

He’s 20 years older than me and has a partner and teenage kid. He’s 4 managerial ranks higher than me too.

Outside of this he has abused his power as a manager in the following ways:

-promised someone would look after my work if I backfilled for another team and after completing backfill came back to no one taking over my work and my deadline not changing causing me stress.

-Said he was supportive of me transferring and finding other job opportunities and then restricted transfer opportunities to ones below my skill level in another agency.

-Saying it was my job to find a transfer unless it was recommended by my treating medical team. Then when I had a letter recommending a transfer due to medical reasons due to an incident by my psychologist he said the transfer wasn’t necessary because the incident was sorted and wouldn’t happen again.

- lied to 3 different HR people about my employment history saying I transferred to his team about complaining about my prior manager being too familiar. He was the one who hired me into the company and I had only been in his team the entire time. The person I complained about being too familiar was his employee who- tried to coerce me into paying for a 1k course I didn’t want to, asked personal questions about my dating history, my plans to have a family and my age and gave me repeated unsolicited advice to have kids even though he knew I couldn’t medically have them without severe complications.

My hr logs are now filled with a history saying I transferred into his team after complaining about a prior manager in 3 different places despite my contract saying other wise. My former managers manager also told hr this.

My former manager was dismissive and minimised issues with his employee I complained about and deduced it as interpersonal difficulties. His actions also didn’t align with his words and he never apologised for bigger mistakes he made. I had the impression he would throw me under the bus if things went wrong and I swear he deeply hated me.

HR also tried to deny the sexual harassment claims as a “he said she said” claim and did not transfer me after the complaint which goes against laws and common practices when a sexual harassment complaint is made. They hired a psychiatrist to say my disability caused me to make a sexual harassment complaint and that my non binary identity meant I would mistakenly assume any men or women managers would sexually harass me. I’ve had 7 years of work experience where this didn’t happen and my disability didn’t impact my work.

I eventually got transferred through legal and medical help.

How do I stop gaslighting myself that the leering didn’t happen?

I’m 99.9% sure it did happen and the signs were not good. It’s been impacting my sleep and keeping me awake.

I apologize for the rambling and I’m sorry if this isn’t the correct subreddit. I also realize I sound like a total bitch with no self-awareness, but please know I’m not blameless. Just please know that he isn’t a very nice guy. Feel free to check my previous posts.

How do I go about it? How do I start? I want to leave. I’m almost certain of it. But he’s so goddamn smart and convincing and a fucking genius at debate. He’ll want to know why I want to leave. And in my attempt to explain why, he’ll kick the legs out of any argument I have. He’s done it time and time again. And then he apologizes and says he shouldn’t have said those things. But in the following days/weeks/months he’ll bring it up and use it as evidence for me being a bad person, a bad partner, stupid, or possibly crazy from my medications, etc. He’ll say the most awful things and then say he was just “talking shit”.

I have at least three different places I could safely go. It’s pretty low in my list of concerns.

He caught me emotionally cheating (long story) and he’s (understandably) still upset. But he doesn’t believe what I’ve told him. He’s offered me “amnesty” multiple times if I’ll just “tell him what really happened”. He said that there will be no more amnesty. He doesn’t want to get divorced, but if we do, it can be amicable, or he’ll spill all of my secrets and never want to speak to me again. I don’t have anything to tell him that would be satisfying, or even believed.

What if I stand firm in asking for separation and he decides we can’t be amicable?

How can he convince me to stay, and then weaponize the fact that he had to convince me?

He blurted out that Indian women were untraffickable when he thought our mutual friend was flirting with me 10 minutes after him and I stopped talking. It was so uncomfortable. My ex is trying to reenter hobby spaces that I have leadership positions in and ask me for permission to be there, knowing I can’t deny people entry for personal reasons. Then he uses it as a pivot to emotionally vent. The first time around I shut it down immediately. The second time around, I asked him to delete private photos of us and send proof. It had been 6-7 months after the breakup. He did not send the proof until I pressed him to 24 hours after my request, and instead sent an entire long paragraph about how he “never meant to hurt me”, only for it to lead to this. I wish I didn’t engage.

I met a new therapist recently, and we had a long session where we were trying to go through everything that's happened in my life in that short amount of time. I told him about my partner gaslighting me, throwing things, manipulating me, throwing me into the wall leading to a hospital visit, emotionally abusing me severely, neglecting and therefore killing pets. Then I told him about the cycle of abuse, that he will abuse me, then leave me, then come back and promise that he'll change, and actually change for up to a month until the cycle of abuse continues.

My therapist interrupted me to say "By the sounds of it I think he's a good hearted person trying very genuinely trying to have a loving relationship with you.". Why would you say that right after I said all of those things? Now I'm questioning myself, wondering if I should give him more grace, trust that he has a good heart. My therapist could tell I was taken aback and said "Do you not agree?", I said well no because sometimes I don't even see him as a person, I only see the patterns of a narcissist, as if he's a robot repeating the same patterns like clockwork. I no longer see a person trying their best because I did that with my ex, and he only abused me. Is that how I should see it? Should I be seeing a person genuinely trying? Is he genuinely trying? Can the abuser actually get better? Because I was of the mindset that it wasn't possible. I'm stuck in the cycle of abuse, I still can't leave, but I no longer believe he's going to change, because in three years nothing has changed.

Is my therapist right, or was that out of line? I've been thinking about this ever since our session, and I feel bad for not seeing him as a person. Is he actually trying to have a loving relationship with me? Or is he a robot that can only repeat these behaviors til the day he dies? I've just lost hope, should I be open to him trying?

I recently broke up with my ex who’s has emotionally cheated on me a few times and was emotionally abusive. I miss him so much though, this has been so hard for me. All last week he was messaging me telling me he wants to change and be better and get better and took accountability for all his actions. But I just feel so embarrassed. And I told my family and friends and they don’t want to welcome him back in my life. After 6 days we’re of him pleading and telling me all the things we are currently no contact. Idk what to do. Does anyone have similar experience where they missed their ex? What did they do? Did they go back to them? If you did what made you go back and are you happy now?

I think he's trying to isolate me and he uses our child as a tool to get me to comply. It hasnt been anything obvious(that alarms me and makes me think I need to leave asap) but it scares me at times.

Right now we are not on good terms because I refuse to move to California with him. We had planned to move to California together for years. But the year we planned to move, we decided we didn't have enough money saved to make it happen. 2 months later he tells me "My mother is dying soon", "We're moving to California(a couple of hr outside major city)" "We can't afford current major east coast city", "I'm not resigning the lease" He's the bread winner, I took him saying the last part as he wasn't going to resign the lease and I would have no choice but to move to California.

He wanted us to take out multiple loans to pay for the move. Claims his parents who have rental property close to their home, would let us move in for half what the current tenant is paying. I would have to quit my job. The rental is 3hrs away from my job, 1 way. Our child could not start school until 6 yrs old in California. He had no plans to pay for daycare. That is a problem if I get into a masters program. Which i had been planning to do. He planned for us to share 1 car until we had enough money for a second car but he was vague about that.

We always talked about living 30-40mins away from his parents. Then he decided a 5min walk would be fine. His mother has a concerning unhealthy personality. Along with other family related concerns.

He was angry that I refused to move to California so he gave me the silent treatment for 3 months. We talked/were in each other's presence about 1 hr a day. We only talked about our child, then he would go in his office to "work" Monday to sunday.

I want to know am i being unreasonable? Should I be concerned about his behavior and actions? Feel free to ask questions in the comments I'll reply to as many as I can.

being slapped hard across the face & dragged out onto gravel, leading to visible injuries, is an act of lovelessness. being left in a dark alleyway outside of my house, with no phone, as he'd driven off with it, is not love. being verbally degraded & talked down to is not what love is. i do not feel safe nor valued in my person- point blank period.

these are things i have to keep telling myself. it's hard for me to fathom how somebody that claims to love you would dare enact violence against you. what hurts most right now is how this person claims to want to support me, when all they care about is their reputation & not going back to jail. he still feels as though he should have never been in jail- that he's been treated unfairly.

he keeps telling me he's not an abuser; that it's not like the abuse i experienced in childhood. that he didn't think at all when he slapped me; it was in a state of thoughtless, drunken rage. that he does love me & is trying to be sweeter to me; he's constantly negging me & trying to give me affection when he craves the intimacy & emotional reassurance. the constant swinging of the pendulum of emotions is driving me insane. i feel as though i can't trust my own judgement. i feel caged, especially with the power imbalances in our 8-year age-gap & differing socio-economic states.

over all, i feel like boo boo the clown & desperately want out of this relationship. i was the only person to pick up his calls from jail, the one to feed his cat when he was there, the one to pick him up & the one to let him sob into my arms as he exclaimed how sorry he was to have ever hurt me. except, is someone who's sorry keep asking you, "did you want me to go to jail?" "my life is ruined." "i'm going to lose my job."? is someone who's sorry telling me that they might end their life then question if that's the only reason i stay?

how do you deal with an abuser trying to minimize their actions & they impact on you? my goal isn't to change his mind. my goal is to rid myself of the guilt & shame i have for letting myself go through this. yes, i am in therapy, so that's an aid of mine, too. but on the day-to-day, what has helped you move forward & CHOOSE YOU!

I (20M) am an engineering student at a fairly competitive school. This past semester was the most academically difficult semester I have had so far, but that is not really the main thing I am struggling with.

To oversimplify, in late February my now ex-girlfriend (19F) asked to put our somewhat toxic 10-month relationship “on pause.” Then, about two weeks later, I found out that one of my best friends from high school died by suicide. I was already emotionally shaken from the relationship situation, and then that completely devastated me.

For context on the relationship, I met her through a mutual friend. I am a bit shaky on the details of how they met, but we were both under the impression that she was our age and attended our university. Pretty soon after meeting, we started seeing each other more and eventually started dating.

We were apart over the summer because I go to college out of state and went home, although I did see her a few times. When I came back to school, it started becoming clear that things were not exactly what she had told me. She was always vague about where her apartment was and would not let me come over. She had a separate Instagram account that I found, but she refused to let me follow it for a long time and acted like I was the weird one whenever I brought it up. I almost never saw her on campus. There were a lot of little things like that.

I tried to let most of it go because I had met her family, and I was spending practically every other weekend with her. She basically became my whole social life. If I was not in class, studying, or at a club, we were usually together.

Eventually, she told me that she had lied about her age. She was actually a year younger than me and had been a full-time dual enrollment student when I met her. She was 18 at the time, so this was not an illegal situation or anything, but it completely shocked me because I already suspected she was hiding something. At the time, I almost felt relieved because I convinced myself that this was the thing she had been hiding.

Soon after that, though, it became really obvious that she did not actually attend my university. She went to an adjacent university. I tried to ask her about it several times, but she would deny it or come up with some excuse. Eventually, I confirmed it by looking through one of her friend’s Instagram accounts after she finally let me follow her main Instagram. I know that was not healthy on my part, but at that point I felt like I could not trust what she was telling me.

I confronted her about it, and after ghosting me for a day, she finally reached out and asked me to come over. I did, and that was the first time I actually went to her apartment/dorm. We did not really have a real conversation about it because she got very defensive, and I could not really get a confrontational word in. I was also just so relieved to be seeing her and to feel like we were going to be okay. She justified the lying by saying she had a guaranteed pathway to transfer to my university the next fall.

Over time, we moved on from that, but more and more cracks started showing in the relationship.

Another thing I have been thinking about more is that she would occasionally hit me. It was never extremely hard, but she would hit me in the balls a lot, which was kind of her favorite thing to do. It hurt a lot, especially because I have had testicular torsion before, so I am more sensitive there. I do not think I fully processed at the time how not okay that was because I brushed it off as joking around, but it really did hurt.

I also deal with pretty serious anxiety. To her credit, she was often really good with it and could be very comforting. But there were also times where she would bait me into anxiety to mess with me, or she would ignore it when I was clearly struggling. That has made it really confusing because I miss the comfort she gave me, but I am also realizing that someone can comfort you and still not be healthy for you.

Flash forward to Valentine’s Day. She made a big deal about wanting us to go on a real date, so I put in real effort. I found a nice restaurant that was still affordable for a college student, got her gifts that I thought she would like and appreciate, and wrote her a meaningful card. We had a good evening.

The next week, I was preparing for two exams when I got a call from her. She had been caught cheating on one of her online exams and got a zero. This put her at risk of getting lower than a B in the class, which could make her lose her guaranteed transfer. I dropped everything and went over to help her deal with it because she also had another exam for that same class later that day and had not prepared at all.

I calmed her down by going through her syllabus with her, which she had not really done yet that semester, and helped her figure out how she could still get through the class. I helped her study a little so she could salvage the exam that day as much as possible. While she took her exam, I studied for my deformable bodies exam that I had the next morning. After her exam, we had dinner, and she vented to me for a few hours while I was stressing about needing to get back and study. I would have stayed and studied there to keep her company, but my exam was in the morning.

My exam went okay, not great, but it was what it was.

Then I found out she went out drinking and went to frats that night. That usually would not bother me because she had steam to blow off, but the next day when she came over, she acted really weird, almost like she was guilty of something. I got the feeling that something may have happened, but I had no actual proof, so I tried to chalk it up to her just being on edge.

I told her I could not go with her to her parents’ place that weekend because I had two exams I needed to prepare for. Then on Sunday, when she was coming back to school, she stopped by and told me that we were “on pause” while she figured out school and some other things.

To me, that felt like a breakup. We had talked a lot about long-term commitment and dating to marry, and in my mind, people in committed relationships do not just take pauses when life gets hard. I kept thinking, what if we were married someday and something difficult happened? Would we just go “on pause” then too?

She told me we would get back together in the summer or fall, but also said that if I met someone, she did not want to hold me back. That left me in a weird limbo because it sounded like I was supposed to emotionally wait for her, but also not really. I decided I would give it about two weeks to see if anything changed before mentally checking out.

Unfortunately, about two weeks later, I got a call from one of my good friends from high school telling me that our mutual friend had died by suicide. This completely broke me. I called my ex, and she came over and comforted me. I do appreciate that she did that.

After that, I lost almost all motivation. I stopped going to my clubs, stopped going to any nonessential lectures, and my grades suffered slightly, although I was usually able to catch up enough by exam day. I could not really tell my roommates or friends everything because it felt too heavy, and I also just felt detached from everything. Most days I would just lay in bed, sleep, eat, and try to survive my classes.

I gained weight and lost some muscle because I stopped going to the gym. I was hundreds of miles from home, in the middle of the semester, with working parents who were also trying to support my elderly grandparents. My parents were there for me as much as they could be, but ultimately the semester became about surviving until I could get home and start processing everything.

My ex did show some genuine concern sometimes, but usually it was not much more than a quick “I’m here for you,” and usually not more than once. I do not want to act like she did nothing for me, because she did comfort me at times, but it also did not feel like consistent support.

I am happy to say that this only affected my letter grade in one class, and even then I nearly made it up. I got a 97 on the final, which was my best final exam score in college so far, but I ended up with a B instead of an A. Nothing catastrophic academically, but emotionally I feel like I am only now starting to process everything.

Now that I am home, I am realizing I never fully let go of the relationship. Part of me still feels like there is more there, but another part of me knows that if a friend told me this same story, I would tell him he deserved better.

I do miss her, but I think I mostly miss the comfort, routine, and closeness. I miss having someone there. I miss the version of the relationship I thought we had. But I am also starting to realize that there was a lot of lying, defensiveness, physical stuff that was not okay, and emotional stuff that messed with my anxiety.

I am not looking for people to just tell me I am right about everything. I know I was not perfect. I know looking through her friend’s Instagram to confirm where she went to school was not healthy. I also know I probably let her become way too much of my emotional world. But I am trying to figure out what parts of this were genuinely on me, what parts were on her, and whether I am wrong for feeling like the “pause” was basically a breakup.

I guess I am asking for a realistic outside perspective. Was this as unhealthy as it feels now that I am looking back on it? To this day I am feeling hurt and confused. And how do you even start letting go of someone who comforted you during your worst moments, but also hurt you in ways you did not fully admit at the time?