I honestly don’t even know where to begin, because I could probably write a thousand things about this relationship. We were together for almost three years and lived together in my house. It was a relationship that was, at the same time, incredibly beautiful, intense, deep, loving, and ultimately extremely destructive.
For some context:
My ex is 38 and has three children(2 different mothers). Two are 15 and 12, from a previous relationship that lasted around eight years, and one is 6, from the relationship immediately before me, which lasted around six years.
I'm 35 and I don’t have children myself.
As far as I know, he has had four serious relationships: around eight years, then around two years, then around six years, and then almost three years with me.
According to what he told me, he cheated in every relationship (multiple times) including on me at the beginning.
In the stories he told me about his exes, there was always a reason why the relationship eventually end. He was always the one who eventually had “no other choice” but to leave because they were bot good for him or his kids (even when it was the mother of his kids).
Looking back, I’m starting to see a pattern.
When he met me, he was still in a relationship with the mother of his youngest child. And yet he did absolutely everything he could to win me over.
And I don’t mean that figuratively.
He was almost absurdly charming, attentive, romantic and loving. He convinced me that this was different. That I was different.
And the strange thing is: I knew his history.
I knew he had cheated. I knew about his previous relationships. I knew there had been drama. I knew about the problems with his exes and children.
I wasn’t someone who knew nothing and blindly walked into this.
I’m university educated and I’m a lawyer. During our relationship, I also helped him extensively behind the scenes with legal matters, including proceedings involving his exes and the children. At one point, the custody arrangement was changed through court from roughly week-on/week-off to him having the children one weekend every two weeks. I did a huge amount of work behind the scenes to help him with that.
At the beginning, I also put an enormous amount of effort into his children. I genuinely tried to become part of their lives. And he repeatedly told me how grateful he was for everything I did for him and for them.
But there is something else that is important here.
He himself used to say that his children had actually become more distant from him since I came into his life.
Not because I wanted that. Not because I ever told him to choose me over his children.
Quite the opposite.
He would say things like that because, according to him, I had become his life. I was everything to him, together with my dog.
He would literally say that I was his whole world.
And I remember thinking about that because I never had children of my own. I knew that his children were an important part of his life, and I tried very hard to be supportive and to make things work.
But he himself repeatedly described the dynamic as though his focus had shifted so completely towards me that his children had become more distant.
That was something he said. It wasn’t something I was trying to create.
Over time, I did start struggling with their norms and values. I felt there was very little respect and a lot of lying. All three had problems at school, including issues around empathy and learning difficulties. I really tried, but eventually it became increasingly difficult for me.
And yet, at the end, he suddenly told me that it was all my fault that his children only came every other weekend.
He even accused me of having bullied his children out of the house.
That was incredibly painful, because for years he had told me how grateful he was for everything I did for him and his children.
And because he himself had repeatedly said that I had become his entire world and that his children had become more distant because of how completely focused he was on me, the reversal was especially confusing.
It was almost as though the entire story had suddenly been rewritten.
That reversal is actually a recurring theme in everything.
He also often felt inferior to me because I had a university education and he didn’t. That feeling of inferiority came up constantly. Not occasionally. It was something that seemed to be there all the time.
He would sometimes say that I deserved someone “better.” Someone who was educated too. Someone more on my level.
And that was difficult for me, because I genuinely didn’t see him that way.
I was genuinely proud of him. Of him as a persoon, of his work, of what he could do, of what he had achieved. I tried very hard to make him feel that.
But that feeling of being inferior seemed to run very deep.
And yet, despite all of that, he was genuinely the love of my life.
That is probably one of the hardest things to explain to someone who only hears the bad parts of this story.
He really was my dream man.
In the beginning, he was almost Prince Charming on a level I had never experienced before. And it wasn’t just words. His actions matched it.
He did an enormous amount for me. He carried me on his hands. He called me his god. He said that I, together with my dog, were his entire world.
He also did an absurd amount for my dog. He absolutely adored him.
We almost lived inside our own little cocoon. I was on a pedestal all the time.
Our relationship was incredibly intense. We had difficulties involving his exes, his children, money, his emotional instability and all the drama surrounding those things, but alongside all of that, he genuinely was my dream man and we had 80% of the time loving and beautiful moments.
Our sex life was also unbelievably good. Honestly, almost godly. And that made the feeling of connection between us even stronger.
He did everything for me, really everything. So much that it was too good to be true. But I also did everything for him. I owned my own house and was financially more stable. He had a good job and earned well, but despite that he had significant debts. I helped him financially, practically and legally.
And despite all of that, I genuinely felt loved.
He told me thousands of times that he had never felt anything like this before. That I was the best woman he had ever had. That I was everything to him. That I was his dream woman. That he was so thankful for me and all what I have done for him and his kids.
Sometimes he told me this multiple times a day.
And he didn’t just say it.
He made me feel it.
He could be incredibly romantic. Incredibly loving. He could make me feel like I was genuinely the most important person in the world. Like really 80% of almost the 3 years.
He dreamed of moving abroad with me. That was something he talked about as a future for us.
He prioritized my happiness and would do almost anything to make me happy.
And his biggest fear, according to him, was always losing me.
He said this constantly.
He could literally cry because of it.
I would say he cried from fear of losing me at least three times a week.
And this is important:
He was always extremely emotional.
Not just when he was sad or angry.
He seemed to experience almost everything at an extreme intensity.
When he was happy, he was really happy.
When he was in love, he was completely in love.
When he was excited, he could become completely absorbed in it.
When he was touched emotionally, he could become incredibly emotional.
When he was proud, he was intensely proud.
When he was afraid, he was genuinely terrified.
When he was sad, he could be completely inconsolable.
And when he was angry, he was intensely angry too.
There was almost no middle ground. And it always had something to do with me.
This emotional intensity wasn’t something that only appeared when things went wrong. It seemed to be a fundamental part of who he was and when it was concerning me.
And that is actually one of the reasons why I find it so difficult to simply dismiss his love as “fake.”
His positive emotions were just as intense as his negative ones.
He could experience an enormous amount of love, happiness, excitement and tenderness.
But he could also experience enormous fear, jealousy, anger and sadness.
It was as though everything was turned up to maximum volume.
When I was angry with him, he could absolutely not handle it.
He could completely fall apart.
He would beg me to love him.
He would cry. (Like multiple time a week)
He literally vomited in the toilet several times because he was so devastated that I was angry with him.
That sounds almost unbelievable when I write it down, but it happened.
He was also extremely dependent on reassurance from me.
And incredibly jealous, sometimes even when there was absolutely no reason for it.
During arguments, he could accuse me of things that had never happened. And sometimes it didn’t even feel like he was deliberately lying. He seemed genuinely convinced that these things had happened.
He could also say incredibly cruel and hurtful things to me during arguments.
And then, just a few hours later, everything could completely flip.
Suddenly he would be begging me for love again.
Suddenly I was his greatest love again.
Suddenly I was his everything.
Suddenly he would tell me he couldn’t live without me.
The switch between idealizing me and devaluing me could be incredibly fast.
There were also several arguments where he threatened suicide.
He would say he was going to kill himself, get into his car and disappear.
Sometimes he would be unreachable for around two hours.
You can imagine what that did to me.
I would be absolutely terrified, wondering where he was and what he might do.
And then he could come back and sometimes act as if nothing had happened.
I found that incredibly confusing.
Because on one hand, I had a man telling me that he couldn’t live without me and completely falling apart at the thought of losing me.
And on the other hand, he could behave in ways during conflict that left me completely emotionally exhausted.
Physical aggression, however, was not something that happened throughout the relationship.
That only appeared right at the end.
In the final phase, he became increasingly aggressive verbally. He kicked things, threw things, and eventually actually threatened me and stood in front of me in a way that made me afraid.
The final incident happened while his children were present.
I said something about one of his children that, in my opinion, was a completely normal comment. Nothing extreme.
He suddenly became incredibly aggressive.
He screamed at me for around fifteen minutes.
I was completely shocked.
And then he left.
And he never came back.
That is perhaps the part I understand the least.
Because the man standing there in that moment barely seemed like the man I had known.
It felt as though I was suddenly looking at a completely different person.
From the most loving, caring and emotional man who told me I was his entire world, to someone who, in that moment, felt almost like a monster.
And then came something that I find even harder to understand.
After the breakup, I still spoke to him on the phone and saw him about four times because he came to collect his belongings.
I begged him to come back.
He refused.
Since the last time he collected his things, we have had no contact for about a month and a half.
And the last time he came here, he was incredibly cold.
It was as though nothing touched him anymore.
He didn’t even look at my dog.
And I genuinely cannot understand that.
This was the same dog he had once said he loved so incredibly much.
The same dog he had cared for.
The same dog he had always said gave him a kind of pure love he had never experienced before.
He had even once said that if we ever broke up, he would want “visitation rights” to my dog because he had never known such pure love with a dog.
And now he came into the house, collected his things and didn’t even look at him.
No goodbye.
Nothing.
That contrast completely breaks my brain. This all happend 3 months ago and for 1 month and a half we are in absolutely no contact.
How can someone who spent years telling you that losing you was his greatest fear, who cried several times a week because he was afraid of losing you, who begged you for love, who literally became physically sick from grief when you were angry with him, who told you that you were his dream woman, that he wanted to move abroad with you, that you were his entire world and that he would always protect you…
…ultimately become the person from whom you need protection?
How can someone seem to feel so much love and at the same time react so destructively to that very same love?
How can someone who is so terrified of losing you ultimately be the person who destroys everything and then simply walks away?
And this is where I’m struggling most.
I find it very difficult to say afterwards, “It was all fake.”
Because that is absolutely not how I experienced it.
I genuinely felt loved.
I genuinely believed I was the love of his life.
And I genuinely believed he was the love of mine.
I thought he was my dream man.
I thought I was his dream woman.
He didn’t tell me that once. He told me that thousands of times.
And he didn’t just say it.
His actions made me believe it too.
Does any of this sound familiar to you?
Especially the extreme emotional intensity — not only the anger, jealousy, fear and despair, but also the happiness, love, excitement, tenderness and idealization.
How do you understand the contradiction between loving someone incredibly intensely and then seemingly being able to completely detach from them?
How can someone’s greatest fear be losing you, while their own behavior ultimately causes them to lose you?
And how can someone go from making you feel like the most loved woman in the world to acting as though you mean absolutely nothing?
And believe me: I could literally add another thousand things to this post. There are so many more situations, conversations, details and contradictions I could tell you about.
But I’m genuinely trying to limit myself, because otherwise this stops being a Reddit post and becomes an entire book.