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Oh dear. Epic. Clarity desperately needed!

29 replies

Undertone · 03/01/2010 14:27

There are no DCs involved in this situation (I'm a long-time lurker on MN; there aren't that many sites at all on the internet where sensible women can get together and talk about David Tennant AND poor use of grammar all in one place!) I trust the MN judgment - perhaps more so than that of my RL friends. I'm pathetically grateful for their strident and faithful support of me, but I just can't shake this feeling that I'm being a totally unreasonable harpy in many aspects of my recent break-up. I need to be told straight.

I'm so, so sorry for the length of this - but as others have said, a big part of the MN therapy is getting it all down in black and white! Could I suggest a cup of tea and a comfy chair?

(Edit: I have re-read this and it is absolutely epic - maybe you need a sandwich or something as well to keep you going?)

Now Ex-P and I moved into a wee flat in June 2009. Our relationship had been quite up and down, but as he was still living with his parents (at 26! where were the warning bells?!) and I was in a big houseshare (at 26! maybe I should get a better job...) we thought some space of our own would let the relationship develop more naturally and stress-free. We'd basically been 'living' in my bedroom in my houseshare for a year (a couple of short-lived break-ups notwithstanding), so a whole flat to ourselves would be wildly luxurious, we thought.

It didn't take long for that little fantasy to wither and die. The flat is ground floor level with venetian blinds on all the windows. P would demand they be kept totally closed at all times, even on sunny weekend mornings, as he couldn't stand the thought of people seeing in (at us in our dressing gowns?! People surely have better things to do...), so we lived in almost total darkness. Then other things started. P would get cross if I sat on 'his' half of the sofa. He would get incensed if I spoke on the phone to my family or friends for longer than a few minutes ('I've been sitting here like a lemon for 15 minutes! Couldn't you call them when I'm not here?!'). We stopped having sex unless I did all the work (I literally mean ALL the work. It was like finding out what necrophilia was like...).

However. I freely admit I am quite a passive-aggressive person. In Sainsbury's, if he stopped to browse for junk food (which he adored and I HATE), I would march on with the trolley to the aisle with the next item on my list. He would then lose me and spend a furious 10 minutes scurrying round the shop to try and find me again. In the absence of affection being offered, I started to withhold it myself. I put on weight, even though I moaned about how I looked. If he was indecisive in a public place (restaurant, etc), I would bossily take charge. I took no interest in his love for all things computer-y, and would read in the other room while he noisily killed various things with lasers. The whole computer games thing was a massive part of his life, and I blocked it out; refusing to even consider joining in.

So! As you can see. Typical case of people just not being suited to each other, really. Typical pattern; big arguments when we were tipsy, declining intimacy, apologies, more arguments, etc. We had two very different outlooks; even though, in the early stages, I had thought the relationship could get serious, I now thought it was just a bit of fun while we were both young and I would probably need someone very different for the whole marriage and kids fiasco. On the other hand, he thought all our problems were mere drawing pins on the merry pathway to getting hitched, and that relationships are there to be worked at. True, but when the pathway is ALL drawing pins...

The last month we were together it was really bad. He would grab my belly and shake it to be unkind. He would calmly wind me up to tears then tell me he couldn't speak with me if I were going to attempt to manipulate him by crying. After hardly touching for days, he demanded oral sex, which I gave him (I thought it could lead to some give-and take!), but grabbed my head and pushed so deep that I vomited (at which point he came! Horrendous!)

Gosh. I am wittering, aren't I? Hang on in there!

Long story short slightly less long, I came back from a two-day business trip to find the pans I had used to cook dinner for us before going away still dirty, spilled gravy from aforesaid dinner still smeared on the floor, and the dirty laundry in the machine still waiting to be switched on! It had all been a last-minute panic to pack and leave for the trip, and I realise I hadn't asked him to do it... but come on! As I was surveying the mess, he also came through the front door, announced that he had had a hard day, wanted to slump in front of the TV, and promptly buggered off to the sitting room, saying I should join him too. 'Ho hum', thinks I. On with the machine, wash up the pans, and I was just on my hands and knees scrubbing this blimmin gravy off the floor, when P stormed into the kitchen: 'What the hell are you doing? I've been sitting waiting for you in the front room for ages! Why do you always keep me waiting?!'

So, naturally, I went absolutely mental. I called him names, I screamed at him. I said he was pathetic and selfish. I said that this was the end. I had had enough. No room for negotiation at all. I wouldn't even listen to him. I grabbed my stuff and went to stay with my brother and turned the phone off.

This was on November 20th 2009. As we moved in at the end of June, the earliest we could serve our notice was the end of December 2009, and the notice period is two months - the tenancy won't finish until February 27th 2010.

Staying with my supremely kind brother wasn't a permanent option - he shares a tiny flat with his girlfriend. My parents live a 2-hour train journey from where I work. I didn't tell my parents I had broken up with P (they really weren't that keen on him in the first place, and I was ashamed they had been proved right in the end). I borrowed my parent's spare little camp bed ('for a guest we'll be having to stay') and went back to the flat to live in the box room/office. P stayed in the double room.

I don't need to tell you that it was ghastly. On the plus side, I did spend a lot of time out with my friends so I could get away! On December 20th I was going to stay with my parents for two weeks, so I thought I could hack it for a month. The box room is an extension to the house, and its damp course isn't properly set. Mildew bloomed on the walls from the extra dampness cased by my sleeping breath. I developed a racking cough.

I came home from another business trip to find two of my crystal champagne flutes (presents from ex-P's parents) out, dirty, on the kitchen worksurface. He had asked his ex over while I was away, and had bought a bottle of fizz for them to enjoy. He had washed up everything else.

The arguments were awful. Christ knows what the poor woman upstairs thought. I seemed to have turned into a totally different person; screaming like a fishwife, making awful insults, digging up everything he had ever done wrong. I was appalled at myself, but P would make a comment like 'is it really over? I thought you were just having a big strop...' and I would go postal again. It was all so stressful that one time I stood in front of the train station after work, unable to get on the train, sobbing. Unasked, a Big Issue man went into Pret a Manger to get napkins for me to blow my nose!

Ex-P and I talked about what we were going to do. We went through some periods where we were able to talk to each other. Before I had moved to the city I had done the 2-hour each way commute from my parents' to work, and I said I could do it again. I would cover my £400 pcm share of the rent, but he would have to cover all the bills himself (£120 council tax, £60 gas/leccy, £25 internet and phone pcm). He said he couldn't afford it. He would have to move out, but wouldn't commit to when. By this time I had caved and confessed to my parents that all this was happening. They offered him £200 pcm to move out. He refused the money - I think it was the way I put it to him: 'will [this] make you just fucking leave?'

I went home on 20th December, which was unbelievably lovely. He had agreed to move out between Christmas and New Year. When I returned on 2nd January he would be gone. I got a text from ex-P on 30th December after he had moved out the last of his stuff: 'remind me why I am paying any rent again? I mean - you did force me to leave.' After a frank exchange of views, and begging my parents to help with the money (they had thought their offer was rejected), I am indeed now paying £200 a month to him, all the bills, and my own rent. He is paying £200 a month until the end of February, so £400 in total - which is a lot, I do understand, for not living somewhere and being dumped.

He will not accept responsibility for his part in the relationship breakdown, and finds it laughable that I have any right to criticise his behaviour after 'how I have acted'. I love his parents; they are lovely people; and I shudder to think how he's presenting this whole thing to them. All they will see is that he's been turfed out of the flat, is still having to pay for it, and now they have to accommodate him back into their house. I know that all his friends think I am a totally spiteful lunatic - he told me. He had been pasting our text exchanges into chat sessions with them, but telling his friends I was lying about previously reaching an agreement to split rent.

So come on guys. I'm sitting here in an empty flat with no TV (it was his), but with the blinds open at least. I'm feeling quite spectacularly shite. I can always count on my family and friends to be on my side, but how can I be sure I did justice to both sides of the story in its telling to them? Maybe I am a spiteful, grasping lunatic?

Christ. What a novel. Sorry again.

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SolidGoldBloodyJanuaryUrgh · 03/01/2010 14:33

Well it sounds like a good thing you broke up as you are clearly not suited to being in a partnership. However, I can see to an extent why your XP feels aggrieved at having to pay £200 a month for a flat he is not permitted to live in. Did neither or you seek advice or negotiate with the owners of the flat WRT ending the contract early so that both of you could find somewhere else affordable to live?