Not sure what I’m after here, probably a hand hold! I’m on MN daily but haven’t really posted before. This will be a long one!
I’m just out of a six mo by relationship that moved very quickly, after a two year long, emotionally abusive, narc, live-in relationship (police involved latterly, all very messy, no Dc). I am late 20s, good job and two degrees, dysfunctional background family wise since childhood. Last short relationship that has just ended was with a mutual friend I have known of for years, but didn’t know him other than having each other on social media.
As I say, quick moving and eventually he was spending days on end with me staying at me house, together often. I had made clear from the start I wanted things to be slow due to previous issues and the situation I’d just left. New guy seemed insecure at times from the get go. I felt I was rushed to tell my family about him, go on a holiday, meet his fam, etc. I learned early on he had severe OCD (not relating to cleanliness, but to people, experiences, his morality and relationships) and had a history of v poor mental health. When he met me, he stopped taking all medication, and in the time I knew him only seen his psychologist twice. His medication dose was high, not a minor antidepressant dose.
As time went on arguments and bickers developed, I noticed he had a temper, think shouting, slamming doors, ultimatums. Very stubborn. Even while I wasn’t engaging (not stonewalling, but speaking calmly, not shouting or swearing and trying to be reasonable). I have a young dog (1 y/o) and latterly he shouted at my dog in an argument. It was intense. I felt his ocd attached on to things to do with our relationship, and he also went through several episodes where it was attached to something else, he would just stop functioning during these, wouldn’t sleep, eat, work. Sometimes “admitted” things to me as part of his compulsions. Aside from this, he had a lovely family, was generous with his time and everything else, spoilt me, on the surface of it would do anything for me, said lovely things, generally promised me the world. But was almost chronically worried and anxious, and volatile if things went wrong. If I got up in the night for the toilet he would jump up in fright. If I pointed my concerns out re his mental health and insecurity, he wouldn’t really engage with them and was much more concerned about getting me to engage in conv about my faults (sometimes to the extent he would say apologise or I won’t speak to you, apologise or I will leave, etc, multiple ultimatums over the course of the 6 months). As I have said, I DID come to the relationship with some issues, I’m not perfect. I can sometimes withdraw. But I was very set that I had wanted a stable, healthy partnership, and wanted to work on issues that came up.
It felt like whenever there was a big argument, I’d agree to resolve things, then the bar would rise and there would be new nitpicks the next week or the week after.
All of this came to a head and we split (semi mutually, semi led by me). Wasn’t pretty but initially I was happy with the choice and we were essentially NC / low contact. I felt peaceful and okay. We then had some contact, started by him, which led to bad arguing and drama. Eventually this mellowed out and he has been all very reasonable saying it’s done and we should be civil etc, he’d like to be friends.
This has literally - sky rocketed me in to wanting the relationship back. I realise this is prob a me issue, but now I feel all I am focusing on is the positives (there actually were some), rather than the over arching theme of his mental health, extreme emotional immaturity, his rash and up and down behaviour. This has went to the extent of me trying to ask him to speak openly in person, him saying no, and now I feel even worse. I am struggling with the fact that on the outside of it, he is kind, generous, reasonable, caring and romantic. But actually, I spent the majority of my time under pressure and really unhappy due to his unmanaged mental health. My friends and family weren’t on board with it after finding out details of fall outs and the way he was acting sometimes.
There was such a short gap between my last relationship and this, and I think I now feel a bit hopeless now in terms of my ability to pick a good and safe partner. The regret and rose tinted glasses have just absolutely taken over me for the last week or so, I feel like I’ve been through the break up all over again, it’s ruined my Christmas and I feel lost with it all. I’m struggling to cope with so much of the blame being put on me, when in my head I just think he was so unmanaged and out of control that it was basically impossible to be consistently happy and healthy. He is phrasing it as though I share a lot of blame and it just didn’t work out.
Essentially, help me see sense and give me hope I can have something better! I hate to be woe is me, but this has been now going on around 3-4 weeks and I am just gutted overall.