At rock bottom- 2 years thrown away on a text

[yestocarrots]

Just hoping for a bit of a hand hold. Sorry this is so long. I'm feeling very bleak right now and have no one to talk to. Please, someone, sanity check me. I am reeling from a turn of events that has put me into a depression worse than any I've experienced in a while.

My ex partner was an army guy. We lived quite separate lives because he was posted the other side of the country to my city, but we saw each other most weekends. He has known my dd since she was tiny (she's now 2). Been a dad to her in every way, it was like we were a family. We argued quite a lot always about the same things- he didn't communicate much at all during the week, often would only text, and would get angry and belligerent if I expressed a wish for this to change. I wasn't perfect- I had bad PND and would get very emotional in conflicts which seemed to frustrate him. I was working full time in a demanding job and running a home and being a single parent and I know I took shit out on him. But I also loved him deeply. Showed it in any ways I could. Keeping the house lovely for when he came, making plans for days out and little holidays, putting on Xmas for him including a stocking and a sack of gifts, sending him packages, kept myself available for him basically every weekend and never asked for more than just more contact in the week (which frankly he never made the effort to change.) Earlier this year he was posted abroad at very short notice. I was devastated and scared but we both mutually agreed we would not let it break us. Both of us were in bits the day he left.
Then it all fell apart. While he was away I got so used to us not being able to communicate at all, I just sort of shut down. But my eating disorder and depression came back with a vengeance. My periods stopped entirely and I nearly lost my job through stress. I found it impossible coping with work, health and my toddler, I missed my best friend and partner so much. I sent him packages but it was all I could do. I had bought him special notepaper to write to me and he never did, when I asked him to once he snapped and ridiculed me as he thought it was such a trivial thing for me to want. When I finally confessed I wasn't coping and didn't know how to deal, told him my health was deteriorating and I just needed to know a rough time of when he would be back, or needed some more support (I don't really have any IRL and I didn't get support from the army as we weren't married.) he was furious when I said all this. Accused me of breaking up with him, saying I had no empathy for the stressful situation he was in, was so angry it shocked and hurt me to the core. It was like the more upset I was the more angry he was. After a week or so of this I suggested we go on a break til he got back as the miscommunication seemed tto be so damaging (I now deeply regret this as feel it was selfish but literally at the time I couldn't stand this anger coming from him and the fact that in fact he had no empathy for me.)
Within a month he had a date to return to the UK. I asked how/when I could come and meet him off the plane at the base. He never got round to letting me know- he was too busy apparently. He didn't let me know he was back in the UK til he had been there almost a week. He then asked on the Wednesday if I was free on the Friday to meet and talk. I had a work commitment I couldn't get out of and said I couldn't, but asked how he was and how the journey was. His response- "Are you serious?! All that bullshit about priorities and you won't meet me. Bye then". I immediately replied asking why we couldn't do the weekend instead. He simply replied "don't bother contacting me again." All by text. I couldn't believe it. I still can't believe he did that. A month later he still hadnt come to his sense. I was missing him terribly but so hurt from his text I hadn't contacted him. Finally got up the courage and texted him. He responded so furiously and verbally abusively and yet we ended up sleeping together twice, him telling me one minute that I had hurt him so much and was a shit person with no empathy, then next that he loved me and was sorry i suffered so much when he was away. I was so confused about how he twisted it into me having done something unforgivable by not being able to see him when he decided I should. After 2 weeks of hell he texted me to tel me he would be no worse off if he ever saw me again. I've been bereft all over again. Calling him in tears- sometimes he answers and is reassuring, sometimes he won't answer but sends angry texts. Texting him how much I love and miss him, how sorry I am for what I did and begging him to see me. He has stopped responding altogether. I just don't know what to do. My dd calls him daddy- he said in a year it would be like he had never existed to her. I miss him so much, I can't bear how this has played out. I feel racked with guilt. I just want him to understand why I shut him out. I'm still having tests for my lack of periods, I'm still suffering terribly with my bulimia but he just accuses me of having no empathy and making his life hell. I feel so guilty I want to just hurt myself.

Sorry- I know it was long. I just need someone to tell me I didn't deserve this. He slept with me and told me he loved me just 2 weeks ago. I just want to curl up and cry. 2 years meant nothing to him in the end.

He doesn't need to block you. He isn't the one who feels wretched over this. He will eventually block you if you keep trying to find ways to change his mind or talk him round. He's playing with you keeping the hope alive because he's a prick. Constantly thinking about how you could have done things differently will quickly see you waste weeks months even years of your life. You chose not to see or hear red flags because you just wanted to be loved. You wanted to believe someone loved you so you put up with stuff and ignored the bad signs. You don't have to repeat this again but you have to learn about what you deserve first. You didn't deserve or cause what he did - but you put up with it for too long.

What do you want from this thread? It's very unusual for so many posters to all be saying the same thing and for the OP to simply ignore it. I understand your anguish but I don't understand your reluctance to block your ex especially as it's so clear that he doesn't care for you.

I don't think you are pathetic but I do think you are behaving irrationally. I don't Know if you are getting some strange comfort from all our posts suggesting that you to delete his details. It's like you are beating yourself up.

Its a form of self harm in a way, a place to torture yourself and talk about him over and over. Replay what's in your head. I don't think OP wants advice she keep saying she just wants to let the feelings out. The problem is she isn't just letting them out she is wallowing in them to a very worrying degree. It's like having obsessional thoughts and none of us are really equipped to change someone's obsessional thinking. I think unless you get professional support OP then you are going to have a very sad, lonely life and no one should want that for themselves.

I second (third? Fourth?..., ??) professional help.

I'm sorry for wallowing. I have found this thread and all the advice very helpful. I won't post again.

We don't want you to stop posting we worry we can't actually help you in the way you need it. I think you need so much more than we can give. This is shown in that this short time even, nothing anyone has said has helped you. You can't heal and get better this way IMO. It's so much deeper and related to how you feel about yourself as a person. You feel that this is all your fault and you want to torture yourself with how you ruined it all, despite the fact you did not do anything of the kind.

Essentially if you deal with those feelings about yourself I think you can move forward. You need to focus on you - even opening up your past and how you got here but not constantly him. Over and over him, and the love you perceived you shared which has now gone. He is now a symptom of this inner turmoil, that you have become stuck on.

Keep posting carrots, this is outlet to work through your feelings.
But I think you are not helping yourself by staying in limbo land this is the worst stage. Once you've accepted it's over and delete delete delete you will feel the weight lifted .
And then day by day it does get better.
Have you any Christmas plans with your daughter tomorrow ?

I agree taking the steps to delete him immediately and entirely from your life then seeking some professional counselling urgently is really the priority here.

Hi again
I wanted to post because reading back over the thread up to now and also a frank conversation with my mum has really hit home. I don't know why but i woke up feeling a bit different this morning. I love my dd so much and I am all she has. I also remember that as a child my parents had screaming arguments with my dad threatening to leave and keeping his suitcase by the door and so many times they made up but in the end they did divorce, which also hit me very hard, I don't know if I consciously felt responsible for their split but I remember the absolute terror and panic of witnessing their arguments and their spiral into the end. I think it has seriously affected my adult relationships. That panic response to him threatening to leave, the fear of arguments and the stress about whether he would come back. I can't do that to her. I think I need to be on my own and sort myself out and I don't want any man in her life who brings out that fear in me or in her. I am going to look at the freedom programme today.

Good, carrots, I hope you will get the strength that you need from it. You have your daughter and she has you, at the end of it all, that's really all you need.

Hi carrots, you sound in a much better frame of mind. It's all starting to click into place.
Have you deleted and blocked yet though ? I'm sure that will help x

Im really pleased although I appreciate it must be a painful realisation and memories but it does explain why you want to try to fix things so much, like with your parents some things are outside our control and that's very unsettling and scary to accept.
Also recognising your DD is at risk of repeating this patterns - this is so important and I'm really glad you have made the connection.

You will still have shit days but you have a new mindset xx

Brilliant news, carrots. There was no mumsnet or freedom programme in my young day, so I opted to stay single to avoid dragging my dd through my dramas. You are so lucky to have the possibility of the Freedom Programme.

I have been NC since Sunday night. The longest I have gone so far. So many things in my mind. Like I've come out of a fog almost. Such as maybe he didn't even love me at all, maybe it was just convenience and he would always have left at the sniff of something better or more convenient or more ego stroking. Like why didn't he write me a single letter when he was away for 4 months? What kind of person in love wouldn't bother with that stuff? I just don't know why in conscience he wasted my time for so long knowing how I felt about him. and also how obvious he is being about having found something else and still had the temerity to claim it was just him being so hurt by me. I call absolute bullshit on that. Last week he went completely awol abruptly, was constantly on FB messenger. He was "working late" in the brief period of reconciliation every single bloody day, he left me the day after we made up to go to some phony night out he "couldn't cancel". He's a liar! I know he's a liar and I'm angry properly angry for the first time. He is someone who cheats on his girlfriends. It is by no means his first exit affair it's his constant pattern. He's over 30 and a text-obsessed liar and cheater who would hang up on me when I was sobbing, who would threaten to leave me til I broke down then take it back. He tried to ruin my and my little girls Christmas. I'm really angry for the first time. And I actually feel like me again. I feel a shred of power and self possession that I feel like I was missing for a long time.
Rant over- that felt really good!

Yes. At last the anger .
X

Carrots. You're right in everything you've just posted.

Fucking well done. Anger is a powerful thing, and don't let anyone tell you it can't ever be healthy. It can and it is, in this case.

maybe he didn't even love me at all - he didn't. Of course he didn't!
maybe it was just convenience and he would always have left at the sniff of something better or more convenient or more ego stroking -Yep
Like why didn't he write me a single letter when he was away for 4 months? because he didn't care, let alone love you
What kind of person in love wouldn't bother with that stuff? someone who doesn't care, and only looks out for himself. Anyone else, anyone else's problems - he's not interested.

I just don't know why in conscience he wasted my time for so long knowing how I felt about him because he doesn't care about how you feel about him. He cares about he feels, and what HE wants (sex, food, company, admiration)
and also how obvious he is being about having found something else and still had the temerity to claim it was just him being so hurt by me - yep, it's all about him. You, your daughter, anyone else is only there to feed his ego.

He is so not worth it. Leave him to his self-aggrandisement, only HE deserves himself.

I just don't know why in conscience he wasted my time for so long knowing how I felt about him* *

We need to be realistic here. You only dated him for 2 years and he was was 'away' and not in contact for good chunks of that.

You'd not long come out of the last disastrous relationship and were undoubtably not in a good place then let alone ready for a relationship with a complete looser.

I'm glad you are feeling more angry now too. I just wish you would block him and delete his details.

Yes OneADay but we had known each other 8 years and the relationship got intense quite quickly because he always came to spend the weekend at mine from the start (as he lived away) -- this wasn't necessarily my choice and over a year ago I posted a thread saying I was a bit uncomfortable with the fact that he had stealthily moved in at weekends when we had only really just properly got together. I think I am being realistic about having been quite used and my feelings disregarded. He certainly talked the talk about love and the future which is what I mean by time wasting.
I have deleted all the old messages and emails. Next step is blocking but I know I will get there. I am proud to be NC for 4 days.

Have a long break from relationships I think you need it after what you've been through.

It's good to hear you have deleted the old messages and email. I do understand that you can't instantly switch off your feelings. It's almost like a grieving process.

One day at a time....

You're going to be just fine. Yes, you have a way to go, but you will work through this and come out stronger, more confident and happier. Well done for making such a good start. (sorry if that sounds like I'm patting you on the head and calling you a "good girl", that's not what I meant at all!).

How is it going carrots?