He left because of my anxiety...opinions needed!

[longstockingjayne]

Hi Everyone,

So I'm struggling with a recent break up (it’s been nearly 2 weeks) and I need some advice on whether this is all my fault due to having anxiety. I'm really beating myself up, we have a lot of history so I'm going to write it as a timeline as I feel the details of our past are important. Sorry it’s really long!

August 2012 - We started our relationship (him 20, me 23). The relationship was wonderful, fell in love very quickly he was an amazing and loving boyfriend.

May 2013 - He cheated on me drunkenly on a night out (went back to somebody's house and went as far as you can go without having sex). He didn't tell me but I have my suspicions at this point, I ask him the question and he completely denies.

October 2013 - I find an email on his phone to a girl he has been talking to on a video chat site. I confront him, he apologises, says it was a onetime blip. I forgave.

June 2014 - Relationship is good (I still don't know about the cheating in May but my anxiety about it has grown consistently, I think about it pretty much every day but tell myself I’m being stupid. We've had numerous conversations but he completely denies that anything happened). I take it that there's something wrong with me and we move in together, I feel happy.

July 2014 - He goes on a boys holiday and whilst he’s away I find conversations on his laptop from the early days of our relationship where he has been on Skype webcam chatting to girls inappropriately and sending them inappropriate images. When he gets home I confront him and he says he was stupid, he hasn’t done it in ages, it meant nothing and it was a substitute for porn. I forgive.
My anxiety over the cheating incident in May 2013 then heightens ALOT to the point where I feel I need to go to the doctors, he still denies.

October 2014 - One day I come in from work and tell him that I know he's cheated, he confesses to the May 2013 cheating and then a few days later also confesses to kissing 2 girls on holiday and attempting to kiss another.

I'm understandably absolutely devastated, having just moved in together my whole world has come tumbling down. You may think I was silly for moving in with him but at that point I was being told he'd done nothing wrong and believed it was all in my head.

I speak with my family who know him well, they advise me to stay with him due to the May 2013 being so long ago and to not let the meaningless holiday kisses break us. I don't think they quite understand the extend of the lies he told me about the May 2013 cheating (he told me hundreds of times that he hadn't cheated and watched me get very poorly) but they advised that he obviously didn't want to lose the relationship over a meaningless one night thing.
I stay with him for the next year, he was unbelievably remorseful and apologetic and went above and beyond to make it up to me and truly believed he loved me very much. But I found it very hard, I became very untrusting, looking in his Facebook, phone, wanting password etc. We had some lovely moments in this year but always tinged with a bit of sadness.

October 2015 - He left me saying that he couldn't do it anymore. I was devastated. Within a month or so of me pretty much hounding him he deletes me off everything and wants nothing to do with me.

April 2016 – We ended up speaking over text and he mentions that he needs to talk to me. He comes to my house and confesses his love, says he wants me back and he wants our old life back, he’s very emotional. He is seeing somebody from work at this point but its early days.

I say that I'll think about it but that he needs to call it off with the other girl. He doesn't do it straight away and I get quite upset and mad at this which pushes him away again.

April 2016 to July 2016 – In these 4 months he can't decide what he wants (a relationship with me or something new with the girl from work). He goes back and forth between us a few times. Calling it off with her and then coming back to me and so on. This happened 4 times in total.

August 2016 - He finishes work girl for good and we 'see how it goes' for a month. He's reluctant to say that he definitely wants a relationship with me and just wants to see how he feels. Just writing this makes me realise how ridiculous it was for me to go along with it. I should have told him where to go and come back if he decides for sure. He's off and distant with me at times, I never know what he’s thinking and I feel very insecure.

September 2016 - he ends it saying he's not in a position to put his all into the relationship.

April 2017 - We see each other in a local pub and he texts me when home. He wants to make it work again. I said I would meet up with him to talk.

We met up and he was very genuine. Apologised whole heartedly for everything that had gone on (bear in mind we’re a bit older now and more mature) and said he finally knows what he wants and that he’s sorry it took him a while to get there. He said he hadn’t been in a good place the previous time but was happy now, except there was me missing.

I agreed to see how I felt.

Well from then on I was completely woo’d - I got concert tickets bought for me, flowers on my door step, presents, love letters and lots of other thoughtful lovely things. It was lovely and he did everything that it took to make me see that he was genuine and wanted this.

We began a relationship and I was happy. He lied to me quite incessantly about a few things I asked him about the time we were apart (I wanted to know when the last time was he’d slept with someone before we got back together and if he’d slept with a mutual friend of ours that I’d had suspicions of, they were the only things I wanted to know). He lied a lot until he eventually confessed, this didn’t get us off to a good start. My family advised to ignore these silly lies as they’re about stuff when we were single which we shouldn’t have been talking about anyway. He said to me he thought I may not want him if I knew the truth.

Then a few months after this I started to develop what I can only describe as horrendous anxiety. I somehow convinced myself that since we got back together there was something to hurt me/something I didn’t know/something he was lying to me about. I never ever brought up the previous cheating in our first relationship nor did I talk about any of the girls he’d slept with in the break up, it was just an over whelming fear that there was something in this relationship that would hurt me.

I would get so worked up I’d feel sick to my stomach but kept telling myself it was my anxiety and I needed some help with it. I went to the doctors and got some tablets and tried some over the phone counselling which was a bit rubbish.

It got to the point where perhaps 2/3 times a week I was asking him whether there was something to hurt me/something had happened/ had he kisses someone on a night out. I would never be mean/shout or argumentative more very fearful in how I was saying it but I still think it verged on a little abusive the amount of times I was asking. But it was just eating me up inside so I felt I had to speak about it.
He was extremely reassuring at first and very very patient which I appreciated a lot. He swore down on family members lives he hadn’t put a foot out of line, which looking back I firmly believe, but at the time I just could not get it out of my head.

If I had my rationale head on I knew there was nothing to worry me but if I was ‘in one’ it was all consuming.

So much so that he ended it 2 weeks ago (just after I’d been to the doctors and been referred for in person councelling so I was genuinely starting to see the light). I told him anxiety was treatable and asked if he could bare with me until after my treatment. He said he knows I’ll get better but he’s ‘scarred’ by all the questioning and doesn’t want it anymore. To be fair to him he did put up with it for around 5 months and put up with A LOT.

I now feel awful that I pushed him away like that when we finally had a shot at being happy.

I guess I’m just writing on here to get some outside perspective, I lived through all of the above so it’s hard for me to see it clearly. I feel like I ruined a chance to be happy with the person I love after we’d finally grew up and put all of the rubbish behind us.

Looking back I don’t think he’d done anything to hurt me in this relationship nor do I think he would have done anything going forward. But he just doesn’t want the relationship no matter how much I tell him that I just needed some outside help with my underlying issues.

Any opinions welcome and sorry it’s so long! Has anyone been through anything remotely similar?

I can understand why you'd struggle with that, but I'm just relieved your update shows you're still away from him.

He has done such a number on you. I'm so sorry.

I hope you are crystal clear by now that he didn't leave you because you had anxiety, you had anxiety because he was abusing you.

Have you considered going on the Freedom Programme or doing the online version? (Freedomprogramme.co.uk). I really think it would help to firm up in your mind just how toxic this relationship was and the extent of his manipulation and control.

You don't have to still be in the relationship to go on the course, lots of the women in the group when I went were out of the relationships and trying to sort their heads out and understand what on earth had happened to them.

Counselling is useful, but if your counsellor isn't trained in coercive control then they may not be able to help you recover from everything he's put you through and protect yourself in future. FP is just information - you don't have to share anything about yourself when you attend it, you can just listen. It honestly changed my life though.

You said several times across this thread how lovely and genuine he could be when what you were actually describing was love bombing and manipulation. He actually sounds like a truly nasty piece of work with convincing acting skills. Can you see that now?

What upsets me is that I feel like she's got the best version of him. He made his mistakes with me, says he has learned from them, so she gets the loyal and faithful version.

Don't bet on it !

Sweetheart, no. Just no. He was abusing you for years. No wonder you were an anxious wreck.

It is often said that psychological abuse is worse than physical abuse for this reason. If he'd hit you you'd have been able to identify what he was doing as wrong. You'd have had injuries to prove to yourself and others that it really happened. With psychological abuse it can be gradual and subtle until one day you find yourself buried and with no way to prove to yourself that any of it happened.

Please, even if you can't quite see how what he did was abuse right now, consider trying FP. When I turned up for the first week I was convinced it was all a big misunderstanding, that nothing that was happening to me was abuse, it was just my fault for provoking him and my fault for being anxious for no reason.

Then they did an overview of the different tactics abusers use and the effect they have. And I sat there in shock as they described my life.

I was wrong. So are you. It will be challenging, but you've survived this, so you could survive 12 sessions in a room with supportive women.

He will be exactly the same with the new woman behind closed doors. You've had a lucky escape.

FP will give you the tools to move forward. This is why I'm so enthusiastically recommending it to you.

*What upsets me is that I feel like she's got the best version of him. He made his mistakes with me, says he has learned from them, so she gets the loyal and faithful version.

Don't bet on it !*

Nah. He's just a very good liar.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=d5NHBn5p9vY

@ShinySilverBeast thank you! I will definitely have a look into this.

I just don't feel like I've been abused. I've been cheated on and lied to but to say he abused me just feels too strong.

Particularly the last relationship, he didn't do anything wrong, it was me abusing him if anything with my constant questioning and reassurance seeking.

This guy literally made you sick!

You are so much better off without him. Doubt he will change how he behaves for any woman but really who gives a shit.

Well actually he did, he lied to me a lot. But I perhaps shouldn't have asked those questions.

It was NEVER you it was always his fault.
So what if he has found another woman to inflict himself on? That's about the only good thing he has done for you, and he doesn't even realise it.
When you find yourself ruminating on all this, just mentally say to yourself 'ouch, ouch', throw your hands out, and drop the hot coals of those toxic thoughts. They only hurt you.
Be strong.

STOP BLAMING YOURSELF

The guy is a fucking snake. He had you turned inside out trying to blame yourself for his fuckwittery.

One of your early posts caught my attention:

It's like I have two little voices in my head, one saying everything that you guys are saying - and then another one that justifies everything and makes me think I've lost something great.

Just remember, even a recovering heroin addict has fond memories of good times on hard drugs. It doesn’t mean that an addiction to class A Subtances is a good thing.

I realise that I am just a randomer on the Internet to you, but your op is a catalogue of abuse. Nothing you have posted since has changed that, only strengthened it.

Having had first hand experience of the same kind of abuse as you for a very long time, I've spent about 3 years learning about coercive control and liaising with people in this sector.

I wanted to be able to make sense of my experience and have confidence that in future I would be able to tell the difference between regular behaviour and abusive behaviour. So that I wouldn't assume anyone who behaved differently to my abuser was automatically fine, but equally didn't end up being afraid of every living person and see abuse where it didn't exist.

This kind of abuse is designed to make you certain you're not being abused and that the fault for any problems lies within you. That's why it's so incredibly destructive and difficult to identify when you're in the thick of it.

I too was adamant that it wasn't abuse and labelling it as such was OTT. I think that's as much about self preservation as anything else. I needed to believe that at some point he had loved me, but if I accepted he was deliberately abusive, how could I? Eventually I was able to accept it.

It hurts at first. It took a while for me to feel able to label it as abuse without feeling like I was being unfair or trying to divert blame away from myself. Accepting that you were abused also doesn't mean you're seeking "victimhood", if that worries you, it's just acknowledging the truths you need in order to protect yourself in the future so that you can form happy, healthy, safe relationships that don't destroy you like this.

Incidentally, my anxiety was so bad by the time I got out that I nearly lost my job. I used to hold up my anxiety as proof that I was as weak and useless as he told me, and proof that everything that happened was my fault. You seem to be doing the same. So I will say again that your anxiety is the result of his abuse, not the cause of what happened.

Did he call you crazy? You've given examples of him blaming his behaviour on your anxiety. Did he call you abusive too? Is that where you got that idea?

Because those are all common abusive tactics. They're deflecting onto you so that you won't question their behaviour or realise you deserve to be treated better.

After I left I was referred to secondary mental health services and assessed properly by professionals with experience of abuse. I actually had post traumatic stress disorder, not anxiety.

@ShinySilverBeast he didn't call me crazy no, the first relationship he would just tell me I wasn't listening, that I need to start taking in what he was saying etc.

The second relationship he would just say that he can't take the questioning and that I was manipulating him, he said it was a head fuck and he felt like he was going mad. Yo be fair to him I was questioning him when he hadn't done anything wrong

@Furx ah I like that analogy! I'm going to remember that one, very true!

Anything wrong apart from repeatedly cheating on you.

It's so sad when the person doing the manipulating and head fucking flips it around and tries to accuse the other person.

The "you're not listening to me" thing sounds pretty shit and domineering too. But let's not go there tonight.

Take care. Try and do something nice for yourself, even if it's just curling up to watch your favourite film or something.

@ShinySilverBeast thank you, that's exactly what I plan on doing! Your advice means a lot x

I read it on here OP. And it is so true!

Sounds like you are doing pretty good. Stay strong!

He’s not a good guy. He cheated repeatedly and then lied to you hundreds of times. That’s not good.

But you should have seen this and dumped him long ago. Were you happy staying with him and quizzing him every time he went out? And not trusting him?

That’s no way to live. You have no ties to him. You should have realised it wasn’t making you happy and binned him.

It’s much better to be by yourself than in a crappy relationship. It really is. I’d work on your anxiety before getting involved in another relationship.

@elephantscanring no I wasn't happy checking those things at all, you're right. I hated that version of myself...when I met him I was so happy, not a care in the world! I haven't felt that care free in years, it would be nice to meet someone who cares like that.

I go through stages looking back at our relationship with rose tinted glasses. He was very loving, sensitive, caring, funny, very remorseful when it all come out about what he did and went above and beyond to make it up to me. I always feel like I've lost a good guy who just made a few mistakes, but nobody else views it as that...,which should tell me something.

I guess what I blame myself for is ruining our one chance to start a new relationship from scratch but I guess there'd been too much gone on which was deep rooted into me

I always feel like I've lost a good guy who just made a few mistakes, but nobody else views it as that...,which should tell me something.

Yes, it does, Family and friends are normally good at spotting abusive relationships before the person in the relationship can. They can't all be wrong, can they? And they care about you.

@longstockingjayne

I guess what I blame myself for is ruining our one chance to start a new relationship from scratch

But you can never forget everything that has gone on before. Why are you blaming yourself? Why not blame him for lying and cheating?

Take some time to be by yourself and work on your self esteem. I bet you're a lot less anxious without him.

Why not blame him for chewating on you?

*cheating

You only have anxiety because of the awful things he has done to you. How are you expected for trust him when he goes out when you have just listed numerous occasions where he proved he is not trustworthy. He caused the anxiety and he caused the break up do not blame yourself.
You need to take yourself far away from him now and really recover. Honestly this anxiety will go away because it’s all his doing and distance from him will healyou!

Goodness me with that sort of treatment no wonder you have been suffering with anxiety! He's done you a favour by buggering off, now don't let him back! No way will he change. Maybe you could learn a new hobby, catch up with old friends, and learn to feel happy again, then when the right person comes along you'll have a much happier and worry-free life.

So you've spent 6/29 years 20% of your life with someone who has continually lied to you and disrespected you with repeated incidents and you wonder why you might be showing signs of anxiety and be unhappy?

Sounds like it's now time for you to move forward and live for yourself and block this guy out of your contacts. Do you want to be back again in 6 years time with no changes?

When you’ve been doing so well but a random thought enters your head and you can’t shake it. Struggling tonight guys 🙁

He can play this hot and cold game forever if you let him. What you've described would cause anxiety in even the calmest person - it's entirely his fault and not yours. Also, at 23, him being 20 is kind of a big age gap whilst only 3 years, him being aged 20 is only a year above being a teenager, which is an immature age for most men tbh. He seems to want the safety net of a relationship whilst also feeling entitled to have thrills of the chase with others.

A thought is just a thought, you don’t have to give it any space or credence. You don’t have to act or dwell on it. We have thousands of thoughts every day. You can let this one sit for a little while then get up and change your surroundings to do something different.

From reading your OP though btw, your family really are your worst enemy aren’t they :( they don’t have your best interests at heart at all. I hope they’re not like this in other areas of your life.