Excuses or perception?

[Ritascornershop]

For me this is it, I definitely can’t deal with this, but I’m wondering if this would be a generally held opinion?

The guy I’ve been seeing started stalking my Instagram account. I enjoy photography,
taking and viewing photos - of interiors, landscapes, food, that sort of thing. People write captions below their photos and sometimes I comment - either because something they said sparks a thought, or because I think maybe they’ll look at my photos (& I appreciate feedback), or because commenting means the algorithm will bring their photos to the top of my feed.

He got it into his head that I was “pursuing” guys on Instagram. Massive eyeroll from me as that was/is the last thing on my mind. He’d go to accounts I follow and if I made a comment on a man’s account (it barely registers with me whether or not account holders are male or female) he’d start worrying about it. We’ve had two blowouts about it and after the first I thought he’d wrapped his head around how innocent it is and that so long as I wasn’t being flirty or trying to meet anyone irl it was fine.

But no! Yesterday, it turns out, he’d been looking for evidence again and had found that I’d commented (one of well over a hundred comments on a popular account) that I was sorry a photographer he left our region as we (people who follow him) would miss seeing our region through his lens, and I hoped he and his girlfriend enjoyed their new locale. Totally inconsequential to me, when grilled I couldn’t even remember the insta-name of the guy. And the photographer guy appears to be around the age of one of my kids by the way, so not someone (for a myriad of reasons) I’d consider in that way. Besides which, as I’ve told guy I was seeing, when I’m with someone I’m not fishing around for other men.

Anyway, guy I was seeing (can’t do this anymore so have ended it) said I was “going after”, “pursuing this guy”, “flirting with”, etc etc. And it really really rattled me. I feel policed, misunderstood, accused ... all kinds of hurtful things.

My question being - is he wildly unreasonable? I feel he is, but would anyone find it worrying if their partner commented on peoples’ photography accounts? Or cat accounts? Or recipe accounts or whatever? I never follow people who put themselves in the photos as I don’t want to see some stranger ruining the view, so I barely know what this young guy looks like. It’s just all so weird and confusing to me. I’ve never had anyone jealous of me and I hate it and can’t be dealing with it.

He has cheated on previous partners and while he does love me, I’ve often felt like I’m the person he thinks he should love but his natural inclination is to women who are more party types, more mainstream. He’s always telling me I’m the smartest person he knows (& I doubt that’s true) & I suspect he’s missed being able to impress with his intellect. It wouldn’t entirely surprise me if he’s cheated, but I’d find that less upsetting than him accusing me of it when I’m entirely innocent.

I’ve been rereading the texts between me and him from last week and it’s so sad. I’m sending him lovely, warm texts trying to arrange to see each other, he’s sounding slightly distant. I sounded really sweet!

Then we see each other in person and he tells me he’s seen me commenting on this young photographer’s page and it all goes to shit. Followed by texts of him alternating apologizing with saying I’m “pursuing” this guy, “flirting” with him, “going after” him, “consistently approaching”. Then RG saying he wasn’t upset, he trusts me, he just has “questions”. I point out his language around me “pursuing” this guy and he backtracks and claims to trust me. And round and round.

It’s so weird and sad and I just feel it’s safer never to try again. I have to protect my heart and even in a year, 5 years, whatever, it would just not work out for me. I just wanted normal, this wasn’t normal.

These circular arguments are so common in abusive relationships. They never go anywhere and you end up burned out and exhausted. He seems very good at keeping up his public facade but you know all too well that normal men do not behave this way. The fact that he has cheated alot in the past says alot about his character. It's very common for abusers to say things like 'you're too good for me' (which is similar to youre too intelligent for me' as they often tell on themselves.

You deserve so much better OP. Just think of all that love you poured onto him.... that's what you deserve and you shouldn't settle for anything less. Your self esteem has been eroded and it's no wonder you are feeling hopeless about dating again (I do too) but the key is to find love for yourself and not need validation anymore from anyone else and know deep from within that you are good enough.

You found the strength to walk away from a relationship that you knew was unhealthy which takes courage and you should be proud of yourself for that. The more you learn about why abusive men behave the way they do, you will see how it was never your fault and you have been fed a false narrative all of your life. This is what you need to keep on challenging.

You're an intelligent, kind and loving person and dont deserve any of the crap you have been through. Invest heavily in self care and that includes investing in healing from your previous abuse and taking time to look after yourself. Meditate, take walks in nature (theres something called grounding where you walk barefoot outside), exercise and eat good food. Focus on the good relationships in your life (as it's all too easy to spend all of your energy on the bad ones).

It certainly is a process and there may be lonliness at times but I see so many women trapped in codependency and never learning their true value and it makes me so so sad. xx

A friend was mentioning grounding a while back. I always worry I’ll step on something sharp, maybe a beach walk would suffice.

I don’t think it’s so much about validation? I just think most of us are wired for companionship and that it’s fairly normal to want to share life with someone. Not wake up alone and eat my meals alone (have one kid left at home but he’ll be leaving again this year).

I think, even if it wasn’t for this latest bout of madness, he’s been so different lately to the guy I fell in love with. He’s just so sad and said to me recently that he doesn’t enjoy anything. That he’ll spend time with friends but after a bit he stops enjoying himself. He used to be a happy person. I want to go for day trips, eat fun things, watch sunsets with someone. I think he’s feeling too bleak to enjoy life even if he hadn’t developed controlling weirdo tendencies. So there’s that.

It’s just hard. I see friends who seem to have weird dynamics with their guys where the women just order the guys around and the men seem to love it. I’m no good at that, I just want an equitable thing but being like that doesn’t seem to attract the nice guys.