Was this a toxic relationship or was I in love?

[McFlies]

There is something from my past I feel that I need to understand and settle for myself. Sorry if this is long.

A few years ago, I had a relationship with someone and I have been sick ever since. Depression, anxiety, some signs of PTSD.

It was a same sex relationship, although I wasn't (until then) gay.

She was a friend of a friend and I met her when she moved in to a shared flat at the time. I was very lonely, I have ASD and am not really great with making friends and she was incredibly friendly to me.

Right away she gave me lots of attention and wanted to do everything I wanted to do and go everywhere with me, and she brought me into her group of friends and I suddenly had a really exciting social life which I really enjoyed and which made me feel good. I'd never really had that before, so I really enjoyed the life. She bought me gifts and cooked my favourite foods and listened to me moan a lot (I have ASD so can do that a lot).

I really felt like I'd found my absolute, total best friend.

As we spent more time together she told me she'd been abused, and I identified with that because I had a sad childhood myself. We seemed to have so much in common and the intimacy grew really quickly to a point she felt like I'd known her my whole life within about 8 - 10 weeks. The relationship also involved a lot of drinking. She drank a hell of a lot, so I just joined in.

Then one night when we were quite drunk she started rubbing me and so on, and although I was reluctant we ended up having sex. I felt weird about it because I'm not gay, but it felt nice and I felt very attached to her. The next day I told her that really I wasn't into women and asked if we could just be friends. She said that was fine and she understood.

She pulled away though a bit and said she was moving out of the flat, which she did and I felt really torn. The friendship and intimacy was so important to me and I felt really lonely, so when she asked me over to dinner at her new place a couple of weeks later, I went. Got drunk, and had sex with her again, and this time stayed the weekend.

I really didn't want a relationship with her romantically, but I didn't want her to go away. So I carried on. Every week I'd have sex with her, which felt nice and I enjoyed it but I am fundamentally not gay so I didn't feel it would become a long term thing and so it was confusing.

She started to then put pressure on me to be her "girlfriend". A lot of demands and really quite frightening tantrums. Within a few weeks, she would get really drunk every time we went out and start screaming at me that she loved me and why was I doing this to her. I started to really walk on eggshells because the tantrums were actually scary and often involved smashing my stuff or doing things which really scared me like drink driving.

Each time she had one of these episodes (which was basically every week) I would be pretty traumatised. I think this is why I now have PTSD because she was really scary. Sometimes she would trap me in places and not let me out, sometimes she would put herself in danger and sometimes she would threaten to "out" me as a lesbian and she said I was abusing her and using her.

I kept saying I just wanted to be best friends, but I would always keep going back and kept having sex with her. I really enjoyed the cuddling and companionship and when it wasn't there I felt terrible. She kept saying she loved me and wanted to be together and why didn't I love her back and got very angry.

She pressured me a lot with everything. If I didn't do what she wanted, I knew there would be a tantrum, and these were escalating and escalating and becoming more dangerous and I started having some anxiety illnesses. Afterwards she would always be really sorry and cover me in attention and affection and I didn't have a Mum or anyone else really to speak to in life, so I felt I needed this.

In the end things escalated to a point they couldn't continue. My boss had words with me because she was showing up to have tantrums at my work, and I was off sick a lot because of it. My flatmate had said he thought she was a psycho and I had to get away from her. I'd seen the GP for my anxiety and been referred for counselling and the counsellor told me she was really psychologically dangerous and highly manipulative and I had to leave.

So after one of the very worst tantrums, I did leave and I completely stopped seeing her cold turkey. She harassed me for weeks after this and alternated between sending me love letters and gifts, to making calls to threaten me and hanging up. She tried contacting my family and work to make my life miserable and I got very, very sick from stress. During that time I was so scared of her I just wanted her to go away, but I also really missed her.

My brain found it really hard to process, because there was two versions of her: the lovely one I needed and was best friends with and the terrible one who did terrible things and scared me. I often felt really confused and when my counsellor or flatmate said negative things about her I felt defensive of her.

When she got a new girlfriend, which was fairly quickly, I was devastated. She showered all the same attention on her which she'd given me and she was blasting on social media how in love she was within about a week. I felt like nothing, and that time was the worst I have ever felt. I felt like actual physical pain and didn't think anything but seeing her would relieve it.

Things eventually got a little better, and she wrote me a letter to say she'd only been so crazy because she loved me and I wouldn't give her a full relationship. So a part of me has always wondered if I did the wrong thing. I'm not gay and don't feel romantically attracted to women, but I felt almost addicted to her and I really don't understand why. She made me feel so good, so I wonder, did I get it wrong and was this love?

Over time, I stopped contact and got on with my life, but I never really felt happy again since. I am anxious all the time and never feel relaxed ever. I am very depressed and everything I used to enjoy I can't enjoy anymore. I am very jumpy, and got lots of physical ailments and my immune system is kaput. I am miserable.

This was all a couple of years ago and I wonder sometimes what really happened. My counsellor at the time said it was a toxic or abusive relationship and she had groomed me when I was vulnerable and that's why I felt such a powerful need for her. Part of me wonders though that if I felt such a powerful need for someone and deep connection, did I make a mistake by not being with her and giving her what she wanted?

Sorry, can I add something, which is that NOT being with her anymore meant also losing the exciting social life, group of friends and life where I felt I belonged to a group - I have never had that before in my life.

After I said I didn't want to be with her, she made sure everyone cut me off and I was ostracised. She also said terrible things about me - that I had abused her and was a narcissist and all sorts of things.

I am not sure to what degree that was tied in with how bad I felt afterwards.

Sorry for the third post but I was just browsing here and someone else has a post about a "Trauma Bond" and this is something that was suggested to me by my counsellor at the time.

Can anyone tell me...

I. What is the difference between a trauma bond and just loving someone who is sometimes horrible?

II. The things that poster describes about feeling like it was heroin and you'll die without it, is how I felt. How do you distinguish that from just very powerful love?

I didn't feel like I was in love with her. I have felt "in love" with men before where I wanted to hold their hand and gaze in their eyes and get dressed up for them, but this wasn't like that - it was more like a desperate need.

Also, if you feel terrible and sick and have depression and anxiety after the breakup, how do you know if that is the after effects of the abuse or if it's just profound missing of the person?

I don't think about her now and don't want to contact her, I am just trying to understand that desperate attachment I felt for her where I'd do almost anything for it like a crack addict.

It does sound like a trauma bond and I'm not sure how consensual the sex was at the start of the relationship, (and throughout, I guess). Experiencing that and the various violent outbursts where you're both hurt by/in fear of and seeking/finding comfort in the same person will have a powerful psychological effect.

It sounds like you weren't really able to defend your boundaries (which you shouldn't really have to) and she just steam-rollered through.

I don't think you miss her - I think you are/were suffering a trauma bond.

Thank you for replying, I find it all really hard to puzzle together.

I struggle to realise some of the behavior was "abuse", so I sort of say "she did some terrible things" (she used to say things like "sorry I got a bit emotional") but if it wasn't abuse I wouldn't have flashbacks now and have the hypervigilance and anxiety. Things like films with women being violent are really triggering.

She never actually hit me, but I think she terrorised me. She would lock me up, go through my phone, embarrass me in public, threaten harming herself, break my property, and scream at me sometimes for 6 or 7 hours at once and she threatened me a lot with terrible things.

She was also so nice to me, and so it was hard to think of her not as my friend and for a long time afterwards I wanted her to still like me.

I am also just wondering @category12 why you think the sex wasn't consensual? I always went along with it because it felt physically nice and I went home with her and stayed in her bed, so this feels like I consented. I did keep saying I just wanted to be best friends though.

It really was an abusive, dysfunctional relationship. You were craving friendship and acceptance, she took advantage of that and manipulated you into a sexual relationship.

Thank goodness you are out of it. Please try EDMR trauma therapy to help you come to terms with it all.

The way you described it - "she started rubbing me and so on, and although I was reluctant we ended up having sex." It just sounds like you didn't feel able to say no. And in the bigger picture of the relationship, sex you didn't want was the price you paid for the comfort/good parts of the relationship.

I mean, who has sex with someone who keeps saying they just want to be friends? Not someone interested in true consent, that's for sure. I'm not sure why she was so determined to try to have a relationship with someone who is straight.

The early stage of your friendship where you shared so much so quickly and she seemed to "get" you on all levels sound like love-bombing.

Sounds alot like she groomed you. This was definitely a toxic situation, sexuality aside. Don’t fret about it. You did the right thing by cutting her off.

Im so sorry to hear you went through all that.

It defo sounds like she groomed you, manipulated you and took advantage of you.

You did the right thing by cutting her off, she sounds toxic.

I was in a similar relationship myself years before I met my husband (not with another woman though) and I felt exactly the same emotions you are going through.

It does get easier with time, I know easy said then done.
Bless you x

@category12

Thank you for explaining that. I didn't say no at the time and I think because I was drunk (that was probably 90% of the sex) that (sorry if TMI, I got aroused and so did it). It wasn't unpleasant and I enjoyed it but in the bigger picture I really didn't want a romantic relationship, I just wanted it to be like it was at the start when she was so nice to me and we did everything together.

I never wanted to kiss her or hold her hand and she got very angry about that, but I did enjoy cuddling. I think part of that might be that she was older and I had a difficult childhood and was lacking maternal influence. She was very maternal with me.

As it progressed, I definitely felt like I either had to have sex with her and be her girlfriend or live without her completely and the latter felt terrible, so I accepted the former. My ideal situation would have been for me to have a boyfriend and for her to be my best friend but she didn't want that.

Yes, during the early stage she basically was full throttle. From right away she wanted to spend all day every day with me. She said she liked everything I liked and wanted to go with me everywhere I went, so within a few weeks I was with her 24 / 7. She was always complimenting me and doing caring things for me and that felt very nice.

After that first part it was more a rollercoaster or cycle of carrot and stick, where a lot of it was me doing things to avoid the tantrums.

@Kpcs

Sounds alot like she groomed you

People say this and I find it hard to really accept. There's part of me (a big part) that just thinks we were connected somehow and completely best friends and she fell in love with me and then couldn't accept when I didn't feel the same.

People tell me it's not a real connection if someone is your absolute best friend and soul mate and saying they love you within 8 to 10 weeks though. They tell me she put on a performance for me.

@sugaraddict02

Thank you. Can I ask if you felt complete desperation and compulsion for the guy even though you didn't want to actually be with him? I look back now and feel like I wasn't fully sane but can't really understand why.

Also, I have been "in love" and really felt deep love for someone, but never that addiction, heroin type feeling where not being around them would make me feel like I was dying.

Id suggest doing the Freedom Programme before starting any future relationships.

You need to develop strong boundaries for yourself.

This woman clearly had her own trauma and mental health issues as well as alcohol issues but be aware that you were emotionally manipulated and abused x

Also, I have been "in love" and really felt deep love for someone, but never that addiction, heroin type feeling where not being around them would make me feel like I was dying.

That's because that desperate feeling isn't love. Love is much more comfortable than that. The feeling of being out of control and almost insanity is trauma bonding, imo.

People tell me it's not a real connection if someone is your absolute best friend and soul mate and saying they love you within 8 to 10 weeks though. They tell me she put on a performance for me.

But then, think about what happened when she moved on with someone else, if you're doubting it was a performance. Her MO was exactly the same - the showering attention (love-bombing) and rapid intense declarations of love (too much too soon).

So to me, it sounds like this is how she is and you were a target, an object. She moves on to the next one with barely a glance backwards once it's done. Does that sound like true love to you?

No, it doesn't.

Not many people have loved me, and I wanted to feel loved and she did that. I understand that.

I also desperately craved belonging, and (this might sound disgusting and sorry) I felt like losing her meant losing my entire life because it was all tied up together.

I had spent a lot of time alone in my flat, always feeling a bit of an outsider. She came along and was so loud and the life of the party and I was the object of her complete adoration and suddenly I was invited places and felt part of a "gang".

There was a pub nearby where I could just go and there would be friends there to have a drink with. I hadn't ever had that or much by way of close family.

It was made very clear to me that those things came with a price and after I stopped seeing her, nobody want to see me.

I heard she said awful things about me; complete lies and turned herself into the victim of my abuse somehow. I hadn't done anything she said I did.

It is just very hard mentally for me to understand the extreme desperation I felt for someone who I didn't actually want to be with and who was objectively so horrible to me. I think maybe it just doesn't make sense in my brain.

It's also odd that I haven't felt happy or normal since. I am unable to feel or want anything at all.

In answer to your original question- Yes you can be in love and also in a toxic unhealthy relationship- those two things are not mutually exclusive.

However, remaining in a toxic relationship because you love the person is never advised. It’s incredibly damaging to your mental health and well being as you’ve discovered.

Please don’t blame yourself- many people find themselves in abusive relationships. you can move on and heal from this experience.

Here’s a link for support if you’re struggling *

It doesn't sound disgusting, it sounds human. You were lonely, vulnerable and felt unworthy/unloveable - you were like someone parched & starving in the desert - then she came along and poured attention and affection on you and offered you what seemed like love and understanding - and gave you the kind of social life you'd not experienced before and longed for. Of course you were swept away by it. Of course you wanted to keep it, even at a price.

Are you still seeing a counsellor?

Thanks for being empathetic and accepting. I did want all those things.

I'm not seeing a counsellor now. This might not make sense, but when it was in the eye of the storm, I was okay with seeing a counsellor and talking about it. During the actual relationship I felt ill with anxiety but really didn't understand what was happening. I thought I had a "complicated" situation and really didn't understand that it was abuse.

It is hard even now accepting it as abuse because it makes me feel like I am some loser who had this amazing connection that was complete lies and I am a victim and weak, whereas thinking of it as a close friendship where she fell in love with me and went a bit mad makes me feel almost better. Not sure if that makes sense.

Seeing a counsellor now, I would struggle with, as going over the memories of all of it feels pretty terrifying in itself. I really have a hard time even thinking about it and there's a lot I think I have forgotten. I worry that raking it all up might distress me more and then I wouldn't be able to go to work and so on.

Hi, yes I did feel complete desperation and compulsion for him, I still wanted him even though I had left him.

He occupied my headspace for years, it took a good two/three years for me to get over him and not to think about him every day.

I can completely relate to how your feeling, but I promise you, it does get better with time.

Been in a similar position myself with someone who was older/had power over me/had a parental role. I ran from it for years afterwards, but only felt better and began to heal (a good decade on) once I dredged it all up and got help. It was terrifying to talk about, admit and confront, but once I did I got better and understood what I'd gone through as being abuse (and why it was!) I also lost the overwhelming feeling of numbness that I'd carried around ever since and started to feel happiness and desire and want in my life again. Unfortunately you need to dig it up and feel the feelings to get better. I'm sorry this happened to you and good luck.

Thank you. I find listening to you feels like it makes more sense to me because this was a romantic relationship that you wanted to be in, so then obviously there's a level of understanding that it's difficult to leave.

It was confusing for me that:

I. I really didn't want to be in a romantic relationship with her ever, so that level of attachment feels odd.

Ii. I was so devastated when she got a new girlfriend even though I didn't want to be her girlfriend

The level of compulsion and desperation and intensity I felt was confusing

This sounds horrifyingly abusive and manipulative on her part. No wonder you feel so messed up. I was in a similar relationship when I was very young. I was genuinely in love with the person but can see looking back it was an incredibly toxic relationship that really damaged me. She led all the way and I was hooked on her like a drug. It took me years to recover and she dominated my thoughts for a long time. You did the right thing to leave . She will move on to the next person and destroy her too, unfortunately. She sounds like a very damaged individual sadly.
It would probably help you to find another counsellor and work all this through. You were lonely and isolated , looking for connection. She took advantage of that. If she genuinely cared about you she would not have lied about you afterwards and left you isolated again. You’re well rid.

It sounds like she love bombed you. You woud have been vulnerable because of your childhood and she will have taken advantage of that. Check out Caroline Strawson and see if her resources ring any bells. It’s great you’re having couselling. You may need to look at doing some somatic healing too (info on her website).
It’s easy to get sucked in by someone like this (I speak from experience) but you can grow after it with the right support.

@Cuttingcapers

This sounds horrifyingly abusive and manipulative on her part

I think I have a psychological block around this, because it was framed in a very different way to me at the time.

Having read a lot of stories of "abuse" trying to unravel this, it is often a man comes along and sweeps a woman off her feet and she falls madly in love and then he begins abusing her but she feels trapped and broken and can't leave.

This was different circumstances because what was happening was that she was making me feel like she was the desperate one, like I was the one with the power. It was her begging and pleading for me to love her and telling me she was only behaving like that because I was "leading her on" or "using her" . She said I was the one abusing her.

You were lonely and isolated , looking for connection. She took advantage of that

Did she though? I willingly spent every minute with her. I am autistic, so I didn't realise at the time that the things we were doing (long walks and getting drunk together) might be perceived as romantic in quality. It never even crossed my mind that she fancied me to be honest until her hands were on me. Her view is that she was vulnerable (as you say she obviously was in a way) and I took advantage of her by spending all that time with her and repeatedly having sex with her when I didn't want her.

If she genuinely cared about you she would not have lied about you afterwards and left you isolated again

I agree with that part. It was very spiteful and I was obvious in quite bad mental health crisis and she did everything possible to get revenge on me