(Ex) boyfriend repeatedly ending things. Help me stay strong this time.

[petnameforme]

I've been with my (now ex) boyfriend for 18 months. He has met my two children and they really love him. He's broken up with me maybe seven or so times in the last six months. One way or another we always end up talking again and before long we're back together. He can be very self aware, and he keeps promising to change. It has got better (the break ups were less often and less severe) but yesterday he ended things again, and this time he has blocked me on absolutely everything.

I absolutely know deep down this is a good thing and I should work on my self esteem before I try another relationship. But I love him a lot and I'm scared to be alone. Can anyone give me encouragement / stories of finding stable love when you're a mum with a full time job and 50% custody of your children? I feel so hopeless right now.

He will never change - right?

Thank you. I definitely know we shouldn't get back together again and nothing would have changed if we did, so the next damaging break up would be inevitable. I'm just missing him, while I'm angry at him he did have lots of great qualities and I'm mourning the future we had talked about together because everything has changed so suddenly. I think feeling the disappointment and the sadness is good though. At least I'm not placating myself by living in hope that it isn't really the end, I kind of know that once the first 30 days of no contact are down we won't ever cross paths again by chance as we move in different circles.

It really is good to feel that sadness and disappointment. They say that even if the person you love isn't real, you still grieve for the person you thought they were or hoped the would be.

I know in my circumstances that when you miss them all you focus on is their good points and the times they made you feel good or the future they spoke about. Write down the bad and the ugly to help you in those moments.

Writing down the bad is a good idea. Funny how quickly that list fills up once you start thinking about it!

Don’t know if this would help but when my friend was trying to stay away from her ex every time she was as tempted to contact him, she messaged me instead and we chatted til the urge wore off.

Do you have someone who could do that with you?

Just placemarking as I need to run but I have just emerged from an identical situation. So similar to the posts on here that I am actually genuinely wondering if some of us have been dating the same bloke! I had a year of splitting up and getting back together, I actually lost count but I think it was 6 times? In the end. No more now.

I have lost a few friends over it, and loads more have distanced themselves. Which ironically makes me more vulnerable to going back, as I have no-one else. It has helped me to understand how to support someone though this in the future if it happens to a friend of mine. As someone wisely said up-thread, it's not enough to think of all the 'can'ts' like how you can't get back with him. You have to replace them in your life with nicer things so your life is full and rich. Which feels almost impossible when you have been mentally messed with so much you can barely remember your own name and don't know which way is up. Don't underestimate the number they have done on you. I feel like a shadow of my former self, empty and full of despair. I hate what he's done to me.

That's where the support of kind and comforting friends is so valuable. Or failing that, us lot on here. I'll come back and post soon but just wanted to say to the OP and others on here, I understand. I'm in the same situation. And it is worth holding on, and it will get better. The grief is horrible, but it will pass. And you will have lovely times again, until you barely think of him at all or remember him.

I think that's one of the difficulties - apart from his ridiculous cheating accusations and the break ups, he has always been kind and supportive. It wasn't like with my ex husband, who criticised me all the time and made me doubt my sanity. This ex helped get me back to myself in some ways - the problem is, the bar post-divorce is really low because that relationship was so bad. So his kindness by comparison feels harder to let go, because I haven't experienced that for so long in a partner. My ex husband was terribly unkind all the time and it absolutely crushed my soul.

I'm following this thread because so much is resonating with me but this post sums my situation up! You really don't see the number that someone like this has done on you until you're free for a little while and the fog fades a bit. Breaking up so many times, pushing and pulling you until you don't know where you stand and you just want stability again. Discarding and hoovering is the name for it.

OP my ex accused me of cheating. So many times and in so many obscene scenarios. I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to prove my innocence that I couldn't see what it was doing to me. He knew fine well what he was doing but I just seen this person in need of reassurances. Until it wasn't anymore. This isn't normal behaviour and while it may not be the same kind of abuse or level of abuse as in your marriage, it's toxic behaviour at best nonetheless. You deserve better. But you'll never get the better that you deserve unless you give yourself a chance and by staying away that's what you're doing now. Even if it hurts.

Thank you, yes that's very true. Either he is doing this on purpose (I don't think so) or he is doing this because of some issue he has that he isn't aware of and no longer wishes to work on. It doesn't really matter which because I can't put up with his actions any more no the reasons he is doing it.

I still have all the stuff my ex husband used to say ringing in my ears - that I'd end up alone, that women always regret having a fulfilling career because they end up alone, that it's much easier for men to find relationships than women, that women get left on the shelf, that I'll always struggle because I'm so selfish, blah blah blah.

I can relate to that. I thought mine just needed enough reassurance. It would seem to work at times too, but the need for reassurance was literally bottomless.

I knew the whole time that attacking me for attention wasn't good. But I think it triggered some attachment anxiety for me because I'd be desperate to try and sort it out even though I knew it was incredibly destructive behaviour.

Mine wasn't accusing me of cheating. With him, it was all 'perceived slights'. If he felt criticised in some way, disagreed with, or that I was being in any way distant, it would be all out war against me.

It's far too easy to end up defending yourself when really the only solution to someone who is determined to misunderstand you is to walk away. I've wasted hours of my life trying to explain I wanted to be treated with respect when I should have treated myself with respect and left immediately.

I'm embarrassed to say this, but I will out of solidarity. I estimate he broke up with me at least fifty times in six months.

What on earth was I thinking to see that as fixable? It's baffling to me now.

I am tired of hearing on mn not to subject your children to your partner, not let them see the tough times or break ups or indifference.
Why...it is apart of life to a point that is.
Why are children not able to see you dated and it didn't work out.
Come on it is life skills if not personality building.
Now days we all can move on without the judgemental crap.
Why is he disappearing then reappearing? In the big picture he is not into it.
If you container to take him back then spend your time looking for someone more stable, less jelous etc.
I believe no relationship is worth the mind games and bs so do what is right for you.
Your kids do not grow up to be anti social weirdos...they become very aware I think.

Stop focusing on relationships and men and focus on your children. I’ve barely seen you mention them and how this has and will continue to affect them in this whole thread.

That's very judgemental as a reply. You have no idea how I've limited the contact between him and the children and how cut up i am about the fact that they've got to know him. But I've got this week until I get my children back and I want to be feeling as emotionally strong as possible. I don't think it's wrong to try to work through my own feelings when they're not here and I don't think shaming me is especially productive.

"Mine wasn't accusing me of cheating. With him, it was all 'perceived slights'. If he felt criticised in some way, disagreed with, or that I was being in any way distant, it would be all out war against me."

Oh my goodness, mine was exactly the same!! So many perceived slights that I tied myself in knots over, then slowly realised were completely bonkers and his reaction was totally out of proportion, have me flailing around trying to placate him through the silent treatment and sulking and huffiness and outrage at 'how disrespectful' I had been. Such behaviour is deeply shit and manipulative.

I've found the two books: Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents by Lindsay C Gibson (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Adult-Children-Emotionally-Immature-Parents/dp/1626251703/) and also her follow up: Disentangling from Emotionally Immature People, to be incredibly helpful in seeing through this sort of stuff. It was a lightbulb moment for me. I don't know about anyone else on this thread, but I was raised by someone who was also very emotionally immature, so it makes sense I'd go for partners who were the same in adulthood. But the books were such an eye-opener.

The reason I kept going back again and again was because I hoped he would change and I didn't want to give up on him, for all my effort (and suffering) to be wasted if change was just round the corner. After reading (well, listening) to those two books, I came to regretfully understand that change wasn't really possible for my ex, and started to know that the only course of action left to me was to step away. That it wasn't going to be okay. The grief of this realisation was just horrendous, and I'm still in it now. There's still a small part of me that has a tiny flickering hope, which I'm just allowing to exist while not allowing to call the shots. I suspect a part of me will always love him, despite how badly he's behaved.

Ultimately, I really want to get married one day, and I got to the point with my ex where I realised I wouldn't have anyone on my side to invite, because they were all so unimpressed with him literally no-one would be happy for me if I announced I was marrying him. They'd all be cringing inside and have their heads in their hands. Then I thought, nah, come on - this is insane. You should marry someone one day you are PROUD to marry, someone that your friends love because they know you are happy and that person treats you well! For god’s sake. It's that gradual waking up to the fact it won't work out. It's such a painful process, especially when you have invested everything into the relationship, including your dignity and your friendships, you have lost friends because of it, you have lost the respect of others, your own self-respect. It's so hard to think, crap, I was wrong. After all that. And walk away. Anyone currently on this journey has my utmost respect and compassion. It will get better, and brighter days are coming.

Well said. There's no need for anyone to stick the boot in.

It's an absolute nightmare, isn't it? You're constantly trying to prove your innocence to someone who is absolutely determined to attack you.

The worst example I have is when I was developing a very serious infection and going into sepsis. I was delirious with fever and in a lot of pain. Ex decided I was lying for attention and actually danced around taking the piss out of me and saying I was faking it. Because I wasn't thinking straight, I delayed going to hospital. The next morning, I was so, so much more ill than I needed to be. I ended up being rushed to hospital on oxygen in an ambulance, straight into resus because my body was shutting down. The pain I was in at that point was beyond excruciating.

The paramedics were absolutely furious. They said well how did he think you'd faked a fever?

When I told him about this conversation, he said did you not tell them how you provoked me!! 😮

That's awful of him, @WolvesDiscoandBoogaloo - I'm so sorry he was so unsupportive when you needed him most. The lack of empathy in people like this is chilling.
I just finished another audiobook (How to Leave A Narcissist for Good - excellent read) and in it, she says that a lot of people get trapped with men like this because they are trying to find a reason for their behaviour or make sense of it. But people like this behave in totally illogical, irrational ways that can never be understood, and trying to understand what goes on in their head or heart is futile. That helped a bit in terms of my trying to make sense of WHY he behaved as he did. And I'm starting to accept that I will never understand or find a reason.
But even if you accept that - you are still left with the legacy of their behaviour aren't you, and the pain of how they have treated you. That can take a long time to heal.

Thank you. As you can imagine, it was genuinely horrendous.

Yes, I agree with you about searching for meaning or some key that will make them have empathy towards you and see you as a human being. But there really isn't one. It feels like there must be because some of the time they are really affectionate and kind, even like a lost puppy act, and you think it couldn't have been that bad and it couldn't be so impossible to explain yourself when they're so seemingly rational at times.

It's a death by a thousand cuts sort of thing where the disappointment and disillusionment builds and builds until you can't convince yourself any more that it's going to end well.

Well done for leaving. I know it must have taken some courage and fortitude.

Both of you sound like you've really been through the wringer. I can't imagine being so cold and heartless if my partner had a fever and especially if they turned out to be really seriously ill. My ex husband did something similar once. That lack of care and kindness is so damaging and sad to live with long term.

It really reminds me of my marriage in terms of the effect it has on your mental health - it's just terrible. I remember him saying to me that I would regret leaving him because I'd realise how deeply I loved him when I did. It's been years and I've never missed him even once. Death by a thousand cuts is right - once I finally broke it off and started getting back to myself, I realised I didn't love him at all, not even the smallest bit. It was difficult in terms of the children but otherwise easy to leave him emotionally.

It's harder with this guy because I think he is genuinely a kind hearted person, he just has no relationship experience and poor control of his own negative emotions. I can see that communication was very lacking and for whatever reason he was not good at communicating unmet needs until resentment had built a lot.

Anyway, today he emailed me unnecessarily and I ignored it. Made myself a nice meal, heading out for a swim later. Fairly quiet day at work so I got some tidying up done and some other stuff sorted at home. I'm also listening to the Heal Your Heartbreak podcast nearly back to back - might be overdoing it!

I really relate to what you're saying about emotionally immature parents, thank you for recommending the book which I will look at getting. It is definitely the case with my parents that I have to be the "adult" in emotionally tense situations and was blamed for every little thing that went wrong when I was a child. Same with my ex husband - I remember if he broke a glass or a mug he would immediately turn around and blame me for "distracting" him or supposedly having put the mug away poorly in the cupboard, meaning he dropped it. Bleurgh.

Good on you for ignoring the email. Silence is the perfect response.

Thinking about it, I used to get blamed a lot for things I hadn't done when I was a child. That's a trigger for me now. When I feel helpless to defend myself against an accusation, I get desperate to set the record straight.

I don't know if anyone else felt like that when they were having accusations thrown at them.

As an update to the thread, he did eventually tell me he wanted us to get back together. I said we would both need a lot of therapy and change to ever work as a couple, getting back together in the short term would never work, and I thought it was best for us to be in no contact while we work on ourselves. We decided to go no contact and not revisit the idea of getting back together.

That was a good call OP - I hope you stick to it. I would be amazed if he does....

The idea for me was always to do enough work that I think to myself "why didn't I end it sooner" and see those damaging patterns I'm following so that by the time he contacts me again I have no desire to be together again. I actually am not sure if I'll hear from him again - he was completely no contact with his prior ex in the end.

I've been having a wobble today (we're still no contact) and reading this through really helped me. I was wishing he would contact and ask for me back again but it's stupid. We don't work, he was right to end things and i was right to stick with it, there's no point trying again. The pattern is set and it's a break up every time there is conflict. I just don't want that.