Going Crazy Deciding If I Should Go Back To Him

[EightiesGal]

Hi MN people
Im looking for advice on my situation.
I’m 42 soon. Have one son he’s 20. Lives with his best mate and another mate.
I split with his dad a long time ago. Just concentrated on him while he was growing up. Almost 4 years ago I started dating for the First time. My son wasn’t too bothered as he was 16 then and absorbed in his social life. He barely had anything to do with my bf but admittedly my bf made no effort to spend time with him or get to know him. I dated him for 18 months nearly then called it off. I was feeling insecure and there were things that I was unhappy about. He’s 9 years older, that’s ok as he’s mature and established in life. His two daughters are grown up.
The issues were he is a dictator. He probably means well but he would lecture me and talk at me not to me. He was always right and if I did things differently to how he wanted me to, he would be angry and even ignore me for a day or two. I felt criticised often and like I couldn’t be my authentic self. He would criticise my parenting too. He probably thought he was looking out for me and could be loving and caring but only when what I said and did met his approval. I could not tell him things that upset me about him without him becoming very angry, telling me I’m stupid and overreacting or telling me to F off. He is obsessed with porn and I tried talking about how that upset me and it was dismissed like everything else, swept under the carpet. Basically I learnt do not challenge him, he’s not changing, he’s going to do what he wants no matter what.
After breaking it off I took a job several hours away. Slightly better pay but I needed a change of scenery.
He has stayed in contact and didn’t want me to go. He has asked me to come back and actually move in with him. I’m not sure what to do. Most people would’ve given up the moment the partner left town, but he’s persistent. However he’s telling me that I need to win back his trust after leaving and his affections as I’ve been away a long time. He’s not in love with me anymore and not sure he wants me as a life partner, not sure he wants a long term relationship. I told him I want commitment and to settle down. I want to be wanted. It’s hard to just take a gamble that I pack up and go to him when he can’t reassure me he’s in it for the long haul. I realise there’s no guarantees in life but he’s being quite lukewarm which makes me worry he’s already decided he’s not wanting anything serious. He says I must take a chance and stop being so intense.
In conversations over the past 6 months he’s been very hot and cold and when he’s in a mood he calls me names, runs me down and swears at me. It hurts and he won’t apologise as he says I’m in the wrong for leaving and being away this long.
I still love him but I’m in two minds.
would love opinions

@EightiesGal Because you're a good person and you care. Mine does this, he'll act upset so that I back down, and I have done this too many times, but it is absolutely manipulation, nothing else. You have every right to walk away from someone who is only crying to manipulate you. Or even if it was genuine emotion from him, well guess why he's so upset! He's pushed you far enough to make you leave, and now he's having to face the consequences. Tough. This is 100% on him, not you OP.

@EightiesGal cut him off. Block him.

He is abusive and manipulating you. There cannot be love and trust in a relationship when one person doesn't respect the other and he does NOT respect you - at all.

The time you waste dithering over him could be spent going on dates with other men. Yes, you will find some of them are f*ckboys, twats and weirdos but there will be that one special person if you keep trying.

Use sites like e-harmony over tinder. Lessons the quantity of f*ckboys looking for a one nighter and should give you more blokes looking for a relationship.

Keep your guard up for red flags and don't accept a person who cannot treat you as you deserve. Watch out for love bombing or mind games. Only accept kindness, thoughtfulness and someone who gives your butterflies in the tummy.

Mine was on tinder when I started hanging out with him. He cancelled his subscription but has never deleted the contacts off his phone from women he was involved with who were all obviously just FWB’s.
Maybe that’s a red flag I overlooked

You know there are lots of red flags you decided to overlook, irrespective of where you met him.

I don't have time to read the whole thread since I last posted but OP, you sound very much under his spell still. You need to break it and break away from him.

These replies have helped me see things from a totally different angle. There’s often the big war between head and heart. I’m seeing here that I wasn’t wrong in the things that felt off to me. I’m not crazy or immature, paranoid or evil (like he has called me). His behaviour is wrong. He doesn’t want to change.
The logical side is staying away and going no contact which I’ll do. I will not go back.
But yes emotionally I have a fairly strong connection as stupid as it might be, and this will no doubt take time to disappear. I’d love to be strong like other women here and be able to just get over it straight away.

Yes it was an act

You can be as strong as anyone OP, but this doesn't give you the ability to get over this treatment straight away. It's not that simple. Please don't expect or hope to get over this quickly, it will take time, but you will get there and life will be so much better for you.

Thank you. I just hope that I don’t end up with the emotions overpower me especially going no contact when I’ve been used to regular calls, and then the quietness and void gets to me and I either cave in or feel depressed. Unfortunately depression seems to be hereditary in my life although I try hard to push through.

Thank you to all posters on this thread. Has helped me a lot.

Just read up to where you said that he called you a dumb c**t, that would have been me finished right then and no chance of a reconciliation.

He won't change, you've seen that already. Would you be happy to be treated with such contempt for possibly the rest of your life?

You have been worn down by the verbal abuse you have suffered to the point where you are questioning your own feelings on it.

It is neither right or normal behaviour.

I just hope that I don’t end up with the emotions overpower me especially going no contact when I’ve been used to regular calls,

1. don't let your emotions overpower you, remember all the bad times, write out all the red flags onto paper - refer to them

   2 find something other to do instead of regular calls - bake or read or sew or go for a walk do crosswords - whether it's something physical like walking or baking or something mentally like read or doing crosswords.

and then the quietness and void gets to me

  3.remove the quietness - either listen to a radio programme or concentrate on a tv programme - you CAN do this

and I either cave in or feel depressed. Unfortunately depression seems to be hereditary in my life although I try hard to push through.

4 go to your G.P.  get the depression treated 

There is so much you can do to help yourself and to stop him controlling you mentally.

Why did you stay in contact with him? 😐
It's for the same reason.

No I would not want this for my life.
I get called these names if I ever mention any suspicions over other women so apparently it’s my fault because I should not have paranoia and have full trust.
it’s hard when a man has other women he talks to who he used to date or sleep with and has a daily porn habit.
Refardless though, it’s very hurtful being sworn at and shouted at and I don’t want that for rest of my life

@EightiesGal there is some work you need to do on yourself so that you go into any interaction with any other person absolutely knowing in your bones that you are a decent, well-meaning person. Not evil, not a cunt, not any of these awful things he’s called you. When you get to that point of baseline self belief, someone can say these things to you and it’s as absurd and meaningless as if they were calling you a dolphin or a doorknob. You don’t have to do any soul-searching to determine whether they might be right, you don’t have to bend over backwards to prove to them that you’re not a dolphin or a doorknob. Why would you? They’re clearly nuts - it’s not your job to fix their relationship with reality and it’s not something that’s in your power to do anyway. You just withdraw and go about your life.

Thank you for your post. I really want to be at a stage I’m strong emotionally like this

I read the bit where you said he called you paranoid and evil. My ex made out I was the love of his life and it was so special for both of us, but he lied loads about his past, and quite honestly had I known certain things I wouldn’t have consented to getting so deep into things with him, I would’ve backed off. 1.5 years in he started to drop in his love and desire for porn in the relationship, talked about other women constantly and wanted me to talk about them when we were intimate. Would shut down intimacy loads unless that came into it, while saying all sweet and loving words to confuse me. But the thing that broke it was he lacked boundaries with women in real life and triangulated me with unnamed “female friends” who fancy him and told me in the first year were were together 3 had tried it on and he’d told them he fancies them (his reasons being he didn’t want to hurt their feelings) but that “nothing happened”, it was one drama after another with him, and everytime he broke my heart a bit more he called me “evil, poisonous” and a host of other things despite the fact I tried to be really understanding (far too understanding) loads of other disrespectful and cruel behaviours also like false accusations, projecting his behaviours onto me and creating drama but he was so good at hooking me in to begin with it took so long to extract myself. I’ve been no contact 10 months now

When I look back at it, I can’t believe he turned out so differently to how he presented at the beginning, bearing in mind I had loved and respected him as a friend for years previously, and believed he was my total soul mate. The problem with lying scheming gaslighting cheating narcissists, is that they know how to play it, and peoples feelings are a game to them, not to be tenderly looked after- but to be manipulated to their advantage.

This sounds pretty similar to my situation.
it’s not nice you had to go through all that especially when you walked away knowing he was lying and faking the whole time. I hope after 10 months no contact you are feeling so much better

I walked away because he was living a double life, it all blew up, all his lies came out, after 3 years, and I can guarantee you don’t know the half of it with your guy also

My guy called me manipulative every time I expressed my values or emotions also, does your do that? Mine had lots of ways to shut me down

I haven’t felt peace 95% of the time. There’s always gut feelings but I get shut down and put down every time I mention anything and he goes on about how he is a man of integrity and it hurts him when I question him. I just end up feeling like I’m nuts and then feel like im a paranoid freak so I keep quiet

Sounds just like my guy, but he wasn’t a man of integrity which was proved fully without a doubt when his other life was revealed, and not by my doing either. And yet….he swore he loves me and always has and will “until the day he dies”, and he was “suicidal” over all of it, so I was so scared he was going to top himself that I didn’t even ask the questions I needed to ask for a couple of months, I was very gentle with him. Then with my heart breaking I laid it all out very nicely and asked my questions, and he said I was “the same distrusting person” “poisonous” “it would never work between us because of how I am” (bear in mind I had discovered his ex wife wasn’t actually his ex) and then he ghosted me. It wasn’t a total ghosting as I’d get the odd woe is me text, until eventually nothing. But we have mutual friends, and he was sick recently, and messages were passed on that he had sent to others, bubbly, arent I a brave boy, emoji laden texts that made me realise he is a total attention whore and doesn’t give a shit about the carnage he leaves behind. Your guy will be just fine also, they see people as toys, as long as they are getting attention from somewhere they are fine. Don’t be sorry for him, and don’t expect instant healing, it will take possibly many months of tears and heartache, I’m still not over such deep attachment and betrayal, but I’m getting there

You cannot build a life with a lying manipulator, you will always be on the back foot, they don’t have the same intentions as you do, he’s thinking of the benefits to him, not to you, or your heart or emotions, and he’s treating you as an option, which my guy always did while declaring his undying love for me. You can’t believe “I love you” from someone that doesn’t know what love is, and doesn’t display it clearly through commitment and action.your guy isn’t even saying the I love yous anymore so at least he’s more honest than my guy was! But your guy knows he can still hook you in and make you work for it, you’ll work super hard to get him to love you again. He’s sick in the head and it won’t change. Ask yourself whether you would do this to someone or whether you would try to reel someone in, move in with someone that you don’t love, ask them to move for you and give up their life to be an option. Once you’ve asked yourself that and realised that no of course you wouldn’t, you’ll see a little more how entitled this creep is, and how arrogant in his own attractiveness and ability to reel you in. He’s setting up a depressing and painful situation for you. And you say the sex wasn’t even good either, wow this guy has nothing to hook you but you love him, and he knows it, so no need to make any effort on his part. What’s the normal response to someone that loves us? If we love them also we show them that in action and don’t take their love for granted. If we don’t love them and aren’t married or committed to a high level already, we certainly don’t invite them into a serious relationship set up while offering them no guarantees. We leave them to get on with their life. He’s not normal, he has nasty gaslighting manipulative plans for you- run.

There’s been some links from other posters I’ll look into for freedom program and books that will help. I will go see a GP and ask for help seeing a therapist. It’s a matter of being able to sever ties, become strong emotionally and not allow this to happen again. Need to recognise the red flags and immediately walk away.
Really hope you continue to grow and heal in your journey