What would you do?

[Airyfairy1985]

I'm in a bit of a tricky dating scenario, I met this guy OLD a few weeks ago and in a short space of time we've hung out a lot and both admitted we've formed a really great connection.

We've been in touch a lot, but in the last week his phone has stopped receiving any messages and I've also noticed he's not posted anything on social media (i'm not on social media but he showed me his profile which is public). I've not been checking in a stalkerish way more than he's completely vanished and I was confused and concerned as to what's happened to him.

The only conclusion I can come to is that he's lost/broken his phone and has lost his contacts, he has to have a phone for work and to contact his kids so this is nothing to do with me, I'm also not blocked on whatsapp or anything like that so it seems like this is the likely scenario.

I guess I'm thinking I could just leave it to fate and assume I will never hear from him again, but if he has lost all numbers he won't be able to contact me in any other way, the only thing I could do is email him at this work address but I can't decide if that is total pyschopath behaviour, although due to his work, his email is easily available by a simple Google search.

What would you do?

Wow that last paragraph completely resonated. Constantly fleeting from feeling like he made me feel so good to extreme anxiety and long bouts of zero communication. Obvs this all makes sense now.

I’m sorry OP. I remember your thread in the summer when he was missing but I hadn’t seen updates since. Although you’ll get the “I told you so”s, I wonder what we can all take forward from this when we’re unsure, other than immediately running for the hills - using Clare’s law as one check is a great one (and I don’t think anyone suggested that at the time). I appreciate that everyone will just say you should have run for the hills either way, but it isn’t that easy when you’re falling for someone. Sending hugs - and mostly glad that you’re safe.

I mean this kindly but you were obsessed with this man from the start and ignored the massive red flags.

Now you need to heal and evaluate why you ignored everything that was happening. You really need to stop trying to make sense of who he is and put him firmly in the past.

You won’t get any answers in trying to work out why he behaves as he does. But you can work on yourself going forward.

Men don’t go to prison for having mad narcissistic exs. But even when you found the truth, you continued to see him. And you only got outraged when he cheated on you. If he hadn’t, you would still be seeing him knowing he has abused other women

yeah this is what stood out for me. It reminded me of a friend who disbelieved
her daughter when she disclosed to school staff that her dad (friends husband) was being physically abusive. She told the school and SS her daughter was lying.

After he cheated on my friend and told her he was over her, she “suddenly realised” her daughter had been telling the truth and wanted everyone to know how awful and abusive he was.

OP, I’ve skimmed through the thread but I see you clearly refuted any suggestions it was DV but now with this update it appears he did in fact tell you he was in for DV related allegations? The only difference is he claimed they were false due to “crazy ex”.

OP, you said yourself you’re vulnerable and mentally unwell. please stay away from dating and focus on your children until they are at least 18 and work on yourself in the meantime. I can only hope this man didn’t ever meet your kids.

Thank you so much 🙏🏼

Yup, I was completely in denial and that is definitely something I will be working on in therapy.
There is no way I would be letting this man near my children, never, no man I've dated has ever met my children, that's a strict rule I stick to unless it's a serious long term relationship.
I have always been 100% focused on my children and will continue to do so after putting this unfortunate incident behind me 🙏🏼

Great to hear that, OP.

At least you didn’t introduce this vile individual into your kids lives.

It’s obviously been a horrible experience but it could’ve been so much worse. At least you have got out now and can focus on healing.

All the best with learning from this experience and moving on in life.

Thank you, I really appreciate that 🙏🏼 😊

Are you saying you didn't know any of this before? Because you were VERY cagey about what he was in for earlier in the thread. At no point did you say you didn't know.

No. Absolutely not. He told me his version of what happened, which was an 'incident' with his ex, he shared vague details about it because he said he was ashamed. It was only when his behaviour became erratic that my gut was telling me that something just wasn't adding up. And YES I appreciate I should have clocked it all a lot sooner

Of course they tell you that it was their ex who was the problem.

They aren't going to admit to being an abusive swine, are they? You wouldn't go anywhere near them if they told the truth, so they lie through their teeth in order to coerce you into a relationship with them.

I remember having read this thread from months back and at the time I thought he was as dodgy as hell, but you were in too deep at that stage.

You have escaped his clutches, and it is time to heal. There is no point in keeping on thinking 'why did he do that?' because he is history. Gone. He was evil and he's out of your life now.

You also were adamant that he absolutely wasn't in for DV, as you "would never stand for that" now you're saying you knew it was "something to do with his ex"- surely you must have realised (as everyone on here did, and tried to tell you) that it was something DV/harassment related?

You seem to be rewriting history a fair bit here. As for concentrating 100% on your kids, by your own admission you've been obsessed with this man for the past five months, in earlier posts you were insisting you knew him "so well" because you were talking to him daily for "hours at a time" so which is it?

It's a little disingenuous to be emphasising your mental health struggles and that this man manipulated and abused you for months as you were in a bad place, whilst simultaneously claiming your children have always been your only priority/focus, no?

(And that's not in any way a "nasty" post, by the way, but a genuine question it might be helpful to yourself to answer truthfully in order to move on.)

I get what you're saying.
I co parent my children with my ex.
I also work full time and do make time for a personal life which has no effect on my children as I keep them out of it completely.
My mental health issues are historic and I have suffered from them my entire adult life. It's peaks and troughs and unfortunately this incident has put me in a trough, understandably.
My kids are 100% fine.

What actually was the incident that happened that ended up putting him in prison?

I don't think it's appropriate to give any more details about that here for discretion, I think I've said enough about it.
Let's just say his version was that nothing happened and it was his ex overreacting and he should never have been arrested.

I'm just sharing this here for any other women reading that are not sure if they are dealing with a narcissist, this is a really accurate description:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDFcNYARdbU/?igsh=dzMxcGNqbXA1Y3o3