Help me get over my relationship…

[singlemum2025]

Same old story… he was being grumpy, I initiated a break to discover him messaging any willing or unwilling women he could whilst offering me bare minimum while saying he wanted to come back and recover the relationship…

Hes not my kids dad but we’d been together a long enough time that it will effect my youngest, luckily after the experience with their dad I’m financially solvent and have my own house which he has no claim over so I’ve been able to just kick him out.

I just can’t believe I’m in this situation again. I am so fed up of being lied to, gaslighted for questioning off behaviour and generally treated like an idiot. I know good men exist, and I’m not rushing to find one but honestly some days I just feel like giving up!

I am really lucky I have amazing friends and family so I know I’ll be supported but just looking for some online support too to pull me out the other side of this back to being me again. I feel like each time a man fucks me over like this I loose a small part of myself, my confidence is shot to shreds and I know this has happened to so many others.

You are wise to get rid of this one. There's been a rise in so called toxic masculinity and I think there are more men behaving badly as a result. In future, screen men for their attitude towards women. Talk to them about situations your female friends have found themselves in. Ask for their opinion. Talk directly about how to bring up boys to respect women. You may find out early on whether they respect women. You have my sympathy.

Have you done the Freedom Programme? You might find it helpful.

I found that the relationships that took the most from me, ultimately left me the strongest because I had no choice but to do serious work on myself after them to rebuild. A freedom programme is a good shout, maybe some counselling as well. It's the thing I found most beneficial.

Ultimately op, you've been let down but you held yourself in a stable position, you knew your worth enough to send him packing and that's something worth recognising because that's not easy to do .

I think I know the red flags but optimistically ignored them for the latter years hoping he’d go back to our first years together as he was so normal at the beginning! I know now I will always trust my gut feeling and not ignore that. I won’t be dating for a while now anyway as that’s the last thing on my mind I just want to rebuild my confidence, I was starting to get there anyway before I made him leave as I was focusing on myself more to try and make myself happier but turns out it wasn’t me it was him!

You might find it helpful to focus on a goal for example couch to 5k, professional training, new job, travel, building your social network.

You say that you saw red flags later in the relationship but in my experience, red flags are there in the beginning. Therefore you might benefit from therapy to help you process your relationship and doing the Freedom Programme so you learn about healthy relationships.