Long story short. I was with my husband since I was 17, he took his own life nearly 3 years ago. We were together nearly 20 years. He suffered from mental illness and substance abuse. I have 4 children, still at home. Although they are teenagers now.
My marriage towards the end was awful due to my husbands addiction to drugs. I was however devastated when he took his own life. My husband was my best friend and soul mate.I stayed single for 2.5 years and even enrolled into university to do a degree to distract myself. I started to get a bit lonely at a weekend so thought stupidly it would be a good idea to install Tinder. I literally didn't realise how horrendous OLD is. I did match with lots of meh but all the conversations were awful. I matched with a Nigerian bloke who was intense, but I can't explain it, he had the most beautiful eyes and I was drawn to him, his personality was electrifying, he had the darkest sense of humour I'd ever met. I put a lot of the outrageous stuff he said down to cultural differences. He told me his relationship with his child's mother ended because he had a threesome with 2 Romanian women from work whilst she was pregnant. This is where I am obviously an idiot at ignoring red flags. I thought it was refreshing how honest he was. I'd never met someone who'd just come out with something like that. Anyway I told him It would only be casual between us because of my kids, my degree and he lived 1.30 hours away. Straight away he went mad saying no he wanted a relationship. I said no and cooled it off. Then he tried popping up lots saying hi. Eventually over Christmas I missed him. So I reached out as we'd been speaking for 3 months at this point. His attitude changed saying he no longer wanted a relationship
and if I wanted to see him it would now be casual. He told me from the start he was a bad person and toxic and tried to push me away. He would ask me to send him nudes, when I refused he'd block me then pop back up as if nothing had happened. I felt like he was very childlike. We actually have similar personalities as in humour and beliefs etc. the conversations were good.
I met him and we had sex, he'd had a lot of sexual partners that he'd told me about so I'd made him do an sti test. I booked a hotel, I wouldn't say he raped me but he was very rough and I tried to push him off a bit as it was too intense for someone I'd just met in person. I'm not sure if I'd have said no that he would have stopped. I bled a little afterwards. Anyway we'd gone out drinking and he was actually very fun and sociable but I thought " what had I done?" It's the first interracial relationship id had, so it was all exciting and different. I didn't think I'd hear off him again. I did, he messaged me straight away. Panic set in when I thought the STI test he'd done may have been old etc. so i asked if he'd had sex with anyone else after the test. Or if the test was recent. He went nuts and instead of reassuring me, he told me I was toxic and he wasn't sure if my behaviour was ok.
I was at work and I had a massive panic attack, he started to use this push pull method to keep me hooked and off balance. I can't explain how it's happened but now I know he's actually a narcissist. I always got the vibe he hated women, he had a strained relationship with his mum that he refused to speak about.
anyway this has been going on for 10 months now, at first my mental health was so bad I was in bed with anxiety for 8 weeks on and off. When he blocked me I used to beg him to talk. Then eventually when I learned what was going on I stopped. I went back to tinder and tried to meet someone else. I've had dates with others, I never like anyone as they all seem boring and the ones I do fancy usually have issues too.
I met a lovely Jamaica man who was 37 but he'd never had a gf. He was nice and knowledgeable about lots of different things. But apparently he can't tolerate people around him for long periods. He said women are clingy and he doesn't like it when people text him every day, again another red flag. I had sex with him a few times then realised he would never ejsculate as he had a phobia of getting women pregnant so would just stop mid sex! 🤦♀️ I confronted him about it and he got really funny and said no one else had ever noticed, or if they did hadn't said. he'd be really rude and pick out my imperfections, he told me I had a wonky tooth and chubby cheeks and dry hands. I took him on a day trip to a theme park as he hadn't been to one since he was 18. He didn't give me any money towards petrol, or parking and he starting having a meltdown due to the queues, a teenager talking too much and the ride home he was at braking point due to road diversions.That's when it dawned on me he probably is autistic. His memory is super weird, he's like having an encyclopaedia. He is a proper introvert. The problem is I really liked him and he took my mind off the narcissistic. The problem is with him it's casual as he's made it clear he doesn't do relationships. I get the vibe I annoy him. I have ADHD.
We had an argument as he was rude to me abd I called him out on the way he spoke to me and I lost my head. I removed him off fb and instagram. We were friends on fb before and I noticed nearly all his friends were women. He'd liked most of their photos, like nearly all the women's photis. So I called him out and said I can't believe how he can criticise my appearance when the women's photos he liked were really rough. Not blowing my own trumpet but I'm quite attractive and clean looking 😂 He denied liking any photos and then removed all the likes. I thought he was being ridiculous and he was single so could do as he pleased. It really offended him. I apologised but he's blocked me on WhatsApp.
Now I'm filled with the void again. Tinder is horrendous, conversations don't go anywhere, men are either boring or just want sex. I'm fed up of getting to know new people for it just to lead nowhere. I don't actually fancy anyone either. The only two men I've liked are these two and they both have massive issues. If I delete the apps I get like withdrawals. If I swipe I get so depressed as I keep thinking I'm going to be alone forever. I just don't know what to do. I can't ever keep the narcissist blocked for good as I'm addicted ti him. It turned really toxic towards the end as I started giving him a lot of grief back and contacted his ex. That then gave me the adrenaline that my ADHD loves. I feel hopeless and just want to be happy.
sorry for the long post.