Ok, this is likely to be long and I apologise! I was in a relationship for 7 years, it ended well, it'll be 2 years this July since we split up.
We have a little girl together who was 3 this week.
I've read lots of threads on this board about "emotional abuse". I thought, especially when we first split up, that yes, I had suffered abuse, emotional abuse and was trying to cope with that as well as trying to move on with my life.
But my ex has a new g/f. He's been with her a year. They don't live together yet, but they are talking about it. My ex seems nice. Normal. I feel like I'm going crazy all over again.
Could he have changed? Is it possible that I'M the problem, that there was nothing wrong with him and that it was MY fault?
We met at work. Within 2 weeks of going out, he told me that he loved me. He asked me to move in with him, but this was dead on a year after we started going out (his timetable, this was what he thought was reasonable) He actually told my Mum I was moving in with him before I had a chance to tell her. I was still thinking about it at the time!
He had a history of depression and self harming, which he didn't tell me about before we became involved, but once into our relationship, he suffered two bouts of depression that were my fault, because I "nagged him" and because his work was "so stressful".
He had affairs - sex is "meaningless" and he didn't know why I got upset when he was unfaithful. He told me later in our relationship that he didn't beleive in being faithful and never would be. I asked how he could hurt me so much if he loved me? He said that if I loved him, I'd let him do what he liked.
He controlld my money. He took most of my money for the "house" and allocated me a small sum to live on, when he had hundreds of pounds - I am not kidding, he has a seriously well-paid job, then told my Mum tha the reason I never had anything new, was because I was bad with money. We "discussed" it several times and I was always left confused and bewildered, he GENUINELY tbought I should be able to live on what he allocated me and that I couldn't was due to my mismanagement.
He thought all of my friends were boring. He hated my sister, thought my family were pikey. My sister has been married for 8 years. During the time my ex and I were together, we went to dinner with my friends once and my sister twice - this doesn't inc a few family birthdays. He missed my sister's wedding, because he had a gig. He plays in a band as a hobby.
I'm a tall,booby, blonde. He likes, and made a point of telling me that he likes, short, petite, Asian girls. I used to ask why he was with me and he used to laugh.
He was always right. It didn't matter what it was, it wasn't so much that I was wrong, it's just that he was right and so certain that he was right, that he couldn't accept that there was any other point of view. He hated "yes-women", but well, if I disagreed with him, I was wrong.
He never said sorry. When I found out about the first affair, he got so upset - think panic attacks, that I apologised for bring he subject up.
Sex - I was fairly inexperienced when we met. If he suggested something and I said no, he found it very hard to take no for an answer and would keep on. And on. And on about it hoping that I'd give in. Which I didn't. We're talking things like Swinging or Threesomes. I have no problems with people liking this sort of thing, but for me, I can't do it.
There is other stuff too, and I know that this is long and people must be going "d'oh - what an idiot", but I walked away from that relationship with my head in such a mess. I thought I had it straight that yep, It was a harmful relationship, but I had allowed myself to be treated in a certain way and was trying to change that, but now, seeing him with his new GF I'm wondering if it was just me, after all. That yes, he was an ar$e, but I brought out the worst in him and that he wasn't abusive, afterall.
God, I am so mixed up.
I'm sorry that this is such a long post.