Thank you Anita.

What is on my mind is wanting validation, an apology and closure. I know this will never come.

He always picked at me. Mostly for very small things. His grievances would be things like I didn’t use pet names enough or I would be too focused when I was working/reading/gaming and sometimes wouldn’t hear him speaking to me.

I can be playful and silly. There was an evening where he had bought some crisps that I really liked and I had a bowl in front of me. When he went to the bathroom, I hid them and pretended I had eaten them all. Obviously, it was a joke and got them out from where I had hidden them.

Two days later, when he was picking at me he said “and you’re SO selfish. Look how you ate all the crisps the other day”. I had to remind him how that was a prank and I had hidden them, not eaten them and we both ate them. He didn’t apologise for calling me selfish, he didn’t even acknowledge that what I had said happened.

Most weekends I would travel to his city because he never really wanted to spend much time in my city. On one occasion he was coming over to my house to see me and I asked if there was anything he would like me to get from the store. He said “wow, that’s so kind. You’re really changing, you’ve never done anything like this before”.

Every weekend I went to his house, bought groceries, cooked and cleaned. I made breakfast, lunch and dinner. What’s more is every time he had come over to mind, I prepared food for him as well.

When I tried to explain that I ALWAY do things like this he then went onto say “well, what do you do for me other than cook?”.

I had to listen to him tell me how bad my behaviour was and how I didn’t support him. He told me I didn’t support his business idea and I said that we talk at length about it and I’ve offered to help with packaging and shipping. His response was “well what’s my 5 year plan?”. I’m not a business owner. I don’t know about 5 year plans so I didn’t know to ask.

He then started quizzing me about how much I knew him and started testing me.

This was not a one off. I was always in the wrong. No matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried, nothing made a difference. I was always an awful selfish girl.

He worked freelance. When he had work, he was a different person. He was happier and more pleasant. He was also more open to me talking about how I was feeling. Unfortunately, due to putting his reputation to ruin, he stopped getting as much work and now hardly works at all. He hardly worked from August 2023 onwards.

He drank a lot, didn’t sleep much and I have reason to believe he was taking drugs. He was also unfaithful. I know writing this, I deserve much better.

If I didn’t laugh at his jokes, he got angry at me. He told me I was insulting his intelligence, he specifically said I did it ten times a day. Yet he could make fun of me and I was not allowed to complain. Sometimes he used to look at me and start laughing at me and he wouldn’t tell me why.

When I tried to speak up about things that were upsetting me, he would turn it back around on me and tell me I was ungrateful. I told him he had upset me and his response was “what about your garden?”, he has recently helped me with gardening. I tried to explain that helping me does not then give you a pass to be mean to me.

I tried to go with the angle of, me asking him what was on his mind and stressing him because he hasn’t seemed ok and seemed to be taking things out on me. He wouldn’t talk.

It continued with the same narrative – I am a liar. I am a manipulator. He told me he valued honesty and he had to make allowances for how much I lie. He told me I had to stop lying about who I am and stop lying about being good at things. He told me I was not normal. He told me I was dark inside. He told me that I need to let people in be so guarded.

I started recording when we would argue so I could listen back to the parts where I was supposedly lying so that I could improve and not do it anymore. I was so convinced that I was the problem that I wasn’t expecting to listen back and realise I was being gaslit. It was harrowing listening to the recording because he was cruel to me. I would be trying to explain calmly why other was hurting me and it was twisted to be my own fault. Never apologising to me.

What I am struggling with is how could someone be so cruel yet so unaware of what they were doing? How could he justify treating me like this?

What I’ve told you is just the tip of the iceberg. It was always like this. I got in trouble because I once accidentally said a burger I was eating had gone cold. I’ve not even really touched on how my body was his and his to have whenever he wanted.

The relationship was exhausting and upsetting. I asked for an apology. I tried to explain how things felt for me. I never got an apology.

I want to have a peaceful and loving life. I want to love my new boyfriend. I trust him. It’s easy to trust him because my instincts are not alarming. My gut KNOWS he is a good person.

I just feel stuck at the moment. Stuck wanting closure from the past.

Thank you for reading.

Sammie