Anita, thank you so much for reading and reaching out. I am tremendously grateful. Here is the additional information you requested, in no particular order.

1. May-December is an age disparity in a relationship. In this case, I was 23 and he was 59 when we first met almost 5 years ago.

2. He sent me a very terse, preliminary break up e-mail the day before my birthday. My mother was devastated to see me like this and sent him a text reminding him it was my birthday. He replied, “I never want to see her again”. He cut off contact and ignored my e-mails during that time, when I was pointing out that it was just weeks ago when he told me that he cared and will “always love” me. I tried e-mailing him last month (October 2017) to inform him of my poor condition, my suicide attempt after finding out he is getting married, and being in the hospital. I did this on the premise that it was just a few months ago when he told me how much he cared for me. He ignored my e-mails and he then found out that his sister-in-law was talking to me. He then called my mother and made threats, saying I am to never contact him again, or his family, or he will talk to his attorney for a restraining order. According to my mom, she said he sounded like a total madman on the phone. He also accused me of “stalking” and “messaging” his fiance, when nowhere had I done so or even would remotely entertain the thought, either online or in person.

My parents want nothing to do with him and are disgusted by his nefarious actions. They have been hurting along with me, because every holiday, they would invite him over. My parents developed relationships with him.

3. An additional fact… his fiance is 13 years his junior. Her parents are 6 years older than him. In our relationship, our age gap was 36 years. His ex-wife was 15 years or so his junior. He seems to have a prototype towards younger women.

4. The affects of my disease on him:

Towards the end, he became intolerant of me and said he wasn’t going to listen to my health problems anymore because he didn’t want to feel “responsible”. He admitted that this wasn’t fair to me. This was a total shift in personality… in earlier times, he was so benevolent and caring. He even helped me with my expenses of attending a medical fitness center, because he cared so much about my health and well-being at the time. After he abandoned me, I did a self-portrait series in response to my pain (I am an artist) and I had it on my website. He eventually saw it and my artist statement, which was a poetic writing piece concerning my pain of the abandonment. I did not use his name or any identifying information. He sent me a one-sentence e-mail essentially saying he was going to punish me for making the art and posting it, and he then cancelled my membership to the medical fitness center. It was unbelievable. He should have just let the membership run out until the end of the year. I am not entitled to his gift and am grateful for his charity, but using the membership cut-off as a punishment/control mechanism was hurtful. Was I not supposed to feel pain and not deal with it after his abandonment? It was like he was expecting me to bow and kiss his feet for leaving me.

Wow, Inky, that is such an interesting – and ultimately truthful –perspective that I have not previously considered. You are claiming that my ex essentially dehumanized me, and in this case, that I wasn’t “allowed” to have emotional ramifications. So he was still seeking control even after he departed from me. Now that I am thinking of it, towards the end of relationship this past year when he was emotionally withdrawing with me, I felt his retreat and responded with pain. At my pain, he told me “nobody should ever feel this way about a relationship”. The insensitive minimizing effect was deplorable. It also speaks volumes that perhaps he was seeing me as less human.

The controlling and manipulation perhaps needs to be underscored. One of our first moments of strife in our relationship is when he invited me to a wedding of his work colleague’s daughter. I love and collect vintage clothing, and for the wedding I wanted to wear one of my 1940s dress hats. He exploded in anger at me, and demanded I had to “look and act like I was from this era” or else I would “embarrass” him. I am certainly not somebody’s ornament, let alone a man’s, especially when my dress was in excellent, if not creative taste. Certainly not like his beautiful blonde fiance with tons of makeup and expensive, flashy, and modern dress…. but I digress! When I donned my 1940s hat, instead of taking me to the church, he dropped me back off at my car and I had to go home. All the way there, he was screaming at me at the top of his lungs and driving recklessly I was utterly petrified.

I can now see this in retrospect… during that moment, I was perhaps oblivious to it because this was the first time I was invited to a wedding, so having the privilege of attending a formal function was the only thing on my mind at the time. But this is a rather befitting concrete example concerning narcissism and controlling. My mother claims that he withdrew from me because he figured out that he could no longer have power over me.

Regarding my art, it was posted on my Flickr page but unfortunately I deleted my page after he gave me the restraining order threat. My main website is currently switching domains. However, you can search “Stephanie Lehr” on the Black & White Magazine gallery to find some of my work there – was published several times in that fine art magazine. I am currently showing in an international exhibition in NYC at Site:Brooklyn, as well.

Anita, apologies for the lack of punctuality in responding. It probably was disruptive to the conversation flow, and I understand if it is. Regardless, my appreciation for your time and attention remains the same. I know of no other venue like this and will be searching in my life for a place to return the gift to others.

You are correct in your understanding. Our discussion on the author was a launchpad of sorts to a mutual spiritual journey, especially in conjunction with our artistic medium. We helped each other in various aspects of our life. He was a very reserved and private individual and never publicly displayed his art before, shown in galleries, or pitched to art magazines for publication. From my encouragement, he found his voice and endeavored all of those for the first time in life. I was committed to helping him become cognizant of his talent.

There is something about taking adventures to off-the-grid locations to study and photograph the environment… with somebody that you love… that puts the experience on a higher spiritual plane. Reality becomes sharper and in technicolor, and there is an immutable sense of belonging. All humans need acceptance and love, and our experiences together brought that dynamic sense of validation, comfort, and wonderment at the world.

His abandonment left these horrific wounds because the turn of events were inexplicable in my eyes. A few weeks before my birthday I had taken a spiritual “vow of silence”, similar to what monks do to hear the voice of God. I had made a vow to not converse to anyone, and I made this aware to him. He did not tolerate this and was calling my mother frequently (I did not know this at the time; my mother told me after the break-up). On the phone he was desperate and in a great deal of emotional distress. He expressed how much he missed and cared for me. Then suddenly, a very small period of silence and then him leaving me suddenly on my birthday. It was a total change literally overnight. That is why I suspect he met this woman during this time period. But who seduced who? Knowing this woman’s history, I wonder if he was being taken for a ride, just like what Inky said.

Although I don’t know his new woman/fiance, from what I have seen of her projection on social media, she is the complete antithesis of me. She is not an artist or a photographer. She is heavily made up for being 50 years old and expensive looking. Her PinInterest site expressed more frivolous interests, if you will – albums of bikinis, manicure ideas, and fashion. I assumed my ex met her through work or they knew each other already and just never pursued anything. She has family that works in the same industry as him… as least when I was searching public records last month. The searching is irrevocably abandoned and I was just merely engaging in an attempt to understand.

One of my issues, as stated previously, is feeling like an expendable human being. I dedicated so much time, attention, and caring towards him. This woman’s image and persona feels “cheaper” than mine, and what I have given to him. All the selfies and tagging she posed with him on social media makes her look so much younger than what she is. She took photos of all the gifts (e.g. large and ornate bouquets of roses) he gave her and publicly posted them. It’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that 1.5 months later my ex is buying these showy and expensive bouquets of roses. She posted flashy images of her ring and commented with tons of emojis, “Look how happy I am!”. I don’t even own a smartphone or have any inclination to engage in these types of behaviors, and I am in my late 20s. I think it is incredibly juvenile, especially considering she is 50 years old.

During our relationship, our gifts were not pedestrian romantic things… we gave each extremely meaningful gifts: museum memberships, books (he gave me an art book published in France once), camera equipment, gift certificates to classes. They were more… cerebral. I certainly never received flowers or jewelry. The fact that he is going out and investing so much for this woman (including the overnight vacations around the country) in such a short amount of time, is sickening to me.

The psychologist I am seeing for all this trauma claims that he has exceptional issues. She claims that his original erotic interest of me is problematic within itself, and close to a quasi-pedophilia type of disposition.

I do know that he was in an overlap/rebound relationship when he first met me… except I was the overlap/rebound! I was too young to realize this. He was dating a psychologist at the time, and left her for me. And now, the pattern repeated itself and I was left for another woman. What is the meaning or motive behind this? If there will ever be an opportunity again in my life where somebody expresses an interest in me (highly unlikely) and that  somebody happens to be a “serial dater”, I now know to stay clear.

During our relationship, he did disclose to me that when he was young, he was in a relationship with a married woman. So I think he has issues with interpersonal boundaries. Again, all of these things I previously dismissed because of my naivete.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 5 months ago by Stephanie.