Hey Inky,

It’s always great hearing from you 🙂

I think reinventing my story and making myself the hero instead of the victim is exactly what I need. I need a new narrative. And I need to tell myself that new story over and over again until I believe it.

I’ll try it!

Hey Axuda,

I appreciate the kind words. You know, I think “Holy Moly, Nicole, what were you thinking?!” to myself a lot. The logical part of my brain seems to know the real truth and agrees with all of the stuff that my family and friends and online friends are saying. Although, something deep inside of me does’t feel like an innocent victim. Sometimes I really do buy into the things that he says about me – sometimes I do think (or fear) that I might really be selfish or that all of this stuff really is my fault (including the things that he said and did). We can attribute this to issues with self esteem. I’m working on this in therapy – as well as all areas of my life.

I know what he says is certainly not true – because nothing he says has any credibility whatsoever and also for the simple fact that I at least know that I’m a kind person who follows her heart and makes all of her decisions with the best intentions. I suppose this other stuff is just a part of my complicated (and negative) believe system about myself and probably also from being brainwashed by him for a few years.

I think you’re right about him being stuck at a certain level of maturity. I think you’re right about everything, really. He’s got issues. He claims to have PTSD. He’s angry, stuck in the past, and I think maybe emotionally unavailable. I get kind of sad sometimes because when I think about his issues as a means of justifying why things happened the way that they did, I can’t help but think about my issues. I can’t help but think about how “water seeks it’s own level” and how on one level or another, I might be just as damaged as he is.

I just have trouble believing it when people say things like: “He messed up his relationship with you, so of course he has to try to save face by saying his new relationship is better. He has to say it out loud because he knows what his friends are thinking to themselves. He knows he screwed up, but figures that with enough self-talk he can pretend he is a winner.” Which to me, makes a TON of sense… But it’s crazy and hard for me to believe because as much as I’d hate to admit this to anybody (even anonymously), I actually stuck around until he “chose” her.

At first he played the confused card, so instead of just walking away, I felt compelled to stay and help him figure it out. And then he strung me along for weeks telling me about how he ultimately wanted to marry me but needed to date her to get it out of his system and to “forgive and forget” the fact that I “murdered his baby”. And he would tell me all about how in order for us to get back together, I needed to change this and that and lose the weight I’ve been trying to lose and would say that he thought she was truly nothing special and that he would take an “improved” me over “regular” her any day of the week. And how he could never love her in the way that he loved me. And that he sees an amazing future with me and a nightmare future with her and that I just have to stick around while he dates and screws her. And would tell me about how he didn’t want to “start over with somebody else”. And all the while, I would pull away because I didn’t like it be out always be manipulated back. I was so torn and devastated and confused because I had no idea I was being abused and manipulated and I genuinely wanted to be with him but I knew it would mean giving up my very last bit of self worth and dignity that I had left. Just thinking about it makes me feel sick to my stomach. I always felt like she had a major advantage because I was on thin ice and had to minimize my needs and not make one false move – but he would try to reassure me that I had “the advantage” because he “loved” me. He would say things like “I don’t know what the future is going to be like and I want to leave it up to chance – I just want to play Russian Roulette and see who wins”. Foolishly I stuck around and thats why I don’t think I deserve to be called an innocent victim. I feel like I was a stupid volunteer!!! Slowly but surely, it went from him telling me about how much of a mean, crazy, loser she is – to how he was “growing fond” of her, and then to how he was choosing to be with her over me because he decided that even though he did love me, he knew that he “shouldn’t” love me and that I wasn’t fulfilling and didn’t make him happy. And the kicker? He said he’d call me if it didn’t work out!!!

But if he CHOSE her and if I waited around like such an idiot… Then why would he have to go and prove to everybody how happy he is and how wonderful she is? I mean… I feel like he’s totally “victorious”. He got what he wanted. He made me into some desperate fool and he made out with what he wanted. Certainly he thought he made the right decisions? He had weeks to figure it out?!

I know there’s simply no point in trying to make sense of nonsense… But I’m dying for somebody’s input!

As always, thank you so much for responding to my girlish problems/fears/questions about life so carefully and with such kindness!!! You’re a gem!

Oh yeah, and in addition to all of that… Why would he go through all of that mess and ultimately choose to be with this girl…

And yet in the end, he still wouldn’t stop contacting me because he expected me to be his friend? After practically begging him to leave me alone, I had to change my phone number just to escape his constant attempts to contact me.

About a month and a half ago he even texted my mother asking her to ask me to call him because he was having a really bad PTSD attack…

Just WHY?! Why would he think I would call him after all of this.

Phew, I just got myself all riled up 🙂 excuse me!