Dear Tommy,

I know Tommy, I have already broken up with her, I am just working on the process of moving on.

Paradoxy

Dear Anita,

You got offended by the facts that I stated? Or you got offended by the way I stated those facts?

Don’t you think it is disrespectful for you to say that I am a verbal abuser with uncontrolled anger and that the only reason why I do not call my responders names here is cause of some website regulations instead of my actual personality and my patience?

Don’t you think it is disrespectful for you to be here accusing me of loving to argue and fight when all I did was clarify some facts that you got wrong so that you can formulate your advice better?

Don’t you think it is disrespectful for you to call me a verbal abuser when I AM THE ONE who came here ADMITTING that I have used disrespectful terms sometimes when I was really really tired of her bs and I admitted that I know that what I said was wrong and that I regret it and that I have been working on fixing it by considerably reducing it? I even told you that this “verbal abuse” of mine is not even that common. Yes I have used disrespectful terms against B but those cases are like once in every 4 months or something despite the number of fights we had. My so-called “verbal abuse” does not happen often enough for me to be considered an abuser. Fine, even if we say that verbal abuse is still verbal abuse, you have to accept that everyone has a limit to their patience, EVEN YOU have a limit to your patience, as proven by how you are behaving RIGHT NOW but I cannot call you hot-tempered for that, cause that would be stupid and unfair. I extremely regret the things I said to B, but please, please, PLEASE, I beg you to understand how extreme the situation became before I ran out of patience and entered the verbal abuse phase.

Don’t you think it is disrespectful for you to be here giving advice and coming to conclusions by INTENTIONALLY ignoring the things that are said and refusing to allow some facts to be corrected when IT IS MY LIFE that I am describing? A very good example would be when you ignore me when I REPEATED COUNTLESS TIMES that I entered the verbal abusive phase AFTER HOURS/DAYS/WEEKS OF NONSTOP ARGUING. Obviously, just like it is PROVEN by this thread, when you are arguing for over a month about the same issue, you will eventually run out of patience. But do you see me being disrespectful to my responders? Even in your case, all I stated were facts, such as that Tee’s advice was BETTER than yours because she understands the situation BETTER than you. Where is the disrespect in that? Don’t you think I get tired every time you misinterpret something that I said? I asked you to UNDERSTAND the anger that I felt when B was behaving the way she did. But it looks like even if you didn’t understand my anger then, you are now experiencing that same sadness and anger I felt when dealing with her, as shown by you stating “reading the above makes me feel anxious, sad and angry, the many hours of my efforts to help you ending with your efforts to hurt me.” Just like how you are feeling anxious, sad and angry after spending hours trying to “help” me, I felt THE EXACT SAME EMOTIONS when I had to argue with B for prolonged periods of time. See NOW, you are able to understand what lead me to become “verbally abusive” in that moment, even though I regret doing so.

Don’t you think it is also disrespectful you to judge me based on how I felt FOUR YEARS AGO, despite the fact that I told you that I GREW OUT OF THAT PHASE? It is only coming back NOW as a result of the pain caused by the break up.

I can list more things that I said which YOU INTENTIONALLY IGNORED but you keep bringing it back like I didn’t already just explain it to you.

Don’t you think it is disrespectful for you to assume that I am not taking responsibility for my mistake just cause I asked you to clarify what you are trying to say about my so-called “verbal abuse”?  I quote myself saying “So basically, you are saying that I am indeed verbally abusive. But I want to understand, is it still verbally abusive if the things that are said are actually true?” That was a QUESTION, which shows that I GENUINELY WANTED TO UNDERSTAND what you were trying to say. And you responded by saying “You didn’t yet take responsibility for verbally abusing her, you’ve spoken from both sides of your mouth in this regard: saying that you were abusive and then saying that if she is a brick wall, then calling her a brick wall is not abusive.” It is very obvious here that you clearly misunderstood what I said. You assumed that I was making a CLAIM that calling her a brick wall is not abusive, when all I did was ask you a QUESTION.

Please, Anita or anyone, please tell me if I am the one misunderstanding here. I am more than willing to learn from my mistakes as all I have is respect for you Anita. Even to the point where I kept apologizing to you Anita for sounding like a “brat”. I do appreciate your help, all I am saying is that Tee’s help was more beneficial for me because she was able to understand the situation better than you and she was able to point out things that I had not thought of. I don’t mind receiving a motherly hug from you, but how can you expect me to receive a sympathetic hug from someone who doesn’t even sympathize with what I am going through? I hope you realize that I meant no disrespect. I know you do not want to keep talking to me, but I will still look forward to your response Anita as I see you as a caring individual with more wisdom than me, but just like how I respect you, I want you to respect me too and not misinterpret the things that I have said.

Paradoxy

Dear Tommy,

Yea I will stop.

Paradoxy

Dear Tee,

In the first week of the relationship after we officially started dating, the red flags involved her dry texting that made me very upset cause I looked forward to texting her everyday and she also initiated multiple break ups in that one week due to reasons such as still having feelings for her ex and my age and other people’s opinion about us dating (her ex’s opinion tbh) etc. But she kept coming back apologizing the next day but that was also the period when she spent time with her ex half naked in the towel, which led to another break up later on. I should have paid attention to those red flags and left but I was blinded by love.

Yea the “pretend husband” had me hooked cause no real life girl showed interest in me so the feeling of being “wanted” by someone blinded.

“BTW have you explained to her why your parents might not approve of her? Have you clarified early on what the consequences of dating you are, so that she knows what you expect of her?” Yes I told her why my parents would not approve of her and the consequence of us dating would be that I would have to choose my parents over her when it is time for marriage if my parents reject her and she would have to endure the pain of me leaving her, and she agreed to that. But later on she admitted that she was not thinking straight when she agreed and she didn’t realize the toll it would take on her.

Even though I initially fell in love with the “idea” of her, I made sure to learn everything about her, including her past, before I chose to go along with the relationship. The issue is that I was blinded by the love, which prevented me from evaluating her past properly and not realizing what type of person she really was. I don’t know if I said this already but she broke up with her first boyfriend just cause she couldn’t buy him a birthday present, even though he took care of her well. But I had ignored it because it happened when she was in high school.

“In reality, you knew very little about her: she was obviously very beautiful and sexy, she was willing to cook for you (which you find very important in a woman), and she told you that she agreed with the rules of the game (i.e. how a good girlfriend and a good future wife should behave). You thought: bingo!” That is only some of the reasons why I thought she was perfect. She took care of me like a mother would, supporting my studying, helping me deal with the dandrives in my hair (which I didn’t like her doing because I didn’t want to ruin her hands but she was willing to do it, which I thought was amazing since most girls would feel disgusted to help) and she provided me with emotional comfort after dealing with my parents and life and she keeps offering to clean my room (which is something I admired about her but I never let her clean the room because it just felt wrong for me to let her do it as it is my responsibility). She did not seem to be a gold digger or anything as she always offered to help out in paying for things that involved both of us like dates and etc. She even bought me a matching date outfit for us, that I never even got to wear cause of our break up. Now I don’t even know what to do with it because it is not an outfit that you can wear casually and I don’t think it will be respectful if I wear it for a date with another girl in the future. My love language is touch and so I found it very comfortable when hugging/cuddling her especially after she showered which made her body feel cold while my body is warm and the temperature difference also made it more comfortable. I loved the childish way she behaved because it was the good type of annoying and I loved watching her sleep peacefully, making me wish I could spend the rest of my life with her. Overall, I just felt happy and at peace with her despite the annoying arguments we had. The list goes on but they convinced me that she was the right person cause I no longer felt alone and abandoned like I usually felt and being with her got me out of the depressive phase I was going through. Obviously I was blind and naive to reality.

She already agreed that she would not wear the less revealing outfits, and barely did it too but she tends to have the habit of forgetting things too easily, and my constant forgiveness also played a factor as it indicated that it is okay to go against my wishes even if she agreed. Besides, she has a habit of considering things to be not as important as they actually are, which means she thought it was okay to have  a casual hug with men; she thought all she had to do was not partake in one of those more intimate hugs. And I didn’t mind since the casual hugs are quite rare, but she crossed the line when she went to the resort last month and did the things I told her not to do. She accepted the basic rules of a relationship, but she played along the gray line of the rules where there could take advantage of bending the rules. She still says that what she did in January is not cheating because we had broken up in that one week and that it is none of my business because we were not dating, which goes back to the title of this entire thread. She is taking advantage of the technicality and saying that she didn’t cheat and I don’t know how to argue with the technicality.

I know that every man would not be bothered by his gf/wife wearing revealing outfits, but even then they have some rules like they can only wear those things when they are around so that they can protect their gf/wife from the disgusting men that exist today or some other rule for wearing revealing outfits. I promise you that most men will feel at least 1% uncomfortable knowing that other men are feasting their eyes on the gf/wife’s body when they wear revealing outfits.

My gf might have lied to me and slept with another man, but I didn’t know all of that until a year already passed. So for most of the relationship, she never showed me her bad side. I was under the impression that she never lied and she never slept with another man. I just found out this year January that she slept with another man LAST YEAR January. This year January is when the relationship took a turn and everything started to get worse. That is when my imagination broke. But like I said, she uses the technicality that we had broken up during that one week to claim that she didn’t cheat on me.

“You say she is working, and yet you are giving her a lot of money. I wonder why is that (if you don’t mind sharing)?” She has been constantly switching jobs due to various reasons ever since her manager fired her last year January. The jobs barely pay enough for a person to survive with and her employers all take advantage of her by overworking her while providing poor salary so she ends up quitting the job and I have to pay for her expenses until she gets her next job and she also does trading so we had both agreed to bring in some money to invest in trading, but every time we did, something bad happened like she got severally sick or she had to get her tooth removed or something and we lost a lot of money in trading too. She just got a stable job now so she doesn’t need my money anymore but she still asked for me to come in half way for a trading investment, which I gave her before the break up. But now that we broke up, I want that investment money to be returned but she had to use it for her hospital visit and so she is waiting for her paycheck to pay me back. I don’t see any manipulation/gold digging though because I saw the struggle myself so I know she was not taking advantage of me in that regard. But like I said earlier, if she is actually manipulating me, then she deserves an award for her acting skills cause I am very much convinced of her struggle.

We have already established that I should leave her, and I have left her already. Now I want clarification on the main question of this entire thread: Is it still considered cheating if she only slept with the man AFTER we broke up? Even though preparations were made WITHOUT her knowledge?

Paradoxy

Dear Tee,

Before Christmas 2022, I knew that she had feelings for her ex and that she took a half naked picture with her ex (the difference is that she told me it was not the ex that was living with her at the time but I found out this year that it was the ex that lived with her). All of this happened within the first week. Then in December I found out that the guy living with her was her ex, which she had not told me before.

Yes these are red flags but I forgave the first two because it happened within the first week and I was still madly in love and she said it was a genuine mistake. She said that on the day she took the picture and video with her ex, she was actually in her towel with her ex’s sister who was removing her braids but when she got busy, the ex’s sister told the ex to remove the braids for her and so she just allowed him to remove her braids for her. Keep in mind that she was naked, but she had the towel wrapped around her body so her naked body is not visible to her ex. So I decided to forgive on the technicality because I just decided to consider it a careless mistake. But she lied to me about who the man was until I found out a year later. She said she lied because she didn’t want me to think I was a rebound. Lots of excuses not gonna lie, but my stupid self forgave her. As for what happened in December, I was upset that she didn’t tell me but I still forgave her because I still considered it a genuine mistake. So that is only 3 red flags that I had considered minor and did not let it affect my view of her cause I was stupid. And she didn’t gaslight me, she just said that she thought the fact that the guy was her ex felt unimportant to her but she admitted her mistake after the guy tried to attack me.

But after that, she did not make any severe mistakes (other than calling my parents racists and causing a fight over a misunderstanding) that I was aware of until this year. So even though we had a lot of fights, they were not severe enough to be considered red flags by me. The prolonged peace made me assume that she was the best person for me. Besides, keep in mind that this is my very first relationship so I barely knew anything about red flags and green flags.

“It wasn’t something to be forgiven, especially the part where she arrogantly claimed that you didn’t need to know about the housing arrangement with her” Yes I know it was not supposed to be forgiven but my inexperience caused me to label her mistakes as small mistakes anyone could make. And she did not arrogantly claim that I didn’t need to know, she claimed that the information was unimportant but she admitted that it was her mistake. So her apologies and excuses blinded me from the truth.

“And I think it’s because you were blinded by the idea of her as your perfect wife, and the physical aspect of your relationship (not just sexual, but also massage, touch, her taking care of your hair, cooking and cleaning for you). I think the idea of the “perfect wife”, which you adopted form your parents: cooking, cleaning, taking care of her husband’s physical needs, might have prevented you from seeing other aspects of her personality.” Tee, I don’t know if you are forgetting but I already stated what I was looking for in a woman and it was not just physical needs. I already told you that my parents taught me that my wife should be my best friend, so it is not just the physical aspect. I just listed the physical things because those were the things I remembered at the time of writing the message. But I would say my inexperience and naiveness played a role in blinding me as even though I noticed the red flags, I just considered them as mistakes that anyone would do and believed that she would never repeat them.

“What I want to say, Paradoxy, is that she did show you her bad side right from the start. But you didn’t see it. Because you were blinded.” Yes I was blind, but like I said, it was only three red flags, and it happened at the very beginning of the relationship so the prolonged periods of peace made it seem as though everything was perfect. And I DID SEE it, I was just stupid enough to consider the red flags as genuine mistakes. That is why we broke up each time she displayed the red flag, but I kept forgiving her and coming back.

“It’s not even the fact that she slept with another man that is the most disturbing – but that she is blaming you for it. That’s the most disturbing, in my opinion.” I know, it disturbs me too, but she apologized and told me she was just ranting her feelings in anger and she didn’t mean it, and I forgave her because I have said harsh things when I was angry too.

“No, technically she didn’t cheat. But blaming you for it is so deeply unfair and emotionally abusive” But she apologized, does that count? Should I forgive her for blaming me just cause she apologized for doing so?

“Dear Paradoxy, you might want to tell her something like “your behavior is obnoxious, you’ve hurt me so much with your lies and manipulation and blaming me for the things that are your fault, and I’ve had it. I don’t want to argue with you any more. We are done.” We are already broken up, but we still kept in contact since she owes me a lot of stuff but she cut out the last part of me that cared for her when she told me that what happened to her in January was none of my business because it happened right after our break up and that she shouldn’t have even told me because we were not dating when it happened. That felt like a slap to my face cause what if she never told me? What if I never found out what happened in January? I would probably be still dating her, blind to her true nature.

I may have a right to how I feel, but I just didn’t want to be unfair in the way I treat her cause of my emotions, such as the verbal abuse Anita kept telling me about. But I see things clearer now. I am just very disappointed that she was not the one for me.

Paradoxy