WomanSavers.com Forum / ASK SUSAN BARTELSTONE, CERTIFIED CRIME PREVENTION AND PERSONAL SAFETY SPECIALIST / Completely hearbroken

Hello,

i have dated my now ex for almost 3 years. We had a split of about 4 months about 1.5 years into our relationship. when we got back together we swore we fell even more in love with eachother than anybody possibly could. I moved in with him August 2008. I have recently moved out March 2009... so we literally lived together for 6 months.  We became distant and started fighting over just about everything small.  And For reasons i cant justify I decided to check his cell phone...and noticed he had been texting another girl. I approached him, and he explained to me that he does business with her and she is 11 years older than he is......and swore on everything and anything that there is nothing going on and that he would never do that to me. Needless to say the paranoia wheels began to turn. WE techinically broke up (even though i still lived there)

While he was away on a business trip (a week or so after the break up).....i cleaned house and carried on. Guess i hoped that if i carried on as normal, we woudl just fall back into being a couple. I was doing laundry one night, and grabbed his clothes out of his duffle bag and noticed a bag of tea light candles (some had been lit by the color of the wicks), a bottle of half empty wine and a reciept for the bottle of wine that was sold at a local restaurant (dated and time on it).  Thinking back, the same day the date of the wine, my boyfriend had told me that he was going to his parents lake house for the night. When i approched him with this evidence, he was away on business and was really upset that i was calling him when he needed to focus. He denied it thoroughly, and said i have no idea what i was talking about, and suggested that if i didnt trust him and thought he was lying, why woudlnt i have just done a drive by his parents house to prove to myself that he was there! While yelling at me over the phone, he ends the convo with "i dont need this right now" and hung up on me...and supposedly and convieniently drops his phone and it breaks while still away on his trip. So i pretty much couldn‘t reach him. So i sat there in his house festering in this black hole..feeling sick to my stomach and pacing like a caged lion, crying my eyes out Needless to say i completly freaked out and moved out . He finally disclosed to me about 3 weeks ago, that one of his clients had bought this bottle wine for him as a gift...and the candles had been thrown in his bag by accident (he used them one night that he lost power at home before i moved in with him) and claimed that they were always in the house.

I am very much hearbroken, i live at my parents house right now. I am trying to save enough $ to buy a house. I am trying to focus on me. However, on St. Patricks night (he had been drinking) he texts me saying how he loves me and misses me. when i emailed him the next day to ask why he did that.....he just simply said "oh i was drunk". So i asked him to stop contacting me and that it wasnt fair for him to do that to me while i am trying to get over him.

On Easter Sunday he sends me more text messages. Saying how he misses me and loves me and how he wanted to marry me. Talking about what he did wrong to me and what he wished for us. How we could have done things differently....blah, blah, blah. This went on for a span of literally 6 hours (all day). His final text messege he sent before i fell asleep was "I miss you and I love you".

I went into work the next morning to send him an email...asking him why he sent me messeges. Because i asked him not to do that to me again. He started talking about how I moved out while he was away on that business trip, and how i could have waited at for him to get home for an explanation of the evidence i found in his duffle bag! I end up telling him that if we are not going to talk to work things out, then i saw no need to have conversations for nothing, or to mislead me with loving text messeges. He got really upset with me. He proceeded to tell me that those text messeges were not misleading and he plainly only was havign a conversation with me!! He considered it to be a plain conversation!! Who in their right mind considers that to be a normal conversation??! Please tell me why he feels the need to torture me?? Its bad enough trying to grieve and pick up the pieces, but why cant he leave me alone?? Is it that he loves me and wants me, but is too ignorant and pride-ful to admit it to me directly?

I decided to end my emails asking him once an for all to leave me alone. I told him that i cannot move on from him if he is still in my life. and i dont want to wonder if I will recieve text messeges from him on the next holiday.

I think he is lying. I think there was another MO here. But he wont tell me what it is. This is completly out of character for him to do. If he is teh one that told me to move out and move on........why is he texting me now saying he loves me and misses me? Was he possibly bluffing to see if i woudl move out? Please Help! I cant decipher through all this garbage alone! Its all i think about while i am home or at work or trying to sleep. I second guess my decision to leave all the time. I feel so confused.  How do i know i made the right choice???????

ok sweetie, i applaud your efforts at moving on, keep up the good work.

he has someone else and he has had since he lied about the candles and breaking the cell phone.

whenever he and the new woman run in to trouble, he tries to lean on you.

pure and simple. he hits a bump in the road with her and he runs to you for re-assurance that he is not the pig he is.

go no contact, change your number and your email.

what happened during the separation is none of your business. that‘s why she gets upset. it‘s because she is more polite then i am.

keep your nose out of it.

I wish Dr. Sandra Brown was still on the Forum to answer this question.  This is more of a relationship question than a crime prevention/personal safety topic, which is my area of expertise.

I do have a few thoughts though:

1.  I always tell people to listen to their instincts.  If deep down in your gut you know  something feels wrong, it‘s really important to honor that feeling ... even if you really really really want to believe the opposite. 

Listening to your gut has saved many a potential crime victim from heartache, and would apply to any other kind of life situation as well.

2.  One of the best ways to gain self esteem and strength to heal from life‘s trauma‘s - whatever their source - is martial arts training.  If you‘re trying to heal or find the inner strength to walk away from a situation that is bad for you, I urge you to try a few classes just to see if it catches hold within you.

It‘s one of the most strengthening, self-healing activies I‘ve ever experienced in my lifetime. 

For women, check out www.nwmaf.org (website for the National Women‘s Martial Arts Federation) for a woman-friendly class in your area.  If you don‘t see one listed, email them for a reference.

If you do it, let me know what happens.