This is really interesting. I actually didn't see where it said "four months" but the 3 week time frame really stuck out to me. What was the four months in reference to? Three weeks is when I first started realizing something was off, and when I first started questioning him about it. He didn't like that at all. The deeper I dug over time, the more horrified I became. I actually ended up severely ill by the end of our relationship, and my therapist thinks it was largely a result of the anxiety I was experiencing from the relationship.

I also found the "self sabotage" part really interesting. I told him literally those exact same words several times. I kept telling him he was self-sabotaging by purposely putting things in the way of our being closer. I could go on forever about that. Let's just say the final straw was him changing his custody agreement so that he had his kids all week every week instead of every other week. He initially claimed it was his ex-wife's idea. It came out later that he had come up with it so he could give them "more consistency at home with their homework." Another control tactic. He claimed this change "didn't affect me at all." We lived an hour away from each other and only saw each other when he didn't have his kids. I had just met them, and when I told him I would change my work schedule to come spend one night a week helping with the kids' homework and whatever else he needed, he told me it "wasn't what he had asked for." He had asked for me to stop arguing with him. Of course. How dare I question his decision making abilities? He also refused to cut back on work on extra work he had taken over the weekends to so we could spend more time together even though he claimed that work paid for our vacations and going out to dinner. I told him I didn't need that and would much rather us have more quality time together. It didn't matter. My asking him to do anything to accommodate me and my needs was out of the question.

It became very clear to me at that point that nothing I did was ever going to be good enough, even though I had offered him everything he "claimed" he wanted. I bailed about a week after that, even though I actually had already changed my work schedule to help with his kids. Even in the several conversations we had post-breakup, he still refused to believe he would ever self-sabotage our relationship while at the same time claiming that he was "terrible at relationships." So confusing. You never know who the real person is that you're talking to.

Anyway, thanks for this article and the thought! The timelines were particularly interesting to me, as they synced up so clearly to my own.