Thank you, divine.

We talked pretty constantly over text and a lot over the phone, though he said he didn’t like the phone. However, now I’m starting to realize that, when he said he didn’t like the phone and it made him anxious and I heard the anxiety in his voice wanting to get off, it was maybe because there was someone coming over. Idk though, that could be a stretch. Thing is, I’m realizing that it’s likely nothing he told me about his relationships was true. In 2016 when we started talking, we gave it a break because he’d just gotten out of a 4 year relationship where she’d cheated on him. Yeah, I doubt that’s true. I’m not going to go into the details, but I realize what I thought was just my jealously back then was my gut telling me he was still sleeping with her. And I think back to the circumstances of that whole time, and realize how totally stupid I was to believe him then, too.

It was always that someone did him wrong, every relationship left him ragged. “It’s been a rough two years,” he said. And I empathized, because I’ve been there.

I realize now that the woman I was originally insecure about, and had asked about multiple times is probably, if not a girlfriend, a long term friend with benefits. I just know his patterns, and know his type. And I know she’s likely totally unaware of me, and of the other woman, the one I ended up contacting, though I have a sense she’s aware of me in the context he’s probably throwing out: “There’s this crazy chick who was so totally into me I couldn’t get rid of her even though she lives in Michigan. She had this whole fantasy about us to the point she was preparing to live here. She’s a stalker. I went through hell. It’s just...it’s been such a bad year for me.” And then the women feel sorry for him and end up sleeping with him.

I don’t feel rejected, and I don’t feel a sense of loss. What bothers me is the lies, and the fact that he was laughing at me the whole time, believing him after asking over and over, letting him put me down and tell me I’m crazy. It’s the sense of feeling totally taken advantage of, that the ONE thing I asked for was honesty, before even entering this relationship. I told him that I struggled with trust and if he wanted to see other women, it was fine, but I didn’t want to be a part of it. It’s the feeling stupid, realizing he whittled me down to almost nothing. And realizing that he basically told me who he was; during arguments, telling me how crazy I am, how I make his life miserable and stressful. But how he saw in me such a vulnerability, and a good heart and that’s wha5 kept him coming back. Yeah, it kept him coming back because he saw an easy target.

The last day, the last fight we had, I had already told him earlier in the day I was going to leave the following morning. It was because, during sex, I did something he perceived as wrong, and he snapped at me. I inadvertently burst into tears. I don’t know why it took me that long to be done, but I was done in that moment. I don’t know wh6 I didn’t take a shower and walk out then, but I guess I wanted to sleep before getting on the road. That night, after dinner, after rejecting his advances (“You’re pretty...beautiful eyes...”, trying to hug me), he left me in Knoxville with no ability to get back to Maryville where he lives to get to my car (where he’d already dumped my things). Uber was $110 that time of night. He ignored my texts for an hour, as well as the calls of two of my friends from Michigan, who were also trying to pay for my Uber fare (they didn’t have Uber, and didn’t know how). I went in circles with him for 4 hours, sitting in the cold, begging him to come back to get me so I could just go back home to Michigan. I told him I wanted to leave as much as he obviously wanted me to. He repeatedly told me to suck dicks for the money. When Uber finally went down to $20 and I was in the car, he finally talked to me more. I said, why are you doing this? I just want to go home. He said, “Because you’re stupid. And there is no excuse for stupidity.” It still never occurred to me then to connect what he was doing with a lack of empathy, with the fact that there may be a personality disorder I was dealing with; he’d had me so conditioned by this time to believe I was crazy, and he was the rational one.

My T sternly told me not to feel stupid, but I do. SO stupid. So much so that it takes my breath away. I’m not an unintelligent woman, and this upsets me. He took my insecurities, my past, my illness, and my overwhelming desire to feel loved and used it. For what, I don’t know. But, while I’m not bitter against all men, and I actually feel more awakened, I feel like my ability to trust and attempt future relationships is gone. I don’t say that out of despair, it’s just the truth.