I Need to Be Honest With You Guys & Myself: Ex-Fiances, Depressed GFs and Drugs

April 5, 2011

Good afternoon, Good evening, Good morning, Good whatever time it may be when you are reading this. Begin reading if you dare (but please do, ), seriously, this will take a while to read. I really hope you do.

I have posted some questions, that give a little insight to my situation, here and have gotten some great responses. However, I feel like without getting the entire situation out there I cannot fully receive the feedback I need. I guess this is a way for me to flush it all out there at this moment as well. This will be my log of what unfolds with this situation, not expecting much new, and if nothing else it will be an interesting read for you if you have the time. I will start from the beginning.

At the end of October I ended things with my girlfriend of two years, Steph. She was the girl that everyone thought I should be with and on the surface we looked like the perfect couple. After two years I couldn't do it anymore and we ended. I did it in a regrettable way, pretty much going No Contact with her from the get go.

While we were on the verge of being broken up I met a girl that is a bartender at "my bar" where I have been going since I turned 21. It is a nice little tavern with all your typical "locals." Anyway, when I met her she had just called off an engagement with her ex fiance Phillip. They lived together still, but she had been sleeping on the couch each night and they had had no sexual connection in months prior. She was incredibly depressed and he basically let her sit and rot on the couch as he went to and from work.

We connected immediately. I'd never experienced the phrase "opposites attract" but this was the definition of it. Me, a college educated, good family and friends type of guy falling for a tattoo'd, no college, bad family history girl. I live in Oregon and she in Washington. I began coming up on the weekends and we would hang out the entire weekend. We spent the majority of our time at my best friend's house since she didn't want to be rude and bring me over while Phillip was still living in the house.

We took it slow and I had a lot of respect for her situation with Phillip as he was heartbroken, felt she cheated on him, and was still in love with her. I mean they were engaged so I didn't want to pressure her into cutting him out of her life because I know they must still be close.

We became very close and would always tell each other that "we were a great team" and that it was crazy how somebody so different from ourselves could connect so perfectly.

I also knew, I guess found out as time went by how hard her life had been. Spending time with an abusive father and unloving step-mother, a recently deceased abusive step-father, a mother who didn't care about her but only herself, multiple abusive relationships with men and a former serious drug addiction.

I respected all of those things and understood that was part of who I was falling in love with. We spent our weekends hanging out late (as she got off work at 2am) and we got into things like cocaine and pain killers. It was a part of our hanging out I guess. I have always been a chronic marijuana user too.

By February we were in love with each other and had told each other that on numerous occasions. I would come up on the weekend and she would come down during the week when she could. I was still respecting her connection with her ex-fiance at this point because we had had so many open and honest conversations about them and why it ended and how to best help him without hurting him even more (ie not talking to him or hanging out with him so he could move on, etc.).

At the end of February she had to serve 21 days in jail for multiple DUIs. At that point she had asked him to move out and he did so a couple days before she had to go in. I was excited that we could start hanging out at her house and didn't feel like we had to burden our friend anymore.

I spent the entire week with her before she had to go in and we had a good time. I asked her what I could do for her when she got out to make things easier for her in her attempt to better her life. She was very emotional because nobody had taken the time to care about her like that or ask what they could do for her. It really had an impact on her.

The night before I left I woke up in the middle of the night and reached for my phone to check the time. Grabbing hers it went to a text message conversation from her to Phillip. She said, "I want you to spend the night tomorrow" and included an "Love you" in there.

I asked her about it in the morning and she was pretty annoyed I had been in her phone and told me that he got off work at like 2am and she had to leave at 4am and that it was only to talk and for him to grab some of his things. I was a little confused as to why she would word the text message to him that way if that was all she wanted but I didn't want to create drama before she had to go in. She was pretty upset that I had broken her trust.

Everyday she was in jail I wrote her a letter, I visited her each weekend and we talked, on my dime obviously, almost everyday. When she got out she literally ran and jumped into my arms. We had an amazing day. I noticed she had updated her facebook status to something like, "I have the best family in the world. Family doesn't just mean blood. You know who you are and you are stuck with me now (heart sign)." She told me later, but I obviously knew it was for me and it made me very happy.

That night we were getting ready for bed and I noticed a condom wrapper on the nightstand. I asked her about it and she said that it was incredibly old and from when she was cleaning before she left. That night I had a nightmare that her and Phillip had had sex the night before she went in and I told her about it in the morning. She swore up and down that nothing like that happened and that yeah, that condom wrapper probably was from him, but it was months and months old. That he came over for literally an hour and they sat in the living room and talked and nothing else. Again, by the tone in her voice, I believed her.

We continued to have another couple good weekends together and then I had the nightmare again. I told her and this time she was more annoyed with my insecurities. Again, she promised nothing happened, but told me I needed to understand how much she loved me and that she wouldn't do that to me and I had to stop letting our insecurities get in the way.

I came up a couple days later for the weekend and we had the most amazing Friday and early Saturday. We went out and bought matching black chuck taylors and we were having a great time. I told her at one point that if she wanted to stop drinking that I would stop to if that helped her. Again, like our conversation before she went in to jail, this was amazing to her. Nobody had ever offered to do something like that for her to help her. She was almost in tears by my gesture. Anyway, my phone died in the middle of the day and I had to call my mom so I asked to borrow hers. After I called my mom I looked for a phone number of a guy that had been bothering her (she told me I could contact him and tell him to back off) but what I found sucked. A couple innocent texts from Phillip and then bam, a picture message of a penis from on of our mutual friends saying "your turn" followed by no response from her and another one from him saying, "Erin, show me what I am going to ****." In my head I exploded, I decided I needed to leave to collect my thoughts. I told her I was going to my mom's house for a while and I would be back to get our friend his birthday present and then we would leave for his party/her work shift. I called my mom and told her I couldn't make it over and I went to my friend's house in tears. My mom said that Erin had called but she made it seem like she hadn't talked to her. Well, Erin proceeded to call me 40 times which I ignored. I finally called her back and told her I had fallen asleep at my mother's house.

She said that she had accidentally called my mom's house thinking it was the Eyewear and Contact place and when my mom told her I said I wasn't coming over and I wasn't answering she panicked and thought I had gotten in a wreck or arrested or something. I told her I don't know why mom said that but that is where I was and I would be right over. I guess I lied at that point because I didn't want to say why I was really gone/angry because I really didn't think those two (her and our mutual friend who sent the texts) would do that to me and didn't want to blow up about it if it wasn't true and just have her get mad because I was in her phone again.

I went back to her house and we proceeded to get in a huge argument because at first I wasn't up front about where I had been. I didn't really care at that moment she was angry because of what I had seen. Well the fight escalated quickly. I ended up telling her I was at Casey's but the fight continued and I said some very regrettable things. I told her that "she didn't know how ****ed up she really was" and that was it for her. I was another guy that had **** all over her. We were on the porch yelling and she was telling me to leave and this point I was very emotional.

I grabbed my phone and called our mutual friend who had sent those and went off on him. Why would you send that? How could you disrespect me like that? This guy has a daughter and recently got engaged a couple weeks prior. He had been a casual friend of mine for a while (they work together) from seeing him at the bar each weekend. He sounded very confused and after I hung up on him he called Erin. She swung the front door open and said, "Oh you have been going through my phone again!? Are you that ****ing stupid to think that me and PJ would do anything? Are you really that ****ing stupid!? It is PJ! You had me. I love you so much, I wouldn't do anything like that to you. It's ****ing PJ."

At this point I felt horrible, because as disrespectful as what he said/did was I knew she wouldn't do that with him. They were good friends, one of her only close friends, and they just have a crass friendship like that. So, instead of sticking to my guns I became emotional and began apologizing. Mostly for what I had said because I knew that cut her deep. She eventually let me back in the house and she got in the shower and I told her I knew she couldn't forgive me for what i had said but that I didn't really mean it.

I took her to work and I had to stay at that bar for my friend's birthday party. She talked to me there and after she got off I took her home, we hung out all night, I slept next to her in bed, and we hung out on Sunday before I had to go home to Portland. I knew how hurt she was but was happy that she still let me stay near her. The mood lightened and she said things like, "I hope you enjoyed our farwell f*** Friday and when she saw that kind of hurt, she said I am just kiding, come on. When I said goodbye to her pets before I left she told me to quit saying my final goodbyes because I didn't know what was going to happen. We hugged and kissed and she told me she loved me before I left.

I spent the next week, last week, in hell. Going back and forth from wanting to do anything to win her back to being pissed about the disrespect shown to me by my friend. In a moment of weakness I called him and asked him for advice. Sounds stupid now, but I was an emotional wreck. I didn't think anything of it, but he knew how much I cared about her. I asked him not to say anything to her because I knew it would piss her off if she knew I contact her close friend to talk about her "behind her back."

Well, I got up last Friday ready to tell him how disrespected I felt by what he had done and to try and get more context from this "joke" and to see how he would've felt if I had said that to his fiance.

I hadn't talked to Erin most of the week, other than a text from her saying, hope you are having a good day, because she wanted her space. I noticed on Thursday on facebook that she was getting off early on Friday so I decided to call her and see if we could hang out and talk. Well, when I called I woke her up and she wasn't in a good mood at all and took it out on me. I was confused but was relieved when she called later with a very sincere apology. She had just woken up and was having a lot of issues with her mom and counseling/therapy for depression and was very sorry she took it out on me and told me she would be waiting for me Friday.

When I got to the bar Friday she was off work and waiting for me with my best friend and his dad and was watching the Mariners game. She was a little tipsy but not drunk by any means. Typical for sitting at a bar and watching a game. We went outside because she wanted to talk and sure enough PJ had gotten drunk and told her I called. She was hurt and felt betrayed because I didn't call her to talk about us. She said that PJ was crushed by how he had hurt me. She was very sad and emotional and told me she understood how I would have concerns from everything from the original Phillip text to what PJ had sent to her but that I had her. That she didn't want anything else or anybody else and that I was the best thing that had come in to her life. She asked me, "don't you think I have insecurities too? When I visit and you have old love letters and old pictures in your desk of your short, athletic, blonde ex girlfriend that everybody thought was perfect you? How do you think that makes me feel, that I am the exact opposite of her, etc." She told me she was ready to break up with me during the week but couldn't because I was so amazing for her.

I then gave her a gift that I had made for her. It was a custom shirt of her favorite player for the Portland Trail Blazers. The same player I had boughten her a jersey for when we went to the game. She nearly cried and told me that the fact that I made that for her meant so incredibly much to her. We had a pretty good weekend hanging out and we talked a little more about things but not much, just kind of hung out.

When we got home, late, we went upstairs to bed and started making love, we woke her sister up at that point and her sister went nuts. She screamed, Zach you better get the f*** out of her before I slash your tires!" When she said that Erin rushed out of the room and the two of them got into a HUGE fight, I mean it came to blows. Her sister told Erin to get the **** out of the house and said some of the same deep cutting things I said during our fight.

Her sister thinks that I am a bad influence on her sister because we have done drugs together. Erin had an oxy addiction in the past but I wasn't going to make her quit when she wasn't ready. I guess I was enabling her there and maybe we were enmeshed. However, Erin's main focus at that point was to get therapy, which she was, and to cut out drinking, which she has (other than Friday night, the first time in months she had drank). I feel in reality though, I have done nothing but try to help her with the issues she chooses to tackle. We even decided when we talked on Thursday that we would cut out our other drug use. I am not the negative influence her sister thinks I am. I have tried in countless ways to be there for her and help her when she asks. I guess you might all disagree since I WAS doing drugs with her in the first place but in every other aspect of her life that she felt was important for healing I was there when nobody else was. Her sister is also a little hypocritical in my book because she would smoke with her sister all the time, even though her sister wanted to focus on quitting smoking (pot) and drinking. Just because her sister didn't think pot was bad, she thought it was okay to do it with Erin even though Erin wanted to quit that.

Anyway and needless to say Erin was devastated after that and pretty much hit rock bottom. She had to take that night off from work and I stayed with her and we had Mexican food and watched Scrubs all night. On Sunday I left and realized I had forgotten my wallet so I went back. When I went back I asked her straight up, Erin DID i have you or DO I have you? She said that she had just gone to blows with her sister, the last person other than me who cared about her, for me and that I obviously had her and that she didn't really want to talk about it that much right then.

She was clearly struggling when I left. She has always had depression issues from the reasons I stated before but her fight with her sister and being kicked out with nowhere to go caused her to hit a new low.

I called my best friend who was at the Haven with her on the way home and we were chatting and he mentioned she was excited about going to the Mariners game on Friday and Monday and I was confused because I hadn't heard anything bout that from her.

I called her up and asked if she was going and she said she was going to but was not going anymore. I asked her who she was going with and she said that Phillip had invited her. I said that I was glad to hear she wasn't going because I thought it was a little weird that she would go to a Mariners game (home opener) with him when that is where he proposed exactly a year ago. She said, well, yeah that is probably why he invited me but I am not going. She then said she couldn't do it anymore. That her state was so bad now that she had gotten in that fight with her sister, been kicked out (at end of this month) with nobody to turn to, and that she was unbelievably depressed and that she couldn't handle this anymore. She said that she needed time and space to figure out her own life. That it wasn't about her needing to see other guys or anything remotely close to that. That she had to work on making herself happy and not sick before she could be the girlfriend she wanted and that she couldn't do that with me bringing drama and insecurities around.

At that point I was a blubbering idiot, unfortunately. She told me she didn't need that and she needed me to be strong for her and not be selfish in my sadness of losing her because compared to what she has to go through and is going through it was selfish. She said that if I really loved her I would give her the space she needs to heal.

That was Sunday night. It is Tuesday afternoon and my head spins with so many different thoughts:

1) I am worried that she will turn back to Phillip now that she has nobody else and I am not in the same city as her.

2) That I was just a rebound. Despite all of our undeniable love, he was always lurking in the background. And if I was a rebound what does that mean about the feelings she had or said she had for me? Those all can't be fake. I know they can't. We were the best team and amazing with each other and I know she felt that.

3) I am confused how I went from being the best thing to walk into her life and the only person who cared to somebody she can walk away from

4) I am worried that I am just another long list of males that have abandoned her. I know, I know, she abandoned me by breaking up but part of me feels that she has pushed me away because of her depression and fears that I will just hurt her again like every other male. Or that she wants to spare me from her sorrow. If that is the case, I don't want to just leave her abandoned in her isolation and despair. I want to be the one that finally stands up and says I won't let you suffer alone. I care about you that much that I won't be every other person that has come in to your life and abandoned you.

5) I know this a journey she has to make alone and there is nothing I can do to "fix" her but I don't want her to fulfill her self-fulfilling prophecy by walking away when she needs support the most.

6) I know I should just move on from this situation but I can't. I know you will all say that she sounds like a horrible person but I know her deep down and she is just hurting so bad from a life of torment. I want to be the person she thought I was before I said those hurtful things and prove to her I am not just every other person that has sh** on her in her life.

7) I am trying to move on and have gone NC but I am struggling with this is the best idea when she is so alone and isolated. But at the same time I don't want to be played a fool if Phillip is going to come back in to her life.

I will finish this insanely long post with a letter I wrote to her last night. I didn't send it, but am thinking about it this weekend. It is more of a closure/good luck/I will be there type letter. I know that the last thing I should do is tell her I will be there for her after she broke up with me. But to be honest, whether I am with her again ever or not, which I really doubt I will be, I still care a ton about her and her well being. If I have to sacrifice any chance of "us" to make sure she has somebody then I am willing to do that. Anyway, thanks for listening (if you made it this far), here it is :

---

Erin,

It is my hope that you do not find this short letter to be disrespectful of the time and space you requested from me. I decided this would be the best way to tell you this without creating anymore drama or putting you in a situation where you felt like I wanted answers.

This letter is not really about me. It is about you and the journey you have ahead of you. I want you to know I support you 100% and will respect what you have to go through by giving you your space and the all the time necessary to take care of yourself. I will still be here for you if you need anything, regardless of what happens. I mean that the same now, when we've reached this point, as I did when I told you it before at the point in our relationship when things were amazing.

I know you hate it when I apologize, so this part will be brief. The biggest regret I have and the biggest mistake I have made in my life thus far is the way I handled the other weekend and in particular, telling you that you don't know how ****ed up you really are. I don't ever expect you to forget that and I can never take it back. I am deeply sorry for cutting you like that. I hope you know that although I know you are in a bad spot, I don't actually think you are ****ed up. I think you are an amazing woman that is in a horrifically difficult situation, which she did not bring upon herself and one that she does not deserve. In the entire time I was with you, even as the words came out of my mouth, I have never thought you were ****ed up at all. I think the hand of cards that you have been dealt recently is what's really ****ed up and I took it out on you because I was caught up in the heat of the moment.

I have been trying to educate myself on depression by reading articles and doing some research online and I don't begin to think I have the slightest idea what you are going through, but I can respect that you need to figure this out on your own. I don't have any answers and if all I have brought to the table is drama then I do not blame you for not wanting me with you on this journey. I know my love for you really has nothing to do with the situation. But know that I am the man who you looked at, as you told me, "as the best person to walk in to your life." My compassion for you and your well being is very strong and if I can only show you that by walking away, I will. I am standing tall and will continue to be the most kick ass employee at Cintas, the "jock" that will love his Blazers and Huskies, and the caring and loving person I am. And I will always be the man that promised he'd stop drinking with you, if it helped you heal. I will always be the man that cares so much about you he'd write you a letter everyday you were in jail. I will always be the man that will pull you out of the bar if you have been drinking too much (and on any other night, I would have told Mac to **** off and taken you home, but I was only trying to respect your boundaries, considering where we were at, at that point). I will always be the man that will go completely sober with you if it helps you. I don't ever want to be a contributor to your unhappiness.

I am sorry I let my insecurities get a hold of me to the extent they did and let them cause as much drama and frustration as they did. I know you loved me and I am sorry I betrayed your trust. Those insecurities seem so minute and pathetic know because I never once doubted us. Never once doubted that we were as good of a team as we said we were or that we weren't oddly perfect for one another. I hope you look back at me as the man who only wanted to bring you happiness and not as another ******* male that hurt you along the way. I would give you a world of happiness if I could, for now I will give you your space.

Love you always,

Zach

---

If you managed to make it through that I would love your thoughts. I have a feeling I know what most of you will say, but would love to hear it anyway.

April 5, 2011

If she knows how you feel then that's how to leave it.

Whatever she decides to do will be what she wants to do and NC is the best way for you to continue.

If she misses you zach then she will be in touch

April 5, 2011

If she knows how you feel then that's how to leave it.

Whatever she decides to do will be what she wants to do and NC is the best way for you to continue.
If she misses you zach then she will be in touch

Thanks for reading and for the words, Stephen.

I guess I am just struggling because she may miss me and may need my support but at the same time she is in such deep depression and has been kicked down by so many men in her life that I don't know if she will ever reach out to me if she needs it. I want her to know so badly that I am the strong, caring person that will be by her side and not abandon her like everyone else. She may know that, but she may not do anything about it because when you are depressed you need the isolation and loneliness. I don't want to be another spoke in her self-fulfilling prophecy of a wheel.

At the same time, I am struggling with the realization that I may never know how she truly felt or how sincere she was in telling me all of the things she did. God knows the look on her face, the tone of her voice and the tears welling in her eyes makes me believe. But to think she would/could potentially go to that game with her ex, with the significance behind it, makes me wonder if I was just a filler or if I was really "the best person to walk in to her life" and the "only person who offered to help." It hurts to not know and to know you will never know possibly.

How could she fight with one of the last close people in her life standing up for me, tell me I still have her and that she is still in love with me, and then say she can't do it anymore less than an hour later.

April 6, 2011

Day 2 of NC and I am feeling pretty low right now.

April 6, 2011

Thanks for directing me to your thread. I do see some similarities in our 2 stories. Coincidently, my ex is a bartender as well. I really believe that a traumatic childhood can cause the sorts of problems we are both experiencing.

I grew up with a great family and support system, so I have no way to really judge their psychological state. Deep down, I think your girl is really confused, and feels the need to hurt others before they can hurt her. It sucks, because I do believe she really did love you - unfortunately, this probably scared her to death.

Hang in there man, I am right there with ya. You sound like a good dude and have tried to make things work in a tough situation. I've been trying to tell myself this, so I want to tell you too: It seems like a cycle with these girls, hurting everyone that cares about them...it may change, but it has to be THEIR realization. I hope you can find the strength to at least be open to someone else coming into your life, hopefully with less baggage. If she does come back, then its your choice...

April 6, 2011

Why are you making up reasons, it isnt depression, bipolar disorder, sociopathic tendencies, anxiety... Trust me, dumpers usually go through alot of emotions (depression) at first, its perfectly human and normal. However they turn cold, seemingly later on which gives up the impression of bipolar or whatever we may blame it on.

However, if she has been struggling with depression throughout the years your chances of reconciliation are pretty high. Depression moments are never permanent but sometimes last a very long time. Once they get over the depression, guilt and regret are first emotions to surface towards the people they neglected during their depression. So they usually reach out for forgiveness or reconciliation with a loved one.

April 6, 2011

Yeah, but there is also a pattern of instability, which is why I am hesitant to say "when she feels better maybe things will work out."

Depression alone, yes, people may really struggle at some point and feel the need to leave. But, there are also some who just burn everyone they come in contact with, suggesting some additional underlying problems. Believe me, I've been depressed, but I was still considerate of other peoples' hearts.

April 6, 2011

Usually if they become distant and they seem depressed but at the same time angry with you means only one thing. New boyfriend. They dont know how to tell you so basically they play the depressed one, if that doesnt work on you they turn into anger to push you away. And the final blow is the infamous "im not IN love with you anymore"

April 6, 2011

Yeah, but there is also a pattern of instability, which is why I am hesitant to say "when she feels better maybe things will work out."

Depression alone, yes, people may really struggle at some point and feel the need to leave. But, there are also some who just burn everyone they come in contact with, suggesting some additional underlying problems. Believe me, I've been depressed, but I was still considerate of other peoples' hearts.

I agree 100% with the idea of a pattern of instability and that "when she feels better things will work out." After having an hour conversation with one of my best friends, I think I have to come to terms with the fact that she is the type to burn everyone the come in contact with, maybe to avoid being hurt again, I don't know.

What I do know and am starting to realize is that I did the best I could for her and I wasn't treated with the respect I deserve. I gave her everything, tried to help her in any way possible when she needed it. I want to tell her so bad now (its crazy after one phone call how what I want to say to her is so different, guess that is why we have NC) that I gave her EVERYTHING I could. That my insecurities were not unfounded and that I was not wrong for bringing them up. That I was not respected.

My friend said that when you gut tells you something is true than it usually is. He believes that the situation with her ex and the text and condom is what is seems to be. I want so badly to believe her reasoning, but how could it be anything other than that? I will never know, and I am trying not to dwell on it at the moment but it hurts.

The tears in her eyes from when she said she has insecurities too and that she would never do that to me... ...maybe those were more guilty conscious tears. Maybe the great times we had after I got over it where because she felt great and free because she wasn't caught and was happy to be happy with me because she didn't have to feel as guilty.

Since I can't do anything to help her and she has shown a pattern of instability and disrespect (and as my buddy believes, patterns of a "chronic cheater" and that whatever I am worried happened, probably doubly worse happened) than I must simply move on from potentially more heartache. It doesn't mean she didn't love me or that I was the best person to walk in to her life. I probably am the best thing that walked in to her life, but that, I guess, wasn't what she needed or could handle.

I am worried because I am moving towards anger and resentment now. I still care a ton about her well being, but I really don't know where to turn from here. I want so many answers to all of the things she made me feel insecure about but I will never have them. So many questions to things that I will never know the truth about (maybe for the best because if my gut is right than the truth would just hurt).

I don't know, I still want to believe she wouldn't do that to me, but with the amount of issues she has, the history of her life, maybe she would. Maybe she didn't mean to hurt me.

I don't know, I am going to maintain no contact but damn, at this point I have no closure. I am switching back and forth from wanting her to know I will not abandon her to feeling angry and almost resentful that she could potentially do some of the things she did and at the very least make me feel like the bad guy or a fool for my insecurities and for her disrespect.

I don't know what else to say at the moment. My head is spinning. Thoughts would be nice?

April 6, 2011

Usually if they become distant and they seem depressed but at the same time angry with you means only one thing. New boyfriend. They dont know how to tell you so basically they play the depressed one, if that doesnt work on you they turn into anger to push you away. And the final blow is the infamous "im not IN love with you anymore"

Not sure if you read everything I wrote above, but I am assuming if you did, that you are thinking she is going back to her Ex?

April 6, 2011

Wow, I am almost feeling sh***ier and better at the same time. I just posted something similar to this but I want to get it out again....

I guess I will write to her instead of trying to get my feelings into sentences:

Erin,

I gave you everything I could and it wasn't good enough.

I do think my insecurities surrounding us were not unfounded. I do believe you loved Phillip the entire time.

You may have loved me, I don't know but I don't think you actually know what a loving relationship is because you have never had one, with anybody in your life.

I gave you all I could and was only met with disrespect and accusations of being insecure. Your actions were not that of somebody who loved me or cared about me.

You put your relationship with your friend and your relationship with your ex ahead of my feelings and compassion for you.

I care about you and love you still more than you know and it hurts incredibly to know that you abused me the way you did. I am sure you don't know any better.

I am sure I was the best person to ever walk into your life, but you know what, I don't think you knew how to handle that.

It pains me deeply that I could give you so much and you could neglect my feelings so much. I was always in the wrong according to you, but I don't think my insecurities of feelings of disrespect were ever unfounded.

It boggles my mind how you could cry to me and tell me how much you loved me. Talk about our future together when so many other things were going on that prove to me now you had no compassion for me.

How could you ask your ex to stay the night with you before you went to jail? How is that considerate of our relationship? And when I found a condom wrapper the next night we were in your room... how am I ever supposed to believe that was nothing?

---

I am so hurt and angry and confused and have so many questions I will never have answers to. It really really sucks. I want to tell her so bad that all the things I wrote but I will never get to. I will never get to know if she cheated on me for sure or if the words that came out of her mouth were genuine but I guess actions speak louder than words and although she swore up and down that nothing ever happened and that I had all of her... ...how can I ever think that is the truth? I will never know and it sucks. I will never know if I really meant anything to her or if I was just being used this whole time, emotionally and financially. Could she really be that cold-hearted? Does she just not know any better?

Ugh, this sucks. I know I deserve better but this is still so hard now. On top of all this I still care about her well being, why? Because I am a good guy. Nice guys finish last. At least with girls like this.

Was I just being fed lines this whole time? Maybe it wasn't "being fed lines," there is some in between ground where she probably did love me and think I was so amazing but at the same time treated me with disrespect. I wish I could know if she did cheat, it would make it easier to move on. Or maybe it would just make me more depressed, I don't know. The bottom line is she never cut her ex out of her life the entire time and how is that fair to our relationship.

I want to believe so badly she cared and loved me the way I did for her, but I guess it is starting to look like that isn't the case even though that is what she said to me.

Am I wrong here? Is this a normal part of coping? Is it possible she never really loved me?

If it wasn't for these questions I would be doing great on the path to moving on.

April 6, 2011

"Is it possible she never really loved me?"

I can't really answer this questions, you can since you were with her. However, let's come back to the current moment, unfortunately some people's feelings do change over time.

Don't beat yourself to it.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I am worried because I am moving towards anger and resentment now"

This is fine, i was at this stage before. Now i am at the stage of, "It no longer matters to me anymore."

Keep up to your NC, even though you will face ups and downs, it will eventually get better. Now you will feel NC is like a stranger, in time to come NC will be your best friend.

April 6, 2011

Its perfectly normal what you feel and going through. Closure usually comes within yourself, no need to seek it. Coping and grieving is a bit** but you have to be strong and stay away from her, NC. Any contact whatsoever with her will only ruin your chance of reconciliation in the future.

It gets better with time, you will have your up and downs. That urge/need of contacting her, you have to beat and defeat. Its very difficult but once you beat one urge it gets better, second gets even easier and from there on you will see theres no point of even talking to her.

Stay strong and listen to some music, it helped me alot. Music usually distract you and your mind doesnt wonder so much. Make sure isnt anything sad, slow or heart breaking

April 6, 2011

Stay strong and listen to some music, it helped me alot. Music usually distract you and your mind doesnt wonder so much. Make sure isnt anything sad, slow or heart breaking

I guess that means no more Tom Waits

Is there any thing I can do about worrying about whether or not she cheated on me? There is no point worrying about it, but all the signs are becoming clear that something had to have happened. Even if nothing physical, she was never emotionally detached from her ex...

...god! there is no point worrying about that, it makes no difference anymore, why can't I accept that?!

April 6, 2011

Weirdly enough, I am feeling pretty good right now. I have some good friends that really talked me through this tonight. Still very sad about everything, but actually feeling pretty good right now.

Like I don't need to worry about whether she gets together with her Ex or if she cheated or how she felt honestly about me. Right now, and I hope it lasts, it doesn't matter. I will never understand the interworkings of her thoughts but I know I can't be consumed by her or her depression cuz it only brings me down to her same level of sadness and doesn't do anything to help either person.

I deserve a better person. A person that respects me, cares about me, and loves me like my friends just proved they do.

Still hurts to lose somebody I love and I still care about her....

...Ah, well I hope this isn't temporary, gonna get off of her for a bit to see if I can keep my mind free of it for a while longer.

April 6, 2011

Sorry man for intruding (I guess I have the right after reading the whole thing) I think you are kind of, how to put it... naive, in what concerns matters of the heart... it's not a good or bad thing in itself, but when it comes to relationships with a certain kind of people you (and myself for that matter) are clearly in disadvantage... I think your ex is a woman of the world, to put it in a nice way... OK, I'll be blunt... she was effin' around while you were worrying about her... I also think she is not that purposefully evil, it's that people like her takes whatever comes their way...

A condom, a man sending a pict of his ****, "love yous" in her phone... drugs, fights, booze... what else man? What were you thinking?

And in case you wonder again if your gf is cheating around, remember the Occam razor theory...

Next time look for someone with less problems than you...

Sorry, man, but someone had to tell it like it is... you can insult me if you think I am a prik and if that will make you feel better...

April 6, 2011

OMG.... I knew she was an addict. I mentioned that in my post to you before remember? I felt like I overstepped my boundaries and second guessed myself, but something told me she was and you didnt even mention anything bad in other posts. You posted as if she was the Queen of England. First of all let me tell you that I did not read the entire post... once i got to the part where you starting explaining the fight with her sister, I put two and two together about our earlier conversations.

I was married to an addict who had so many issues. I had to so counseling for many years just to heal from all the ups and downs of the roller coaster ride I stayed on for 8 years. I have a son with him too so that made it more interesting. He got me to smoke weed with him but he was also in to meth really heavy....very bad. and in to crime, and porn... cheating...wow.

My best advice to you is RUN as far and fast as you can. She is no good for you. Addicts LIE and manipulate so well and you believe everything she tells you. I went to this forum also to get help and boy did I get help:

http://www.voy.com/105817

Not sure if it is still as active as it once was.... but if not, you need to find help to get away from her. I'm sorry that you have to go through this, but trust me....the texts you read on her phone were no mistake.....the penis picture you saw was no joke...it was real. Addicts lie. It is a constant cycle for them.

I wish you the best and if I knew then what I know now... i would have RAN fast and never looked back. My ex went to prison finally as he deserved. He got out awhile back and is off of meth so he says but he is not very different. He has major psychological issues from the drugs and from the issues that actually caused the drug use. This is a long road that you shouldnt take. She hasnt even gotten help for her addiction and that too is never promised.

Recovery is difficult and she must make the decision to get help. First step is actually admitting she is an addict.

Don't believe her lies or anyone elses that is around her. Dont try to help either.... you have a whole life ahead of you and you should not let your healthy mind get screwed up because you love someone that is really not capable of returning the same to you. Sorry to be so blunt, but hey you posted so we all knew the truth and all I can give you is the honest truth...

Please go to that forum even if just to read the HELP blog.

voy.com/105817

I really feel for you right now and I hope you make the right decision. This is not a healthy relationship. I would tell your mom all of this if I could. Someone in your family needs to know so they can also talk some sense in to you.

Please please read more on addiction....its a serious disease and these people never stop dealing with it. Would you like to come back to this forum ten years from now and have the same story because nothing has changed except the day and the drug?

Think about it....RED FLAGS are everywhere and you should really see them by now.

the texts, the condom wrapper, the penis picture.... the drug use, her sister knows shes an addict too. Phillip probably knows too or maybe he is an addict as well? Please do not become an addict with her. Life is worth so much more.

April 6, 2011

Wow. ...wow. In my heart I think I posted this thread with that specific title because I needed to hear that. I am not exaggerating one bit when I say that your posts, Trovador and butterfly2011 have changed my outlook on my life. Not my outlook on my relationship. On my life. I read each of your posts about five times in a row. Thank you for being the final push in what I was beginning to realize but needed the blunt truth thrown in my face.

What was I thinking? Butterfly, what you said at the end of your post rocked me hard. That is not who I am or who I ever wanted to be. Jesus, how did I fall in love with somebody and follow them down the barrel when they treated me with no respect the entire time.

Trovador, you are absolutely right, I am completely naive in the matters of the heart. That is a spot on assessment. I can't do anything at this point but use this as armor to protect from future mistakes.

I feel like a fool for being so naive, I guess I have never associated with somebody that could hurt people so bad, whether it be intentional or not. What does it say about how deep in denial I was that could be at this point two days after she ended it.

I am glad you said this too, butterfly, "Dont try to help either.... you have a whole life ahead of you and you should not let your healthy mind get screwed up because you love someone that is really not capable of returning the same to you." For a while I was caught up on trying to help her...

At this point there is nothing to even say to her that will make one bit of difference one way of the other in her life and I guess the last respectful and caring thing I will do for her is never contact her again and hope that she one day realizes that part of everything she has thrown away in her life, is a man who would have done anything for her and unconditionally loved her & I can only hope that becomes part of a catalyst for her to understand how she is destroying herself and other people and seek help.

But I will not take the blame or blame myself for contributing to her sickness for it was her that took advantage of my kind heart and my love.

I will not be back on this forum in ten years talking about a relationship like this. There is nothing to do now but look forward and let life bring me back from the incredible mistakes I was making in my life and the sacrifices I made in so many aspects for somebody who was incapable of even understanding what a loving relationship is.

I feel sad for her and stupid at the same time but none the less this was a life changing night for me. I am excited to become a better me and to do it 100% for myself.

I hope I wake up tomorrow with this same sense of confidence. If I don't I will reread both what you two wrote but also what I wrote tonight. I know there will still be pain most likely, simply from losing something I did care about deeply, but I am headed in the right direction and fast.

I made some incredible mistakes and did things I would never normally do in the name of love. I shouldn't have to make those kind of sacrifices for love. Or be treated the way I was when I gave everything. I won't again.

Edited April 6, 2011 by whatdoido1717

April 6, 2011

I guess I am just struggling because she may miss me and may need my support but at the same time she is in such deep depression and has been kicked down by so many men in her life that I don't know if she will ever reach out to me if she needs it. I want her to know so badly that I am the strong, caring person that will be by her side and not abandon her like everyone else. She may know that, but she may not do anything about it because when you are depressed you need the isolation and loneliness. I don't want to be another spoke in her self-fulfilling prophecy of a wheel.

So despite her f*cking her ex when you two were together and planning to f*ck PJ, and lying to you at the drop of a hat, you feel you've walked all over her and that you want to be her caretaker, the daddy she never had? But at the same time you want to be her exclusive lover? Is that really what you want to be, a reincarnation of an abusive father? Does it not occur to you that in this serious of abusive men, the only common factor is her?

Get a grip, man. You will end up suicidal if you carry on suppressing your needs, your anger, your hurt, your wishes for the sake of hers. Trust me, I have the scars on both wrists.

Tell her you need some time to process your feelings, to work out precisely what you want from a relationship with her and that, in the meantime, you want absolutely no contact with her.

Then take a month, maybe more, and sort out what is yours and what is hers in terms of problems. Yours will include:

Why did you feel so willing to take on someone else's problems?
Why do you feel your needs are less legitimate than hers?
What are you afraid of when faced with a confrontation?

When you have worked through the hurt and pain you are feeling, determine what you want to be.

If you want to be a male friend, an urban brother if you will, then you cannot have sex with her.
If you want to be her therapist, you cannot have sex with her.
If you want to be her lover, you cannot be her therapist.

Then work out what things are off limits in any relationship you have with anyone. Things like, for instance, f*cking the ex in your bed, lying, developing sexual relations with co-workers, projecting her problems on to you and using you like an emotional punchbag, using drugs for self-medication as opposed to recreational usage. That sort of thing.

Also, seriously consider therapy for yourself. You have just left a seriously abusive relationship. How you go into such a relationship and why, despite having been trampled on yourself, you dismiss this and focus on her needs so much are big questions and the answers will help you grow as a person.

The future is not set. However, if you want to re-enter into a romantic relationship with her, you will both need a lot of help. Counselling for the pair of you, together, counselling for each of you separately, and leaving the medication stuff to the doctors.

In the near future, do things that will help you to deal with the shock and stress you have been under. Eat well, see your doctor for sleeping pills if you are having problems sleeping, get a massage, a haircut, some new clothes, have a hot bath and really take care of yourself. You need to, for you sake. And if you two are to have any hope of a healthy relationship (with each other or with someone else) this is the only way you can attain it: by finding ways to be healthy.

Good luck, brother, you've had a hard time. It will get better just as soon as you decide you deserve it.

Edited April 6, 2011 by betterdeal

April 6, 2011

Also, I recommend a book called "Lost in the Mirror" which is about Emotionally Unstable (Borderline) Personality Disorder, although it rings bells for other personality disorders too, and may help you understand what you've been connected to.

April 6, 2011

Betterdeal, thank you for your response and for the questiions you posed.

I am at a point now where I understand I deserve better and to be with somebody who is capable of fully reciprocating my love.

I am not feeling quite as good this morning as I was last night, but still better than I was for sure.

I am struggling with how I should feel about what I was doing with myself with her. Was I so blinded by what I wanted us to be and who I wanted to believe she was that I ignored all of the red flags?

I am hurting because now that I am realizing more about the sevirity of her issues I am accepting that all of these terrible things she promised she would never do to me probably all happened. I don't know if I should meet that with anger, both at her for what she did and at myself for allowing it or if I should chalk it up to all of her mental and emotional issues and just allow myself to accept who she is and try and move on.

What does this mean about her feelings for me? What about all the things she said to me? Was that all bulls***? I wish I could just not stress about things like this and just understand it doesn't matter anymore and move on with my life but these thoughts still are hanging around.

Betterdeal, I want to read that book because it looks very interesting and would probably give more insight into everything but I don't know if spending that much time trying to understand her at this point would be healthy. Would it be better to just realize and understand I deserve better and chalk this up as a major life mistake?

How do I deal all of the realizations that she probably wasn't faithful to me? How do I cope with the fact that I will never understand what I meant to her really? If I was just being completely used or if some of her feelings were genuine. How do I accept that I will never know the truth behind any of it and won't get the answers to all of these questions?

I know I have questions I need to ask of myself too but at this point these are the issues holding me back from completely healing and moving and letting her go all together.

April 6, 2011

Also, I recommend a book called "Lost in the Mirror" which is about Emotionally Unstable (Borderline) Personality Disorder, although it rings bells for other personality disorders too, and may help you understand what you've been connected to.

betterdeal, thank you for recommending that book, it got me to start reading more about BPD and some of the things I have read are very similar to my situation. It is scary. I am going to try and purchase that book this afternoon.

I am starting to sense that she never did love me, she just needed me to fill or give her something. I feel terrible for my part in contributing right now. I feel sad that I foolishly let myself get hurt by somebody like this. I want to move on but am not overcome by the sadness of all of the circumstances.

April 6, 2011

Good afternoon, Good evening, Good morning, Good whatever time it may be when you are reading this. Begin reading if you dare (but please do, ), seriously, this will take a while to read. I really hope you do.

I have posted some questions, that give a little insight to my situation, here and have gotten some great responses. However, I feel like without getting the entire situation out there I cannot fully receive the feedback I need. I guess this is a way for me to flush it all out there at this moment as well. This will be my log of what unfolds with this situation, not expecting much new, and if nothing else it will be an interesting read for you if you have the time. I will start from the beginning.

At the end of October I ended things with my girlfriend of two years, Steph. She was the girl that everyone thought I should be with and on the surface we looked like the perfect couple. After two years I couldn't do it anymore and we ended. I did it in a regrettable way, pretty much going No Contact with her from the get go.

While we were on the verge of being broken up I met a girl that is a bartender at "my bar" where I have been going since I turned 21. It is a nice little tavern with all your typical "locals." Anyway, when I met her she had just called off an engagement with her ex fiance Phillip. They lived together still, but she had been sleeping on the couch each night and they had had no sexual connection in months prior. She was incredibly depressed and he basically let her sit and rot on the couch as he went to and from work.

We connected immediately. I'd never experienced the phrase "opposites attract" but this was the definition of it. Me, a college educated, good family and friends type of guy falling for a tattoo'd, no college, bad family history girl. I live in Oregon and she in Washington. I began coming up on the weekends and we would hang out the entire weekend. We spent the majority of our time at my best friend's house since she didn't want to be rude and bring me over while Phillip was still living in the house.

We took it slow and I had a lot of respect for her situation with Phillip as he was heartbroken, felt she cheated on him, and was still in love with her. I mean they were engaged so I didn't want to pressure her into cutting him out of her life because I know they must still be close.

We became very close and would always tell each other that "we were a great team" and that it was crazy how somebody so different from ourselves could connect so perfectly.

I also knew, I guess found out as time went by how hard her life had been. Spending time with an abusive father and unloving step-mother, a recently deceased abusive step-father, a mother who didn't care about her but only herself, multiple abusive relationships with men and a former serious drug addiction.

I respected all of those things and understood that was part of who I was falling in love with. We spent our weekends hanging out late (as she got off work at 2am) and we got into things like cocaine and pain killers. It was a part of our hanging out I guess. I have always been a chronic marijuana user too.

By February we were in love with each other and had told each other that on numerous occasions. I would come up on the weekend and she would come down during the week when she could. I was still respecting her connection with her ex-fiance at this point because we had had so many open and honest conversations about them and why it ended and how to best help him without hurting him even more (ie not talking to him or hanging out with him so he could move on, etc.).

At the end of February she had to serve 21 days in jail for multiple DUIs. At that point she had asked him to move out and he did so a couple days before she had to go in. I was excited that we could start hanging out at her house and didn't feel like we had to burden our friend anymore.

I spent the entire week with her before she had to go in and we had a good time. I asked her what I could do for her when she got out to make things easier for her in her attempt to better her life. She was very emotional because nobody had taken the time to care about her like that or ask what they could do for her. It really had an impact on her.

The night before I left I woke up in the middle of the night and reached for my phone to check the time. Grabbing hers it went to a text message conversation from her to Phillip. She said, "I want you to spend the night tomorrow" and included an "Love you" in there.

I asked her about it in the morning and she was pretty annoyed I had been in her phone and told me that he got off work at like 2am and she had to leave at 4am and that it was only to talk and for him to grab some of his things. I was a little confused as to why she would word the text message to him that way if that was all she wanted but I didn't want to create drama before she had to go in. She was pretty upset that I had broken her trust.

Everyday she was in jail I wrote her a letter, I visited her each weekend and we talked, on my dime obviously, almost everyday. When she got out she literally ran and jumped into my arms. We had an amazing day. I noticed she had updated her facebook status to something like, "I have the best family in the world. Family doesn't just mean blood. You know who you are and you are stuck with me now (heart sign)." She told me later, but I obviously knew it was for me and it made me very happy.

That night we were getting ready for bed and I noticed a condom wrapper on the nightstand. I asked her about it and she said that it was incredibly old and from when she was cleaning before she left. That night I had a nightmare that her and Phillip had had sex the night before she went in and I told her about it in the morning. She swore up and down that nothing like that happened and that yeah, that condom wrapper probably was from him, but it was months and months old. That he came over for literally an hour and they sat in the living room and talked and nothing else. Again, by the tone in her voice, I believed her.

We continued to have another couple good weekends together and then I had the nightmare again. I told her and this time she was more annoyed with my insecurities. Again, she promised nothing happened, but told me I needed to understand how much she loved me and that she wouldn't do that to me and I had to stop letting our insecurities get in the way.

I came up a couple days later for the weekend and we had the most amazing Friday and early Saturday. We went out and bought matching black chuck taylors and we were having a great time. I told her at one point that if she wanted to stop drinking that I would stop to if that helped her. Again, like our conversation before she went in to jail, this was amazing to her. Nobody had ever offered to do something like that for her to help her. She was almost in tears by my gesture. Anyway, my phone died in the middle of the day and I had to call my mom so I asked to borrow hers. After I called my mom I looked for a phone number of a guy that had been bothering her (she told me I could contact him and tell him to back off) but what I found sucked. A couple innocent texts from Phillip and then bam, a picture message of a penis from on of our mutual friends saying "your turn" followed by no response from her and another one from him saying, "Erin, show me what I am going to ****." In my head I exploded, I decided I needed to leave to collect my thoughts. I told her I was going to my mom's house for a while and I would be back to get our friend his birthday present and then we would leave for his party/her work shift. I called my mom and told her I couldn't make it over and I went to my friend's house in tears. My mom said that Erin had called but she made it seem like she hadn't talked to her. Well, Erin proceeded to call me 40 times which I ignored. I finally called her back and told her I had fallen asleep at my mother's house.

She said that she had accidentally called my mom's house thinking it was the Eyewear and Contact place and when my mom told her I said I wasn't coming over and I wasn't answering she panicked and thought I had gotten in a wreck or arrested or something. I told her I don't know why mom said that but that is where I was and I would be right over. I guess I lied at that point because I didn't want to say why I was really gone/angry because I really didn't think those two (her and our mutual friend who sent the texts) would do that to me and didn't want to blow up about it if it wasn't true and just have her get mad because I was in her phone again.

I went back to her house and we proceeded to get in a huge argument because at first I wasn't up front about where I had been. I didn't really care at that moment she was angry because of what I had seen. Well the fight escalated quickly. I ended up telling her I was at Casey's but the fight continued and I said some very regrettable things. I told her that "she didn't know how ****ed up she really was" and that was it for her. I was another guy that had **** all over her. We were on the porch yelling and she was telling me to leave and this point I was very emotional.

I grabbed my phone and called our mutual friend who had sent those and went off on him. Why would you send that? How could you disrespect me like that? This guy has a daughter and recently got engaged a couple weeks prior. He had been a casual friend of mine for a while (they work together) from seeing him at the bar each weekend. He sounded very confused and after I hung up on him he called Erin. She swung the front door open and said, "Oh you have been going through my phone again!? Are you that ****ing stupid to think that me and PJ would do anything? Are you really that ****ing stupid!? It is PJ! You had me. I love you so much, I wouldn't do anything like that to you. It's ****ing PJ."

At this point I felt horrible, because as disrespectful as what he said/did was I knew she wouldn't do that with him. They were good friends, one of her only close friends, and they just have a crass friendship like that. So, instead of sticking to my guns I became emotional and began apologizing. Mostly for what I had said because I knew that cut her deep. She eventually let me back in the house and she got in the shower and I told her I knew she couldn't forgive me for what i had said but that I didn't really mean it.

I took her to work and I had to stay at that bar for my friend's birthday party. She talked to me there and after she got off I took her home, we hung out all night, I slept next to her in bed, and we hung out on Sunday before I had to go home to Portland. I knew how hurt she was but was happy that she still let me stay near her. The mood lightened and she said things like, "I hope you enjoyed our farwell f*** Friday and when she saw that kind of hurt, she said I am just kiding, come on. When I said goodbye to her pets before I left she told me to quit saying my final goodbyes because I didn't know what was going to happen. We hugged and kissed and she told me she loved me before I left.

I spent the next week, last week, in hell. Going back and forth from wanting to do anything to win her back to being pissed about the disrespect shown to me by my friend. In a moment of weakness I called him and asked him for advice. Sounds stupid now, but I was an emotional wreck. I didn't think anything of it, but he knew how much I cared about her. I asked him not to say anything to her because I knew it would piss her off if she knew I contact her close friend to talk about her "behind her back."

Well, I got up last Friday ready to tell him how disrespected I felt by what he had done and to try and get more context from this "joke" and to see how he would've felt if I had said that to his fiance.

I hadn't talked to Erin most of the week, other than a text from her saying, hope you are having a good day, because she wanted her space. I noticed on Thursday on facebook that she was getting off early on Friday so I decided to call her and see if we could hang out and talk. Well, when I called I woke her up and she wasn't in a good mood at all and took it out on me. I was confused but was relieved when she called later with a very sincere apology. She had just woken up and was having a lot of issues with her mom and counseling/therapy for depression and was very sorry she took it out on me and told me she would be waiting for me Friday.

When I got to the bar Friday she was off work and waiting for me with my best friend and his dad and was watching the Mariners game. She was a little tipsy but not drunk by any means. Typical for sitting at a bar and watching a game. We went outside because she wanted to talk and sure enough PJ had gotten drunk and told her I called. She was hurt and felt betrayed because I didn't call her to talk about us. She said that PJ was crushed by how he had hurt me. She was very sad and emotional and told me she understood how I would have concerns from everything from the original Phillip text to what PJ had sent to her but that I had her. That she didn't want anything else or anybody else and that I was the best thing that had come in to her life. She asked me, "don't you think I have insecurities too? When I visit and you have old love letters and old pictures in your desk of your short, athletic, blonde ex girlfriend that everybody thought was perfect you? How do you think that makes me feel, that I am the exact opposite of her, etc." She told me she was ready to break up with me during the week but couldn't because I was so amazing for her.

I then gave her a gift that I had made for her. It was a custom shirt of her favorite player for the Portland Trail Blazers. The same player I had boughten her a jersey for when we went to the game. She nearly cried and told me that the fact that I made that for her meant so incredibly much to her. We had a pretty good weekend hanging out and we talked a little more about things but not much, just kind of hung out.

When we got home, late, we went upstairs to bed and started making love, we woke her sister up at that point and her sister went nuts. She screamed, Zach you better get the f*** out of her before I slash your tires!" When she said that Erin rushed out of the room and the two of them got into a HUGE fight, I mean it came to blows. Her sister told Erin to get the **** out of the house and said some of the same deep cutting things I said during our fight.

Her sister thinks that I am a bad influence on her sister because we have done drugs together. Erin had an oxy addiction in the past but I wasn't going to make her quit when she wasn't ready. I guess I was enabling her there and maybe we were enmeshed. However, Erin's main focus at that point was to get therapy, which she was, and to cut out drinking, which she has (other than Friday night, the first time in months she had drank). I feel in reality though, I have done nothing but try to help her with the issues she chooses to tackle. We even decided when we talked on Thursday that we would cut out our other drug use. I am not the negative influence her sister thinks I am. I have tried in countless ways to be there for her and help her when she asks. I guess you might all disagree since I WAS doing drugs with her in the first place but in every other aspect of her life that she felt was important for healing I was there when nobody else was. Her sister is also a little hypocritical in my book because she would smoke with her sister all the time, even though her sister wanted to focus on quitting smoking (pot) and drinking. Just because her sister didn't think pot was bad, she thought it was okay to do it with Erin even though Erin wanted to quit that.

Anyway and needless to say Erin was devastated after that and pretty much hit rock bottom. She had to take that night off from work and I stayed with her and we had Mexican food and watched Scrubs all night. On Sunday I left and realized I had forgotten my wallet so I went back. When I went back I asked her straight up, Erin DID i have you or DO I have you? She said that she had just gone to blows with her sister, the last person other than me who cared about her, for me and that I obviously had her and that she didn't really want to talk about it that much right then.

She was clearly struggling when I left. She has always had depression issues from the reasons I stated before but her fight with her sister and being kicked out with nowhere to go caused her to hit a new low.

I called my best friend who was at the Haven with her on the way home and we were chatting and he mentioned she was excited about going to the Mariners game on Friday and Monday and I was confused because I hadn't heard anything bout that from her.

I called her up and asked if she was going and she said she was going to but was not going anymore. I asked her who she was going with and she said that Phillip had invited her. I said that I was glad to hear she wasn't going because I thought it was a little weird that she would go to a Mariners game (home opener) with him when that is where he proposed exactly a year ago. She said, well, yeah that is probably why he invited me but I am not going. She then said she couldn't do it anymore. That her state was so bad now that she had gotten in that fight with her sister, been kicked out (at end of this month) with nobody to turn to, and that she was unbelievably depressed and that she couldn't handle this anymore. She said that she needed time and space to figure out her own life. That it wasn't about her needing to see other guys or anything remotely close to that. That she had to work on making herself happy and not sick before she could be the girlfriend she wanted and that she couldn't do that with me bringing drama and insecurities around.

At that point I was a blubbering idiot, unfortunately. She told me she didn't need that and she needed me to be strong for her and not be selfish in my sadness of losing her because compared to what she has to go through and is going through it was selfish. She said that if I really loved her I would give her the space she needs to heal.

That was Sunday night. It is Tuesday afternoon and my head spins with so many different thoughts:

1) I am worried that she will turn back to Phillip now that she has nobody else and I am not in the same city as her.

2) That I was just a rebound. Despite all of our undeniable love, he was always lurking in the background. And if I was a rebound what does that mean about the feelings she had or said she had for me? Those all can't be fake. I know they can't. We were the best team and amazing with each other and I know she felt that.

3) I am confused how I went from being the best thing to walk into her life and the only person who cared to somebody she can walk away from

4) I am worried that I am just another long list of males that have abandoned her. I know, I know, she abandoned me by breaking up but part of me feels that she has pushed me away because of her depression and fears that I will just hurt her again like every other male. Or that she wants to spare me from her sorrow. If that is the case, I don't want to just leave her abandoned in her isolation and despair. I want to be the one that finally stands up and says I won't let you suffer alone. I care about you that much that I won't be every other person that has come in to your life and abandoned you.

5) I know this a journey she has to make alone and there is nothing I can do to "fix" her but I don't want her to fulfill her self-fulfilling prophecy by walking away when she needs support the most.

6) I know I should just move on from this situation but I can't. I know you will all say that she sounds like a horrible person but I know her deep down and she is just hurting so bad from a life of torment. I want to be the person she thought I was before I said those hurtful things and prove to her I am not just every other person that has sh** on her in her life.

7) I am trying to move on and have gone NC but I am struggling with this is the best idea when she is so alone and isolated. But at the same time I don't want to be played a fool if Phillip is going to come back in to her life.

I will finish this insanely long post with a letter I wrote to her last night. I didn't send it, but am thinking about it this weekend. It is more of a closure/good luck/I will be there type letter. I know that the last thing I should do is tell her I will be there for her after she broke up with me. But to be honest, whether I am with her again ever or not, which I really doubt I will be, I still care a ton about her and her well being. If I have to sacrifice any chance of "us" to make sure she has somebody then I am willing to do that. Anyway, thanks for listening (if you made it this far), here it is :

---

Erin,
It is my hope that you do not find this short letter to be disrespectful of the time and space you requested from me. I decided this would be the best way to tell you this without creating anymore drama or putting you in a situation where you felt like I wanted answers.

This letter is not really about me. It is about you and the journey you have ahead of you. I want you to know I support you 100% and will respect what you have to go through by giving you your space and the all the time necessary to take care of yourself. I will still be here for you if you need anything, regardless of what happens. I mean that the same now, when we've reached this point, as I did when I told you it before at the point in our relationship when things were amazing.

I know you hate it when I apologize, so this part will be brief. The biggest regret I have and the biggest mistake I have made in my life thus far is the way I handled the other weekend and in particular, telling you that you don't know how ****ed up you really are. I don't ever expect you to forget that and I can never take it back. I am deeply sorry for cutting you like that. I hope you know that although I know you are in a bad spot, I don't actually think you are ****ed up. I think you are an amazing woman that is in a horrifically difficult situation, which she did not bring upon herself and one that she does not deserve. In the entire time I was with you, even as the words came out of my mouth, I have never thought you were ****ed up at all. I think the hand of cards that you have been dealt recently is what's really ****ed up and I took it out on you because I was caught up in the heat of the moment.

I have been trying to educate myself on depression by reading articles and doing some research online and I don't begin to think I have the slightest idea what you are going through, but I can respect that you need to figure this out on your own. I don't have any answers and if all I have brought to the table is drama then I do not blame you for not wanting me with you on this journey. I know my love for you really has nothing to do with the situation. But know that I am the man who you looked at, as you told me, "as the best person to walk in to your life." My compassion for you and your well being is very strong and if I can only show you that by walking away, I will. I am standing tall and will continue to be the most kick ass employee at Cintas, the "jock" that will love his Blazers and Huskies, and the caring and loving person I am. And I will always be the man that promised he'd stop drinking with you, if it helped you heal. I will always be the man that cares so much about you he'd write you a letter everyday you were in jail. I will always be the man that will pull you out of the bar if you have been drinking too much (and on any other night, I would have told Mac to **** off and taken you home, but I was only trying to respect your boundaries, considering where we were at, at that point). I will always be the man that will go completely sober with you if it helps you. I don't ever want to be a contributor to your unhappiness.

I am sorry I let my insecurities get a hold of me to the extent they did and let them cause as much drama and frustration as they did. I know you loved me and I am sorry I betrayed your trust. Those insecurities seem so minute and pathetic know because I never once doubted us. Never once doubted that we were as good of a team as we said we were or that we weren't oddly perfect for one another. I hope you look back at me as the man who only wanted to bring you happiness and not as another ******* male that hurt you along the way. I would give you a world of happiness if I could, for now I will give you your space.

Love you always,
Zach

---

If you managed to make it through that I would love your thoughts. I have a feeling I know what most of you will say, but would love to hear it anyway.

Zach, it is not uncommon for people who have been abused, to become abusers themselves. As seems to be the case with Erin. They will be dishonest,manipulative, hurtful, and take advantage of and misuse the trust they have been given, and then in the same breath cry out that you have left, or abandonded them just like everyone else. It's a really sad cycle, and I don't doubt that they really believe what they are saying. Only seeing the betrayal of others, and not seeing their own actions of the same level.

What was going on with her ex was clearly one great big yarn of dysfunctional behavior. It should have been your first clue to buck and run that they were still living together, but for certain the first time you saw the text about her asking him to spend the night. When it comes to abuse victims, it is also not common for a reaction to be shock and horror, and for some reason that person suddenly becomes almost saintly, don't they? You just want to take care of them and heal their wounds and their dysfunctional behavior is often overlooked or excuses are made.

As for the opposites attract..well that is pretty understandable too. It is normal to be curious, to want to know how the other half "lives" so to speak. However, doing cocaine? Come on. I want you to know that everything I say following this has nothing at all to do with "good person/bad person" mentality. Drugs are destructive. They can lead to no good and in the event something really important to you were ever to be compromised as a result of them, you are going to first hand what I am talking about and that they were never worth it.

I think the best thing you can do right now is get away from this woman because what she subjected you too, when the fog clears you are going to realise how she abused your sense of trust, too. You are going to wake up one day, and that is what it will be like : waking up. You are going to be able to understand and reason how utterly wrong it is for a woman to be telling her ex to come spend the night with her, and that she loves him. You also, have to know that her ex did not just randomly expose his genitals to her. They had to of been talking "dirty". This girl has been through some tough things in her life, and I hope she gets some help for herself and stops abusing others as she has been abused, too.

April 6, 2011

I am seeking counseling. This has become a very harsh reality. I need help understanding why I fell in love with somebody with a sickness like this. I need to learn how to cope with my contributions to her sickness which are becoming very aparent and I now understand her sister's hatred for me. I need to understand how her illness affects her life and mine, as well as whatever it was we had.

April 6, 2011

Be a bit careful of what you read about BPD online. There's a lot of stuff out there that isn't very helpful and talks in fear-based terms. It didn't ring true for me, but I'm sure you have the critical analysis skills to discern what's helpful and what's not.

Regards how you feel, it's in my signature - whatever we feel is a real feeling and as legitimate as any other feeling. I found not replacing the word "should" with "do" helps. For instance, "how I should feel" becomes "how I do feel" and "should I meet that with anger" becomes "I do meet that with anger" ("that made me angry").

It's completely understandable that you are still wondering about what she thinks, feels and what was honest and what was dishonest. I'm sure she felt love for you, but that is never enough to make any one happy. As well as love we need respect, affection, trust and playful fun.

Clearly honesty and fidelity are important to you. These are just two of your boundaries when it comes to a lover. They've been breached, and that hurts you directly where it hurts most - deep inside in the inner child / soul / subconscious / heart / real you.

You've spent a lot of your time absorbing her pain, and adjusting to not worrying about her will just take a little time. That doesn't mean not caring, but it does mean finding another boundary that has been eroded, ignored or was never fully there to start with. That's the one that lies between caring for yourself and compassion for others. Compassion is caring for another whilst not letting that harm you. It's what doctors and nurses need if they are to live a good life and continue to help patients. It's something you can have for her, whilst not being with her.

My advice is to accept the multitude of feelings that you have. Fear, sorrow, grief, anger, bewilderment. How long that will take is truly individual to each person. However, I've found that when I was ready and could handle letting them out, they were quite overwhelming at times, but I felt much better afterwards. It's like your inner child wants to be heard, for those feelings to be acknowledged, felt, expressed, and then they can be let go of.

You've had a traumatic experience. As with a physical trauma, make sure the cause of injury (the relationship) is neutralised to prevent further injury, apply first aid, cauterise the wound and help it heal by resting, good nutrients, clean, safe environment, and some TLC from safe people, such as good friends or family.

I Need to Be Honest With You Guys & Myself: Ex-Fiances, Depressed GFs and Drugs

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