How do I move on?

[Allusedup]

My username says it all... I am all used up and don't know how to move on after being cheated on and emotionally destroyed.

 

It's a long, complicated story that I will do my best to sum up here. We met almost 2 years ago and started dating pretty quickly. He was kind, emotionally open, fun to be with, and just a great match for me personality-wise, and had all the qualities I was looking for in someone for the long term, except he was very much damaged emotionally.

 

About 6 months prior to meeting me, his dad died of cancer, his mom went nuts(literally, mental illness), he lost his job, and his girlfriend of 2 years dumped him and kicked him out. All of those events happened within 4 months of each other. He didn't have much in the way of family to lean on (he's an only child), and lived on the other side of the country from where he grew up.

 

When I met him, he had just started a new job in the northern part of the state near me, and on the surface, seemed like he was doing well, but as his feelings for me got more serious, the damage from what he had been through started to surface. I wanted to leave him after about a month, simply to give him the space that I thought he needed to continue healing from his past on his own. He wouldn't have it though, and came running back to me. Frankly, he needed the emotional support that I was able to offer.

 

Due to all this, our relationship had an unusual start from most. The first 6-9 months or so were all about helping him heal from his past. I should mention that with regards to serious relationships, he had only 2 prior to meeting me. The most recent gf of 2 years, and a couple years prior to that, he had been married for about 6 years and cheated on several times during their marriage.

 

It was sometimes rough getting through all this, and he'd push me away sometimes, feeling like he was no longer able to get as close as he wanted to me. I know he loved me very deeply. I also know he felt I was the best person for him. Our relationship would go through cycles. We'd be happy, in love for a few months, and then he would push me away because he didn't know how to give everything he wanted to to me - he felt like part of him was still dead inside. We'd break up, get back together. About 70% of the time, he'd push me away, and the rest of the time, I'd push him away out of frustration and feeling like he would only be able to heal on his own.

 

During our time apart, he would seek out meaningless sex from random girls online. He has a high sex drive, and that way he could fulfill his needs without having to be in a relationship, which he was just incapable of. I've been that way before, so I could understand where he was coming from, but at the same time, I told him in the long run, it was only going to damage him further... he needed to truly heal, not screw random chicks to momentarily forget about his past.

 

About a year and a half into our on again-off again relationship, he decided that he wanted to move back to so cal, where he lived before all hell broke loose in his life. We lived in northern california at the time, about an hour away from each other. I encouraged the move. He had a great job opportunity, and bottom line, he was never truly happy up here as the only reason he ended up where he did was out of survival. After everything that had happened with his family, ex-gf, and job, he had no place to stay, no job, the economy was bad, so he looked EVERYWHERE for work and ended up here. But he wasn't ever truly happy. He didn't like the weather, wasn't that fond of his job, and the two of us were often apart from each other because of the distance involved between us. The only positive thing he had up here was me. So we talked about it. The plan was for him to move, and he wanted me to come down there before he did it, to see how I felt about possibly relocating down there with him.

 

I live about a half hour from where I grew up, but really had no reason to stay in the area. I wasn't that fond of my job, things were going south due to the economy and my company getting bought out. When looking into so cal, I was finding a lot more opportunity, and frankly, I loved it down there. So he moved, and I began my job hunt to move down there as well.

 

He moved down at the end of March, and we immediately made our plans to see each other - arranging the weekends, trying to work around any job interviews I landed, etc. At the end of one of my weekend visits, he started breaking down. He was having trouble dealing with the crazy distance between us (about a 6 hour drive now). He was worried we wouldn't be able to make it through all this, and he begged me not to go home.

 

Of course, I had to leave that evening, but not after talking to him about all this and reassuring him that things would be okay and I was working hard on the job search. He cried and cried right before I left, and I cried too of course as I wished I could just up and move without having a job lined up.

 

So I was back at home for a few days, lots of text messaging and phone calls exchanged between us as usual. Then one night, I was heading out with some friends to catch up. We had talked earlier in the evening, everything was fine. I got kind crazy that night, too much drinking, and didn't text him until the next morning. He seemed kinda quiet all day. Then in the evening, told me he had to tell me something...

 

He had gone out to the bars the night before as well, but ended up taking some random chick home and cheated on me. He told me this through text message... I wasn't responding. He sent me more messages, tried to call me, but I wouldn't answer. I was stunned, numb, and didn't know if I was even capable of having a conversation with him. I let it sink in for a couple hours, he called again, and I picked up.

 

He was bawling over what he had done. Kept apologizing, told me he didn't know what was wrong with him (he had never cheated before). He kept saying he loved me so much and wanted me to just be there with him. He said he had picked his place out down there specifically because he knew I'd like it and it had room for me, all my furniture and allowed my cat, and that he wanted me to just move down there to be with him. Previously, I was planning on just finding my own place down there once I got a job, and this was the first I was hearing of this.

 

I listened to him. I was angry, but he was apologetic, and after much talk, I told him I would try to forgive him. I also told him I could not drop everything just to move down there with him, especially after all that had just happened. So he said, "just find a job, any job, and move in and get settled... I will help you pay your bills until you get a better position, I just want you here with me."

 

He convinced me that he truly meant it. He said that what he did was a wake up call to him and made him realize how screwed up he has been and wanted to make things right with me and start over together. We had talked about just starting over fresh somewhere before, but it had never materialized due to other life circumstance. We talked over several days, and it was settled, that was going to be our plan. I didn't tell any of my friends or family what had happened... didn't see the point. All they knew is that I was moving down there with him soon, and they knew that was likely going to happen since he was relocating.

 

This all happened a little over a month ago. I went to see him a couple weeks after that, not sure how I would feel when I saw him. Surprisingly, we had the most amazing weekend together. He was different, it felt like all of the crap from his past was lifted, and he was absolutely wonderful to me. I left feeling like this was it, we finally made it through all of his baggage and are going to truly start fresh on our own.

 

In the weeks that followed, we talked on the phone more, and the desire and longing between us was intensified. Fast-forward to him getting ready to come see me for Memorial Day weekend. He started acting strange that week. He was acting really guilt-ridden over what he had done, and was having trouble understanding why I forgave him. He actually started accusing me of resenting him for everything, even though I had literally had no ill words for him or even brought it up since our long conversation when it all first happened. He started freaking out, thinking that I would move down there, only to get frustrated with him and leave him... We had a huge fight and he decided to end things. Literally, he freaked out and ran.

 

I blew up at him. I was so hurt after all I had put up with from him, the way I had supported him through everything, the way he cheated on me, and then due to his mistake, which I was forgiving him for, he was now going to abandon me because he didn't think I could deal with it. All the hurt that I felt when he had cheated that he miraculously was able to squash in me with the way he dealt with it came roaring to the surface. I accused him of just putting on an act to make himself feel better. I reamed him for lying to me, drawing me in even more, when it was all just an act to help him feel less guilty. He insisted this was not the case.

 

We fought for days, which is very tough to do 400 miles apart from each other. Finally, he said he would come that weekend, and we would try to at least salvage our friendship. We had a nice weekend together. He told me he wanted me in his life, and thought that maybe with enough time, he'd feel better about things and ready to truly give this a shot. I wasn't really holding my breath about that, but he really is my best friend and I didn't want to lose him forever. He told me I could come down and see him anytime I wanted, or stay with him if I had a job interview. But he didn't know how to continue our relationship as-is in the current situation. I didn't really either. I told him I was still looking for work down there, and the location made sense, and I was getting a lot more bites down there, so it was nice to know that I still had a friend down there and a good support system to help make the transition.

 

So that was about 2 weeks ago. 2 days after that visit, I called him up too see if I could stay with him as I had just landed an interview. He was glad to have me. I arrived late in the evening, we stayed up for a few hours drinking wine, telling stories, and crashed out, he had to go to work early in the morning, I had my job interview, then had to drive home shortly after that, so we didn't see much of each other. But it was fine. The interview went well, and I should have my final interview coming up soon. He was excited for me as it was a great opportunity for me to get started in a new industry I always saw myself in.

 

Things were fine after that. We'd chat as normal, send each other texts throughout the day. I told him I wanted to come down next weekend and hit the beach, and he seemed happy. Up until yesterday. He barely spoke to me. No texts this morning either. Finally I sent him a text just saying "hey". He just said "hey" back. I told him I missed him (which we said to other frequently), no reponse, for hours. Finally, I sent him a nasty text, like wtf? He responded back very cold, like "I'm sorry, I don't know what to say. I think about you, and miss some things, but I'm happy now." That was it... I lost it. To me, in the span of one evening (probably because he got laid), he was treating me like I was a bother to him now.

 

I've had some really, really rough days since he decided to end things, but he would talk to me when I was and was a very supportive friend. I haven't told anyone yet what happened with us, because it's so damn confusing. But I'm hurting so bad, and feeling so lost as a result of not talking about it that I'm making myself miserable. I know for me to tell my friends what happened, well, lets just say that it's probably a good thing we're 400 miles away from him because they would want to string him up by his balls. I've always felt it's a bad idea to air all your dirty relationship laundry with friends, because relationships go through tough times, it's a given. But the last thing you want is your friends to have some twisted horrible view of someone you're with because they know all the ins and outs of how that person has hurt you, and not all the love and everything else they have given you. It's easy for your friends to tell you, forget about him, you can do better. But once that dirt is out there, it's out there forever. So before doing something I might regret and airing his dirt to everyone, I figured I'd post up here and get some perspective.

 

I just don't know what to do. A part of me feels like the only way I can move on is to completely pretend he is dead to me and tell every person I know about the horrible thing he did. But I know there is no going back from that. I also know how bad it feels to carry anger for someone. To not even be able to speak to an ex again. I've been through that once before. Had a bad breakup about 7 years ago, I mean ugly. 2 years later, out of the blue, he reached out to me to apologize for how horrible he had been. I was short with him, thanked him for his apology and told him not to contact me again. Little did I know he was reaching out because he was ill and died a month later. I haven't been able to forget that and don't want to feel that way again.

 

The other part of me knows deep in my heart that if the two of us had met before all these things had happened to him, we wouldn't have had these issues. I can absolutely say that without question. Really, as far as a personality match goes, we are such an amazing fit. We just see everything in the world the same way... it's eerie. I knew after I had only known him for a month that this was someone I could potentially see myself still with when I was old and gray. He felt the same, and neither of us have really felt that way about anyone else before. We fell in love pretty quickly as a result. I want to hang onto that as a possibility, but at the same time, don't know how to function still feeling so attached, but rejected.

 

For those of you who have been in a similar situation, how do you move on? From the cheating, the betrayal, the damage it did to him as well as me? How do I get on with my life, how do I tell my friends so they can help me through this as well without having them want to go postal on him?

 

Should I start dating again? How do I even do that? I feel like I have nothing left to offer anyone, like he took every bit of love and support I had to offer out of me.

 

Thanks for reading all this... I hope it makes some form of sense. I'd be happy to clarify anything that's unclear.