The turmoil of abandonment after emotionally abusive relationship

July 28, 2018 2:31 AM

My live-in partner of exactly 3 years has decided to move away and abruptly end our relationship. I am dealing with agonizing feelings of betrayal, loss of identity/direction, self hatred etc. The thing is, due to what he’s been putting me through during the last 2 years or so, I have already felt this way all along, to the alarm of my family. The incredible pain seems to be the abandonment itself. Plenty of details inside, very long.

First, I’d like to say I’ve never been quite an active user in this community, but over the years I have found incredible help in all the great advice people have written in here, and MF has always been a part of my life during said years.
Second, I apologize in advance, for English is not my first language. I am from Israel.

I met my partner exactly 3 years ago through Tinder, on the very first day I downloaded the thing (“just to see”). I’ve been fresh out of a LDR of 4 years with a guy from Austria (so I spent half my time during these years in Israel and half of it in Austria), which I chose to end, although he’s been the greatest, kindest, most loving partner anyone could’ve asked for.

I’ve been 25 back then. A (which I’m going to call him from now on) has been almost 28.
His profile pictures stunned me. He had a Eastern European name, and looked absolutely like a model. He was my absolute “ideal”, and in my immaturity, I didn’t even think I was “in his league”.
During the hours we started texting and speaking (in quite great English), I’ve come to learn he immigrated from Ukraine just about 1.5 years prior. He had no family here apart from an estranged father who abandoned him when he was 6 to come to Israel to live with another woman. The father is what you’d call a functional marijuana user, and only speaks to him a couple of times a year, if at all.

A said he “had lost his celery of about $1500 in a bus” (I know), that he’s been doing physical labor before but now stopped, and that his living situation was “complicated”.
I knew these all should have been red flags, but the fact is, he sounded intelligent. I wanted to believe his bad luck. And, as I said, he was the most handsome man I’ve ever seen.

I should note now that even after at that point, I’ve been a very sheltered person, although with my own “off” sides too.
I grew up in a middle-class home but in a very well-to-do town. During the first years of my life, I had fear of abandonment issues which manifested in my crying hysterically from the moment I’ve been put in daycare\kindergarten til the end, hours later, for years. It was quite before the internet and people didn’t read/talk about these things. My parents thought I’d just “get over it”.
I was a very popular kid nonetheless.

At 17, I quit high school due to severe social anxiety. I haven’t left my room for days for 2 years, until my parents finally decided perhaps it’s time to take me to therapy.
Over the course of one year and with the help of Effexor (which I take to this day), I got over huge hurdles and fears on my very own. I was still terrified of holding down a job. I didn’t even dare apply to one.

I think this is time I should go ahead and hurry up/sum up my first few “dates” with A:
- I, of course, fell head over heels with his looks, charm & twisted (only in retrospect) sense of humor. I was “done” from the start.
- Found out he lived illegally (and in utter, shocking squalor I’ve never seen before) in the flat his previous employer (in construction) supplied for him.
- Found out he currently had literally not a single dollar in his possession.
- Found out he had a second degree in business and economics from Ukraine (I have seen the diploma).

For a few weeks, I’d pay for every single thing in his life; food, water, medicine (he had a terrible, life-endangering infection, which a month later my grandma, who is a dentist, took care of), traveling expenses. I saved quite a lot of money cause I have worked on-again, off-again as a webcam girl, which back then was the only job that allowed me to not get out of the house and “deal” with things. I did it from my bedroom in my parent’s place in silence, or in Austria.

A has been the first person to have talked to me the way he has. In the beginning, I thought he was joking and that he’d “change”.
It started by grabbing my inner arms and telling me it is “not ok” they are so flabby. Then it came to my bad skin, my cellulite, my stretch marks, my “lack of style”.
I am 5”3 tall. I weighed 112 lbs when I met him and constantly got hit on and complimented.
Within a little over one month, I got to 97 lbs, which still wasn’t enough (“your belly is still flabby”).
At this point, my family was hysterical and tried to prevent me from signing a flat contract with him (he got kicked out and realized he had to start making money again, so found a different construction job), but I was blind.
He had told me he loved me and wanted us to be exclusive.
I believed I could be his “fix”.

I should also note that sex has been great in the beginning - sometimes a few times a day.
I found it a bit odd he couldn’t reach orgasm by vaginal penetration, by decided to ignore it.
There have been times when he was doing other things which were a bit strange, but overall I thought the sex was wonderful and passionate (back then).

My family (including aunt and grandparents) has given him EVERYTHING, because they, too, wanted to believe in his potential and his love for me.
Clothes, shoes, dental care, Ukrainian food, love, understanding, hugs.
8 months ago, my aunt managed to cancel his debt — he had his bank account blocked during this entire time, too. Now he finally had one.
She fixed him with a new job, finally, for the first time in Israel for him, not as a construction worker, but as a receptionist in a fancy hotel, due to her connections.
She got him new clothes for all his interviews.

I should note that in our first year together, he wasn’t THAT bad. He was at least trying. He spent most of his time playing Hearthstone on the IPhone my aunt and grandma had gotten him for his birthday, and refused to do anything I liked (never once a film, a museum or a little vacation, not going to the beach).
We had no mutual interests whatsoever; he belittled my love for film, literature and music. But sex still happened once or twice a week.
He had smoked weed only 1 a month back then.
He still made an “effort” to be loving towards my family. He took care of me when I was ill. He hugged and kissed me all night. He still said sweet things often. He had respect for me.

During the second year, he slowly started blaming me for everything that went wrong in his life. I was suddenly “not fun”, it was suddenly critical that I didn’t agree to cook, I “was getting fat”, etc.
Sex happened once every 2 weeks and mostly when I initiated.
I suffered and cried most nights, but still believed he would change. Still believed in our love with all my heart.

This year, the year he’s gotten his bank account fixed & his hotel job, is when all hell broke loose.
Over the last 7 months, he had started smoking weed 7 days a week, from the very first moment he has opened his eyes up until he went to sleep, at odd hours. Like this, every single day.
He started being extremely possessive both of his bank account and cash AND of his phone (which I still pay for although we are separated), getting hysterical when I touched it, which he’s never done before.
He only worked, played Hearthstone, watched Twitch, and went for 1-2 hours walks with his weed, a few times a day (when he wasn’t working).

Still, he blamed it ALL on me. All of it.
The fact he was not meeting friend, the fact he stopped working out 4 years ago, the fact he was “miserable”. I was asked to “stop imitating sex” at all costs. It happened once every 6 weeks, and as times went by during those last few months, he was only able to have me give him blowjobs or have Anal sex with me (as I said, only every one-and-a-half month or so).
I was being called fat everyday, “jokingly”. Being grabbed “jokingly”. Never a compliment. Not once.
He still said he loved me. He still said so when he said he’s “done with it” and moving away.

I have a great, full-time remote job that I like and managed to get by my talent (it has to do with translation/subtitles) 3 months ago. I think he has been very jealous of that.
I am currently living at my parent’s and HE is the one still there in our flat, until he “finds something”. He doesn’t contact me in any way or form, and it seems to be that he deleted me from his brain.
I decided to live back at my parent’s house and save money for a couple of months, which all my family is incredibly supportive of. I cannot deal with the loneliness of living on my own til I am strong enough.

That said, and that is basically my big Question, in capital Q - how do I get over this without feeling like I am the failure, and like I will never have anybody else again and die alone? Especially being so isolated.

I am crying nonstop and taking Xanax every night. I am surrounded by supportive family, but most minutes of the day want to self-injure (I try not to) and kick and scream.
I do not eat, only the bare minimum to not collapse.
I feel a sense of doom, I feel self-hatred, I feel like tossed away garbage, I feel like NOTHING. I mostly feel like dying, and have considered it, but I cannot do this to my family.
I cannot believe after all these years, HE is the one that left ME, and so casually.

I miss his hugs, although I know I shouldn’t. I miss sleeping next to a man every single night for 3 years. I miss knowing that even though my relationship was horrendous most of the time, I still “had״ someone whom I wanted to marry and have children with. I feel like the worst failure in the world back at my parent’s’ place. I feel like this would be forever, and I better just die.

Please help me. I would appreciate every kind of support, either here or via a PM.
I want to survive this with all of my being, but there’s a part of my brain that tells me that if even HE tossed me away, perhaps I really am worth nothing.

posted by denika to Human Relations