I’ve been dating my BF for a while now, 3 going on 4 months. I am already in my mid 30s with no time to waste. I am dating with the intention of eventually getting married and having a kid. He knows this, and also knows that I had been seeking a marriage-minded guy ever since before I met him.

Unfortunately, lately our arguments and disagreements have increased. I feel like he keeps finding faults with me, even when I try my best to avoid conflict. I am worried because I do not want to fail at another relationship (although I admit this is the first actual defined relationship I’ve had in almost 5 years).

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One of the biggest conflicts I sense, in my opinion, stems from the actions of a toxic jerk “M” who I unfortunately knew and somewhat dated right around this time 2yrs ago. The guy was narcissistic, strung me along for months, obliging me to be loyal to him while he went behind my back, all the meantime making me see only him (as far as guys/dates go) but never calling us BF/GF. M also used to start petty fights out of nowhere, initiating it by mocking me by phone or text, then denying it later (gaslighting??) or else making it seem like I misinterpreted what he said. The absolute worst was when we were supposed to meet up for a night out following such a huge falling-out where M had ridiculed me but later apologized, and instead, he stood me up to go cheat on me with some apparently busty hot blonde chick. He then dumped me, pretending the reason was because of stuff I did wrong, but later he revealed that the real reason he dumped me was because he wanted to move things to the next level with the blonde who he cheated with/stood me up to be with. Obviously I didn’t take well to this, and it led to some hostile tit for tat between M and I, and M completely ruining my reputation by writing terrible stuff about me online along with obscene pics he’d told me to send him weeks or months earlier. Pics that were humiliating because they were not only obscene/could be seen as immoral, but they were very physically unflattering of me too, so the whole thing basically resulted in me being simultaneously sl.t shamed and inc.el shamed. That was almost 2 yrs ago, and I still haven’t been able to live that down. M literally ruined my life with that, and quite possibly limited my career options. For example, MULTIPLE guys on dating sites have found the stuff M posted about me and called me out on it, taunted me for it, or canceled dates with me before I even got to meet them because of it. (Yes, they told me it was because of the stuff they found about me that M had posted) Even a longago friend coincidentally ran across M at a bar far away from where he or M even lives, small world, and then reported back to me that M was at the bar, badmouthing me to everyone while showing them the stuff he’d posted online about me on his iPad (while technically never saying he was the one who posted it). One of my sisters has me blocked on SM for almost a year now and I can’t help but wonder if maybe it’s because she found this stuff M wrote too. I wonder how many other doors have been involuntarily closed for me because of M posting bad stuff about me.

Anyway, I didn’t tell my BF about any of this at first for obvious reasons, because I didn’t want to scare/turn him off to me. I thought that was the best, normal thing to do. Not to voluntarily throw myself under a bus with it. Then a situation came up when my roommate Abbie notified me that one of our neighbors was badmouthing me to Abbie the night before, calling me crazy and desperate, and his reasoning being the stuff he found online that M had posted about me (thanks to his snaky friend Ted, who I’d confided in about the stuff M posted but never actually showed Ted where to find it, but Ted found it anyway and apparently showed it to everyone he knew; I am definitely no longer friends with Ted anymore!). My upsetting discussion with Abbie about it resulted in me getting a late start driving to BF’s place, 1-2 hours north. BF was annoyed and felt that my leaving late was “evidence” that I didn’t care much about him or that I was hiding something. At that point I thought honesty was the best policy so I told him about M and the stuff M posted about me, and how it came up in convo with roommate Abbie right before I was planning to leave to go see BF. Instead of being sympathetic, BF was actually preachy and condescending, told me all the things I did wrong in the situation that led to me being “posted on the Internet” like that. He agreed M was an ahole of course, but it felt like he was blaming me in a way. In recent weeks, I admit I am quick to assume it’s all because of M and the post situation that BF is impatient with me, acts aloof, etc. When we argue, I wonder if it’s because of the stuff M posted. I fear that BF won’t see me as marriage material, given how M painted me to be this desperate unattractive hag. This weekend he was more aloof than ever to me. Is this situation with M posting all that stuff 1-2 yrs ago going to keep me from ever getting married? Am I doomed because of this stuff posted about me?

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TL/DR: I’m a very marriage-minded, pregnancy-minded 34F no kids who’s been dating my BF for 3-4 mos now. We’ve had more arguments and disagreements lately. One recurrent argument topic is a situation involving a toxic guy from my past 2 yrs ago (I dated him but turned out I was never in an actual 2-sided relationship with him), who posted terrible stuff, including exposing all my flaws, obscene pics, and his ridiculing commentary of me, on multiple different websites and blogs. When a situation came up that caused me to feel obligated to open up to my BF and admit to him this very embarrassing, hurtful, shameful situation, BF showed more preachery and blaming me than sympathy. Things have been increasingly rocky ever since. Be honest, will this destroy my relationship or prevent it from moving forward to marriage in the future?

2 comments
  1. To be honest, I would look up revenge porn laws where you live and prosecute the hell out of M.

  2. Is this just red-pill bait?

    >I’m a mid-30s woman who just started thinking about getting serious about kids 6 months ago. I spent my entire 20s and the early part of my 30s chasing the worst men I could find and eagerly degraded myself for them. Now my current partner has discovered my ancient past (from almost two whole years ago) and realized I lied about my past – how do I trick him into marrying me anyway?

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