Was I in the wrong cheating on my emotionally abusive ex boyfriend?

Hi, 19(f) here and I’ve had this question looming over my head for quite some time now and still feel incredibly guilty whenever I think about it.

I want to start the story off by saying that I met my ex (we’ll call him B) back in 2020 on a social media app called Kik after wanting to make new friends and chat with them. I found him on that anonymous chat thing on the app and we started to text and eventually added each other to talk some more. During our chat, I noticed we had a lot of things in common, we both liked the same type of music, movies, etc and he overall seemed like a nice guy. After having a few laughs and chatting more, he asked me to be his girlfriend after just a few minutes of chatting with him. I told him I wasn’t looking for a relationship at that time, especially since I was still getting over an old boyfriend and had bad experiences with previous exes and didn’t want to go through anymore heartbreak.

I did eventually agree to be his girlfriend however and he was really happy about it. I wanted to give him a chance because of his charming and sweet demeanor and after him explaining that he was suffering from depression after his first girlfriend cheated on him and his second girlfriend dying in a terrorist attack at an airport in Istanbul (he’s from Turkey). After I agreed, he said that he wouldn’t let me down and seemed to have a clear understanding of my past relationships, and that’s when everything went from there.

**Dating -**

Even though we were long distance, my relationship with B was good at first. He would constantly shower me with compliments and would often tell me how much he loved me and that he never felt this way about anyone before until I came into his life and things similar to that. I was honestly taken aback by how quickly he fell in love with me despite only knowing for just a few days. Even though we’ve been dating for just a short while I told him I wanted to take things slow, but he was already prepared to drop everything down for me in a heartbeat. He was overall the sweetest, most caring guy I’ve met in a long time and that was definitely something that I needed after everything that happened with past bfs. To me at that time he seemed like everything a girl could ask for but I started to have doubts.

I had such a strong feeling in my stomach that something was wrong about this relationship. I at one point asked him how old he was and he told me he was 26. I was 17 at the time but he didn’t really seem to care, saying that age is only a number (he said that a few times during our relationship). I thought the age gap was a bit off at the time but shrugged it off. And judging by his profile picture, he looked WAY older than 26, he was balding and had grey hairs and overall was just not an attractive person but I shrugged that off also because it was his personality that made me fell for him and I didn’t care about his looks.

After a while he started asking me for pictures (not nudes but just normal pictures). I told him that I didn’t want to and wanted to wait until I was really comfortable with him to send any especially since I’ve only known for a short while. He was okay with it at first but seemed to grow impatient saying “I would never hurt you like your exes and just want to see the love of my life” if I remember correctly. Eventually I did and we even face timed on Google Hangouts a few times afterward. After that, that was when the emotional abuse started.

**TW: Emotional Abuse and suicidal attempts -**

After a month of dating, my relationship with B seemed dreamy and I felt like he was the one, but our 10 year age gap started to dawn on me and weird me out. I even did research to see if our relationship was even legal. Some articles I found said that it was as long as there was nothing sexual involved. I was trying to justify our age difference even though he looked old enough to be in his late 30’s or early 40’s. Eventually I told him that I thought it was best that we should break up and he started to freak out saying that he couldn’t live without me, that life has no meaning for him, that he would kill himself etc. after I discussed my suspicions with him about his age, the fact that he might’ve been cheating on me and lying to me (I was pretty harsh on me with those suspicions I won’t lie). And if I remember correctly he even started to send those sad black and white gifs that said “goodbye”, pretty much giving off the impression that he really was going to commit suicide. Seeing his reaction broke my heart and I even cried while pleading with him not to take his own life and I told him that I would stay, telling him I love him.

This story is getting too long but I’m going to post a part two shortly.