My ex (M26) and I (F26) were together for 4 years between the ages 15 and 19. I can look back now and see that this relationship was very toxic, and I still struggle with the mental and emotional consequences 7 years later. He ended the relationship over text in the end, which was likely the best thing he has ever done for me.
At times I think about the relationship and frame it in a way that we were both young and learned terrible habits together. Other times I hate the man for what happened and how it has affected my life.
My self-esteem by the time we broke up was incredibly low, he frequently put me down in private and then made jokes about said put downs in front of people. Anything I was proud of would be belittled and twisted, my achievements would become arguments, or wouldn’t be acknowledged at all.
He really enjoyed debating about politics and ethics and would back me into a corner to talk about something he had spent the week reading about. I would frequently disagree with him on a lot of these issues, but he would spout statistics and quotes (I have no idea if these were accurate or true), and essentially make me feel like an idiot for not having these things at my fingertips for these conversations. For a while after breaking up, I struggled to have conversations like this, I would start to feel sick and wouldn’t be able to get my words out straight. I’d overthink everything before saying it and end up saying very little. It’s something I’ve worked on and am better at, but sometimes I will still get anxious.
After arguments, or when I expressed I might leave him, I would be love-bombed. I can’t count the times he would tell me how beautiful my eyes looked after I’d been crying, or how he loved me so much and couldn’t imagine being without me. If all of that didn’t work, I would be made to feel like I was the problem. That I was being manipulative, emotionally abusive, or making too big a deal of something.
Towards the end of the relationship he started expressing anti-semetic views (e.g. ‘the holocaust wasn’t that bad’ level of anti-semitism) and I couldn’t stand it. We had many many arguments about it, and during one of these I was telling him I didn’t think I could be with someone who had the views he did. He tried to hug me at this point and I pushed him off, at which point he told me if the roles were reversed it would’ve been considered domestic violence.
My boundaries when it came to sex were ignored and pushed over and over again. This started basically when we started having sex, he would speak to mutual friends about our sex life in lots of detail which he knew I wasn’t comfortable with. I caught him taking pictures of me during sex once, got upset and told him to delete them and that he did not have my permission to do that, but there is at least one other time (that I know of) where the same thing happened.
For the last year or so of the relationship I had a very low sex drive (go figure). He was very aware of this but would pressure me to have sex anyway. He did no-nut November and would constantly bug me to have sex as he couldn’t ‘take care of’ himself. If we were hugging in bed he would want to have his hands on my breasts or in my pants, even though I had told him I wasn’t comfortable. If I turned him down he would either get mad, or give me the silent treatment, or both. A few times the emotional manipulation worked and I would end up having sex with him even though I really didn’t want to, but was too worried about the consequences of not.
The first sexual encounter I had after we had broken up was eye opening. I changed my mind after going home with someone, I told the guy I was sorry but I didn’t want to have sex and he just stopped with no pushback. I realised a random hookup was more respectful to my boundaries than my ex.
My relationship with sex has only started to properly improve this year, I cried after realising what it was like to have a healthy sex drive again. Don’t get me wrong, I have wanted to have sex before, but it was a fragile state of want rather than an active interest and drive.
Finally, there were multiple times where he either cheated or nearly cheated. I got calls off him/friends in the middle of the night telling me about something that happened when they were out drunk. If he told me, or when we talked about it, he would have stories of women coming onto him in clubs, one time it was he was passed out in bed and someone got in with him… I feel like an idiot for ever believing these excuses. After we broke up someone he lived with told me another housemate slept in his bed almost every night I wasn’t there for the 6 months before we were over. When I asked my ex about this he didn’t even deny it, just asked who told me. He later did deny it (after other people were talking about it), and I got told by multiple people that he ‘wouldn’t do that to me’.
Since we were in a relationship for 4 years during school/university we still have friends in the same circles. I managed to avoid seeing him for a few years, but 2-3 years ago ended up on the same lockdown zoom calls. I thought he would be a different person, but he was exactly the same. He made jokes about the break up, made many sexual comments, and a few just downright insults to me. I have since told my friends I won’t be attending events with him.
I have been in a loving, caring relationship for the past 6 years. He (28M) is a wonderful person, with lots of patience and understanding around all these issues and has helped me work through a lot of it. Is it strange that even though I have been with someone else for 6 years I still struggle with problems from my last relationship? I love him, and definitely do not still have feelings for my ex, but I do feel guilty talking about some of my past experiences at times.
I recently got drunk with some old friends and I discussed some of this with them (not all, some of them know bits of it already). They looked confused and asked if I still wasn’t over my ex, or if I had spoken to my partner about it. It made me feel horrible, and like feeling the way I do is inappropriate. I have always wished that the relationship hadn’t had this effect on me, but felt it was a very defining part of me becoming an adult that was traumatic and would obviously not just disappear.
TLDR: I struggle with trauma from an emotionally and sexually abusive relationship, despite having been in a healthy one for 6 years. Should I be over it all by now?
3 comments
The relationship you had with your ex occurred at a time in your life when you had no other frame of reference for how to operate in a relationship and at a vulnerable age, so we don’t know boundaries or recognize abuse and manipulation or handle it the way we would as a more experienced adult.
You don’t just “get over it”. You have to process it, figure out how it’s still affecting you and determine how you’re going to heal from that. Some people go to a therapist. Some people are able to process it with their partners. But I think you’re selling yourself short if you think you’re supposed to just “let go” of 4 years of your life that were so traumatic that occurred at part of your most vulnerable development as an adult.
It’s worth looking into therapy if you can, for no other reason that you don’t want the past to poison your present. If therapy isn’t an option, there are a lot of books out there about healing from shitty people that can get you pointed in a good direction.
Your past relationship was abusive and traumatic and its absolutely something worth speaking about with a therapist and/or current partner.
Listen here, OP. There’s not an expiration date on trauma. It’s not a bowl of cereal that gets stale after a week. You’ve been through some major muck and mire, and it takes time to clean that gunk off. And hell, sometimes the mud just sticks.
Your ex sounds like a real piece of work – a Picasso painting made entirely of horse crap. The contention about politics and ethics, the casual anti-semitism, the flagrant lack of respect for your boundaries both verbally and sexually – none of it’s a good look. You aren’t an idiot for not having statistics and quotes at the ready – you’re human. He weaponized knowledge – information should be used to enlighten, to argue in good faith, not to bulldoze someone into feeling inferior.
The catch 22 with trauma is it doesn’t care how nice your new boyfriend is or how great your current relationship seems to be going. It haunts and lingers, just waiting to bust out at the least appropriate time and make you feel like a nutcase. Classic trauma move.
Remember, there’s no time for guilt in the improv game of life. So chat away about your jerkbag of an ex and the impact he had on your life. Your new guy is patient and understanding, right? Hence I assume that includes sitting through intermittent bouts of verbal vomit about Mr. DoucheCanoe.
But drowning guilty feelings in a sea of booze among your friends that are about as empathetic as a loaf of bread seems like a lousy coping mechanism. Your feelings are in no way inappropriate. You’re human, not a robotic prosthetic arm. Unfortunately, time doesn’t heal all wounds, it just creates a scab that can get picked at from time to time.
Your ex being a twat waffle on Zoom calls only piles on more proof onto the dung heap that is his personality. But then again, leopards don’t change their spots, just like asshats will always be asshats.
To answer your question – should you be over it by now? Is Batman a cultural icon? Does a bear defecate in the woods? You’re allowed to still be dealing with your past. And while I’m offering up unsolicited opinions, might as well add that a good therapist sounds like the thing you’re unknowingly pining for. Trust me, they’re cheaper and better listeners than whisky.
Rubber Duck out.