Nate, I don't disagree that he is a horrible human being. I was also a sucker and I'm still trying to deal with seeing that differently than I do. Much like Rod does, I used to fall head first into my feelings for someone else. I fell hard and fast for Drake and despite my mom telling me she wasn't sure about him, I didn't listen. We talked and FaceTimed constantly and he talked of dreams of me and him and my pup together and I was so in love. We played games together, I would send food to him on days when he'd had a long day at work, I met his friends, he met some of mine. His close friend and I had similar senses of humor so we clicked but my friends were weary of him. Nowhere in the commonly used phrase about love makes you see through rose tinted glasses do they add on that those same glasses have blinders. Our first real disagreement was when his true colors came out. He refused to FaceTime with me (we were long distance) and he chewed me out, pointing the finger at me as the problem in the disagreement in a very offensive way. After about a day or two, I told him how hurt I'd been by what he did and somehow I ended up consoling him instead of him comforting me. All of our disagreements were either about something small/insignificant or because I'd spoken a belief/thought that contradicted his own. Any time they happened, he'd shame me and blame me, insulting me, and then ignore my calls or texts for on average two weeks, sometimes one, only to explain that he didn't want to break things off, but he was still angry and then barely acknowledge me or would give me a cold shoulder with every statement. If I did anything that wasn't with a female friend or my parents, he would ignore me. Whenever I went dancing, which he knew was my literal happy place, he'd get jealous and pissed off. He actually made me feel anxious to go dancing because I started for a bit to feel like I was doing the wrong thing by going and enjoying myself knowing that it made him so uncomfortable. I couldn't see the manipulation he was working until it was too late. I'd stopped hanging out with or talking to all but one friend, a female. I was walking on eggshells about almost any and everything. We actually broke up because he was babysitting his best friend's dogs during 4th of July weekend and he left them in his backyard while he ran to the store. He was gone for all of 10mins but, being the dog lover I am and at the time owning my pup MacKenzie, I was appalled that he'd even do that (he lives in the desert and this was the dead of summer). It wasn't my dog so I just said that I'd hope you wouldn't do that to my pup, to which he confirmed he would. When I simply stated that it would upset me that he'd do that after I had expressed concern for him doing so with someone else's dogs, he got pissed off. Told me it was his house I'd be in and it'd be his rules and if he decided to leave my (very furry, predominately black furred) dog outside while he ran to the store, then he would. I asked him to calm down and that just fueled the fire. I never raised my voice, insulted, cussed, anything that could've been taken as anything other than calm, semi-quiet speech, but he worked himself up that he said he was done with me, asked me if I had any last words, and when I asked him to take a breath and let's talk about it, he hung up on me and blocked me completely. I was torn to pieces, he'd done this one other time, but when he didn't come back, it hurt like hell and I was shattered mentally and emotionally drained from him and the heartbreak. I'm way too sensitive for my own good when it comes to the heart. He'd always unblock me every three or so months to re-establish contact with me for a very short time (two weeks to a month) only to get pissed at me again for some tiny reason and then block me again, insulting me every time he blocked me and every time he unblocked me because he knew if he did, I'd get upset and respond because of the words he'd label me with. That was all last year. It wasn't until this year that I truly started to see what he'd done and I started listening truly to my mom and my friends who all said that they watched me become a shell of a person while I was with him. That relationship caused a lot of damage. I stopped dreaming, I hated love or anything that portrayed it (songs, movies, shows, etc.), any time anyone showed interest in me I just waited to find out what they wanted to use me for. It took a long time for me to get angry and actually evaluate our relationship and his treatment of me to see he just wanted a sexual slave to dominate and abuse 24/7 and when I didn't match that, he tried to create it.
That was a lot more than I meant to write, I apologize! I guess my own tendency to overshare and the fact that you'd shared your life trauma caused me to feel like I should share mine too. I'm also sorry sweetheart, I know I've explained that relationship to you before, but I don't think I've explained it in quite this much detail so please try not to be too sad for me. It's caused a lot of walls to be built around myself and my heart, but I am the best I can working to remove the unnecessary barriers and try not to be so guarded.