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I'm crushed and spinning out

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  • January 2, 2019 at 1:53 pm #272045
    Manda
    Participant

    My boyfriend and I have been together 2 years.  We have lived together for 3 months now.  I am an american woman and he is from West Africa living here in America.  Our biggest challenge as a couple so far has been our religious and cultural differences and over coming misunderstandings but I feel proud of how we have overcome so many obstacles.  I love him deeply and looked forward to a life with him. I thought he was the one.  Recently however my heart has been ripped out of my chest, stepped on and lit on fire.  He cheated on me.  I feel stupid, heartbroken, furious, panic, disbelief.  I can’t control my emotions at all.  I can’t focus on anything but this. I can’t even sleep.  Why? Why did he do that? I thought he loved me… can a man cheat on you and still love you? He comes from a polygamous background but told me he didn’t believe in or approve of that.  I guess that was a lie.  Was he raised to be like this? I’m also guessing this is just the first time I caught him and it has probably happened before.  I know my trust is broken and I will never be able to trust him again.  This relationship is over.  I know this logically but for some reason I still cling on to hope that it’s not over. I’m still madly in love.  Am I crazy???

     

    How I found out about his deceit is through a mutual acquaintance with the woman he’s been seeing.  She called me to ask if we were still together.  Mentioned her friend is head over heels for the new man she’s been seeing and put two and two together realizing it was the same man I was with.  When I confronted him he denied it profusely and he got angry at me for even thinking it could be true. But everything started to come together when I received that phone call.  His moody behavior, suddenly having to leave the house to meet his ‘friends’.  Guarding his phone like fort knox.  I’m ashamed to admit this but I went through his phone.  I had to know the truth and there it was.  Nights spent at her house having dinner. borrowing MY CAR to take her on short day trips out of town.  All the lies.  And I never suspected he could go this far in betraying me.  He’s still in my house and thinks he’ll need a month to move out.  He’s still denying he did anything wrong and of course I’m the bad guy for going through his phone.  He must think I’m stupid because his explanation for the texts I saw is ‘shes an old friend who just broke up with her boyfriend and I was just trying to cheer her up, I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d misunderstand and get upset’.  REALLY?????

    How can I at least stop spinning around in circles so I can think clearly.  I hate him.  I’m disgusted with him yet I’m so in love. I’m losing my mind.

    January 2, 2019 at 4:33 pm #272053
    Mark
    Participant

    Manda,

    How can you stop spinning in circles?

    How about kicking him out immediately?  I cannot see how you can think straight when you have a lying, cheating, unrepentant man living with you.  It’s his problem to find alternate living options.

    Change the locks.  Cut off all contact with him: social media, calls, texts, email, etc.

    You may you think you love him but you need to love yourself first.  Give yourself some respect and dignity.  You can love him from afar, from arms length but if you respect yourself then kick him out of your life in order to heal.

    You can be angry, confused, disgusted, and all of those other emotions but you need to take care of yourself.

    Mark

     

    January 3, 2019 at 6:55 am #272103
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Manda:

    There is the emotional part and the rational part to your struggle. The rational is that you know the list of his wrongdoings, the emotional part is that you don’t want to know it. The mind knows, the heart says: no, it  isn’t so!

    Lets count the ways he has wronged you:

    1. “He cheated on me”

    2. “When I confronted him he denied it”.

    3. “When I confronted him he denied  it profusely“.

    4. “When I confronted him he denied it profusely and he got angry at me for even thinking it could be true“.

    5. He cheated on you not one time, but repeatedly, spending whole nights with her, over a period of time.

    6. He lied to you repeatedly: “suddenly having to leave the house to meet his ‘friends’… All the lies”

    7. He borrowed your car  “to take her on short day trips out of town”.

    8. “He is still denying he did anything wrong” and he blames you for the one doing wrong, “I’m the bad guy for going through his phone”.

    9. His lies elaborately, his lie is compounded: “she’s an old friend who just broke up with her boyfriend and I was just trying to cheer her up, I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d misunderstand and get upset”.

    10. He sees and hears that you “love him deeply”, that your heart “has been ripped… stepped on and lit on fire”, that you “feel stupid, heartbroken, furious, panic, disbelief.. can’t even sleep”, and yet he repeats his lies, denies the undeniable. He hurt you by cheating on you, and then he keeps hurting you more every day by denying the undeniable, telling compounded lies, and blaming you.

    The result of #10 is that you feel that you are losing your mind and that you are crazy: “I’m losing my mind… Am I crazy???”

    You wrote: “This relationship is over”- no it is not. He is still living  with you, you are still communicating with him.

    As you can tell, it feels very badly to not trust your own mind, your brain. Losing one’s mind feels very badly. If you lost your mind to some  severe mental illness, you would feel bad, correct? If there was a way for you to fix a severe mental illness before you drown in it, you would fix it, wouldn’t you?

    Well, the mental illness is living in your house. Make it go away. Make him leave ASAP so that you can find your mind, the one you lost (“I’m losing my mind”).

    I understand that you love him intensely and  you are angry at him, and you still hope that what you know really didn’t happen. This is what he is hoping for, that you will catch up to his lie that indeed nothing  happened.

    Something did happen, 1-10 happened.

    Please post again.

    anita

     

     

     

    January 3, 2019 at 2:13 pm #272159
    Manda
    Participant

    Thank you for breaking it down for me Anita.  It helps me to see just how big a betrayal I’m dealing with.  I do believe he has been playing mind games with me also.  I’ve asked him to leave as soon as possible.  He says I’ll be putting him on the streets living out of his car…. That pulls on me even after what he’s done.  Also we do live in a city with a very high cost of living and a shortage of rentals.  We live in a house that I own under my name only.  We did not sign any leases or agreements when he moved in accept he made me promise I would never kick him out at a moments notice no matter what….I see now why.  I looked into the laws and by law he has 3-days notice in writing to get out.  After that if he is still there I could call the police and have him removed.  And still the idea of doing that is something I struggle with.  I feel like i’m too broken and defective to do the right thing for myself which would be to tell him to leave on his own in 3 days or be thrown out by the cops.  And then never speak to him again.

    I’ve never been in a relationship and betrayed this deeply. I think I struggle with deeply rooted abandonment issues so this is really difficult.  My father was an alcoholic until I was 5 and my mother not ready to be a mother and married would often disappear for days at a time leaving me with my dad who was incapable of caring for me properly.  I spent a lot of time alone during that period.  Things smoothed out by the time I was 6 and I had a normal happy childhood thereafter but I wonder if this could be why I’m struggling so much letting this man go from my life.

    January 3, 2019 at 5:05 pm #272163
    Mark
    Participant

    You are struggling to let this guy go.

    Do you have a friend who can hold your hand to make sure you take care of yourself?

    Kick him out.  Give him the written notice.  Love yourself.  It’s not your problem if he has to live in his car.

    Avoid the self talk of calling yourself being too broken and defective.

    Can you kick him out?  Make that first step to take care of yourself.

    Mark

    January 5, 2019 at 9:47 am #272411
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear  Manda:

    You are welcome. I didn’t realize you answered me until a moment ago, otherwise, I would have posted to you earlier.

    You promised to “never kick him out at a moment’s notice no matter what”. The law says he had the right for a 3-days notice in writing to leave. Well, his behavior 1-10, his compounded  betrayal of you and his dishonest mind games he is still using against you, these give you the moral right, I say, to give him that three day notice, and use the police if he doesn’t  leave in those three days.

    You wrote: “I feel like I’m broken”- this is a reason to not make it possible  for him to break you further with his dishonest  mental manipulation, the lies, the blaming, and so on.

    You wrote that you were never  betrayed this deeply. But I think that when your mother “often disappeared for days at a time leaving me with (your) dad”, a father who was an alcoholic and “incapable of  caring for (you) properly” is quite a betrayal of the  young child who she chose to bring into the world. I don’t know if there is a bigger betrayal than that done by a parent.

    Yes, I do think your childhood experience has something to do  with “why (you’re) struggling so much letting this man  go out of  (your) life”. Maybe you are too afraid to be alone.

    A child, abandoned by her mother, is  too desperate, she wants her mother back no matter who the mother is. In a similar  way, I think that you want this  man in your life not matter who he   is. It doesn’t matter that he lied, 1-10 don’t matter. The only thing that matters is that he stays.

    Do you think this is so, for you?

    anita

     

    January 7, 2019 at 8:06 am #272787
    Manda
    Participant

    Thank you Mark and Anita.  I’ve been staying at a friends house for the past week trying to get some space to figure out why I’m so messed up.  I know 100% that this relationship is over and I’d never be happy with him again.  So why haven’t I kicked him out of my house cut off all ties?  One thing for sure is I need to do a lot of work on myself before beginning any new relationship after this.  Anita, I think it does boil down to a raw fear of abandonment.  The fear is intense and comes up every time I try to work up the nerve to kick him out.  I have an appointment with a therapist this afternoon…. Hoping this will be a empowering step in the right direction.

    January 7, 2019 at 8:56 am #272807
    Mark
    Participant

    Keep us informed Manda.  Good luck.

     

    Mark

    January 7, 2019 at 9:16 am #272821
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Manda:

    Fear is a powerful force, so  no  wonder it stopped you every time you “try to work up the nerve  to  kick him out”-

    Interesting, that as a child, your mother leaving was a danger and  you feared that, understandably, because it is dangerous for a child to be abandoned, or to  be  with a parent who  is not capable.

    But now, the real danger is not that he leaves (you can feed and  shelter yourself, etc.), the real danger is that he  stays. And yet, the childhood fear takes over, fearing  what is not dangerous now, and  ignoring  what is dangerous now.

    I hope you post again, before or after your therapy session!

    anita

    January 10, 2019 at 11:47 am #273687
    Manda
    Participant

    Hi,

    Just an update.  I met him to talk the other day.  He started to play the victim by accusing me of blowing up our relationship over my paranoia and he accused me of trying to ‘put him on the street in his car’ again.  He called me crazy, insecure, accused me of trying to control him (because I looked through his phone).  I did see a therapist who advised me she thinks I’m co-dependent and suffer from low esteem.  She thinks I have been putting up with a lot of his behavior through out the duration of our relationship that would normally not occur in a healthy relationship.  She also mentioned that while she could not diagnose him for certain without seeing him she thinks he may have borderline personality disorder.

    In any case his refusal to admit wrongdoing and show any empathy to hurting me deeply means this relationship is over. I gave him his 3 day notice and threatened him with police eviction for trespassing.  So now on to the healing and moving on.  I still have hundreds of questions floating around in my head but I know I just need to let it go.  One burning question though… Why do you think someone who even when confronted with concrete evidence of cheating would still deny anything happened? The relationship is over anyway and there’s nothing to save.  Why not just say yea I did that and I’m sorry? The hardest thing I’m finding about moving on is I feel like I need at least an apology after all that time we spent together.  I feel like this whole relationship was nothing to him.

     

    January 10, 2019 at 12:00 pm #273689
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Manda:

    Congratulations for giving him a 3 day notice!!!

    As to your question: “Why do you think someone who even when confronted with concrete evidence of cheating would  still deny anything happened?”-

    -because  it works: when a person lies with strong emotion, repeatedly,  the person hearing the lie begins to  believe it because  of the emotion and the repetition of the lie. Even with evidence otherwise. It worked for him before, so  he is doing it again.

    “The relationship is over anyway and there’s nothing to save. Why not just say yea I did that and I’m sorry?”- because it doesn’t feel good to him  to tell you that he  is sorry. It  will feel good to you, but he does what feels good to him. This is why he cheated on you,  it felt  good to him.

    Again, congratulations. Turn away from him and the insanity that he  offers you, and post again, anytime.

    anita

    January 10, 2019 at 12:04 pm #273693
    Mark
    Participant

    Manda,

    It’s great that you have a therapist that tells it like it is.

    Rather than trying to focus on the question on why does he deny his guilt, I suggest that you focus on the questions to ask yourself, i.e. Why do you think you chose a such a man in your life?  What can you do to heal yourself?

    Wishing you well,
    Mark

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