For the past 5 year I was in an on again off again relationship. Thing weren’t terrible in the beginning, But slowly things took a very toxic negative turn, or maybe it was always like that and I just never noticed. Eventually he stripped away a large part of who I was, and isolated me from the world. Still I stayed I loved him unconditionally, we had a child together, I fought to keep our family together. Things weren’t always bad until about 2 years ago, I’m not certain what happened, what caused it but he began to change into someone I didn’t know. He became verbally abusive, controlling, manipulative, we were fighting everyday, he would use my anxiety against me and make me feel crazy for being the way I was. Eventually it got to a point where I was walking on egg shells, It was like Russian roulette, would he be in a good mood or a bad mood? Would I go to sleep in tears or would I be able to laugh for the day? Well about 4 months ago we got into a huge blow out, it wasn’t our worst argument, but it was the straw that broke the camels back. I knew he would never change and I knew this was not the environment to be raising a child in. So I packed a back pack and me and my daughter left. I went to my moms for a few weeks then moved into my apartment, we haven’t really talked aside from things about our daughter who we are sharing custody of.

Well my friends suggested trying online dating to find a rebound so I could stay away from my ex, since I have a bad habit of going back when I get lonely. It also helped rebuild a little of my self confidence, my ex had convinced me I was horrid and need to change everything about myself. I was talking to multiple guys just flirting a bit, I went on a few dates which were super awkward since i’m not use to new age dating, I decided I didn’t like it and froze my account. After new years I decided to try it again just to have someone to talk to. I was swiping along until this one guy caught my eye, I read his profile and was like wow he’s literally me as a guy. I decided to send him a message which was a first, I usually just talked to whoever messaged me. We started talking actively, it got to a point where the brightest part of my day was talking/texting him. We had so much chemistry just talking over the phone so we decided to meet in person.  The first date was nice we meet up and chatted for an hour or so then went to a movie. He was a little stand offish at first because my situation so closely reflected his last relationship which ended badly. It blew my mind because he was so honest about his feelings and wanted to talk through them with me. I’ve never been with a guy who talks about his feeling like that. We meet up again at a park to talk through everything and figure out what we would do next. Well needless to say we decided to leave our past behind us and work towards a future together. its been 3 weeks since then. He makes me smile, He never judges me, He supports me, He cheers me on, He makes my days bright. He is everything I’ve ever wanted and more.

BUTTTTTT I feel like somethings missing, I don’t know what it is. I feel like I’m tainting him, and burdening him with things he shouldn’t have to deal with. I’m terrified of falling for him because I feel like I am so damaged and it shouldn’t be his job to fix the broken things in me. Despite saying we were going to leave out pasts behind us I keep finding myself projecting insecurities from past relationships on him. Every time his phone vibrates I immediately think its another girl, every time he doesn’t text back in a few hours I think he’s done with me and found someone better. I cant help but tiptoe around waiting for him to do something to make him like every other guy.  He has done nothing to make me distrust him, He deleted his profile as soon as we meet, he treats me like a rare treasure he searched his whole life for. He treats me so damn well so WHYYYYYY do I feel like this? Why do I keep thinking of my ex who treated me like rubbish? Why is it so hard to believe that he’s just a genuinely wonderful guy?