When your 8 year relationship turns into a nightmare

tl;dr, i guess one day my partner decided to break up with me but forgot to tell me… 😈 (seriously tho, this shit’s long)

We met in 2016, and it’s a time that still hurts my heart to remember because it was so good.

I had just gotten over my last relationship: someone who was 8 years older, lied about his age, was secretly a drug addict and, as I would discover, would seize every opportunity to cheat on me before I caught him out after months of suspicion.

I said to myself I don’t want anything like that again. I was worried about always having trust issues in relationships going forward, but when I got to know my, now current partner, those concerns fell away.

He was a uniquely considerate and caring person, with a lovely smile that would consume his face, like he couldn’t help but show how happy he was. Unlike my last relationships, we were equal; we had shared interests and senses of humour, and what wasn’t shared was compatible. We were best friends.

Now I just ask myself what happened, and I question if I ever could have known him.

In 2020, at the height of covid, and having lived together since the year before, he gets distant. Claustrophobic, I think. he’s always talking about how he needs his space from “everyone”. It’s not your fault, he says. I’m like this with everyone.

He gets more distant. He starts acting different. Guarded. Secretive. Remote. Like he’s withholding himself from me, specifically. He’s working a lot. He leaves at 6:10am, gets home at 7:00- 7:30pm. Then it’s time to go to the gym. Then home, dinner, and sleep. It’s hard to catch him on the weekend too. He wakes up, goes to the gym, then it’s time to go for a drive that can last up to 3 or 4 hours. He gets home, oh by the way I’m seeing this person and doing that, then tonight I’m doing this with whoever, then he’s gone again.

We aren’t having sex. When I float the idea its always sorry, my neck is sore, or I can’t I’ve done something to my back, or sorry i’m really sick. I get embarrassed about it and I stop bringing it up, but every night the idea of sex with him comforts me to sleep.

In December of 2022, my brother suddenly dies on Christmas Eve, my dad finds his body Christmas morning. Suddenly it’s time for my partner to support and prioritise me. And yeah, to his credit he comes to my parents house every couple days or so while he’s off work. He brings groceries. The emotional support is lacking and vague, however.

Energised by grief and the need to confirm he cares about me, I go through a burst of unambiguous love and affection; we’re cuddling in bed again, I’m saying I love you again, one night over text I even bring up that self-esteem defeating question I’ve been asking myself for so long, are we ever going to have sex again? He’s writing, he’s writing, he’s stopped writing, he’s started writing again, okay he’s stopped writing. He finally eventually replies plainly with, “Pls”. Another vague and noncommittal signal from him.

We actually do end up having sex for a bit, but it doesn’t last beyond a few months. The months go by. One night, I’m depressed to find out he’s blocked me from being able to see his stories in Instagram. An action that’s almost as benign as it is frustratingly bizarre. He says, oh I was having friends over in that period after your brother died and I didn’t want you to think I was neglecting you. More like he was taking to steps to hide his conscious neglect.

More months go by. I try to talk about feelings, reflections about my brother dying, he stares at a wall, unaffected and unmoved. Mm, he would say occasionally, but nothing more.

By the middle of the year I stop bringing up my brothers death, and he doesn’t bring it up either.

One night in November he goes out after work but I s’pose it’s slipped his mind to let me know; I message him, when you home? hello? do you have plans tonight? i get crickets back. Meanwhile, the ever-active green Online icon next to his Instagram profile sears into my brain. I stay awake all night, waiting for him to either come through the door or let me know he is staying elsewhere. He doesn’t come back until the next afternoon.

Before I know it, Christmas 2023 is a few days away, and one night I calmly and sombrely tell him I think we need to break up. Why, he states almost with no question mark. Because our relationship is dysfunctional and the way you have been acting for the last two years now isn’t normal. You don’t take any interest in me. I tell him the only reason we are still together is because we are already together. Detached and unconvincing, he says he’ll do what it takes to make the relationship work. This was good enough for me I guess.

For the next 10 days things do seem to be a lot better. Until New Year’s eve.

At about 3:00am New Years morning, actually, he gets home from a party and doesn’t come to bed. I’m awake with a little anxiety; we had such a great day but after he left last night I just didn’t hear from him, and he didn’t reply to the few messages I sent him.

I did this with very little thought, and I didn’t know why until later: I downloaded grindr to make sure he wasn’t on there. It was how I caught my last boyfriend. I had next to no cause to think my current one might be though. And he was. There’s a picture of him flexing his arms, clearly chosen to attract eyeballs. Bio: I’m here. Looking for: Hookups, dates, friends. Position: Versatile (PFFF).

I confront him straight away, he avoids it up and down and tries to placate me by being affectionate. I don’t buy it. Haven’t you heard of catfishing? he says, someone is clearly using his pictures. Someone else who is also 0 meters away. Stop selling, no one’s buying it. This isn’t happening. He gets mad and starts blaming me. He was only looking to see if I was on there, because I’m so deceitful, and his friends are always asking “why are you WITH him?!”, and his psychologist has read our text chat and has diagnosed me as abusive, it goes on. He continues to deny the undeniable. Later I find out that night he was on cocaine, and he’s been doing cocaine at parties in the last year; it’s also my fault he hid it from me… because my brother died from a heroin overdose he “had” to hide it, or else I might call him “stupid”.

These are all real things he said.

We are up the entire night. At first light I go to the bathroom where I can be alone and that’s where I fall apart.

Despite how horrible I apparently am, he says he will also do anything to make the relationship work. After a while, I am willing; but I have questions I need answered. I have a list. I need to know he can be honest. How many times have you done this? Have you ever succeeded in cheating? What else don’t I know about? He answers my questions, denying all the most incriminating ones. I’m not satisfied.

The truth is important to me, so over the next few months I privately try to independently verify his answers, and I unfortunately prove that every answer was a lie, to one degree or another. The only thing I couldn’t prove then was that he has never physically cheated, but does that matter in the face of so many lies? Flirty DM’s with hot local guys on instagram? Check. Arranging to go on dates with guys and telling them he was single? Check. Secret Snapchat where he sends and receives HOT, SXC snaps? Secret Twitter account that he uses to post naked selfies on while talking to other local porn accounts about how they were gona hookup? Check. Didn’t just download Grindr that one time but many many times including when he’s even just casually at work? Check. When he’s home alone he gets on chatroulette naked and jacks off to unsuspecting public? CHECK! There’s so much more. if he wanted to do most of these things just cos that’s how he gets off, he could have talked to me about it. It’s the secrets and the lengths he went to to hide everything that wound me most. I’ve suggested an open relationship, because honestly if he’s been doing whatever he wanted then I need to be able to as well. No, he says. Why? His activities need to be secret. Totally cool and normal grown-up adult.

So, he implies it all isn’t his fault; he has low self esteem, he needs validation, it’s so hard living by rules that other people have set for him. I’m dumbstruck that he either can’t see, or can’t understand that ultimately, it is him who led himself astray by using these excuses to utterly mismanage himself as a responsible person. His unwillingness to be accountable combined with his power to rationalise anything equals a world where everything is justifiable. He must play mind games with himself everyday.

However, he tells me it will never happen again, and I demean myself by staying with him.

But it happens again. 7 days before Christmas of 2024 he goes to his parents place for the night, just to visit he says. Things had been good for a while. We had sex right before he let, at his initiation. So why did I feel the need to check out the profiles near his parents place by searching the location… I don’t know. There’s a blank profile. “Bored” it says. I say hey. The profile says hey. I ask what he’s up to. Visiting family, the profile replies. What’s plans for the night there? Oh I’m thinking of heading down to a local cruising spot soon, hopefully jerk some guys off (pff, pussy). Nice, can I see your album? Of course!

Didn’t even have to open the album to know it was him.

What happened next is mostly a repeat of what I’ve already written, only with updated excuses.

So again, I’m heartbroken, at a time of the year that’s already so painful … again.

The fantastic person he was in the first four years doesn’t just feel like a memory, but a dream i’ve half-forgotten. He denies he was ever so lovely.

He says he is sorry and doesn’t want to lose me, but why when he clearly feels the need to do what he wants, unencumbered by a partner? Is lying just something I will have to accept he will do?

I can’t seem to leave him either; and it’s not because I’m scared of being alone or I’m comfortable in our current arrangements; I love him. Despite the distance, over the years I’ve still grown to value him more and more. For better or worse, he means a lot to me.

I was speaking to a counsellor a few days ago. What hurts more, they said, the thought of leaving him now, or the pain of him doing this again next christmas?

I quietly resigned myself to the knowing that I’ll probably find out.