Would love advice or support

I wanted to share my story about my relationship with my ex-boyfriend, I'll call him Mark.

We met at university, we were in the same friendship group. Mark was the shy, nerdy, awkward scientist guy in our friendship group who never had any luck with girls and never knew what to say. I was in a long-term relationship with a guy at a different university, Patrick, at the time (we were together for seven years in total). I knew Mark fancied me (our mutual friends used to mention it to me) and so I was always a bit careful not to lead him on. But, as we were in the same friendship group, slowly over time, we became friends anyway. We were friends for years after we left university and I used to chat to his brother and visited his family occasionally.

I was still in a relationship with Patrick and after university I moved in with him. After a few years Patrick proposed to me and I said yes, but somehow it didn't feel right. I just put it down to the big life change and to nerves. Then, not long after he'd proposed to me, my mother became seriously ill. I expected Patrick to be there and be unconditionally supportive, but he wasn't. He was too busy with work and he said he didn't have any spare time to spend with me to help. I couldn't believe his reaction. Mark stepped up and he went with me and looked after me and was supportive and caring.

After my mother died, Patrick and I decided to move abroad together for a year, to have a change and do something different. I was a confused mess and thought it would be a good plan. Instead, I found myself boarding a plane to the other side of the world dreading spending a year with my fiancé Patrick and just wishing I could turn around and go back to Mark, where I felt cared about and loved.

During our year living abroad, I broke off my engagement with Patrick and eventually started living on my own.

I then moved back to England, found a new job and told Mark I was in love with him. He said he felt the same way.

I truly thought this could be a 'happily-ever-after' story. Mark seemed to have liked me for years, I felt like I'd never been so happy with a guy, and wondered why I had let myself stay in my previous relationship for so long. At first it was a dream.

Then, after a few months, the problems started cropping up. Mark became distant. He didn't want me to meet his family, although they already knew me as we'd been friends for years. When I told him I didn't want a relationship where he shut me out of parts of his life, he sent me a text saying we should break up. I was devastated and begged him to change his mind. He did and things seemed to calm down again.

Then he started doing strange things, we'd be out with my friends and he'd say it was too much for him he'd have to leave early to spend some time on his own. Or I'd call him and he'd pretend that he was at home on his own, but I could tell from the background noise that he'd gone out with his guy friends to the pub. I tried having really open, honest conversations with him, where I explained that I wasn't restrictive and wanted him to live his own life and the most important thing to me was honesty. It didn't seem to help very much and he wouldn't respond and seemed to be withdrawing from me more and more. He'd cancel on dates, or leave early. He didn't seem to want to spend any time around me. I found it incredibly bizarre and upsetting. I used to challenge him on it and try and talk to him about it, but he'd just shut down.

After a while, if our conversations became heated at all, he'd just pick up his rucksack and say he was going to leave because he 'couldn't do this relationship anymore'. He said that when I tried to talk to him, he found me scary. I used to find this really distressing and upsetting and I made sure to always try and talk calmly. However he then started saying that he felt like I was lashing out at him and was emotionally abusive. I found this really upsetting.

I kept questioning myself and wondering if I was too needy or emotional, because I'd been through my mum's death and the breakup of a long relationship.

After a while, I managed to get a transfer to a company in Europe and thought I'd try working there for six months, just to give myself some time and space. I talked to Mark about it and we agreed we'd see each other every few weeks and it could be a good thing for our relationship to have some time apart.

A week before I left England, I had an important exam. I spoke to Mark on the phone the night before and he was really unsupportive. I just lost it and told him that he didn't deserve to be in a relationship with me, he had been treating me badly for months. After my exam finished, he called me and broke up with me. Three days later, he was back in touch again, saying he'd made a big mistake and all that he wanted in his life was me. He came to mine and showered me with flowers and tears and we got back together.

I moved to Europe and saw a counsellor who talked to me a lot about how I saw myself and if I had enough self-confidence. I spoke to her a lot about Mark's idea that I'd been emotionally abusive and concluded that actually he struggled with emotionally heated conversations and while I'd been annoyed with him on occasions, that didn't constitute abuse. We had a lot of sessions and it was really helpful.

Mark came to visit a lot and at Christmas (just a few months ago) he invited me to his mum's for Christmas. I was overjoyed to spend Christmas with his family and I felt like things had really turned around in our relationship since I'd gone to a counsellor and spent some time away. We started making plans to try living together when I got back to England. By this point we'd been in a relationship for a year and a half and although some of it had been rocky, I felt like it was going much more smoothly and the last few months had been fantastic. He viewed flats and we sat down and discussed our preferences and talked about how we imagined our home to be.

Two weeks before we were due to move in together, he changed his mind. He called me, while I was on a work trip, staying in a business hotel with colleagues, to tell me that he couldn't live with me any longer. He said he loved me, but he just couldn't do it, because he felt too scared of me and he 'needed to feel safe in his own home'. I was devastated and also frightened about having nowhere to live (clearly I couldn't crash at my mum's!).

I asked him to come and visit me on the next weekend to talk to me and discuss what this meant for our relationship and talk to me face to face rather than doing everything over the phone. He refused. He said he was too scared that I'd be angry and he didn't want to see me just yet. I couldn't believe it.

I spent the next week trying to find somewhere to live and once I had I started trying to think about our relationship. I asked him again to come and see me and he wouldn't.

When he finally did come, two weeks later, I told him I wasn't sure about the relationship any longer, because he'd treated me so badly over the last couple of weeks. He just sort of accepted that, although he did cry and seem upset and I felt really bad for him.

I gave it a couple more weeks and kept thinking about it and finally I said to him, how about we try living near to each other, i.e. in the same area of London and try going to relationship counselling? He refused. He said he'd been too hurt when I said to him that I wasn't sure about the relationship and 'why would I want to live near you'.

I again, couldn't believe it. I told him that it was over. I sent his things back to him.

He started sending me emails telling me he wanted to be my best friend and I was a really special person, but he'd just found my emotional abuse too difficult. He specified my emotional abuse as times when I'd told him he was horrible, callous towards me and mean to me. I had said those things to him.

I found these emails (which were really long) and the message that I was emotionally abusive really difficult to deal with.

I haven't seen him now for just over a month. A week ago, I cracked late one night (I wasn't drunk!) and called him up asking if he'd reconsider. He said he missed me, but didn't want to be in a relationship. He said he'd really like to see me and hang out as friends. I felt like an idiot. It seems like such a bad idea to hang out as friends and I've refused.

I've found the whole thing incredibly confusing and painful. I still think about him every day and miss his company and affection. I know I did go through a lot, with the constant break ups and my logic tells me that actually he didn't treat me very well and then tried to blame me for any problems. However, I do keep doubting myself and wondering what I could have done differently. Then my feelings tip towards anger for the way he treated me.

Any thoughts would be really nice and helpful. I just want to try and get some of my feelings about all this out and make sense of my story! I'm living alone in a houseshare now, with people I don't really know, feeling quite lonely and sad, and wondering how my decisions have got me to this point in my life.

From everything you wrote, it sounds as though you are struggling with being labeled "emotionally abusive", but you are not emotionally abusive; you just were in a relationship with a person who had a pathological need to avoid conflict and perhaps some family-of-origin issues. Sounds like Mark could use some therapy himself.

I think time and distance and continued therapy for you are what you need right now. I'm sorry you are hurting; I can sense your loneliness even over the Internet! I hope things get better for you soon.

Paragraph breaks, please. Did your university ever mention those? Very hard to read your OP, so I gave up.

Thanks SpottiOtti. That's really kind and helpful advice x

Paragraph breaks, please. Did your university ever mention those? Very hard to read your OP, so I gave up.

Relevart: A shame you just posted to criticise and included the strange question about university. Please be kinder in future.

Okay, you need to stop a minute, take a deep breath, and realize something. What Mark details as "emotional abuse" is not that at all. And I should know, I spent 16 years working in a women's shelter. Emotional abuse is things like putting a person down and calling them stupid, lazy, fat and other hurtful things, calling them names, telling them you're going out with that special someone from work you have a crush on but it's all good because 'we're just friends, of course nothing will happpen,' etc.

Real emotional abuse is pretty easy to spot--it's abuse, plain and simple.

There is also gaslighting, which is a psychological weapon wherein a person close to you makes you doubt your own sanity and perception of things. There's a pretty good description of it here: link removed

And to that end, I think Mark was gaslighting you big time and quite possibly cheating on you as well. It would explain the whole thing of you knowing he was out while he would deny it then turn it around on you, shame you big time, then pull out the whole you are emotionally abusing me routine.

Newsflash Mark, if you think a partner wanting you to be honest with them is emotional abuse then resign yourself never to having a relationship, period.

I do think someone was being abusive here, but I don't think it's you. At all. My advice? Tell Mark you're done with his head games and good luck with his life. Then block and delete him. His hot and cold, his "I want to be friends" is him keeping control over you, it's not him genuinely wanting a good, solid, honest relationship.

And his communication skills are terrible. You need to go NC for your own sanity, continue with therapy and rebuilding your self-confidence and self-respect. As long as you stay tied to Mark he will be knocking you down by turning around on you what he is essentially doing to you--emotional abuse.

I agree with your therapist, at best Mark can't handle any sort of conflict and is kind of vicious in how he gets others to back down. At worst, he's a master gaslighter. Neither of these are things you want in your life, trust me. I've been there, got the lousy t-shirt, and only got my life back on track when I got such people out of my life. I suggest you do the same.

P.S. I do agree with relevart in that if you repost with space between your paragraphs more people will read your post and give responses. We're not trying to be mean, we want to help, it just helps us take it all in better and form a response.

And right now focus on getting to know other people, go out and immerse yourself in new activities, even just getting out and walking around the block getting to know your neighborhood will help. Loneliness is a temporary state often felt in new surroundings or when changes hit our lives, but it doesn't have to be a permanent state if you get out and go do things where people are. You should like a smart intelligent woman who's learning to make her way in the world and sometimes rough times come with the territory. They don't last though, not if you seize the day and get out and make a conscious effort to shake off the ideas that Mark put into your head, which he shouldn't have done in the first place.

Keep counseling too and maybe it's time to go get this book by Lundy Bancroft: Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men. You can find it on Amazon. I suggest that, because it will give you a very clear, clean look at what all types of abuse are and it might give you some clarity and some answers as to what you went through with Mark.

Also post here when you need to, we are here to help and to encourage you. Breaks ups always are tough, they are never fun things, but you can and will get through it and one day you'll look back amazed you went through that.

Hi Paris,

Thanks so much for your detailed response, I really appreciate it.

It's valuable to hear from someone who's been working in a women's shelter and it sounds like you know what you're talking about.

I did spend a lot of my relationship with Mark feeling quite confused and emotionally all-over-the-place (can't think of a better word!) and I often felt like he'd do something to upset me and then blame me for being upset and say that my emotional reactions were abusive, or if I directly pointed out something I wasn't happy about, that that was abusive.

I'll look up the book you mentioned on Amazon.

I haven't heard much about gaslighting, I've felt slightly reluctant to try and characterise him as dysfunctional in some way - partly because that's what he's done to me.

But I do think I need to try and understand it all a bit better. I need to stay with the NC and keep trying to improve how I feel about myself and reassess the messages that Mark's been giving me about myself. I really regret allowing myself to be in a situation with someone who treated me that way, but I found it so difficult to fully understand.

Thank you so much for all of the help and encouragement.

P.s. With Relevart's post, I'm sure he's correct and you are correct that it would be easier if I had put spacing between paragraphs. I'm sorry it's difficult to read and thank you for wading through it! However the comment: 'Paragraph breaks: Did your university ever mention those?' is unkindly written. There's no need for a comment about my education. I stand by that.

OP posted here with better spacing! Unfortunately there's currently no way to re-post or edit my original post until it drops off the page!.

I wanted to share my story about my relationship with my ex-boyfriend, I'll call him Mark.

We met at university, we were in the same friendship group. Mark was the shy, nerdy, awkward scientist guy in our friendship group who never had any luck with girls and never knew what to say. I was in a long-term relationship with a guy at a different university, Patrick, at the time (we were together for seven years in total). I knew Mark fancied me (our mutual friends used to mention it to me) and so I was always a bit careful not to lead him on. But, as we were in the same friendship group, slowly over time, we became friends anyway. We were friends for years after we left university and I used to chat to his brother and visited his family occasionally.

I was still in a relationship with Patrick and after university I moved in with him. After a few years Patrick proposed to me and I said yes, but somehow it didn't feel right. I just put it down to the big life change and to nerves. Then, not long after he'd proposed to me, my mother became seriously ill. I expected Patrick to be there and be unconditionally supportive, but he wasn't. He was too busy with work and he said he didn't have any spare time to spend with me to help. I couldn't believe his reaction. Mark stepped up and he went with me and looked after me and was supportive and caring.

After my mother died, Patrick and I decided to move abroad together for a year, to have a change and do something different. I was a confused mess and thought it would be a good plan. Instead, I found myself boarding a plane to the other side of the world dreading spending a year with my fiancé Patrick and just wishing I could turn around and go back to Mark, where I felt cared about and loved.

During our year living abroad, I broke off my engagement with Patrick and eventually started living on my own.

I then moved back to England, found a new job and told Mark I was in love with him. He said he felt the same way.

I truly thought this could be a 'happily-ever-after' story. Mark seemed to have liked me for years, I felt like I'd never been so happy with a guy, and wondered why I had let myself stay in my previous relationship for so long. At first it was a dream.

Then, after a few months, the problems started cropping up. Mark became distant. He didn't want me to meet his family, although they already knew me as we'd been friends for years. When I told him I didn't want a relationship where he shut me out of parts of his life, he sent me a text saying we should break up. I was devastated and begged him to change his mind. He did and things seemed to calm down again.

Then he started doing strange things, we'd be out with my friends and he'd say it was too much for him he'd have to leave early to spend some time on his own. Or I'd call him and he'd pretend that he was at home on his own, but I could tell from the background noise that he'd gone out with his guy friends to the pub. I tried having really open, honest conversations with him, where I explained that I wasn't restrictive and wanted him to live his own life and the most important thing to me was honesty. It didn't seem to help very much and he wouldn't respond and seemed to be withdrawing from me more and more. He'd cancel on dates, or leave early. He didn't seem to want to spend any time around me. I found it incredibly bizarre and upsetting. I used to challenge him on it and try and talk to him about it, but he'd just shut down.

After a while, if our conversations became heated at all, he'd just pick up his rucksack and say he was going to leave because he 'couldn't do this relationship anymore'. He said that when I tried to talk to him, he found me scary. I used to find this really distressing and upsetting and I made sure to always try and talk calmly. However he then started saying that he felt like I was lashing out at him and was emotionally abusive. I found this really upsetting.

I kept questioning myself and wondering if I was too needy or emotional, because I'd been through my mum's death and the breakup of a long relationship.

After a while, I managed to get a transfer to a company in Europe and thought I'd try working there for six months, just to give myself some time and space. I talked to Mark about it and we agreed we'd see each other every few weeks and it could be a good thing for our relationship to have some time apart.

A week before I left England, I had an important exam. I spoke to Mark on the phone the night before and he was really unsupportive. I just lost it and told him that he didn't deserve to be in a relationship with me, he had been treating me badly for months. After my exam finished, he called me and broke up with me. Three days later, he was back in touch again, saying he'd made a big mistake and all that he wanted in his life was me. He came to mine and showered me with flowers and tears and we got back together.

I moved to Europe and saw a counsellor who talked to me a lot about how I saw myself and if I had enough self-confidence. I spoke to her a lot about Mark's idea that I'd been emotionally abusive and concluded that actually he struggled with emotionally heated conversations and while I'd been annoyed with him on occasions, that didn't constitute abuse. We had a lot of sessions and it was really helpful.

Mark came to visit a lot and at Christmas (just a few months ago) he invited me to his mum's for Christmas. I was overjoyed to spend Christmas with his family and I felt like things had really turned around in our relationship since I'd gone to a counsellor and spent some time away. We started making plans to try living together when I got back to England. By this point we'd been in a relationship for a year and a half and although some of it had been rocky, I felt like it was going much more smoothly and the last few months had been fantastic. He viewed flats and we sat down and discussed our preferences and talked about how we imagined our home to be.

Two weeks before we were due to move in together, he changed his mind. He called me, while I was on a work trip, staying in a business hotel with colleagues, to tell me that he couldn't live with me any longer. He said he loved me, but he just couldn't do it, because he felt too scared of me and he 'needed to feel safe in his own home'. I was devastated and also frightened about having nowhere to live (clearly I couldn't crash at my mum's!).

I asked him to come and visit me on the next weekend to talk to me and discuss what this meant for our relationship and talk to me face to face rather than doing everything over the phone. He refused. He said he was too scared that I'd be angry and he didn't want to see me just yet. I couldn't believe it.

I spent the next week trying to find somewhere to live and once I had I started trying to think about our relationship. I asked him again to come and see me and he wouldn't.

When he finally did come, two weeks later, I told him I wasn't sure about the relationship any longer, because he'd treated me so badly over the last couple of weeks. He just sort of accepted that, although he did cry and seem upset and I felt really bad for him.

I gave it a couple more weeks and kept thinking about it and finally I said to him, how about we try living near to each other, i.e. in the same area of London and try going to relationship counselling? He refused. He said he'd been too hurt when I said to him that I wasn't sure about the relationship and 'why would I want to live near you'.

I again, couldn't believe it. I told him that it was over. I sent his things back to him.

He started sending me emails telling me he wanted to be my best friend and I was a really special person, but he'd just found my emotional abuse too difficult. He specified my emotional abuse as times when I'd told him he was horrible, callous towards me and mean to me. I had said those things to him.

I found these emails (which were really long) and the message that I was emotionally abusive really difficult to deal with.

I haven't seen him now for just over a month. A week ago, I cracked late one night (I wasn't drunk!) and called him up asking if he'd reconsider. He said he missed me, but didn't want to be in a relationship. He said he'd really like to see me and hang out as friends. I felt like an idiot. It seems like such a bad idea to hang out as friends and I've refused.

I've found the whole thing incredibly confusing and painful. I still think about him every day and miss his company and affection. I know I did go through a lot, with the constant break ups and my logic tells me that actually he didn't treat me very well and then tried to blame me for any problems. However, I do keep doubting myself and wondering what I could have done differently. Then my feelings tip towards anger for the way he treated me.

Any thoughts would be really nice and helpful. I just want to try and get some of my feelings about all this out and make sense of my story! I'm living alone in a houseshare now, with people I don't really know, feeling quite lonely and sad, and wondering how my decisions have got me to this point in my life.

: 'Paragraph breaks: Did your university ever mention those?' is unkindly written. There's no need for a comment about my education. I stand by that.

True, and that's why I stated what I did kindly. Don't take it to heart, we all just get frustrated over here sometimes and get snippy. I've done my own share of that I confess, alas we are human.

Anyways I also know something about what you're going through, because my first boyfriend was abusive--first emotionally and mentally then later physically at which time I bailed. I've been there wondering what was wrong with me and feeling like it was all my fault. Time and experience later helped me see things more clearly along with just getting out and living life.

I don't want you to label Mark, but it's good to know about things like gaslighting and what real abuse is, because these are issues you will likely bump into in life again. And knowledge, all knowledge, is power. That little cliche is true and it's true accross all areas of life. Arm yourself with some basic knowledge about human behaviors, focus on building back your confidence and self-esteem, learn from the experiences with Mark and you will be fine.

It's always so much easier for others to clearly see what we're in the middle of, always. It's why you came to this forum after all and yes, even with all my experience and life wisdom gained I've still found myself in the middle of a relationship storms and had no clue where or how to steer the ship without an outside hand. My last ex was an on-again/off-again six year relationship, really toxic, really confusing and yeah, it took NC and the help of others to finally get myself free of it. What you're experiencing is normal and a small tip--take up journaling about it, all of it, the good and the bad, show no one your writings, pour it all out. Go to the gym and beat the crap out of every punching bag they have, take up running or karate or a physical activity, get curious about the world and focus on learning new things. One day you'll wake up and be bored to death with the whole thing, find a way to destroy your journals, and move on with your life fully healed.

In fact, you are already on your way and are taking steps to more freedom, more knowledge. And that's always a good thing. You're questioning things, you're processing emotions, think of it as you are finally waking up. And as painful as that is, it's also a very, very good thing to do and good sign that you are indeed healing even when it doesn't feel like it.

It will be okay, because for every bad time that rolls around on you there are good ones that will as well. Stay strong, stay positive, and good luck out there.

Thank you Paris.

I might come back again sometime later, if I am finding things hard again (it kind of comes and goes).