Abused, cheated on and falling for someone else? Urgent help needed!

Hello everyone, I'll just start this topic by saying that I'm the kind of person who would do anything else to make other people happy. I never put myself first and that has lead me to a lot of suffering to this day, and I believe that is also one of the reasons I got easily manipulated.

 

So, I've been in my current relationship for a little over 3 years now. First 2 and a half were long distance, then I moved countries to be with my partner.

During the first few months of being with this guy everything seemed perfect, no arguments, he seemed to be the guy of my dreams, loving, caring, understanding, helped me get over a suicide attempt and supported me in finding my true self. ( or at least that's what I've been tricked into thinking)

A couple of months after, I get a text saying that he has got something to tell me, a classic scenario of course, and that if a certain girl messages me to not believe a word she is saying as he wants to tell me the story himself.

 

Turns out he has been cheating on me for two weeks straight, bringing that girl over his home and letting her stay the night and I'd rather not go into other details. Long story short she sent me screenshots of their conversations, I've seen my partner writing things I never thought he wasn't even capable of thinking of, had a complete mental breakdown and decided to give him a second chance.

I believe there is always a good side of people, so after he convinced me that the reason for cheating was the lack of physical contact between me and him and the fact that we haven't met yet, as shattered as I was I started rebuilding my trust in him.

We finally met a year after the incident, and then again, a few months after he started having the same behaviour as when the first time the cheating happened. He was distant, never replying to my messages, always seemed to be out with friends and tried playing the victim saying that he needs space because he is depressed and cannot cope. Me, being too nice for my own sake, let him get away with it and told myself that I am just paranoid and that he wouldn't cheat again.

 

After half a year of this behaviour, he rang me in tears saying that he's got something to tell me.

I already knew, there were 5 minutes of complete silence and then I asked how bad it was. His reply? He's been cheating on me the whole time, with multiple people, didn't say a number but said that he fell in love with one of them and now he couldn't choose between me and her and that he hates himself.

 

I had to talk to this girl too to find out the story behind the affair, thought I don't even deserve to live considering the treatment I've been getting after being fully committed, paying for his bills from overseas because he was unemployed, getting him presents and clothes because he couldn't afford them... and then I get the same news again? If at this point you're still reading and wondering how I have not dumped him yet you will probably be fuming at my next reaction.

 

After a break and after he decided he would choose me out of the two, I forgave him once again and thought that if I moved in with him and been there in person, all his ' depression' and the need for physical intimacy will go away.

Said and done, as soon as I finished my studies I decided to jump on a plane and move across the continent to be with him. At this point for me it only felt like a chore, I wasn't excited I had to go nor happy I was going to meet him... I simply felt nothing. Stone cold, not worthy of any trace of affection, just like an object that had to be sacrificed for the sake of someone else's happiness.

 

Ever since I've been here he has been affectionate to a point and he is sort of trying to maintain a decent relationship.

However he has moments when he snaps and starts yelling at me, makes me sleep on the floor and pushes me and makes me cry to the point I consider suicide again. Next day he comes back as nothing happened, trying to buy me presents and make me happy, then as soon as he snaps again the cycle continues and I end up being to blame because I forgive too easily according to him.

 

We currently live in a stressful, shared house that I genuinely a mess and that alone is pushing us to arguments, so I got a loan and we are meant to move in our own home next year.

 

I can't seem to get away from this relationship as I always hope that he will change for the better and be the guy he was when I first met him, but as the time is passing I start loosing even my last bit of hope. I don't know how I can possibly do so much for a guy that treated me in this way for so long, and I don't know what my reasons are for even remotely considering staying. I think that the short moments when he is being affectionate are pushing me to keep going and he is so good at manipulating me he always gets away with it. I have no self esteem left and accepted that this is something I probably deserved once I decided staying after the first affair he's had.

 

In the meantime, while all this has been going on, I have met a guy at work that unlike my current boyfriend, makes me feel happy again.

A feeling I haven't got to experience in a long time and it's scaring me that ever since I met him he's always on my mind.

 

I would like to know him better, I have already made him aware of the fact that I am in a relationship and that we need to have some boundaries.

However, I tend to consider crossing them and then something in my head tells me to stop and that if I do it, I will be no different than my current s/o.

We have mainly just talked online, nothing major and just innocent things and a few days ago after having not seen him in a while, he picked me up, hugged me and started spinning me around inside our workplace under our co-workers glares. They know about my current situation and the guy from work has a close relationship with my other co-workers, so they were happy for us and kept telling me to leave my s/o and ask my ' crush' to move in with me instead, as he is a good guy and would be a better fit for me and my future.

 

Now, leaving the mess in my head aside, I can't figure out what I should do further.

I can't seem to have the power to leave my s/o as I feel bad if 2 weeks before getting our house I will leave him homeless and tell him that someone else makes me happy.

What if the new guy only wants to play me as my boyfriend always did? Why am I always being taken advantage of and how can I stop being so gullible and easily manipulated? There's so many questions I need help with and so many people that have told me that I need to leave.

Yet I feel bad, I feel like I am the problem and that I am a horrible person for even getting my co-worker's attention... to put it shortly : I am a complete mess.

 

I have no one to talk to about this as all my friends over here have initially been his friends, so they will straight away tell him and he will snap at me and the last thing I need is being accused of cheating and abused over it.

 

I will take any advice you guys have, I just want to find a way to balance both sides and stop being so miserable.

Leave the cheater, heal yourself, do not jump into a new relationship.

 

That's my advice.

 

There is no "balancing both sides" - this situation is going to keep making you crazier and crazier until something dire happens. Which means you need to get out of it.

Get out of your current relationship. Get out now. Really - run, don't walk, to the nearest exit. If you're worried about what will happen to him if you tell him it's over, worry instead about what will happen to you if you continue with him. Abusers are always wonderful at the start of their relationships, and many people stay with absolute a-holes in the hope that the partner will somehow magically turn back into the way they were at the beginning. You need to understand that the 'ideal man' he pretended to be at the start was an act, and that you are now experiencing the real him. The person you were in love with DOES NOT EXIST.

 

However, don't tell him that someone else is making you happy. In answer to your question

Why am I always being taken advantage of and how can I stop being so gullible and easily manipulated?

, a good start would be that when you find yourself full of romantic feelings for someone you've never even met - get a grip. It takes time to get to know a person, time spent together - not online where they can make themselves out to be something they're not. Abusers are wonderful in the early stages, but so are nice people, and it takes time to find out which is which.

 

So... get your new place, on your own, and just spend some time with YOU. You're far too vulnerable to contemplate a relationship right now, and you need a lot of practice in being nice to yourself before you do. In other words, turn the energy you've always used to keep others happy into doing things for yourself - including seeking professional help if that would fit for you.

 

Abusive relationships play havoc with self esteem, and if you don't love yourself, have a proper self regard, it's impossible to truly love anyone else.

I think you would do well to seek out a good therapist and tell him/her everything you've told us so that the two of you (you and your therapist) can get to the bottom of why you are suffering in such low self-worth that you would consider jumping from one dysfunctional relationship into another and then wanting to leave that one for some guy you don't even know but feel you want to move in with.

 

Can I ask how the new guy you're jonesing over is using you? The guy you're currently living with was using you to pay his bills and buy him clothes and you continued to do it even when he was not being exclusive with you.

 

I agree that you should leave the guy before you move into the new house but you certainly should not hook up with the guy at work. Surely you know how to live alone while you work on your codependent issues and while you work on your self-worth. Once you have conquered those issues, you will pick a far different kind of man who you wouldn't dream of staying with if they treated you the way the last two have treated you.

 

Good luck... look after yourself.