Replaced Before Breakup

Apologies in advance for the book... TLDR at the end.

I just came out of my first serious relationship 9 months ago, and honestly I just need to vent. I promise I'm moving on, but I just learned new information about possible infidelity that has my whole world flipped upside down again.

I'd been friends with this person for 5 years, relationship for 3 years and lived together for 2. I had to travel 3,000 miles away from home to be with them, but we had such fantastic chemistry after getting together multiple times in my home state that I thought we could make something work. I was their first girlfriend. They told me they were just graduating college and had a job lined up afterwards, but we'd have to live with their parents for a little bit while they got settled. I think they genuinely thought it would all work out at that point in time, but after half a year with no job and basically the two of us living off his parents I couldn't do it any longer.

And I mean living off these poor people. They paid for us to take trips, and I didn't have any insurance while I was there so they paid for an emergency dentist visit I had to take too. I finally got myself a job, and my partner continued to look. Time went on (I tried to make the most of the job but wow I hated it. I was hoping I could save up enough to get us an apartment, but alone with the 1 job and no insurance through the job, I couldn't) and they still didn't have a job. They would just wake up to drive me to work and then sit home and play video games all day. Whenever I expressed wanting our own place, they'd get upset with me like I was berating them for it or something.. but honestly I never hounded them at all once about the job situation. I knew it was hard, and they said they were trying so I believed them.

Eventually it became too much. I was trying to compromise by having them cook us dinner or do our laundry while I went to work, but found out they'd let my laundry sit for 3 weeks and put their laundry in with their parents pile. I flipped on them, and I know my language was colorful. I just felt they needed to hear it. They needed to hear they were 30 and their parents paid for everything they had in full. Their parents even paid for a PPO plan for them as an individual every month and gave them $220 a week as an allowance. I don't blame the parents for this, I think it's their choice as an adult to continue living that way and in my opinion it's wrong to use them like that.

I know I have a temper and I tend to use ad hominem when I get upset, but I corrected myself really early on in that relationship. Believe me when I say, I take full responsibility for being a verbal nightmare when things went wrong and I know now I should have conveyed my emotions and concerns rather than hurling insults in the heat of the moment. That's on me, and I've had to forgive myself and work on that over the last 9 months while reflecting.

That wasn't the only time I flipped out. It was every time we had to make hard choices or make adult decisions and they would basically shut down on me and I'd have to do it alone. They didn't want to deal with anything hard, and it made me feel like they didn't care. All they seemed to want were the good times, and would do everything possible to default us back to being goofy or funny when things got tense. Sweeping problems under the rug, basically.

Eventually I flew back home, because I couldn't live with the parents anymore, work that job, or continue to stress. I was crying so often, and they just didn't care. They actually were pushing me to go back home while they "figured it out".

We had a huge conversation that December before I went back up about if it was better to end things or not. I was the one trying to end things. I said I didn't want to watch the relationship die a slow death and fizzle out. They said they'd thought about breaking up too, but they fell in love with me and wanted to make it work. We agreed whoever got a job first, the other would move to be with them. Fast forward a few months later, I have a job and they don't, but they refuse to move. My area was to terrifying of a move for them because of the changes, and honestly, I respected it. I understand it's hard to move since I had to do it. I get it. But wow, it sucked.

A few more months went by and I blew up again because I didn't know where the relationship was heading. I tried to break up again, but they insisted I take a step back to think about what I was doing. They calmed me down and said we'd work it out. That night was 6 hours of us stressing, sitting up and just talking about what we were going to do and how we'd work through it. At one point they told me to just fly back over, but I said I couldn't because of the job. It ended amicably, and the new plan was... you work back home and I'll keep looking for work over here. We'll make it work.

They flew out to visit me once during that year, and we seemed to have a good time...except they had a new "friend" from their game they were texting. They would talk about this new friend at length with me, and how bad they felt for them and what a crappy life this friend had. Something deep inside me told me this was something more than just a "friend", but I didn't want to be overbearing since we'd talked about having friends of the opposite sex a few times (I had 4 and it never affected my relationship). They went home, and that night when they got on voice chat with me they told me they knew the last few months they'd been slacking, but they wanted me to know they were going to step up and really get things moving again. They had a great time, and loved me. I felt fantastic.

Four months later, they broke up with me when it came time to visit again. Via text, and never reached out after it. I had to call them days later, and at that point they'd hardened. They said they no longer loved me, and they felt the relationship had been all about me and not about them. They also said they weren't sure if we'd get back together again in the future, but for the mean time they were done.

So... I left them alone. I left them alone for 2 months until they reached out to ask me if I was still going to be in their area (my family booked a vacation in their area before the break-up that they helped us plan... we wanted to thank their family for letting me live with them all those months). I naturally assumed they wanted to reconcile, and they even requested to take me out alone the night we landed. Much to my horror, the entire night was them basically behaving like an alien. They kept boasting about their personal achievements, and acting superior to me. The very air about them and the way they moved was... patronizing. They drove me past all our favorite places, and bought everything, saying they'd had a lot of money saved up from their allowance so they could swing it. They also told me they were completely over everything, and it was all about whatever I needed now.

I'd never cried so hard in my entire life when I got back to the hotel...and the vacation was booked for an entire week. Thankfully I only saw them that once. I told them I couldn't do it, and I couldn't be friends with them right now despite them wanting to keep in contact.

Six months went by after that encounter, and I finally reached out to them to discuss my things being returned. When I contacted them I was met by the same cruel and unfamiliar personality. I told them we needed to talk because we'd left things open ended, and if it was easier we could break contact entirely. They said if we were going to discuss a possible friendship, we'd need to rehash everything that went wrong for them in the relationship. Which, long story short, led to me apologizing for yelling the way I did and them telling me how much better off they've been. They flirted a bit, and I took the bait. They started saying things like "You're trying to work your way back into my life" and "You subconsciously still want me". I told them no, my feelings were complicated, but I never explained why. I never told them I missed the person they were, and hated who they'd become.

But since I said no, they kept saying things like "Oh, was that a bad read?" and even went as far once as to say "I think the distance is doing you good. Am I right? I'm still learning to be an ex lol"

I stayed calm, because I really have learned to avoid lashing out of anger, but wow I felt like I was being walked on.

Then came the kicker. I asked if they'd been seeing anyone new, because honestly I needed to know. They said some choice things, one including I wanted to know because it felt gross to know someone else was making them feel good.They finally revealed to me that they'd been seeing someone for several months at least, and there was no definitive start. I asked if they'd been talking to this person when I was down on my visit, and they said yes. I asked if they'd been talking to this person before the break-up, and they said "yep". Then "assured" me that they didn't leave me for them and even avoided telling this person about our break "for months" because they didn't want to make things weird.

Needless to say, things don't add up... and I immediately requested to have my things shipped back. I knew something was up during that visit. They were just waiting to replace me with someone else. This hurts bad. I keep telling myself it's going to be okay and someone new will come into my life, but if I let myself think back on that relationship I can almost travel exactly back in time to the moment I'm recalling. I can picture the weather, what it smelled like, and almost relive it. I try really hard not to do that because it hurts so much. I just don't understand... and I'm trying to find my own closure to it by telling myself I don't need to know; I just need to learn. It just hurts so bad...

TLDR; My boyfriend never found work while we lived with their parents and I tried to leave multiple times, but they insisted things would get better and asked me to stay. They broke up with me randomly after some time, and acted totally different after that breakup, very cruel. Then I came to find out they'd replaced me with another person before breaking up with me and I feel terrible.