did i make the right decision?

[im a mess]

hey everybody. i'm back again.

a few days ago, i broke up with my boyfriend of barely over a month. a lot of intense emotions have surfaced because of it.

but here's the thing, i can't tell if i made the right decision or not.

i'll give you the rundown. basically, i broke up with him because i felt like i couldn't trust him. we fight multiple times a week, almost everyday, because i've been hurt by his actions and i'm not sure how to recover from it. i've experienced intense anger, sadness, insecurity, and loads of other confusing emotions. i've cried everyday, because i can't seem to get this *** out of my mind. it has made me feel like *** about myself.

so what did he do? well, right before we got together (a little over a month ago), he let me use his phone to access my resident portal so i could complete my new apartment inspection. i couldn't access it on my phone or computer. my curiosity got the best of me...i just had a bad feeling. so i looked through his phone. i found almost 200 p*rnos of him and his ex stashed in his hidden folder. pictures of her n*ked and *** on his phone. i said nothing, but god did it hurt my feelings. this was just the beginning of the end. he asked me to be his gf a few days later, before i brought it up, and i said yes. i love him, maybe there's a reasonable explanation to all this? eventually i couldn't hold it back anymore. i was nice and tried to be understanding, but it pissed me off when he became defensive. "i just got this phone fixed, i haven't had time to go through all of my photos." "you shouldn't be going through my phone anyway." valid, i guess. but it became a fight and i drove away. later on he proceeded to apologize, and showed me that he deleted all of the photos and videos.

but from that point on, it almost became an obsession. what else was he hiding from me? i just had to know. i've looked multiple times, and found a plethora of bull***. facebook dating, where he was texting multiple girls telling them how pretty they are and giving out his number, even days after we got together. "it was for music marketing," he said, and he claims that he wasn't responding after we got together, the girls were. but i saw the messages. i found out he didn't delete all of the photos of his ex. i found out that he had been answering the phone when she called, still telling her that he loved her. i found messages from right before we got together. we were talking, agreed to be exclusive, he was calling me his girl. i thought we were working towards a relationship. he was texting his ex's sister talking about "*me* is a great girl, but i miss *his ex*. that was my p*ssy." youch. i found messages of him texting one of his friends "who looks better?" with a picture of me and a picture of another girl, again, right before we got together. he proceeded to say "yeah, *other girl* has a nice ass. i haven't f*cked yet, but she splurged on me for my birthday." damn. i splurged on him for his birthday. i went out of my way and spent more money than i had to get him a meaningful present and show him how much i loved him, even though we weren't together yet. his best friends on snapchat are girls i don't know. he hasn't mentioned them, but unfortunately i'm not able to see what he's been saying to them. most recently, i found an app called keepsafe on one of his phones (who tf has two phones anyway? cuz one of them damn sure ain't for work). for those of you that don't know, it's a photo vault app with a password. it even has an option to set up a fake password to hide *** from your S.O., according to what i looked up. i changed the password and got in. p*rn was the most innocent thing, but there were more pictures of him and his ex, some of them he saved recently, and an ungodly amount of nudes and photos from other females. i still haven't brought it up to him. that's not even it, i've just let a lot of it go, but this mf is shady.

now listen, i am fully aware that looking through my partner's phone is a toxic ass thing to do. i feel guilty for doing it, i feel guilty for the way i've been acting towards him because of it. i realize that i kinda did this to myself. but i just had to know. he claims that all of this *** was before we got together, so it shouldn't count. he's apologized for the *** i've brought up, giving me seemingly bull*** excuses. he tells me all these sweet things and reels me back in. but i just don't trust him. i can't shake the feeling that he's cheating on me, or if he's not currently, then he will in the future. since the year i've known him, he's always been a bit of a player. f*cks around a lot. but before all this, he really made me believe that i was special. he told me he loved me so deeply, that he wanted to marry me and give me babies, *** like that. now it's hard to believe anything he says.

and i tried to k*ll myself on sunday of this week. i don't wanna say it was all because of him, but this *** has made me lose myself. it has made me feel disgusted, broken, angry, depressed, insecure. it has brought out the worst in me. the part that hurts the most is that i want to believe him when he says it was just a *** up and that i am the one for him. full disclosure, he lowkey blames it on me everytime, because i "broke his trust first". what i mean by this is that, before we started being exclusive, we made an agreement that i would not f*ck any of his friends or f*ck with anybody in front of him. and i did. a few times. i can't really explain why other than i had tried to be in a relationship with him months before that, when we first met on FB dating. he told me he wasn't ready and that he was f*cking other people, including his ex, so from then on i didn't take him seriously. it wasn't meant to hurt him. most of the time i was drunk, regretted it, only got myself in those situations because we were partying, and the dudes around me showed me more attention than him. but when he told me he loved me and that he wanted to be with me, i cut all that *** out immediately. he did not. why would you tell me you love me, expect that you can have me to yourself, and you don't hold yourself to the same standards? it's just hard for me to believe that he's not still on some bull***.

it's apparent we got off on the extremely wrong foot. so why do i have regrets? i love him so deeply. i want it to be him. i want to believe the *** he tells me. he's so charming, handsome, sweet to me, loving. but is he trustworthy? can i recover from this hurt? can we make it work? is it worth fighting for if i have a feeling that i'll be hurt worse in the long run? or am i just being insecure? i know i have my own things to work on. maybe we just need some space right now. or maybe i should just give up. please, as an outsider, tell me what i'm doing wrong. help me navigate these feelings i have. i'm so lost, broken, confused. did i make the right decision?

[Batya33]

I would seek professional help and call a suicide hotline and reach out for those related resources ASAP - put this short term relationship issue to the side and take care of your physical and mental health.  For the future watch the feet -what a person does over a period of several months at least - not what he says or what he looks like. 

What you are doing wrong is choosing to date when you are not in a stable healthful mindset to date. 

[im a mess]

oh and i forgot, i also recently found a birthday card with a sweet message from a girl hidden face down in his bottom drawer. guess who the girl was? same girl that he said had a nice ass. also one of his best friends on snapchat. first of all, why would you subject me to that, like i'm nothing? and additionally, he told me before i found the note that he no longer talked to her. that was a lie.

[im a mess]

i am in therapy and taking meds. i am doing all that i can to take care of my mental health and i have been for years. it was just a moment of pure weakness and insecurity that caused me to be su*cidal. this whole situation is what is causing me the most pain at this point in my life.

[Andrina]

7 minutes ago, im a mess said:

i am in therapy and taking meds. i am doing all that i can to take care of my mental health and i have been for years. it was just a moment of pure weakness and insecurity that caused me to be su*cidal. this whole situation is what is causing me the most pain at this point in my life.

Sounds like you might need to try another therapist if you're attracted to someone who most women with a healthy self-esteem would look at same as they would a pile of vomit. Subconsciously, we choose a partner we think we deserve, and you think extremely poorly of yourself to be infatuated with someone who sickens me just reading about him. (Love takes a while to truly grow.)

When you have a fulfilling life besides the dating area of your life, you will never feel as devastated as you are experiencing now with a breakup after only one month, or even longer. You will experience the normal upset of a breakup. With the way you're feeling over this breakup, I recommend not dating again until you achieve better results with therapy, and building a fulfilling life solo. Take care.

[Wiseman2]

27 minutes ago, im a mess said:

i am in therapy and taking meds. i am doing all that i can to take care of my mental health and i have been for years.

You made the right decision ending things.

[smackie9]

Stop playing this through your head. Yes you made the right decision, now go back and reread my advice from July. 

[Cherylyn]

Your broke up with your boyfriend.  Start treating him as your ex by moving forward with your life,  not backwards. 

[SooSad33]

3 hours ago, im a mess said:

.i just had a bad feeling. so i looked through his phone. i found almost 200 p*rnos of him and his ex stashed in his hidden folder. pictures of her n*ked and *** on his phone. i said nothing, but god did it hurt my feelings. this was just the beginning of the end. he asked me to be his gf a few days later, before i brought it up, and i said yes. i love him, maybe there's a reasonable explanation to all this? eventually i couldn't hold it back anymore. i was nice and tried to be understanding, but it pissed me off when he became defensive. "i just got this phone fixed, i haven't had time to go through all of my photos." "you shouldn't be going through my phone anyway."

Yeah, in this sense, he's right!

You have only been together a month?  You do not 'love' him yet.  It's infatuation/lust.  Love develops over time.

As for what's in HIS phone is not your business- so this all went down pretty much as fast as things developed 😕 .  You guys had NO chance to build much trust at all.

Okay, so he had pics of his ex- is his business on when/if he wants to rid of that.  It's his past and a part of him. ( nothing to do with his relationship with you...) ( unless he began something too fast, after her).

As mentioned below...

 

3 hours ago, im a mess said:

he was texting his ex's sister talking about "*me* is a great girl, but i miss *his ex*.

 

3 hours ago, im a mess said:

and i tried to k*ll myself on sunday of this week. i don't wanna say it was all because of him, but this *** has made me lose myself. it has made me feel disgusted, broken, angry, depressed, insecure. it has brought out the worst in me. the part that hurts the most is that i want to believe him when he says it was just a *** up and that i am the one for him.

Okay... I am sorry you're hurting- and this is extremely worrisome 😞 .

He is NOT for you.  He does sound like a 'player' yes.  So, you need to get away from all of this with this guy.  

And you really should consider reaching out for help.  No one is worth one's internal, mental pains. 😕 ... but of course, this is how it is.

IMO, you should not be involved again until you actually do feel better about yourself & life.... You are struggling way too much at this time.. Focus should just be on yourself for a while.

 

[catfeeder]

The early months of dating are for learning about one another over time, and making continual assessments. This makes one month still way too early to believe that you know someone well enough to consider him 'forever' material or even to invest too much emotionally.

So yes, you did the right thing. You learned enough about him to exit, although I'd consider carefully why you would have even want to continue dating anyone who you mistrust enough to snoop through his phone.

There are two kinds of mistrust. There's the kind that's prompted by suspicious behavior--in which case, walk away instead of playing out some futile drama that won't transform an untrustworthy person into a trustworthy one. Then there's the kind of mistrust that's carried forward from old experiences and projected onto new ones. This would doom ANY relationship to failure, because nobody who is healthy would put up with being treated as though they are suspicious.

So consider making it a goal in therapy to work through the kind of mistrust of men in general that would have you dating anyone in your future who you don't trust enough to respect his privacy.

[Kwothe28]

First of all, yes, you need therapy. You are already on it but its clearly not enough. In addition to suicide attempt, you clearly abuse drugs and alcohol . With probably heavy meds from therapy. That is a very, very big issue.

Second of all, you are a mess(all pun intended). I dunno if its the same guy from last time (it seems like it is) but you knew what you are going into there. "A player" that goes with anything that has 2 feet and a vagina probably. You had to know there is nothing serious there. And you still had gone into some weird game where you did alcohol, hooked up with his friends to make him jealous, invaded his privacy and all other stuff. That is not "toxic"(hate that word btw), that is "Mega toxic". You need heavy therapy and to be alone for some time. Until you learn to avoid behaviors like that as well as people who would pull you up in the same pattern of behavior. 

[im a mess]

24 minutes ago, Kwothe28 said:

First of all, yes, you need therapy. You are already on it but its clearly not enough. In addition to suicide attempt, you clearly abuse drugs and alcohol . With probably heavy meds from therapy. That is a very, very big issue.

Second of all, you are a mess(all pun intended). I dunno if its the same guy from last time (it seems like it is) but you knew what you are going into there. "A player" that goes with anything that has 2 feet and a vagina probably. You had to know there is nothing serious there. And you still had gone into some weird game where you did alcohol, hooked up with his friends to make him jealous, invaded his privacy and all other stuff. That is not "toxic"(hate that word btw), that is "Mega toxic". You need heavy therapy and to be alone for some time. Until you learn to avoid behaviors like that as well as people who would pull you up in the same pattern of behavior. 

not exactly true, but i would have to agree i need help.

[MissCanuck]

In kindness, you need a better therapist and more effective treatment program. 

Your suicide attempt is not the only major alarm bell. You raced head-first into a relationship and claim to love a guy you have dated for 4 or 5 weeks. You describe absolute emotional chaos, and didn't run when you saw the first red flags about him. You are making choices that are so very damaging to your well-being. There seems to be little emotional regulation or ability to control impulses (such as rushing way too fast into this, and ignoring the serious warning signs about this clown)

You deserve a lot better. But it starts with you, and taking better care of yourself and your emotional health. This man is a problem and of himself, no doubt, but the very fact that he was in your life at all is a symptom of bigger issues that are unrelated to him. 

Be kind to yourself. Lean on good friends and family.