Ouch
Holy shit, I think that actually was an abusive relationship.
And as in all such cases, you don't let yourself see it, not while it's happening. It's taken me nearly two months, and really, it's only now that she's trying to pretend the breakup wasn't a huge, traumatic incident; is continuing to attempt to emotionally manipulate me--okay, scratch that, she's succeeding; try as I may to connect this behavior with someone I was falling in love with, my emotional brain has not yet made that leap--and in thinly-veiled public statements tries to make me out to be the abuser; only now can I accept the disturbing patterns I saw while I was in it.
I warned myself: Don't take someone on as a project. Romantic relationships aren't about healing the partner, though healing may occur through the care and attention of a loved one. So I convinced myself I wasn't doing that. And by the time she admitted that she had never been in love, had never seen sex as an expression of or means to achieve emotional intimacy, had left a string of heartbroken lovers behind her, was letting the one person who had been with her though her worst times dangle, waiting to find out if she wanted to be with him or not (she didn't), by the time all of this and more came out in bits and pieces, I was hooked.
I told her I loved her while holding her head in my lap and stroking her hair in the backseat of a car bound for a dance weekend, after holding back those words until the feeling overwhelmed me, until to say nothing was to lie; she was freaked out by this, told me later that she feared that I'd have expectations, but it was only a couple of weeks later that she paused, in the middle of having sex and said, "you know that I love you, don't you?" It really hurts to look back at that now and wonder whether she calculated the impact that timing would have, deliberately catching me at the most psychologically vulnerable moment. After she broke up with me and wrote out a whole list of abusive behaviors I was supposedly guilty of, she asked for three months of no contact, which, of course, I agreed to and strictly adhered to. So it was a bit jarring when she intercepted me at a dance weekend a month and a half later asking if we could go back to being friends, and when I expressed confusion and discomfort, 'admitting' that when she asked for the three months, she had thought that she could stop being in love with me.
Throughout the period after the breakup I took her side in my internal debates, saying that she had been through a number of abusive relationships, she had a self-reported habit of sabotaging promising relationships, it's devastatingly sad that, just when she was starting to think about a long-term partnership, maybe even cohabiting someday, that was too intense and she had to find a good reason not to feel that way anymore, and shoehorned a few innocuous misunderstandings into the rubric of 'abuse'. It seemed inconceivably cynical--even schizoid--to consider the possibility that she would dramatize or even make up those feelings of closeness. Even after the last incident, where she indirectly stated she was still in love with me, I refused to let myself believe that was deliberate manipulation, while I sat in the corner and cried for much of the rest of the night.
So was today's interaction a warning? Was she trying to tip her hat, by posting that article about gaslighting which states, among other things, that an abuser will often accuse their victim of abuse? Which talks about the three stages I have most certainly gone through in the months following the breakup, of first knowing that the accusations are ridiculous but arguing anyway; then taking their point of view but trying to get them to see yours too; then questioning what's wrong with yourself exclusively. That manipulation relies on threats, and to no longer fear those consequences is the way out.
So why does she keep saying that she misses me and still loves me? Why, when I say that I can't just pretend that September didn't happen does she not reply, but instead post an article to facebook, prefaced by "I've found these to be immensely useful, especially as I ended my last relationship." - mutual friends know which relationship she's talking about. I believe she's trying to harm me, more directly now that I'm showing that I'm not falling for her manipulative tactics.
Maybe this is paranoid--one must always keep a skeptical eye on one's self--but Occam's Razor is cutting down the number of other options. People are complicated, and some are exceedingly good at compartmentalization. I don't know. It's late, I've let this get to me yet again. Hopefully I can rest, and in the morning either start to clear things up, or set a boundary of a year of no contact. Ugh.
And as in all such cases, you don't let yourself see it, not while it's happening. It's taken me nearly two months, and really, it's only now that she's trying to pretend the breakup wasn't a huge, traumatic incident; is continuing to attempt to emotionally manipulate me--okay, scratch that, she's succeeding; try as I may to connect this behavior with someone I was falling in love with, my emotional brain has not yet made that leap--and in thinly-veiled public statements tries to make me out to be the abuser; only now can I accept the disturbing patterns I saw while I was in it.
I warned myself: Don't take someone on as a project. Romantic relationships aren't about healing the partner, though healing may occur through the care and attention of a loved one. So I convinced myself I wasn't doing that. And by the time she admitted that she had never been in love, had never seen sex as an expression of or means to achieve emotional intimacy, had left a string of heartbroken lovers behind her, was letting the one person who had been with her though her worst times dangle, waiting to find out if she wanted to be with him or not (she didn't), by the time all of this and more came out in bits and pieces, I was hooked.
I told her I loved her while holding her head in my lap and stroking her hair in the backseat of a car bound for a dance weekend, after holding back those words until the feeling overwhelmed me, until to say nothing was to lie; she was freaked out by this, told me later that she feared that I'd have expectations, but it was only a couple of weeks later that she paused, in the middle of having sex and said, "you know that I love you, don't you?" It really hurts to look back at that now and wonder whether she calculated the impact that timing would have, deliberately catching me at the most psychologically vulnerable moment. After she broke up with me and wrote out a whole list of abusive behaviors I was supposedly guilty of, she asked for three months of no contact, which, of course, I agreed to and strictly adhered to. So it was a bit jarring when she intercepted me at a dance weekend a month and a half later asking if we could go back to being friends, and when I expressed confusion and discomfort, 'admitting' that when she asked for the three months, she had thought that she could stop being in love with me.
Throughout the period after the breakup I took her side in my internal debates, saying that she had been through a number of abusive relationships, she had a self-reported habit of sabotaging promising relationships, it's devastatingly sad that, just when she was starting to think about a long-term partnership, maybe even cohabiting someday, that was too intense and she had to find a good reason not to feel that way anymore, and shoehorned a few innocuous misunderstandings into the rubric of 'abuse'. It seemed inconceivably cynical--even schizoid--to consider the possibility that she would dramatize or even make up those feelings of closeness. Even after the last incident, where she indirectly stated she was still in love with me, I refused to let myself believe that was deliberate manipulation, while I sat in the corner and cried for much of the rest of the night.
So was today's interaction a warning? Was she trying to tip her hat, by posting that article about gaslighting which states, among other things, that an abuser will often accuse their victim of abuse? Which talks about the three stages I have most certainly gone through in the months following the breakup, of first knowing that the accusations are ridiculous but arguing anyway; then taking their point of view but trying to get them to see yours too; then questioning what's wrong with yourself exclusively. That manipulation relies on threats, and to no longer fear those consequences is the way out.
So why does she keep saying that she misses me and still loves me? Why, when I say that I can't just pretend that September didn't happen does she not reply, but instead post an article to facebook, prefaced by "I've found these to be immensely useful, especially as I ended my last relationship." - mutual friends know which relationship she's talking about. I believe she's trying to harm me, more directly now that I'm showing that I'm not falling for her manipulative tactics.
Maybe this is paranoid--one must always keep a skeptical eye on one's self--but Occam's Razor is cutting down the number of other options. People are complicated, and some are exceedingly good at compartmentalization. I don't know. It's late, I've let this get to me yet again. Hopefully I can rest, and in the morning either start to clear things up, or set a boundary of a year of no contact. Ugh.