So about exactly a year ago, out of sheer helplessness and confusion, I came to Reddit looking for answers. It was you ladies who saved my sanity by telling me exactly what I needed to know (and hear) then.

A little bit about me if it helps: Journalist. Currently studying Politics at a prestigious uni. Travel a lot for work. Have major issues with my dad (I’m sure this must be the most relevant tidbit.)

Quick backstory: Met a guy online (not a dating website) when I was away from home. Works in military intelligence. “Soulmate” connection. Told me I was the most perfect woman ever (I know better now.) Was flying to meet him over Christmas holidays and found out that he had a long term gf of 5 years back home.

That he lived with. For 3 years.

If I hadn’t come to this subreddit and asked you why he was acting strange, I would’ve NEVER found out about the secret girlfriend. He’d started ignoring me and ended things and would still tell me he loved me and always would. It didn’t make any sense. It was within an hour to so of posting here that I found out about his double life. Of course, I confronted him, found the girlfriend and told her everything. Turns out she already had caught him once talking to me and he’d lied and told her I was just a friend (he was away on deployment and she’d found a screenshot of our chat.) She left him and he lost the house they shared a mortgage on. He blamed me for that too.

I definitely owe you wonderful ladies gratitude for giving me the strength.

Now….the reason why I’m here. I need your help. After posting here and finding out the damaging, not to mention, deeply traumatizing details of his double life, I deleted my post on here and was unfortunately sucked back into a relationship with him. He tried convincing me that she’d emotionally abandoned him whilst he was deployed, and that it was my love and character that kept him going out there. I was still in love with him and in what I now understand to be a ‘trauma bond’ so it was quite hard to fully let go of him. We decided that we’d meet up in the UK when we both returned and start fresh. I definitely didn’t trust him but I so badly wanted to see good in him, and really valued our connection, so I tried to be gentle with him.

Until he flipped on me again. Would tell me he loved me still, but would act distant all of a sudden. He tried to get quite sexual with me on text and video calls and I wasn’t in the same place so I’d recoil. Once I’d set a boundary, he’d get mopey and upset. So I started getting sexual just to make him happy or…keep him I guess? And he’d basically just use me and go back to being weird and distant.

This went on for a while until I suspected he was talking to other girls. Then the gaslighting started and he ended things again. At this point it was clear to me that he always wanted to be the one to “end” things between us. And any time I wanted to or even thought of creating some distance between us, he’d get incredibly sad and make me stay. And I was stupidly trying too hard not to be like the “unloving, selfish” ex girlfriend who emotionally abandoned him when I didn’t even consider what might’ve made her become that in the first place.

So this went on for a few more months and I made it clear to him that before we met up, I wanted to feel safe with him and that meant that I didn’t want to feel used or as though he was planning on seeing me just to sleep with me (he’s very sexually intense and dominating online - constant video calls, sexts, requests etc). I was quite clear that I still wanted to start dating him officially and hoped that things would go back to normal. He’d jump between wanting me, being extremely sweet to me and totally abandoning me, then claiming that he just wants friendship! This would always, ALWAYS make me question everything and definitely made me take a step back because it was a maelstrom of confusion and chaos. I finally ended things and told him I deserved way more, that this was beneath me. What happened next still haunts me to this day.

This man comes back, accuses me of being a “cat fish”, accuses me of faking/stealing my identity, tells me my body is fake, my job is fake, my past is fake, my face is fake, even, I kid you not, my voice is fake. I remember being so rattled and SHOCKED at his words (I’d attach a screenshot of these messages if it’s allowed in here) that I was SCRAMBLING to defend myself! At this point my sister and friends were practically forcing me to block him. But I felt so insulted that this serial cheater, this manipulator was now accusing me of the most preposterous things.

His abuse had been so insidious, so deeply traumatizing that I started question MYSELF. I was definitely already quite fragile due to his previous actions, and so I started defending myself. Sending him proof, begging him to see me??? Looking back on it I feel disgusted with myself. But in retrospect, everything was so chaotic and calculated that even though I’d been the one to end things, I was now almost coerced into proving my love and worth to him. While I was having literal panic attacks, I found out that shortly after sending that message, he was on dating apps and talking to younger women. I figured he looking for impressionable 21 year olds (we’re both 28) and started understanding his game a little bit better.

During this period I’d turned down many wonderful men because of my emotional connection with him…and he knew that. So he asked me that if he was so important to me, why couldn’t I just meet him? He didn’t seem to understand that I wasn’t interested in something casual, I couldn’t and didn’t want a casual, friendly relationship with him and the more he insisted on having one, the more it made me want him and “prove” my worth to him. We ended up getting in a huge fight and upon the request of my girlfriends, I stopped talking to him completely and started healing myself.

During those two months away from him, here’s what happened: - Went back to making art - Started singing again - Began meeting friends again - Began working on my business - Finished my dissertation - Worked on healing my mental, physical and spiritual health

So a few months ago, I guess he sensed I was improving and healing….so he started talking to me and we started getting friendly again. We both admitted to still having complicated feelings for each other and I admitted I still had romantic feelings for him. We got intensely sexual again, and he immediately asked me to book a hotel. Which, in retrospect, feels fucking idiotic to do as a woman.

Here’s the problem: I immediately said yes, and agreed to spend time with him alone at the hotel for a weekend. So a few days before we were meant to be meeting up, he asked me if I was okay, and that he wanted to make sure I was happy because our “deep connection” and “ long history” mattered to him. I told him I wanted to build something real with him and he suddenly flipped and said, “but I just want to be friends who sleep together and gossip about other relationships.”

And that made my blood boil. This man spent an ENTIRE week misleading me, deceiving me after months of toying with my emotions, manipulated me into staying when I was strong enough to leave, made me beg for his attention when I was too weak to let go, and was now doing this AGAIN. A day before our weekend together. So that night he was online until the wee hours of the morning, and the next day a girl who looked like a teen dedicated a Spotify to him. So it was confirmed - he had been talking to other girls. Definitely lovebombing them.

I tried warning the girl and she said she didn’t care who he slept with. She told me to fuck off and that she didn’t care how he’d abused me.

I confronted him and of course, he ghosted me. I think what worried him was that I told him I WOULD be exposing him this time. A week later I found a 17 year old on his Spotify as well. I believe that he’s a dangerous predator and I’m concerned that one day he’s going to push some poor girl to suicide due to his selfish actions. Because he certainly pushed me to the darkest place I’ve ever known.

I believe there are more victims and want to expose him. I want to make it clear that I realized (through therapy) that I wanted my control back, and the way he behaved with me made me feel violated and used, and discarded. A friend of mine suggested I reach out to his superiors and inform them about his online predatory behavior.

So I felt like he used me and was simply going to keep using me under the guise of connection and history. My therapist says he used me for an ego boost, because it felt good to be loved by a woman “like me.” He often told me he couldn’t believe I loved him, that I was “mentally and physically perfect” and it still made me feel worthless and devalued. He knew I was onto him and he’d want someone gullible and impressionable, hence why he was going after younger girls.

I’m devastated. I feel worthless, devalued, violated and used. I’d made it clear to him that I’d want nothing to do with him if he was even speaking to other girls (because I know he’ll most definitely be sexual or emotional in any online interaction) and he reassured me that there were no girls just so I’d sext him and agree to sleep with him. He later claimed that she was a friend but I highly, highly doubt that based on his reaction alone.

A psychologist I follow on Instagram said that “when someone leaves out information that influences you into making a decision that you wouldn’t have made if you had all the information, that is coercive controlling manipulation and there’s no justification for it. It’s abuse.”

EDIT: I’ve muddled and failed to explain that I did not know that he was in a LTR. His girlfriend literally THANKED me for telling her the truth after I found out about it myself! In fact, he was so well aware of my rules that upon getting caught, he said that one of the reasons he hid it from me was because he knew I wouldn’t even speak to him. I’m VERY selective about who I entertain or date. I do not know how I got caught up in this.

Edit 2: Thank you to everyone for taking the time to comment and for messaging me your well wishes. I suppose I can get all the motivation and virtual hugs I can get to gain some clarity and perhaps…some control in this shitshow; even if it’s just in my own head. Thank you ladies. 🥺❤️