Was with him for a year and was actually stupid enough to sign a shared lease with him, despite my discomfort, he just kept pressing and its sad to say I fell for it. He seemed so mature, so thoughtful and generous and well adjusted even though he had a chronic medical condition. Having only dated emotionally distant NVMs, I fell for this guy who turned out to have narcissistic and borderline traits.

We moved in (I know, bad mistake and against FDS advice, never again) and the real him came out. Temper tantrums at the smallest thing. Blaming me for everything. Not listening to my needs, turning everything back on me. Jealousy of everyone in my life, even my female friends. Wasn’t allowed to have male friends cause they all wanted to fuck me. My female friends were horrible people. Cause my best friend saw through him right away and tried to warn me. My family were users. Everything he did for me was conditional and he would use it against me when it was convenient.

He isolated me and several friends reached out to see if I was ok. If they were male, I was flirting with them behind his back. Once a guy I dated tried to reach out and I told him to piss off and deleted his new number. Nope, he was convinced I was secretly talking to and meeting this guy.

He constantly violated my privacy and would comb through my phone on the reg. Mysteriously found a “recent” pic of me and an ex that was taken 2 years ago before I met him. Guessing he was too drunk, found it in some backed up corner of my phone, and accidentally screenshotted it. Nevermind that I wasn’t wearing the same clothes as in the photo, or that the timestamp was 1 33AM when I was sitting right next to him). Somehow found a dating site on my phone...he probably clicked on that site, drunk, and went back to see the site was accessed that day. Nope, now I’m using dating sites. Even though there were no other instances of my visiting that site ever in my browser history and I never used that particular dating app.

The constant accusations of cheating got to me. I cut off all my male friends, anyone he saw as a threat. Yet he still called me the worst names in the book - whre, sut, liar, cheater, I’d screw any male in sight. He said the most evil, hateful things to me, especially while drunk. Gaslit me whenever he could.

I lied to him once because he was being verbally abusive. Never heard the end of that and he threw it in my face every chance he got, even as he knew I was earnestly trying to earn his trust back (later realizing he never trusted me to begin with). He had my GPS locations, I sent him time and location stamped photos. Still not enough. Once I even called my mom to prove to him I was with her. Nope, my mom wasn’t convincing enough even though she literally said “yeah this is the restaurant we went to last night”.

Then the double standards. I’m home 20-30 min late AND let him know...unacceptable and I was cheating. He’s home an hour or five late? Get off his back. Binge drank on the weekends and couldn’t plan because he might be too f**ed up to do anything. He’s overturned the house trying to find “evidence” of my supposed cheating. We’d go out and party and I’d get tired a few hours later. Nope, he dragged me to wherever he wanted to go or he got mad at me for being a “party pooper”. Then there were the two times he threatened to throw me out of the car and into the middle of a highway at 2am because he was convinced I was flirting with other men (you drag me to a party with 99% men, who else am I supposed to talk to).

Then constant breakup threats. Guilt trips if he thought I was checking out. If I leave him, I must have another man in the wings (like I want the stress of dating and dealing with more LVM/NVM).

I had enough when he screamed at me for buying the wrong size chicken and not the specific mushrooms he wanted. Then again, more cheating accusations. Found out he came home late once because he did cocaine. And that he was looking at abuse prn in incognito mode, knowing full well drugs and prn bothered me. Screamed at me that he wasn’t going to eat with me and stormed off to buy more alcohol. I had enough, packed some clothes and I walked out and went to my mom’s. Before I blocked him, he was still messaging me accusing me of cheating.

I’m a recovering codependent and I stayed hoping I could love him out of his trust and abandonment issues. But that’s on him to address.

The “horrible, selfish” female friends I stupidly ghosted because of him? I wrote them, apologized and they forgave me and said they will always be here.

Now I just have to figure out what to do about the shared lease and the rest of my belongings there. But for now, I feel relief and freedom. You ladies truly inspire me.