Fair warning, formatting is my bitter enemy.

TW: mentions of sexual assault

Today, I got out of a messy relationship of nearly three years. I'm realizing that I was manipulated. I lost a lot of money, energy, time, gasoline and miles on my car, along with who knows what else. He'd probably try and find excuses or flat out deny that, though. We started out "FWB", and I'd come over just wanting to hang out and he'd often ask me for sex over and over until he got a yes. He got angry if I left without putting out. Of course as a good pickme I still always answered every text and put myself through this over and over. He eventually asked me out and of course I said yes. He asked me to give up on my dreams for the future and I said yes. We lived together for a year, and we argued a lot, and he got angry and yelled a lot over things like accidentally eating before dinner, not spending my birthday with him, and when I asked him to stop blaring his music as he went to bed so that I could finish homework the day before it was due. I was somewhat depressed. I worked full time and gave him nearly every penny I earned while also attempting to go to college (my mental health suffered even more, resulting in having to drop out.) Even after we stopped living together I went to work and gave him everything I earned so that he could pay bills while I lived with my parents.

In December I finally found a medication that helped my depression, and it was around that time I finally asked myself, "What the heck am I doing? Why am I giving him all of my money?" Around May of this year I realized that I was emotionally burnt out. Every single day for years he complained or unloaded his emotional burdens on me and in quarantine it came through text, usually first thing in the morning. I try to break up with him in a long and slow pickme way blah blah blah, "he was going to propose to me" despite me telling him I wasn't interested in getting engaged until I had a degree, and in response to bringing up that he had pushed sex on me he told me that people like me were the reason people killed themselves. I realize now that he felt like killing himself because he got called out on his rapey ways. My pickme ways were not yet over because the more we talked the more I felt I was in the wrong and that he was right aaaaand we got back together. I also found FDS around this time and started to piece things together even further. I finally realized I was worth more than I gave myself credit for. When I found FDS, it blew my mind to find not just my worth but the worth of women on a worldwide scale.

Today, I finally have a chance of giving up my pickme ways and moving on for good. I broke up with him after he got upset that I didn't have a good answer to his text about how lonely he is. I couldnt even put everything he's done or not done into here, and after typing this all out it's easier to see that he's a NVM. I'm ready to apply FDS in full form and I would really appreciate any encouragement or advice to make sure this split stays permanent.