Yall...it's been a long journey.

I was off/on with this guy for four years. Perhaps the worst part is - only about 3 weeks of that time was in a "committed" relationship. I would agree to "casually hooking up" just to fall into the pattern of me doing all the "girlfriend" crap and cleaning his apartment when he was at work, doing his laundry, taking care of his dog etc. I didn't even realize how abusive the relationship was until this past year when I found this sub & ultimately realized I had fallen for the tricks of a narcissist. And I don't use that word lightly - he fits every single trait of NPD. He tried to control my clothes, how I wore my hair/makeup, wanted me to act differently in public with his friends, only complimented my appearance when it was making HIM look good ("I had the hottest date at the whole party" type of comments. I remember him literally jumping for joy one time I showed up to a pregame at his house because I looked "better" than his friend's gf). I split nearly every date/meal we went on and even completely paid for quite a few despite the fact he made significantly more money than me. I could go on and on. He would ghost me out of nowhere for a couple of months then we'd repeat this cycle. FOR FOUR YEARS.

I cringe every single time I think about it and trust me, I cringed as much writing that as I'm sure you did reading it. But when I found this sub and others about narc abuse, I finally realized what was going on and I started to stand up for myself. Of course he didn't like that and ultimately I ended up blocking him everywhere...except apparently Facebook. I don't check it often and today I noticed that he messaged me about a week ago. What's crazy is I said to a friend last week, possibly even the exact day he sent that message, that I had a feeling he'd be trying to come back around soon. How do we always know these things? Anyways, I didn't even have the urge to respond. I've had my closure and I don't have anything else to say to him. I've realized he'll never be sorry for how he treated me and responding just gives him what he wants. "Call me if you care"....get the fuck outta here lol I just blocked him and then proceeded to block him on LinkedIn too just in case because I realized that was the only other way he could attempt to contact me.

I've spent the past few months working on making MYSELF happy and today tested all the work I've put in. On top of that, when I wasn't looking (in fact while I was actively NOT looking) I've found myself hanging out with a HVM who likes all the things about me my ex criticized. He's never asked me to pay for anything. He takes me on real dates, got me flowers for Valentine's Day, and respects my boundaries. Hasn't asked or pressured me for sex once and knows about this ex and has given me the space to work through it. It just feels SO GOOD to finally have moved on from that time in my life and be moving on to something better. Idk if things with this current guy will work out, this really has nothing to do with him, but at least now I have clear expectations and boundaries and I know that I'll never fall back into those toxic patterns I had with my ex. I owe a lot of that to you ladies - THANK YOU FDS! ❤