She used me

I was in a relationship for almost two years with someone who used me, and tried to destroy me. She begged me to sing to her, read to her every night, listen her cry about her problems, and she was often verbally abusive and emotionally manipulative. She dated other guys while she was with me, and when I voiced the slightest concern she flipped out, lied, played head games and implied I was possessive. She refused to discuss her feelings openly or honestly. She complained that her mother used cold silence to hurt her, and she did the same to me--repeatedly, even when I begged and groveled, which was exactly what she wanted.

When we last spoke, after we broke up, she said, "I loved you but I never liked you," said that I "hated women" because in a letter I called her a silly girl, and she also taunted me, telling me that if she was in town I'd come pick her up in a heartbeat. Even after I begged her not to, she couldn't resist painting an image--albeit G-Rated--of her and her new boyfriend in bed together. She says she, "cried tears of joy," the day after she dumped me. You know what? I believe her.

Sadly, I had no idea of what was to come, because as she said, she did use me. Two days before the break up she was planning spending the summer with me. She told me how much she loved me, to my face, in texts. She went on a date with her new boyfriend a day later. What kind of person does this? She says a minor concussion caused her to do all these things, to instantly get together with another guy two days later, to slam the door in my face and shun me without so much as a whisper--much as she had done before, much as she often complained her mother did to her.

Our relationship was toxic at times, just as she says here, but not at the end. That's a story she is spinning here and elsewhere so she can remain the eternal victim, and avoid taking responsibility for hurting someone who loved her, who she became bored with. It was doomed from the start. She knew I was married when she chased me. I was complicit. The long distance could never have worked. She always wanted to see other guys, close to home. But instead of acknowledging these things, she denied them so she could use me for comfort while she pursued other guys. She was so secretive about our relationship she wouldn't have anything to do with me on social media (except to publically announce her new guy, days later), she refused to put a picture of me or us on the wall, and she hung up on me whenever anyone entered her room. In her last message to me, even though she wanted nothing more to do with me, she still wanted me to divorce my wife. Why? "It's just a pride thing," she said.

I wasn't perfect. I was needy, depressed, and suicidal so at times, as was she. But unlike her, I was upfront and honest about my needs, my plans, and my thoughts. She always claimed this was "manipulation," because she was unable to admit to her own, or to have a mature discussion. She kept saying she needed more time to figure things out, but things were figured, in her mind, from the word go. This was to be a time-limited fling, and she would use me and throw me away as soon as a more convenient candidate came along. I begged her not to do that, but how can I be surprised?

I'm angry with her, but angrier at myself for ignoring the warning signs. The bigger problem was not her, but me. In conducting a long term relationship, I abandoned my family and friends and made her the center of my universe, a horrible idea to begin with, but doubly so when your paramour is 10,000 miles away in another country. She was happy to use me, and I willingly let her do it. She wanted me to give up everything for her, but I chose to do it.

Weeks after the break up, I attempted suicide. My world crashed. Unlike her, and her cold, calculating mind, I loved her to the end and beyond, and with just as much passion as in the beginning. I was still sending her roses (not easy to do a continent away, I assure you), poems I'd written for her, art, love letters...right up to the day she brought down the hammer. And she was still leading me on as ever, telling me she thought I was cute, adorable, pretending that she loved my reaction to Harry Potter...it was so well played, so well acted, I still catch myself believing that she was actually sincere. She even held on to my favorite t-shirt and all my gifts and letters--to collect trophies, I suppose, to show off how completely she had me in her grasp.

Looking back, I see how deluded I was. I put her on a pedestal. I allowed her to treat me worse than any girlfriend ever has. I told myself (and she often told me) it was just her period, it was untreated mental illness, it was depression, anxiety. My heart ached for her. I never held any of it against her. I was mentally ill too. I had untreated possible bipolar disorder and a host of other issues. Our relationship was extremely unbalanced, filled with melodrama, vacillating between intense highs and lows. In many ways, my relationship echoed my symptoms. At the beginning, my friends questioned whether it was mania that caused me to leave my wife for her. I never felt worse in my life than when I was with this person, and I never felt better. There was a passion, and a euphoria that did not cease until I woke up one day and I knew she was really gone, really gone and never coming back. And here I was, alone with my thoughts and memories, alone with framed pictures of us on the walls, alone with feelings too overwhelming to handle.

Once reality set in, the bottom fell out. I didn't try to commit suicide right away. I cried, and cried, and cried, and cried some more. I cried for four hour stretches. I lost the ability to eat or sleep. I dropped 35 lbs and two waist sizes in 30 days. My body no longer felt like it was my own. I sat in my unheated apartment in my underwear for hours on end in complete silence. My skin was icy cold to the touch, but I felt nothing. I was completely catatonic. I could often hear my stomach churning and growling, but I was unable to connect it with any instinct or desire to feed myself. I wanted desperately for her to be out of my head, to forget she existed, to erase my memories of her. I threw away all the books and pictures, all the artifacts of our relationship. And yet, there she was haunting my thoughts and dreams like a malevolent ghost, staring at me, mocking me for being stupid enough to fall for her, stay with her through everything, and want to be with her still, in spite of everything.

When I told her what I went through, when I asked her why she refused to talk to me when I begged her to, when she knew that was the meanest thing she could do, she just gave me a cold stare. "I wasn't ready," and a mild concussion were her only excuses. And here she is now, milking it, spinning it to position herself for victimhood, just like her charity work, her new friends, her new boyfriend--it's all self-aggrandizement, all for the validation she longs for, and now, I believe, in order to convince others as well as herself that she is either a saint or a martyr, not in spite of what she did to me, but because of it.

It's somehow ironic that she wasn't brave enough to defend our relationship or announce in even the smallest, least risky ways when we were together. Now, she's able to talk about it publically, but only to say it was a "waste."

I now feel the same. It was a waste. It was a fling, a minor affair and one that only severe, unchecked mental illness could indulge and perpetuate. As recently as yesterday, I was looking through our pictures, questioning that, but after having read what youve written, I have finally and completely come to my senses.