Need to vent

I just joined this app so I’m not sure how this works, so sorry for any wierd mistakes or formatting issues. I just need a place to vent anonymously because I don’t have really any close friends I can talk to anymore that I trust with my emotions or information. I’m a new mom, so I’m dealing with postpartum emotions on top of all of my relationship (or lack-there of) issues. I’m just a mess right now. And need a place to just let everything out, where hopefully I can stay anonymous and feel safe to share.

my story starts a few years ago when I met this person. There were a lot of red flags that I should have taken more seriously, but I didn’t, and I pursued a relationship with them. We didn’t date for a while, but we became close friends and friends-with-benefits. I trusted them completely and they walked all over me. We had boundaries set up, as we were not in a formal relationship, that we could sleep around as long as we used protection with anyone outside of the two of us. A very simple request on my part, to protect both of us from stds and such. They completely disregarded this. The whole time. Years. And lied about it every time I asked, apparently, which I was not aware of until recently. We tried a couple years ago to be in a poly relationship, but it only lasted a couple weeks until I found out they had been having sex without protection (I found out from the girl they were seeing at the time) and they lied to me about it. I called it off and we continued to just be friends with benefits, assuming they would take precautions as we’d discussed. They seemed to take it seriously and acted very sorry. Our friendship grew and we became very close and eventually decided to try again after a year or so of rebuilding our trust. There were more red flags along the way and I don’t know why I ignored them. I’m kicking myself now for it. We decided to begin a formal relationship again. Again, they insisted on a poly relationship, which I agreed to after working through my own issues with jealousy and such. They immediately began dating a much younger girl (another red flag). During this time, a (former) friend confided in me that she had slept with my (ex) partner before we had gotten together, and she just thought it was funny that we were dating now. She said that she felt wierd about having sex with them, but didn’t go into any detail. She also criticized that they were dating such a young girl at the time because she had past trauma that she hadn’t worked though, which I thought was a bit shitty to put that on my shoulders when I had no control over any of that. Anyway, this girl decides to invite me and my partner to a party. I decided to attend alone because I didn’t want any of us to feel awkward after what she had told me. She was upset that my partner didn’t show up, despite me explaining earlier why I’d be coming alone. We get past that and end up becoming good friends. She hits on me and tries to get to me go out with her despite me telling her repeatedly that I wasn’t sure if I was comfortable with that. I get over it and we continue to hang out as friends. She talks about being friends with my partner and I’m glad that they get along because I’m close with both of them. She eventually brings up their “encounter” again and says that she feels wierd about it again, but she talked to my partner about it and said that they’re fine and dropped the subject. I tried not to get in the middle of it because I didn’t want either of them to feel like I was mad at them or anything.

fast forward a few months and I find out that I’m pregnant. My partner was excited. All our friends were excited for us. I was terrified, but coping. Then my partner meets another girl and they hit it off. She’s clearly not polyamorous and not okay with the situation, but forces herself to pretend she’s okay with it because she likes my partner. My partner puts off telling her that I’m pregnant because they don’t want to spoil their honeymoon stage, but she is eventually let in on it and seems understanding. The two of them spend a lot of time together. More time with her than me, apparently to compensate for her feeling “left out” of our relationship. We walk on eggshells around her and she essentially tries to pretend I don’t exist. I’m not happy about it, but my partner seems happy and insists that things will be different when the baby comes. I chalk it up to my partner just trying to get as much time as they can together before they’re tied down with me while we figure out parenting. I wish I had more support during my pregnancy, but I take one for the team and assume that things will get better as I get further along. I bring this up to my partner and they gaslight me and make me feel like the bad guy (while I’m pregnant and emotional and hormonal as it is) for wanting them to spend more time with me. We had sex maybe 3 times the whole pregnancy because I felt super gross and had no drive. I figured that they needed an “outlet” and forgave them for being absent and tried to be more understanding about their situation. (Still with the understanding that anyone outside me and my partner would be made sure to use protection during sex to protect us and now also the baby)

we announce my pregnancy and this girl breaks up with him because she didn’t want people to know that I was pregnant, apparently. I comfort my partner while they are sad. They get back together a couple weeks later.

the week of my due date comes around and I’m starting to have contractions on and off. I let my partner know that we need to be ready at any time. We are prepping the baby’s room and getting excited. Three days before I give birth, my partner decides to drop a bomb on me and tell me that they got this other girl pregnant. They used their rent money (I paid their rent for 3 months with the money I had set aside for my maternity leave since I don’t have job benefits!!!) to pay for her abortion, and let me believe that I was paying their rent because their unemployment benefits hadn’t come through (they did come through, but my partner used them to fund a secret abortion). They told me that they used protection and it failed, which I gave them the benefit of the doubt because they seemed to be being honest at the time. They continued to say that while they were broken up with the other girl, that they had rebound sex with someone and got them pregnant too, but they had miscarried. I am furious and anxious and caught off guard at this point, but my partner is crying and all I can do is hold them because they said that they are grieving their “lost children” and I feel like an asshole for being mad at them while they seem to be feeling so upset. I try to move past it and say that we can talk about it more after they take time to grieve, obviously im still upset by all of this especially considering that I am the one that is about to give birth.

a few days later I give birth. It’s traumatic. The baby is fine, but it’s my first time having an IV, first time staying overnight in a hospital. I hemorrhaged and had to have a blood transfusion. I ended up spending several days bound to the hospital bed. I decide that it would be best to stay with my parents for a while to have some extra help since my partner did not get to take time off of work to help out. While still in the hospital, this other girl messages me and tells me about the abortion and that she had genital herpes (which could be deadly to my baby had I contracted it and passed it along, which she and my partner were both aware of and didn’t tell me). She tells me that they had never used protection and were apparently hooking up before my partner had ever even mentioned her. I still (stupidly) want to try and make things work, so we continue dating, but my guard is up.

a month later, my (former) friend messages me this giant block of text, saying that she was “disappointed” that I had my baby and that my partner had actually assaulted her and I apparently should have known, despite her insisting over the past year that everything was fine and they were friends. She calls me an “accomplice” to my partner, and claims that I’ve been enabling them to take advantage of people (which they were doing behind my back), and she says that she hopes I resent my baby, after being one of the most “excited” people for my pregnancy. I’m confused and hurt and confront my partner about it, which they insist that they had no idea what she was talking about.

a couple months later, my partner calls me frantically that the other girl broke up with them because someone messaged her about them being predatory toward them several years ago. My partner is freaking out, and so am I because I am confused and don’t know what is happening. My (former) friend then makes a post about my partner online and calls them out for being a predator. All of my (former) friends jump on the post and join in. People start posting their address and even the layout of the house, as if to plan an attack (note: it was assumed that I was also living there at the time with my baby, I had not told anyone that I was staying with my parents to maintain privacy). I take this as a threat to my baby and I, obviously, and completely lose trust in everyone in town (we had a very large network of people we knew). People start messaging my parents and bringing them into things. Meanwhile I’m just trying to get the hang of being a parent, basically a single parent because my partner never wants to visit at my parents house because the 20 minute drive was “too far”.

i break things off because I find out that they were doing things behind my back and cheating on me and breaking promises over and over so I can’t trust them anymore. I tell them that I would potentially give them another chance if they go to therapy and get a good job and show me that they can grow and be responsible. (Spoiler alert, that never happens). They contemplate ending their life and basically put their life in my hands while I’m trying to care for an infant on top of dealing with my own emotions. They try to manipulate me into moving away with them (and supporting them financially because they don’t want to work a steady job), which I don’t fall for.

they end up moving away because they lost their job and don’t feel safe and basically have no future in town. They keep trying to get me to forgive them and act like nothing happened. Every time I bring it up, they tell me to stop bringing up the past and that they’ve “learned their lesson”, but I don’t buy it. I told them recently that a relationship is off the table and I’m only interested in co-parenting, for the baby’s sake. I don’t trust them and don’t think I ever will again.

I got a call a couple months ago from a detective, saying that my (former) friend had recently made a report of their incident to the police, and she apparently named me as a “witness” even though the encounter happened before I had ever hung out with her in person for more than 5minutes (she had stopped in once, before we had become friends, and I didn’t know who she was. She came by with another person and stayed for maybe 5minutes and then left with her friend, we were in the living room the whole time and didn’t even share a word). So I’m super pissed off at her for that, whether she blatantly lied or legitimately had me confused with someone else. I had no idea that any of this was going on, after an entire year of saying that they were friends and being super supportive of our relationship it felt like a slap in the face, like she was pretending to be my friend that whole time so that when she blew it all up, it would do more harm to my partner (at my expense). She’s been telling mutual (former) friends that I was “in” on everything that my (ex) partner was doing and enabling them, even though that some of the events they were accused of happened years before I had even met them.

I have no one I can talk to about it besides my therapist, who recently switched practices, so I’m between therapists at the moment (I’m currently looking for in-person, and I’m already being seen by a psychiatrist so no worries there). But I’m just having an extra hard time lately. I only have a couple close friends that I can share this with, everyone else either won’t talk to me anymore or I don’t trust them with anything. I’ve been trying to lay low because I don’t want anyone to try and come after me for any of this. I know it’s not my fault that my ex is a pos and that I was being manipulated by them, but I still feel terrible all around. I feel bad that these things happened and I also am incredibly angry that I was blamed for it at all, especially things that happened because I was gullible and essentially being gaslit and emotionally abused. I have so much anger towards these people. I also feel so lonely without them. At the same time I feel like I’m grieving my relationship, though the person I was dating turned out to be someone completely different than who I thought they were. I really feel like no one understands what I’m going through. I feel very isolated, especially when I’m caring for my baby through all of this. My parents have been great and understanding though all of this, which I am so grateful for. But I feel like a huge embarrassment and burden to them, especially my mom who helps care for my baby all the time. They say they are happy to have me and the baby there, but I feel very guilty about receiving so much help from them. I feel very embarrassed to not be able to support myself or my baby, especially after being financially drained over the years by my ex. My parents say that I should try to make friends, but we had such a far-stretching network of friends throughout town, that I’m so incredibly anxious that the other moms nearby have heard things about me or even talk about me behind my back because they may potentially know someone that I used to be friends with in town. I feel like every in town knows me now and knows what happened, and I feel so paranoid about it. I’ve just been very lonely, even though I haven’t wanted to admit it to myself. I love having my baby around and having family support, but I do miss having conversations with people outside of my family. I mostly just needed to let all of this out. I’ve been holding it in for a long time now, so paranoid that someone I know is going to see it and pick my words apart. Some of my former friends are the kinds of people that threaten to call cps on someone because they got called a name in a Facebook fight, so my mind has been racing with thoughts of them trying to take my baby away from me. I know there’s no reason that would happen logically, but I have ocd and postpartum made it much much worse, so those thoughts constantly cycle in my brain and I have trouble shutting them off a lot of the time.

if you read this far, thank you. I don’t really know what I’m looking for by posting this. I think it just feels nice to get it all out somewhere that isn’t just in my head. My mind has been very crowded so it’s nice to physically let some of this out.

like I said before, I’m being treated and stuff. I just really need someone to talk to, even if it’s just an empty void on an app. No need to respond, but any encouragement is appreciated. Thank you so much.