Iamstrongerthanheis's story pt 1

Part 1…

My ex N walked into my life like he owned it already. A good friend from college came to a birthday celebration that I was having for my sister and brought the most life changing "gift" ever, my ex N. He rolled out of the car, locked eyes with me, and I melted, in hindsight, it was like he knew and he has since used that moment to make it seem like it was fate that we met. I hadn't dated much, but when I did I hated it, and my experience with him was, as I have found out, too good to be true. I wanted to spend every moment with him, he was fun, extremely attractive, came from a great family, educated in the culinary world, and magically wanted everything that I did. In his 35 years, he had never met anyone like me, I was "the one." He expressed his love for me within 2 weeks, said he was willing to change his entire life for me....I am sure he was,I am honest, caring, a great family, I have a good job, a nice place to live, good credit.

The first few weeks were great, we put one another on pedestals, I felt like i had never felt before, on cloud 9. He had a job that required him to live outside of the US, but there were some issues with his contract or something, which is why he was back in the US and staying with his parents for a bit until things got worked out. He supposedly had plenty of money and when he did have to travel to where he lived, it was no big deal to come back and see me because money was no object. He had to travel to Europe on several occasions to work some business deals with his bosses, he was staying with me on these occasions so I actually took him to the airport when he had to go, come to find out, he never went to Europe, my friend got a hold of his passport and there were no stamps from the country he was supposed to be in. He is such a pathological liar that I actually had a conversation with him when he said that he was sitting on the balcony of his hotel and chose to talk to me instead of hanging out with his bosses and going to the art galleries. He told me the next day that he had a burn on the top of his feet from taking his shoes and socks off and sitting on the balcony. He came to see me in the next few days, choosing to leave early and surprised me, flying all day and all night to come see me, and believe it or not, he really did have a burn on the top of his feet. Where he really was, I have no idea, but I am sure on the 3 or 4 occasions when I dropped him off or picked him up from the airport, that his car was parked right in the parking lot and he just waited for me to leave, hopped in and drove a few hours away to his parents house. Meanwhile, while he was traveling, my sister and I took care of his dog, who didn’t eat dog food, I had to fix her eggs in the morning. She was one of the best parts of the relationship, if only she could talk…

He was the first person I thought I could trust, I trusted him with everything, including my family. Within the first two weeks of dating, he met my parents and siblings, who also immediately fell in love with him. My older sister, who is super skeptical, thought we were going to get married, he put on a great show.

Things with his job continued to be iffy, he became depressed because he didn’t have a place of his own here in the US and he was staying with his parents in the meantime. He said he was thinking about getting an apartment in the meantime while things were getting worked out, I told him he could stay with me some of the time, which turned in to him and his dog invading my and my sister’s world for weeks on end. I loved it, I loved coming home to cooked meals, sitting on the couch watching tv together, and snuggling in bed at night. Little by little, things got worse, when I talked to him about work, he became defensive and said that he didn’t want to talk about it, his parents gave him enough trouble about it.

On one occasion, he randomly told me that he didn’t think that he was good enough for me and wanted to take off, I cannot remember why he had this epiphany, but I should have accepted it and let him go. I am unsure as to whether or not this was a test to see how attached I was or if he had a moment of truth and realized that something wasn’t right and I did deserve better than him. This was the first time I felt destroyed by him, I felt like I had been hit by a bus, I could barely breathe, I had to leave work that day because I could not stop crying uncontrollably. Shocking to all of you out there, but he came back, much to my relief at that time. My ex N liked to drink, he would get all drunk, act inappropriately, be super arrogant in front of other people, and completely disrespect me by using crude language when I asked him not to, the more I asked him not to, the more he did it. There were several times where I excused his behavior because he was going through a rough time, false, so false, this is who he is. One night, I asked him specifically not to do something because he always acted like a complete jerk when he drank it and was out of control, he purposely purchased it after he promised not to, we got into a huge fight, and when we got home, he packed up his stuff and was leaving, he was completely drunk and should not have driven. My sister tried to stop him, I told her to let him go, she had a 2 hour conversation with him, only to come out with his stuff and attempted to throw it over the balcony because she was so mad. I told her to let him go, it was not her battle to fight. He put his stuff in the car and left. He called later and blamed me for his leaving, I told him I was not the one who packed his suitcase and put it in the car, which further infuriated him, I knew he should not have been driving, but I was not going to beg him to come back. He did anyways, spent the night, and left the next day. My sister and I had a moment that night, we cried together, we both felt like we had done something wrong, I explained to her at this point that he was mentally ill. I should have let him go then because I recognized it, but I thought I could change him because I thought I understood him like no one else in his life.

Issues with his job continued on, one day things were going to be happening within the next few weeks, the next, they couldn’t get the people to sign the leases so he could begin the project. I encouraged him to get a job in the meantime, he supposedly had skills that would allow him to work anywhere, and in an industry where it would be ok to be a part timer. I had it in my head that getting him back to work would be good for him because I could actually see him getting more depressed. His depression impacted me, I was anxious, couldn’t concentrate, my work was terrible, and I eventually became so ill, I got mono and was out of work for 2 weeks…who gets mono in their late 20s?

During my sickness, he stayed with me through it all, during this time, I told him that he needed to get his stuff together. He was looking for jobs and had an interview at one point, magically, the same day he was supposed to interview, his bosses called and agreed to give him his salary back because things were looking up and he would likely be back in work very soon, so why go interview. Keep in mind that the times that he was supposedly going to interview, he got all suited up, my sister says that he “played dress up with our family.”

The holidays were upon us and I wanted him to come to my parent’s house for Thanksgiving, initially he and my friend who introduced us were going to stay at the house, but for comfort sake, I decided to get a hotel room. He tool this as my family didn’t want him there and made it a huge deal, one day he was coming, the next he wasn’t….total mindfuck. He ended up coming the day after Thanksgiving with my friend, day 1 went great in my mind. Day 2 was a disaster, he acted like his arrogant self in front of my siblings, disrespected me, got drunk and made his bed. My parents found out about it, wouldn’t even speak to him when we returned to their house, I thought I was going to break up with him after this, it caused a huge rift in my family.

I let it go on, again, thinking that it was going to get better. He told me that he was going to propose to me that weekend, he supposedly told his family that we were engaged when he returned…to this day I don’t think he ever intended to ask me to marry him that weekend. He told me he bought me a super expensive ring at the jeweler his dad goes to for his mom, I found out a couple of weekends later that he was looking on Craigslist for rings the day after we got back from the weekend from hell.

Holiday #2 came around, my parents had hired someone to do some digging because there were too many red flags, it turns out his entire history is a lie, with the exception of his childhood that I heard from his parents. When I spoke to my ex N about it, he denied everything and said that my family made it all up. The detective told my parents to get me away from him as quickly as possible. I spoke to the detective myself, but didn’t want to believe it. I spent days in bed, my mom slept with me because I was so destroyed and afraid to be alone. I returned to work in the hopes that it would be a good distraction, I cried everyday almost all day, I barely kept it together. Thank goodness, I work with a great bunch of people who understood where I was, they knew this wasn’t me. I felt like my heart had been ripped out of my chest, I was a ghost, I isolated myself from my friends and family because I was so down, I felt like I was difficult to be around because all I did was cry. How could this be? How could I have trusted and loved this man? I was going to marry him and have his children. Why did he pick me? Why do people like this exist? Why didn’t I listen to my gut earlier in the relationship? Everything couldn’t possibly be true…he really loved me, right? I was not an object to him, I was a person, right?