She has at times said that this trash situation is a thing to her cause she gets a sense of control in a relationship that has often because of me felt uncertain to her, especially during the period when I was exhausted and emotionally withdrawn. I can understand that perspective, and I do feel deeply responsible. There is always talk of her cleaning the place when she has more time and energy, but her work and our ongoing problems leave her drained. I understand that too, but this has been the pattern for a long time. And i'm tired of understanding this. If i don't do something radical we will be in the same situation for the next 10 years too.

We have had the same type of conflicts for years. Usually they go like this

>she gets triggered from something that has happened, usually cause i have made a mistake or that she perceives as a mistake
>i don't "own up to it" or apologize properly
>this makes her angrier/more anxious
>i distance myself emotionally (i am not a fully diagnosed autistic person but that's where my last diagnosis was going, 12+ years ago, but i foolishly ended the process midway cause i got a job.), tell her to calm down or ask her to stop repeating herself
>she gets angrier and amps up her communication, i lessen mine. She perceives this as arrogance and gets angrier
>This continues like this anywhere from half an hour to multiple hours, depending on "how much time we have available".
>If i defend myself or try to explain myself the situation escalates.

During the last year the conversations and conflicts have evolved. She got the idea from Instagram that i'm a narcissist and she has further strengthened that belief by reading discussions about it and asking the Google AI questions that usually lead to an answer something in the lines of: "yup, he is a narcissist or narcissistic." After that she has switched her understanding of our situation in a direction that is even less productive:

>every argument quickly evolves into her questioning my morality, motivation and ability to be a productive member of the workforce (which i'm right now actively trying to get back into, from a really bad standpoint). Where she shoots accusations and criticisms at me.
>If i shut down and don't want to take part in a "conversation" i'm arrogant
>if i leave the apartment cause i get so anxious after asking her to stop, it's an attempt at domination and control
>if i finally get angry after such a conflict going on for hours, i'm getting a narcissist meltdown and emotionally abusing her

I've tried to make sense of the situation by keeping notes and writing my thoughts and feelings down. At this moment i'm at the point of... whatever is exactly going on in this relationship, whoever started what, and no matter what i actually am (as far as diagnoses are concerned) i don't want to continue this relationship. But i can't just straight up tell that to her cause previously, every time i have tried talking to her about the possibility of breaking up, she has always talked me out of it. So my best plan is to one Friday just tell her the relationship is over and we can talk later about the exact details, and after that i will leave to my parents' place where i will (this time around) tell them also that the relationship is over and that i need their help to navigate the situation. (Or something like that) She feels i owe her because she has gone to work for years while i have stayed at home. I fully intent to find a job and move to somewhere where the living costs are lower, so i can in return give her the option to drop out of work instead. Obviously she is mentally in a pretty bad shape and she has other health issues too.

Oh yeah... and to top all that of she has started to plan a cottage trip for the winter. So i have zero idea how i'm going to operate if she starts making reservations for it. She already got tilted this morning when i couldn't give her an instant okay for it. "Oh, so we aren't together then?"

I asked for advice here 4 months ago and it helped me out a lot. Since then i have done a lot of mental work to get where i am. Back then breaking up seemed impossible. Now i'm at the state of mind that i'm just gonna dive into it and hope for the best. I've somewhat made peace with the fact that she won't take it well, but it is what it is. I've lost any hope of being able to do a "charisma check" and talk to her in a way that she understands and accepts. That's what i thought previously, essentially making the actual end of the relationship tied to whether she was okay with it or not. (She never would have been.)

And i have a lot of arguments ready for if i have to somehow explain myself to my relatives or friends. Just a few examples of things and situations that i never again want to take part in. But i'm going to use them only if the situations demand it. I have zero interest in getting into the same type of debates about breaking up that i have had with my gf for years, this time with an audience.

I'm hoping that getting my parents involved this time around will help my gf understand that this is over instead of starting yet another debate about this.

You're both are lazy shits. Clean up your living space.

>>34903018
Good for you for keeping notes or a diary, that really helped me leave. I think your plan is good. Now that you have reachee the point of knowing she isn't changing, the decision is just when to leave. I also recommend blocking her calls so that she cannot talk you back into the relationship

>>34903010
>I'm (male) atm.
I don't like where this one is going

>>34903049
Can't do it alone and she hasn't had the energy or time to do it after work. It's been like that for years. She is basically a state 2 hoarder. That's how the apartment looks. Her own apartments kitchen is unusable at this point.

>>34903078
>Good for you for keeping notes or a diary, that really helped me leave

Yeah, it has helped me put into words a lot of the stuff that i have been feeling and really seeing what is actually happening. It's not just a repeating storm from which to recover from, confused.

>Now that you have reached the point of knowing she isn't changing

It's more like i should change to a certain extent, and i am aware that i can't, i've tried to do that for years. This has had some. negative effects on my health also.

>the decision is just when to leave. I also recommend blocking her calls so that she cannot talk you back into the relationship.

Sadly the exact logistics are such that when we breakup i should still drive her to work for like a few months, or until i find a job. Otherwise she has to quit cause she can't go to work without a car(she doesn’t have a driver license. Furthermore, about 90-95 % of the clutter in my apartment is her stuff and she gets a fit if i touch them. If i just cleaned the place up alone she would probably lose her mind.

>cont

So yeah. Obviously the recommendation in situation like these would be to move the other persons stuff behind their back (while they are at work), leaving a note and then going no contact. But i am unable to do that. The best i can do is to drop her to my apartment after her work day is done, send her a message that the relationship is over and i want her to move back to her own apartment at the end of the weekend so she should pack her essential things ready for that. And then i'll leave to my parents place.

i'll be away for the weekend, and after that i'll come back to my apartment (where she still is) with the plan that if she does anything else than to agree to move back to her place in the span of 1 or 2 days (her apartment kitchen is unusable, maybe she can clean it up in a day or 2) then i'm going to go back to my parents and the next time she will see me i'll come back with backup.

It's hard but some communication is basically demanded because of the situation. I just have the put clear boundaries to that.

>>34903152
kek

>>34903186
I'm very sorry anon, but your plan is doomed to failed. You have to keep driving her to work after you break up? She's just going to use that time to convince you to stay together AND she will have zero incentive to get a drivers license because being dependent on you for transport is her way back in

If you want to go through with this, you need to first set up the logistics for a clear break. Is there anyone else who could drive her? Coworker? Relative? Anyone who isn't you?

On the apartment and hoarding, I think that one is easy to solve. You go to your parents for a week and tell her to clean all her stuff out of your apartment. If she doesn't, you'll clean it for her and dump it at her place

>>34903331
>You have to keep driving her to work after you break up?

The planned boundary is that any extra talk isn't okay, when i do that. If she doesn't respect that then other people will be involved.

>If you want to go through with this, you need to first set up the logistics for a clear break. Is there anyone else who could drive her? Coworker? Relative? Anyone who isn't you?

Not really, no. Maybe someone can get her when her shift ends. But nobody is gonna take her there.

>On the apartment and hoarding, I think that one is easy to solve. You go to your parents for a week and tell her to clean all her stuff out of your apartment. If she doesn't, you'll clean it for her and dump it at her place

She doesn’t have the energy for it after work, and i do get that. I'm thinking of there being clear rules when she has access to the apartment and that's when she can do her cleaning, or something like that. And there is a deadline to that.

And me telling my parents that the relationship is over should basically settle the matter. I do hate the idea that i have to get them involved but at this point i don't see there being any other option left.

>>34903184
Ur a pussy just start lol wtf

>>34903010
Unrelated to you sorry to hear your story I hope it works out:
When I read this I just imagine that every fucking girl with simps online on Keizaal online (the Skyrim RP server) are older people with heaps of trash in their house who are just in total escapism and avoidance mode, I swear to god those people aren't functional and in game they are. It's so obvious to me that people who play these life wasting RP servers across multiple communities, they're all living in squalor with so many issues, being perfect in game and farming attention, but actually having a really bad irl living situation

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Bumping with a pic from the old thread to keep this one alive

Morning bump

I ain't got shit to help you anon, but I want to wish you luck. The sink/trash thing really sounds like obsessive compulsive disorder of some kind that grew into outright hoarding. You are justified.

>>34903184
>i should still drive her to work for like a few months
I agree with the other anon that this kind of thinking will be your doom. No you don't have to drive someone who's ruining your life to work every day. Or any day. You don't have to interact with her at all, and you shouldn't.
Most importantly, she is an adult and you are not responsible for her. Her fits are HER problem, not yours and it is not your duty to structure your decisions around them.
I don't believe you will succeed in fixing your life until you accept these facts.

>>34905886
Thanks

>>34905910
>I agree with the other anon that this kind of thinking will be your doom. No you don't have to drive someone who's ruining your life to work every day. Or any day. You don't have to interact with her at all, and you shouldn't.

Well i can't just cut her out, i need to help and be able to look back and think that whatever happens, at least i did enough.


>Most importantly, she is an adult and you are not responsible for her. Her fits are HER problem, not yours and it is not your duty to structure your decisions around them.

I feel responsible deeply. So if something happens i need to be able to look myself in the eye after that and know i did enough. If i just go no contact and basically force her to quit her job on a days notice i won't feel like that. There has to be a period when i still help her, especially if i am still unemployed, might as well drive her to work then. Obviously if i find a job i'll start helping her less, quicker.


>I don't believe you will succeed in fixing your life until you accept these facts.

Let's hope you are wrong. I think the mental work i have made during the last 4 months will get me through this. I am prepared, and i also refuse to take party in anymore debates that i have to win in order for the relationship to be over. That's one of the boundaries.

>>34906209

Brother, if you just HAVE to feel like you've done enough then fine help her. I don't agree with it. in fact, I think you're dumb as a stone.

But you need to clearly define a hard and fast line for what "enough" means. Then go that far and no further.

>>34906260
>But you need to clearly define a hard and fast line for what "enough" means. Then go that far and no further.°

That’s a crucial part of the plan, yes. A boundary and no overstepping it.

>>34903010
The only solution is to pack up and leave when she's elsewhere. Then break up with her by snail mail after sending yourself a copy. Always have witnesses.

>>34906351
Yeah. Well there is so much stuff that i can't just pack everything up when she is away. And what do you mean with snail male? Postcard?

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You just have to get out as soon as possible. The longer it goes the worse it gets. I was in a long relationship (about 5 years) with someone and I got no personal space whatsoever in those 5 years. Every single day I was expected to text them all day and if I didnt answer within 10 minutes exactly it started this huge fucking fight cause this person got mad they werent getting the 24/7 attention they were craving. Some people might say that kind of attention is desirable but I found it extremely frustrating and annoying to put up with. I cut it cold turkey, saying I have to work on commitments to my family, blocked their number and all their accounts and never looked back. Havent heard a thing from them since.

Now I've arrived at the point where I just dont think relationships work for someone like me. I have no desire to put up with another person and have them clung to me all the time. I value my solitude and I am never comfortable around other people. Being alone is the only time I feel safe and comfortable. I don't think I'm going to get in another relationship.

The longer you stay the harder it gets to leave. I wanted to leave my relationship for almost 3 years before I finally did it. It gets harder because you start second guessing yourself and thinking youre and evil person for feeling that way, so you stay and it just gets harder to leave.

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>>34907899
>You just have to get out as soon as possible. The longer it goes the worse it gets.

Yeah. I know.

>I was in a long relationship (about 5 years)...
>I got no personal space whatsoever in those 5 years.
>Some people might say that kind of attention is desirable but I found it extremely frustrating and annoying to put up with.

Yeah. Well that's the big thing, how it actually feels to you and if you are willing to put up with it. That's a big thing

>I cut it cold turkey, saying I have to work on commitments to my family, blocked their number and all their accounts and never looked back. Havent heard a thing from them since.

Nice. I'm glad it worked out for you. How did it all feel during and after? How did you deal with what followed?

>>34907899
>Now I've arrived at the point where I just dont think relationships work for someone like me. I value my solitude and I am never comfortable around other people. Being alone is the only time I feel safe and comfortable. I don't think I'm going to get in another relationship.

Yeah. It's kind of like that for me too, like, i don't mind people but i need time to just be alone and do my own things (various projects) to... "regenerate". And extra alone time has been way too hard to schedule because of how things have been for years. I'm just so tired of having to negotiate stuff like that. And either my gf just has zero hobbies and interests, or she is just too tired after work to do anything special. But the results are the same. And i get so tired from all the constant conflicts that i have been neglecting my family and friends a lot, for years. And i don't like it. Feels like life has just been passing me by for a long time.

>The longer you stay the harder it gets to leave. I wanted to leave my relationship for almost 3 years before I finally did it. It gets harder because you start second guessing yourself and thinking youre and evil person for feeling that way, so you stay and it just gets harder to leave.

Yeah. Don't i fucking know it. I've been wanting to leave for like 5 years but every time i try to have that talk she negotiates me out of it. She guilt trips, shames, cries, and finally threatens. And gets extremely distraught. But i have accepted that too, to a level now. All this feels already bad enough for me alone, i shouldn't have to take the burden of her feelings and her unability to deal with them on my heart and mind too, not anymore. And just cause something hurts, (breaking up with a person i still have a lot of good moments with) doesn't mean it isn't the right call, when there is just much bad present, ever week.

Late bumb

3am bumb

>>34907736
It's all goddamn junk. You really don't want to leave your past behind if you insist on clinging to all the piles of junk you've accumulated together.

If you lack willpower, find a male friend IRL who is willing to intervene on your behalf and put it to her straight. This is what we are going to do, and I couldn't care less what you think about it. The problem being that you would still side with her over him when she has a meltdown over not being catered to. That's what these kind of women will do, feign desperation and self-sabotage in order to manipulate you into "rescuing" her once again. Congrats, now you're back to square one.

>>34910550
>It's all goddamn junk. You really don't want to leave your past behind if you insist on clinging to all the piles of junk you've accumulated together.

90 % of it is her stuff. I can't just throw it out or do much to it. But i have at least later tried to put my own stuff in better order but all the clutter makes it hard. Everything is going to be ordered so that i will at least know where my stuff is and in what kind of storage it will fit. I'm trying to look what's actually something i could just throw away from my own belongings. Yeah there is actually a lot of stuff to remove there. I'm trying to lessen the amount i actually have stored so moving will also become easier. I'm not going for full digital nomad mode but having all my stuff basically fit in one car will make the next phase of the plan a lot of easier. That being moving to somewhere where i can live cheaper and find work better.


>The problem being that you would still side with her over him when she has a meltdown over not being catered to.

Well i do get why she feels the things she does. But i won't be be taking her side. Like, her stuff needs to be cleared in a reasonable amount of time and there will be a deadline to that. I can't live like this anymore.


>That's what these kind of women will do, feign desperation and self-sabotage in order to manipulate you into "rescuing" her once again. Congrats, now you're back to square one.

Feigned or real. I won't be doing what i have done during the previous times. There's a date now and clear boundaries that will be put in place.

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Lift

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I read through my thread once and realized that it doesn’t yet have a clear point to it. So i'm gonna lock-in to that and write exactly why i'm still keeping this thread alive, and why i probably will keep this thread alive for the next weeks.

The TLDR of that is at the end.

So here it goes:


>Why am i doing this, why am i writing here?

When the issues started, many many years ago i didn't feel good about her talking about our problems to other people. And she agreed that it's something that we should work through ourselves. THIS WAS A MISTAKE, and since then we have been isolated and the situation has gotten worse and worse until we have been in this dead-end for months, or more like, basically a full year now.

At this point when the breakup happens i don't want to talk about what exactly has been happening in this relationship to my relatives or friends. I'm gonna say something that sums the situation up, but i won't go into details, unless my gf forces me into that (for example: taking me to court) and even then i will keep the details i give out as miniscule as i can. I don't want to embarrass or cause anymore damage to her than this relationship and me already have but i'm also not gonna have her slander me without defending myself. My understanding of the situation is that this relationship is toxic (or i'm toxic and i should be alone) and we should't be together anymore.


TLDR: I'm writing here cause i want to get my side out somewhere, what exactly is going on in this relationships and why i want to end it. I don't feel i can tell it to those close to me when the breakup happens. I want for someone, somewhere to somehow understand what is going on so i don't have to be so alone in this. I need that help from this place, you helped me before. Even now i'm starting to sometimes question myself if this is the right call even if it has felt like a right call now consistently for months.

I'll reply to everything. But usually not at that instant.

Bumping till i have time to write

>>34914709
>I don't feel i can tell it to those close to me when the breakup happens.
just tell them retard what are you scared of
just do it
you're fully justified in your actions, yeah it's going to suck when the news break but you'll have that talk once and never again

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>>34918462
>just tell them retard what are you scared of
>just do it
>you're fully justified in your actions, yeah it's going to suck when the news break but you'll have that talk once and never again


Well i can't help it. No matter how much mental work i have done, i still feel extremely fearful about what's gonna happen, as i can see she is clearly in a really bad place mentally and has been for a long while. She consistently shows in almost every conflict we have signs of a severely compromised ability to regulate her feelings and output, or make herself stop after she has started.

Very often she gets triggered by an often small mistake i have made in the present (or at some point in the past) and this quickly turns into a half an hour or more long tirade where:

>She lists my faults, and assigns most of the blame for the conflict to me
>I get called things like narcissistic, manipulative, abusive when i try to defend or explain myself in any way, and not just "own up to my shit" (which is yet another exact phrase she has copied from Instagram from some male social media dude whose shtick seems to be throwing the mens' collective under the bus for money. He says that women's boyfriends not owning their shit when making a mistake is what makes women angry and that they are justified in bitching about it).
>If i remember something differently than how she remembers it (this happens often) she says i'm purposely gaslighting her (like a narcissist)
>If I try to disengage from the situation or calm things down, it escalates further
>Things usually end when i apologize or take responsibility just to stop it (and even this doesn't always work), or she has to leave for work.

cont.

Often at the very first sign that the conflict is gonna start ("oh, here we go again") i feel my heart rate go up and i start to get anxious. Sometimes it goes to the point where i sweat, get dry in the mouth and get cold and shaky hands. Finally i just want to leave and go outside to calm down, as she seems unable to stop the conversation that feels more like a one-sided text wall than an actual discussion between two people, certainly not a respectful one. Before that i have asked her to calm down many times.

When things have sometimes gotten really bad, she also has physically prevented me from leaving the apartment when we are both clearly in a very bad state of mind. Sometimes she has even tried to take my phone, keys or shoes away, or grabbed hold of my clothes or luggage and held on to them like a drowning person holds on to a life ring. So either i physically force my way out or am forced to stay in a deeply stressful situation. And if things go really south, after that i'm blamed for a situation where i actually tried to leave to calm down, and before that i had listened to her rant for hours. And every one of those moments gets brought up again and again later as just one more example of how unstable I AM.

This doesn't happen often (thankfully) but it's clearly a thing, and there have been at least 20+ instances of it during the past few years.

I think this should give a better understanding of just how volatile stuff can get, even in some pretty daily arguments. Imagine what she will do when i say that the relationship is over and i'm gonna leave for my parents' house for the weekend and then proceed to go no-contact for a day or so? (Something that i have never done before.)

To not take that into account anyway would actually be pretty irresponsible.

>>34920818
>Well i can't help it. No matter how much mental work i have done, i still feel extremely fearful about what's gonna happen
then curl up and die you weak faggot

>>34920826
Thanks for your input. That was really helpful.

...You do know you can hide threads, right?

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...I've also come to understand that a lot of the differences in opinion and perspective can't really be resolved.

For example: we view relationships very differently. My partner strongly believes that “love is a choice” and that you should ALWAYS keep trying no matter what. I feel that feelings can change, and that if a relationship becomes too unhealthy or exhausting, it’s okay to leave. This difference is impossible to resolve, especially now.

There is also one huge problem on a fundamental level. We seem to have vastly different opinions on what is even actually happening in this relationship a lot of the time. Like, it often feels like there isn't even a shared reality.

From my side:
>we are stuck in a harmful dynamic that drains both of us
>both contribute in different ways
>the situation has escalated over years and is now unsustainable
>the relationship should end and we should learn to live without each other in our lives no matter how hard it's gonna be

From her side:
>I've made her and the relationship sick and i have a duty to fix this (or else)
>the problem is fundamentally me (as she sees it: narcissism, manipulation, etc.)
>breaking up is betrayal and proof that i'm a narcissist and a bad person. even talking about breaking up is abuse
>the relationship should continue and we should just try to get it to work (basically forever)

Obviously, those two views don’t really meet anywhere. But i (hopefully) have gotten to the point of mind i can proceed even without her approval, which is something that i have to do.

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Now, one of the things that worries me especially right now is how exactly things will go logistically WHEN i tell her the relationship is over (hopefully next week's Friday) and that i don't want to spend time with her. Because she hasn't only made my apartment barely livable, she has also done this to her apartment:

Her apartment's bedroom has been a messy storage room for years, unusable for anything else. The bed/mattress is in the living room, that's where the bed usually is. The bathroom has the shower/bath space cluttered with stuff. The kitchen has also been unusable for a whole year. There is a lot of trash and clutter there too and the sink is unusable. Technically, perhaps the kitchen and bathroom could still be made usable within a few days' worth of cleaning, but i don't know when she could have the energy or time to do it.

Overall, at this point i don't really want to spend my time with her anymore, as it will only invite new conflict. I can't stand listening to her complaining, guilt tripping and criticizing me anymore. And the accusations of me being a narcissist have been going on for a year, she brings them up in every conflict we get into.

Btw. The kitchen pictured kinda gives an idea of how her kitchen is right now, the room is smaller and there are some trash below the table, so the level of disorganization is a bit more worse, but not much.

We had one of our arguments yesterday (sunday). She spent the night at a friend's place and i did stuff alone (Happiest i have been in months, just watching a movie and starting a new videogame after that, drinking a few beers and two glasses of good ol' Jack Daniels. Blissful peace and quiet. There hasn't been a night alone like that for almost a year before that). The very second she got back the next day she accused me of jacking off to porn or seeing another woman somewhere. (I did not, and both accusations are absurd.) This quickly escalated to something where we both essentially said that we didn't want to spend time together. At this point i tried speaking to her about her cleaning her kitchen up so she could more easily spend time at her apartment. I didn't even say it in anger or anything like that, just pointed out the fact. Of course this got her even more angry, saying that a jobless bum like me doesn't tell her what to do. And that she is too tired of work and me especially to think about doing something like that.
...So. It's clearly not a good idea to spend time together, but she has made her apartment a place where she can't operate right now. No one in our circle of friends and relatives knows what exactly is going on at our apartments. They have both been off-limits for visiting for 5+ years.

If i tell someone like her parents or my parents, it will of course be seen as another kind of betrayal, as my opinions on her talking about our problems to anyone are what basically began our isolation.

When i, earlier today, said in one of our conflicts that at some point i might just tell our relatives and friends what she has done to our apartments so the insanity can finally stop, she threatened in turn to tell them about all the stuff i have done. To which i said that perhaps that is then how this is going to go. This made her more angry.

>>34903010
>refuses to walk out the door
>guys how do i leave
I'm so tired of these inane threads.

So i guess my plan is still to go to my parents' for a day or two. But our living situations being what they are, i have no idea what she will do. I guess i should somehow try to minimize her trying to pull something funny during or after that weekend, but i don't know how. Just go back to my parents if she refuses to leave when i come back to my apartment,... and do what? Get her parents involved? I wish i knew that she would just accept it and move back to her place and start her kitchen cleaning operation, but i have no idea. Maybe she will just refuse to leave my apartment? God. It's fucked up that i have to even think of stuff like this. But she has never previously respected me wanting to break up, so i'm just trying to get ready for every possible contingency like a fucking Hobo-Batman.

>>34922138
You can hide the thread.

But notice that she has filled both our apartments with clutter, and my apartment to a point that i have to walk around my home by pathways surrounded by her stuff, trash and magazined.

So we are not dealing with two normal apartments here. I'm trying to now organize what i can but it's hard. Most of it is her stuff and she gets anxious if i do something to them.

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Her hoarding is basically at a so-called Stage 2. The situation has been like this for a full year now, and it was only slightly less bad a few years before that. I don't think you have any idea what it's like. I don't want to live like this!

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Right now i'm just trying to somehow get ready for what is going to happen in the future. I'm try to build a system, like:
>okay, no matter what, i'll write my thoughts down for max half an hour if something comes up
>and clean the apartment every day, even if it's just a little bit

...so that, at least in theory, i should be able to fall back on that when i get days where i get burned out from everything, which happens a lot, and still make some progress.

Most days i try to juggle:
>being productive
>mentally recovering from something that just happened (conflict)
>trying to figure this mess out
>dealing with all the negative thoughts and feelings that processing all this is causing me
>resting mentally by doing something i actually like

I manage that, but only barely. Often it becomes too much and it's like a circuit fries in my brain and my feelings go numb. I feel more like an insect than a human then.

And sometimes i do second guess my own sanity and just what i actually even am. Let's play with the idea that i'm all the things she is constantly saying i am. Well, in that case the correct thing to do would also just be to be alone and guard other humans from the cancer that i perhaps might be.

Maybe i'm depressed. I guess i even understand why in a meta kind of way. Because in the back of my mind i know that even if i manage to do what i'm planning, that's just the next chapter of the conflict starting, and what it's gonna look like is gonna be a complete mystery, as well as when the actual end to it will be.

So the reward isn't there and won't be there for god only knows how long. And so, i'm trying to think of ways to prepare for that too.

Morning bumb

8 days left bumb

>>34925362
Bruh leave. Contact your entire village, all the people you can trust today, and tell them you're stuck with a manipulative bitch and that you can't even manage the clutter at home to retrieve your own stuff to leave. Send the kitchen pic too.

That's it, textbook example of bitch doing bitchy things, excusing her behavior with AI, pop psychology and whatever comes next. No need to fight the denial, arguing, justifying (DARVO tactics). No. Holding a job doesn't get her a pass to hold anything you've written here over your head. N O, that's final.

Do not worry about the job. It was HER responsibility to secure a way to attend the place all this time, and burning bridges till you're forced to leave is HER doing. Burn this idea to your forehead if needed, you don't have to do shit for people who bully you around and make life difficult in any way.

4 years is more than enough for a partner to be supportive, help around till both become more independent or find ways around life issues. It's more than enough to call it quits, do not attempt to fix shit for this entitled cunt, do not share space or any contact, favors or mental capacity. You ALREADY GAVE IT FOR 4 FUCKING YEARS.

>>34903010
She's a grown up. So are you. It is perfectly reasonable to not want to live like that.

They will never change. Well they might, after they lose you, but that's too late.If you got back together they'd fall into the same habits. They need a long ass time of being alone and growing up before they will change.

You can't have a healthy conversation about the mess because they're too inside themselves and twist everything on you or make it out to be something it's not. Even if they have severe depression or ADHD or something, that's no excuse to make you feel like shit or to allow themselves and you to live like shit.

You deserve more. If you are genuinly capable of looking after yourself and you're not as guilty as her, then you need to get out.

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>>34928114
>Bruh leave. Contact your entire village, all the people you can trust today. Send the kitchen pic too.

I wish i could just leave, but the logistics are such that i at least have to stay at my current apartment for like a year or so. I plan to have the apartment cleaned before that end date and move somewhere with cheaper living expenses and more available work. The new boundary will be that she can come to the apartment only to get her stuff or clean. She will either agree to do what is reasonable before the deadline, or i will tell my parents about the situation to the extent that is necessary. I will tell them immediately if she tries to start a debate about it or threaten me with anything. And i have taken proof pictures and videos showing that this situation has been going on for years. But showing them is a nuclear option that i will only use if it comes down to it.

Now, as i said, it was largely my fault that we have been so isolated, and it has had some pros to it, otherwise we probably wouldn't have continued like this for years. One of the cons has been that if anyone else (my family or hers) actually knew how our relationship and living environments are, and that i want the relationship to end, i doubt they would have supported the idea that the relationship must continue no matter what.

But they don't know, so she has had an easier time talking me into continuing for many years. So i have shot myself in the foot there for a long time.

But only now, after intensely thinking about this situation for a year and really gauging how i feel and think about all of this, have i started to have this amount of clarity in my thought processes. During this year, all the way up to the current weeks, there has still been a lot of doubt, fear, confusion and anxiety. But i am still in a better state of mind, even now when on many days i don't get much done. A lot of my time and energy is quietly going into building up my resolve and keeping it locked in.

>>34928114
>That's it, textbook example of bitch doing bitchy things, excusing her behavior with AI, pop psychology and whatever comes next. No need to fight the denial, arguing, justifying (DARVO tactics). No. Holding a job doesn't get her a pass to hold anything you've written here over your head. N O, that's final.

Yeah. Well, i'm not gonna get into any more debates about anything with her. We can't see eye to eye on a lot of things, and i have accepted that. As far as DARVO goes, i have at one point listened to a YouTube video about what a narcissist meltdown sounds like, and it's exactly what some of her worse fits sound like, yet i don't really think she is one. She is under a lot of stress from work and our relationship, and has to live with constant chronic pain. It's been like that for years, and i haven't been as supportive as i should have been at many times. A lot of her anger i do understand on some level, but it has still become too much to take. And during the years she has done a lot of work trying to get the relationship to work. So i see it being in large part because of that. BUT whatever the case may be, i still do not want to continue the relationship, and i won't.


>Do not worry about the job. It was HER responsibility to secure a way to attend the place all this time, and burning bridges till you're forced to leave is HER doing. Burn this idea to your forehead if needed, you don't have to do shit for people who bully you around and make life difficult in any way.

Yeah. I can't keep limiting my decision making based on her job distance.


>4 years is more than enough for a partner to be supportive, help around till both become more independent or find ways around life issues. It's more than enough to call it quits...

This is true. And i do have the right to end the relationship.

>>34922135
>call you a jobless bum
>making demands on you to change you

Your "mental illness" which is what her verbal abuse is insinuating you have - regardless of if there is any truth to a possible personality disorder you both have (she definitely has BPD/OCD traits)

>name calling your partner isn't ok

I read up until this point thinking my advice to you would be - make a clear boundary about the living conditions and needing to see consistent progress over days or you will break up and will not be providing transportation to her place of work.

Sorry you're making the right decision here - if you believe there will be an argument/aggression/verbal abuse - record the conversation.

I think you can say you did everything you could. If she's refusing to throw away her garbage - and that's not even the problem - she will just make more trash piles. If you guys think having your own apartments at 9 years into the relationship is normal? But both houses are dirty/cluttered?

However, if there is zero desire to remain a couple (after behavior changes demonstrated consistently over months/years/etc) then decide that first.

In a week when you tell her - be clear about what you are saying - calmly and in a professional manner. Let her know either change this or we break up or let's change this behavior - work on a shared goal together (one week the kitchen, next week the bedroom etc - celebrate / track successive completion of goals) and in that scenario- sure, keep driving her to work, act normally.

In no way should you "break up" and continue providing her a service. She's abusing you and using you. You dont need to feel obligated- she can take a bus/uber/taxi/walk or maybe she loses her job and you shouldn't feel guilty for that. She's choosing control (controlling you, the mess) and being right at the cost of her self.

>women
Many such cases

>>34929019
>giving her rides is a boyfriend job to her
She can get a new taxi driver but she can't get a new you

So I absolutely implore you to reconsider the commuting problem. I think everything else sounds reasonable. Pack a bag the night before of everything you cannot live without (if she decides to destroy things after you leave to your parents)

Then drive away with the peace that your making the right decision and future you will thank you.

>>34928796
>She's a grown up. So are you. It is perfectly reasonable to not want to live like that.

>You can't have a healthy conversation about the mess because they're too inside themselves and twist everything on you or make it out to be something it's not. Even if they have severe depression or ADHD or something, that's no excuse to make you feel like shit or to allow themselves and you to live like shit.

Yeah. Exactly.


>You deserve more. If you are genuinly capable of looking after yourself and you're not as guilty as her, then you need to get out.

Well, i don't really know what i deserve at this point, and i do feel a lot of guilt, shame and sadness that i struggle with daily. Every time i look at pictures from the first years of our relationship, i cry. I cry as i'm writing this. That's the reason i try to be as understanding as i can and not just throw her under the bus and say it's all her fault.

But i think that if there is a "crime", the punishment isn't going to be life in some type of solitary confinement filled with trash and getting into endless arguments that go nowhere.

I'm completely fine with her taking time off work and having time to focus on her mental health. But in no scenario will i be by her side while she does it. I'll help her in other ways. That's why my plan is to go somewhere where the living is cheaper (alone). I'm fine with living a simpler, more peaceful life there. And she can have the "extra money" and use it to get better. Not forever, but at least for some time.

cont
>That's why my plan

And with this i meant that this is the next phase of the plan, after the apartment issue is solved, when i can actually be able to move somewhere.

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>>34929019
>However, if there is zero desire to remain a couple (after behavior changes demonstrated consistently over months/years/etc) then decide that first.

Yeah. Well at this point i have been having these thoughts of breaking up for years. I've thought about them, tried to find a way to talk things through (intensively), and eventually i always quit and go back to:
>well i guess i just have to try and get this to work
Now i have noticed that for well over a year i have been unable to bounce back to my previous normal. This happened somewhere after the time she started to self-diagnose me as a narcissist. In the start it made me feel so bad mentally that i sought help for it. I went to a place to talk about it a few times, but then the free appointments ended and i guess i just adapted to my new reality.

So i've basically just played it like a type of fucked up double-agent. That gives a pretty clear picture of where i am mentally as far as staying or leaving is concerned. I'm still staying right now and taking part in all the conflict against my better judgement. In a discussion i had 4 or so months ago here, one user finally made me understand just how crazy the entire thought was that this relationship could only end if my gf accepted it.

>>34929019
>She's abusing you and using you. You dont need to feel obligated- she can take a bus/uber/taxi/walk or maybe she loses her job and you shouldn't feel guilty for that. She's choosing control (controlling you, the mess) and being right at the cost of her self.

Yeah. Well there is also the truth that while i have had the luxury to figure all this out on my personal time, she has had to go to work for years, work that has usually left her pretty burned out towards the end of the week. So in her words, she hasn't had much time to think about this.

So when the talk of breaking up comes up, she automatically falls back on the same emotional reactions that have worked previously: leaning into all her negative emotions instead of dealing with the actual question. Since this has consistently resulted in us staying together, i can on (some level) understand why she keeps falling back on it.


>>34929033
>So I absolutely implore you to reconsider the commuting problem. I think everything else sounds reasonable.

Yeah. I'll do that.


>Pack a bag the night before of everything you cannot live without (if she decides to destroy things after you leave to your parents)

Yup. This is more or less the plan.

before rest bumb

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>>34934290
OP, go stay somewhere else.
There's two things going on here, from what I can tell, namely your own dysfunction and her abuse. She's mentally ill at best. Stop looking at pictures of when things were good and just make yourself leave. Nothing will get better until then. She is making you worse. You cannot help her. You don't need to prepare or finish anything before you leave, because that's just an excuse not to leave. Just leave. Her presence is actively harming you and reducing the possibility that you improve your ability to function. How can you possibly be functional enough to do all this prep to leave when she's making you feel worse every day?
As other anons have said, you shouldn't continue to give her rides, she can pay for transport using the money she works to earn. You just need to leave and stop letting her hurt you. And you need to stop trying to hold on to something that does not exist anymore.

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>>34935460
>OP, go stay somewhere else.

Yeah. I should. But it's the first step and i'm afraid to do it. It's drastic and i don't know what to say to my parents. At this point i shouldn't say anything, but even that feels like saying something. I fear that if i start talking, i'll just shit out all of what i've been thinking in a vent-athon and say something i will regret. I don't want it to look like i'm throwing her under the bus. And even if i do the best i can explaining the situation, there is still a chance that something gets lost in translation and somehow gets used against me. And then she can say that that too was a sign of me clearly being a narcissist. Fuck. I guess it might still happen, but i guess i'm not ready to get character assassinated. I guess some of that can be avoided if i say as little as i can, as was my plan. But i constantly second-guess myself. I suppose it doesn't really matter what she thinks about me, but i'm still afraid of how people will see me after this.


>your dysfunction and her abuse.

I feel both are doing things that the other sees as abuse. But yeah, varying degrees of dysfunction is what follows. We are in a completely deadened state. I just try to survive without getting into conflicts, but that's hard, because i am emotionally distant and i'm not as easy to be around as i was before. And that's all seen as me somehow emotionally abusing her. Then she reacts accordingly. The only way our days go by without fights is if i put on a performance and act like someone i'm not anymore. She asks me all sorts of things and i have to lie constantly. If i say how i really feel and what i really think, then BOOM, we're in another conflict. I wobble on towards a big day that i'm still not sure will ever come. I try to talk her into a situation where she could live at her apartment, but she refuses, seeing it as a narcissist's power play.

>>34935460
>She's mentally ill at best.

Yeah, well, she has clearly been in a bad place for years. The Instagram diagnoses were the last push over the edge. Now everything i do is just a sign of narcissism. She points it out constantly, like a broken record. CONSTANTLY. I try to understand her, but it getting really really hard. She has been doing that this weekend too.


>Stop looking at pictures of when things were good and just make yourself leave.

Yup. Gotta think about what helps me move forward and what doesn't. Looking at the pictures definitely isn't helping.


>You don't need to prepare or finish anything before you leave, because that's just an excuse not to leave.

This is true. Double true, as she is probably gonna be on sick leave from work for a week or two. I wasn't prepared enough yet for next Friday, and now i can't prep while she is at work. Fuck. I should have known something like this was gonna happen.

I tried to suggest that she would clean her apartment's kitchen during the next few weeks, little by little, but she basically vehemently refused that and saw it as yet another show of a narcissist forcing her to do stuff while she should rest.

But i don't really see what else we can do. I should just leave, but i can't just disappear without dealing with the practical consequences. She needs at least access to her apartment, and it becomes harder without a driver, and she can't live there right now because of the kitchen.

>>34935460
>Her presence is actively harming you and reducing the possibility that you improve your ability to function. How can you possibly be functional enough to do all this prep to leave when she's making you feel worse every day? As other anons have said, you shouldn't continue to give her rides, she can pay for transport using the money she works to earn. You just need to leave and stop letting her hurt you.

Well yeah. It's like riding two bikes at the same time. And i should really do my best to get a job so she could then quit hers and recover, but this situation has me constantly not being at my best. I don't want to finally find a job and then fuck it up because of how stressful everything is at my home base, the place where i should get to rest and charge my batteries.


>And you need to stop trying to hold on to something that does not exist anymore.

It's more like she is doing that.

>>34936758
>>34936761
>>34936763
You haven't shared enough about what you yourself do and don't do for me to judge whether you do wrong things to her, but ultimately that actually doesn't matter at all.
She will always make herself out to be the victim. She is making you the villain. That's harmful to you, and because she's decided to put the blame all on you there's nothing you will be able to do to change her mind. And you seem to suppress your feelings to avoid confrontation which is also harmful and is going to either explode or continue to poison you from the inside.
You don't need to talk to her. You don't need to explain everything or anything to your parents right away. It seems like you have a good enough relationship with them that they'll take you in without question, which is good. But remember that your parents are thinking adults too, and they might even know or suspect more than you think, especially if they haven't been allowed to be in your home for over five years.
You can't worry about character assassination or social consequences. First, nobody else is going to care as much as you do. And if it comes to it, the people who won't believe you aren't worth having in your life. Nothing is going to hurt you nearly as much as staying with this woman.
>can't prep
Seriously, dude. Don't prep. Just go. While she's sleeping, just grab the minimum set of things you need and get in your car and leave.
>can't just disappear
Yes you can. She can pay for transportation. The practical consequences to you staying are that you continue to be miserable in a hoard of trash while being constantly berated. The practical consequences are that you feel worse and worse and stay stuck. Hell, honestly, she herself probably needs a kick in the ass, because this garbage hoarding and social media obsession and abusive behavior is bad for her too.
Take it from someone who has the same tendency: you're just avoiding the doing. And the doing is actually very straightforward.

>>34936785
>You haven't shared enough about what you yourself do and don't do for me to judge whether you do wrong things to her, but ultimately that actually doesn't matter at all.

I see myself as someone who is, well, a bit forgetful, and i have made a bunch of mistakes. I'm (probably) autistic, so a lot of our conflicts feel like a red light burning and an alarm blaring. I emotionally hunker down and communicate less, while her word output becomes like a textwall where she just repeats herself. She takes my withdrawal as arrogance or narcissistic silent treatment, and this fuels her anger further. I've said it's not anything like that, but her interpretation of what happened always seems to come first. So it's been like that for years now. Endless conflicts about everything.

To me, it often seems like her feelings cloud her perspective, and that is then used to justify almost anything as far as her behavior is concerned. If i try to point this out, she will then say i'm not acknowledging her feelings. I self-regulate a lot, and perceive her as basically just "letting herself go" in every argument we have.

We see things and what is actually happening in vastly different ways, and that can't be worked out or talked through. I've realized that. That's the thing that bothers me the most after everything: i can't have an honest discussion about this with her. As i said, she sees everything as emotional abuse and narcissistic powerplays. She has essentially made talking about it impossible.

And when i'm gonna do what i'm gonna do (leave to my parents and say that the relationship is over), that is also going to be spun into yet another example of how i'm such a narcissist and a monster for doing it like that. I can't win.

But yeah... nothing of this really matters at this point.

>>34936785
>She will always make herself out to be the victim. She is making you the villain. That's harmful to you, and because she's decided to put the blame all on you there's nothing you will be able to do to change her mind.

Yeah. I know that full well. This situation has been unresolvable by talking for years, and i've been painfully aware of that for months now.

As one user previously said: basically, if she doesn't accept the breakup, i won't go through with it. That's how it's been before. I've basically given her veto power over my own decisions.

Like every time something bad happens, she throws all the blame on me. Like in one example situation where she berated me for taking too long in a place that was more crowded than i thought. When i came back, she blew a gasket and started to berate me and shout. I said i was sorry and asked her multiple times to stop and calm down. She was unable to do so.

Finally i had enough and tried to leave, with my heart rate racing, only for her to physically prevent me from doing so. Things went bad, and after that she has multiple times brought it up as yet another example of me acting like a rabid animal, completely removing any of her agency in that moment.

And this isn't just a one-off thing. Something like that has happened at least 10 times. Maybe more.

>you seem to suppress your feelings to avoid confrontation which is also harmful and is going to either explode or continue to poison you from the inside.

This is exactly what has been happening.

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>>34936785
>You don't need to talk to her. You don't need to explain everything or anything to your parents right away. It seems like you have a good enough relationship with them that they'll take you in without question, which is good. But remember that your parents are thinking adults too, and they might even know or suspect more than you think, especially if they haven't been allowed to be in your home for over five years.

Yeah. If i try to talk to my gf about this, she's gonna turn it into a debate that she always eventually wins. So i'm gonna reduce the probability of that by "just leaving".

>You can't worry about character assassination or social consequences. First, nobody else is going to care as much as you do. And if it comes to it, the people who won't believe you aren't worth having in your life. Nothing is going to hurt you nearly as much as staying with this woman.

This is true. Just gotta deal with whatever the consequences will be. Sucks that our relatives live in the same town and it ain't a large one. Guess i have to move away, basically.

>Seriously, dude. Don't prep. Just go. While she's sleeping, just grab the minimum set of things you need and get in your car and leave. You can go. She can pay for transportation. The practical consequences to you staying are that you continue to be miserable in a hoard of trash while being constantly berated. The practical consequences are that you feel worse and worse and stay stuck. Hell, honestly, she herself probably needs a kick in the ass, because this garbage hoarding and social media obsession and abusive behavior is bad for her too.
Take it from someone who has the same tendency: you're just avoiding the doing. And the doing is actually very straightforward.

I guess just leaving right NOW would feel way too reactionary. I got friday locked in my mind, so i'm gonna keep on building myself up for that. What's a few days more gonna do? And that way i can still prep stuff on the side.

>>34937308
>leaving right NOW would feel way too reactionary
You've been with her for nine years. You've been unhappy for several years. This is not sudden or reactionary.
At the end of the day I can't know if you're being honest with yourself with this commitment to leave Friday. If you are, fine, it'd be better to leave sooner, but fine. But you have to determine whether you're being honest with yourself. And I don't mean just in the sense that you're telling yourself you're committed, but that you have rational, honest belief in yourself when Friday rolls around, you'll leave.

>>34937675
How does sooner leaving be better at this point? Am i working with some type of special probabilities? An ever increasing force of second guessing?

>>34938134
Second guessing and delaying/avoidance disguised as prep. Again, if you are sincerely sure that you're being forthright and honest to yourself with your commitment and ability to leave on Friday, then that's great. But procrastination or setting future dates is sometimes just a way of relieving the pressure of taking the action, and if so it's very rarely any easier when the prescribed time comes.

>>34938155
Yeah. I kinda know of that in a meta kinda way. Hope it ain't that.

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I'll preface this with:
t. male, who got out of a 7 year relationship with a crazy angry BPD girl who was emotionally abusive towards me.

>>34903010
>When i talk about cleaning it all up by myself, she gets angry
this doesn't sound like a "you" problem.
>I do small, mainly logistic fixes every now and then but even they get her anxious.
she has major issues, get your shit and get out asap.
she's making you suffer so that she doesn't suffer but she doesn't do what she says and now you both suffer.
>>34903012
my brother in christ you do not have a problem, she has some serious emotional issues and you are, quite understandably, reluctant to interact with an angry crazy person.
>>34903014
oh wow I've never seen such projection, she's not exactly a narcissist but accusing someone else of being a narcissist while demanding he does things exactly her way, peak projection.
also that argument pattern is so fmailiar. you are dating a total bitch, i did too, you cannot win or even come out neutral. she will twist everything.
>>34903016
>whatever is exactly going on in this relationship, whoever started what, and no matter what i actually am (as far as diagnoses are concerned) i don't want to continue this relationship.
fuck yes. brilliant place to be.
>she has always talked me out of it.
you get your shit together, get out, and find your balls to say "you are insane and this is fucked now, it's over" and make a clean break, do not let her hang around or come back later or anything. get the fuck out right now and stop wasting your time.
>so i can in return give her the option to drop out of work instead
stop giving her options, this is the only real personal problem you have exhibited so far: you are too accommodating.
>So i have zero idea how i'm going to operate if she starts making reservations for it.
sounds like her problem.

1/2

2/2

>>34903018
>And i have a lot of arguments ready for if i have to somehow explain myself to my relatives or friends.
good idea but don't be on the defnsive like you;re doing something wrong YOU ARE DOING SOMETHING RIGHT. find your balls and stick to it no matter what because you know deep down this has gotten to a place which is too salvageable and ruined.
You can get your parents involved if you like but I strongly suggest you do not debate her, simply say here is how it is and it's over.
I had a back and forth and hanging on period with my ex, "on a break" and all that shit but eventually i just told her.
my ex was like
>"so that's it then? we're just over!?"
like she was so offended and angry with me, after she'd been so shitty, no ounce of apology or regret or remorse. anyways, she was an insane bitch and i 100% guarantee you the cleaner the break, the further you can get from her, the happier you will be. it will be like a weight off your back, you will sleep better than ever. you will be alive again.

to remind you;
t. broke up with my abusive bpd ex of 7 years and it was the best thing i ever did, should never have let it go on that long.

>>34903184
>Sadly the exact logistics are such that when we breakup i should still drive her to work for like a few months, or until i find a job. Otherwise she has to quit cause she can't go to work without a car(she doesn’t have a driver license. Furthermore, about 90-95 % of the clutter in my apartment is her stuff and she gets a fit if i touch them. If i just cleaned the place up alone she would probably lose her mind.
that's her problem and she is an insane bitch, reap what you sow. you need to be a little callous here, not spiteful but firm. the consequences of one's own actions can be a bitch but she is only avoiding them through you.

>>34903010
Im glad you suffer. It brings me much joy

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>>34940969
>that argument pattern is so fmailiar.

How much of your time was hell and how much of the time was it okay in your relationship? It's not all bad here, but the good doesn't outweigh the bad, and it hasn't for a long while. All the crazy shit is in my memory even when we have more peaceful moments. I know how the conflicts go when they happen, and they always eventually go there.

And the reality is always present that i have to constantly make choices that negatively affect my health, like taking part in these really stressful situations and constantly getting way less sleep than i want, because she gets by with less.


>>34940990
>find your balls and stick to it no matter what because you know deep down this has gotten to a place which is too salvageable and ruined.

Yup. This is exactly where i stand.


>I strongly suggest you do not debate her, simply say here is how it is and it's over.

Yeah, i've done that enough times. It's absurd and low-key disrespectful as hell. Sure, she got extra time with me by doing the things she did, like shaming and guilt-tripping me, but i always felt like a dog beaten into place afterwards.

Like, how far gone do i have to be to let someone else effectively deny me my decision to leave the relationship? And of course, by putting up with it, i was part of why it kept happening.


>t. broke up with my abusive bpd ex of 7 years and it was the best thing i ever did, should never have let it go on that long.

Great that you got out. Yeah. If i had just stuck to my guns on my first "try", we wouldn't have been together for like 4 to 5 years longer. Then again, the situation wasn't quite as bad back then, so that has been part of what drove me to prepare for this for the last year or so.

Heh, 7 or 9 years sounds like a pretty small amount of time when you just look at them as these tiny numbers. But it's a long time, and you are present in it every day.

>>34941175
>How much of your time was hell and how much of the time was it okay in your relationship?
it was about 50/50 but the half that wasn't hell was walking on eggshells all the time.
it wasn't all bad for me but the toll it took was not worth it.
>but the good doesn't outweigh the bad,
i should read ahead more haha
>And the reality is always present that i have to constantly make choices that negatively affect my health
yup i sacrificed so much and it wasn't fucking worth it. perfect metaphor for my relationship with my ex was she'd always want me to make her coffee, and the cup would be hot so if i passed it to her holding the handle, she'd get burned, so i'd hold it by the burning hot cup and hurt myself in order to pass her the handle of the cup, but then she'd grab the cup and burn herself anyways.
>i was part of why it kept happening.
yeah me too. it;s hard, i had to realise that i avoided problems, for whatever reason, her crazyness and threats of violence or escalation to fuck knows what, but also, because of my own stupid patterns. we have these pathological behaviour patterns and fighting them is the hardest thing you will ever do, but most rewarding. and necessary for you to ever be happy.

Good luck. Stick to your decision, and don't worry about the collateral damage too much, you've been worrying about other people for far too long.

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>>34941082

It's fine. All this suffering has been the punishment for not being strong enough. And until i learned my lesson, no reward of peace could come to me, nor was it deserved.

It's alright to feel joy at a kind of justice being delivered, repeatedly.

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>>34941201
escape the suffering.

>>34941201
No, im just glad a fucking tallfag who csn get a girlfriend is suffering. I hate how you niggers act like us short men dont exist because no women wants us. Its refreshing to see you get the pain of women too

>>34941213
Where on earth did you get that i'm tall? (I'm not)

>>34941225
Oh so you're a boomer then? No women chooses a young millenial or zoomer thats not tall. I apologize

>>34906209
I agree with the other anon, you should not be driving her around after this, you should not be doing anything for her. You owe her nothing, if you leave her she is no longer your responsibility. The worst thing you could do is drive her around for months. If she doesn't want you to leave she will eventually find a way to talk you back around. Ditch her completely, whatever happens next in her life is on her. It sounds like she's fucking up your whole life, you owe her nothing.

>>34941200
>>i was part of why it kept happening.
>yeah me too. it;s hard, i had to realise that i avoided problems, for whatever reason, her crazyness and threats of violence or escalation to fuck knows what, but also, because of my own stupid patterns. we have these pathological behaviour patterns and fighting them is the hardest thing you will ever do, but most rewarding. and necessary for you to ever be happy.

My issues are that i avoid conflict, fear what other people think about me, and don't want to hurt people. So that became a cage along with my habit of overanalyzing everything and my faulty belief that i could somehow talk my way out of this.

Before, i'd do all the work of thinking about what to say and when, only for her to undo it by getting emotional and refusing to accept the breakup. Partly she was genuinely emotional and in distress, and partly there was basically the threat of more conflict and the threat of being portrayed as a terrible person. So i always backed down.


>Good luck. Stick to your decision, and don't worry about the collateral damage too much, you've been worrying about other people for far too long

Thanks. I'm trying. Today i wrote down the reasons why i'm doing this again, just to calibrate myself better. A lot of these issues can't be solved by just trying again, and i don't want to spend any more energy or time on something like that, not anymore.

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>>34941251
> I agree with the other anon, you should not be driving her around after this, you should not be doing anything for her. You owe her nothing, if you leave her she is no longer your responsibility. The worst thing you could do is drive her around for months. If she doesn't want you to leave she will eventually find a way to talk you back around. Ditch her completely, whatever happens next in her life is on her. It sounds like she's fucking up your whole life, you owe her nothing.

Well, there are still the optics and my own sense of responsibility. She has been working while i've been unemployed for years, and i still don't have a job yet. So it wouldn't feel right to just leave her completely hanging dry immediately. And i know i fucked up her life too. As i've said, a lot of the blame is on me.

But the punishment for that isn't going to be trying to make the relationship work indefinitely. The relationship is over, and there will be no debate about that. If she tries to turn it into another debate this time, i'm going to get other people involved. That's my boundary, and i'm going to be clear about it.

And i am going to tell my parents that the relationship is over too. That's something i've never done before. At best i've just told them that we've had issues. I'm also going to tell them that she might "challenge" my decision, so they understand why i'm involving them.

As for helping her afterwards, i'm not saying i'm going to keep driving her around for months. When i find a job, the driving stops. I just don't want to go from
>i've been relying on her for years and she has been working while i've been unemployed
straight to
>you're on your own, not my problem anymore.

Sure, she can still throw me under the bus. But at least then i can say:
> Look, this is what i'm doing. The relationship is over, but i'm still doing my best to be fair and help where i reasonably can.

night bump

>>34942763
>My issues are that i avoid conflict, fear what other people think about me, and don't want to hurt people. So that became a cage along with my habit of overanalyzing everything and my faulty belief that i could somehow talk my way out of this.
hello me.
I'm the anon who got out of the 7 year relationship btw.
you gotta put yourself first for once and hurt people. take any bullshit they give you, like water off a duck's back, just got your shit together and get out as fast as humanly possible and for the love of all that is good in this world: make a clean break.
>Today i wrote down the reasons why i'm doing this again, just to calibrate myself better.
wise
>A lot of these issues can't be solved by just trying again, and i don't want to spend any more energy or time on something like that, not anymore.
i'm so excited for you. your life is about to begin. you are about to wake up, get unplugged form the matrix, whatever you want to say. i am happy for you finally getting out of the prison.

>>34942792
pay her cab fare if you must but don't let it drag on, don't let her be in your life, she will find any way to claw her way back and you will regret it because nothing will change.

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>>34944340
That’s what i'm still scared about. It's hard to do this fast cause the logistics are what they are. I'm still trying to somehow prepare myself... maybe next i'll read a bunch of difficult breakup stories that ended in a good way or something...

There's a lot to do until i can have peace, a lot of struggle still, even after the first talk. And that hasn't yet even happened. 2 days left to strengten the mind


>>34944344
>don't let it drag on, don't let her be in your life, she will find any way to claw her way back and you will regret it because nothing will change.

Yeah. I know. Have to stay strong

wake up bumb

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>>34944496
if you can't do it fast just make sure every step is closer to the goal you want, not the other way, never take a step backwards. this unfortunately, will be incredibly attractive to her but you need to remember what a relationship with her is like. she will not change ... it's me again btw, that 7 year relationship had a 6 month gap in the middle. i regret giving her a second chance more than anything else.
>There's a lot to do until i can have peace, a lot of struggle still, even after the first talk. And that hasn't yet even happened. 2 days left to strengten the mind
do not allow any other path to be chosen. there is only one path, even if it is long and difficult. just always be on that path, never delay for her though. she has delayed your entire life by what, 9 years? then the time it takes to heal afterwards. don't give her another minute longer than you have to. get your shit together and get as independent as you possibly can- personally, financially, your home, friends, everything. good luck anon.

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>>34945798

Thank you for your words of encouragement.

I'm thinking to myself right now that i've done a lot of work to get to this point, in the darkness. I'm not "just" gonna let myself down now if i fail. I'm gonna let down all the previous versions of me that have been doing the work during the last months, or even longer.

Months of work. Maybe years of it.

They are looking forward to me in the now to hold up my end of the contract. They look to me to push this broken machine until this day ends. And then the next me wakes up and pushes it until the next day. And then, on Friday, another me pushes the machine over the finish line.

It's not just me. It's a team i'm letting down if i don't do it. More like a huge fucking company worth of guys.

If i give up now, all that work was for nothing.

Gotta focus. Gotta dig in. Gotta keep pushing.

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TLDR

Answer on how to get out: just fucking leave or kick them out. Don't feel guilty about it, some people are inhuman and need to be treated.

>>34945872
>>>/wsg/6239868
>They are looking forward to me in the now to hold up my end of the contract. They look to me to push this broken machine until this day ends. And then the next me wakes up and pushes it until the next day. And then, on Friday, another me pushes the machine over the finish line.
accept only that future.

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umb (1)

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Thanks for everything

>>34950324
You got it, OP. Good luck, godspeed.

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>>34950324
keep going and try to make things better no matter what.

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>>34945921
>>34950356
>>34951541

Update. I want to share this with you before I go back into the darkness to continue the fight, because you helped me, even if this time it didn't work. I want to be honest with you, even if you don't really know me and I don't really know you. Stop reading here if you want a happy ending to this thread.

So, I got everything set up in the morning. I put some essential stuff I was planning to take with me somewhere I could grab it quickly. Yesterday I also did some quick maintenance on her bicycle in secret, so she would have a way of getting around. I backed up everything important to my cloud in case she takes her anger out on my computer, since it's something I can't quickly take with me without causing suspicion. I thought about what to take with me right now and what to take later. I even packed the things I was going to take with me into a bag. IT WAS RIGHT FUCKING THERE

The plan was to make a quick visit to the other apartment (her apartment), where our pet cat is located. I usually go there sometime in the late morning to feed our boi.

She started a conflict pretty soon after we got up and said I had been distant for the past two weeks (which was true, since I had been focused on my plan). This continued for approximately two hours.

Towards the end I started trying to get her to focus on the fact that I should go and take care of the cat at her apartment. My "exit plan" was to go there with most of the stuff I already needed, like charging cables, in my travel bag, use an hour or so to prepare myself mentally, and then come back to my apartment, grab the last few things I needed, send the breakup text to her and leave for my parents' place. (This way there wouldn't have been room for a debate)

Maybe she sensed something was up. She said she wanted to come with me, and said "It's probably not gonna be a problem, right?" I didn't want to cause suspicion, so I said "of course not".

...So i thought, hey, maybe I can still make this work. I just have to somehow do the mental preparation while she is there. It shouldn't be a problem if we're only there for an hour or two...

We were there for five hours.

When we were there she constantly tried to quickpeek at my phone to see what I was doing with it. She also continued the conflict from the morning, asking why I was so distant. This was the same thing she did yesterday too. At some point she tried to be nicer, and when that failed she went back to being hostile. And when that didn't work, back to nice again.

I thought it would all help fuel my decision. Like, look, it's like this now constantly: Someone not leaving me alone even when I ask them to, saying that the way I'm acting is narcissistic, getting anxious because something is up, and that anxiety then fueling her anger towards me.

It didn't help.

Eventually it was so late that it seemed "unoptimal" to execute the plan. She also brought up that we should go and spend the night at my parents' place tomorrow, since it had been many months since we had visited them.

Finally i folded.

I escaped the conflict and the unknown, yet again.

When I went to the market after that, I got myself a beer. I drank it a while ago while playing videogames and blasting some music through my headset, then gulped down a bit of whiskey and left to feed the cat again.

This alcohol crowns my failure.

Tomorrow I'm probably going to drink more than I should at my parents' place. They usually have plenty of alcohol available and my father often offers me some.

I'll keep moving forward, even after this setback. Looks like I wasn't prepared for everything.

Yeah, I hate to say that the guys guessing my failure were right this time. Sorry you had to see this.

I'm still in the gray hell of nothingness, but I'm going to try to find a way and a time, waiting for the door to open for my escape.

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So yeah. It's a failure. But I'll keep trying. I'll try to keep moving.

I'm thinking that the fact that I've spent so much time on this means at least that it's something I really want to do. I just wasn't ready enough to go through with it.

Maybe I've now taken half the steps. I got pretty close. Now I just gotta figure out what the other half of the journey is going to look like.

Sorry I let you and myself down.

I'll drink to that tomorrow.

>>34953009
>"It's probably not gonna be a problem, right?" I didn't want to cause suspicion, so I said "of course not".
>Eventually it was so late that it seemed "unoptimal" to execute the plan.
there's no "good" time to do this, just do it.
you are a fucking idiot, you know this right?
you should not have had any of that bullshit conversation, you should have just said. this is bullshit, this relationship is over.
Also stop drinking, keeps your head clearer. look, do whatever you want, but you know the truth now, lying to yourself and her for longer, only makes everything worse. just be honest, there is no "good time" just do it.

>>34953160
Of cource i know i'm an idiot.

She has ADHD and possibly other comorbidities and your relationship is codependent. Get out.

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I'm still gonna write something here, as it always takes me some time to get this stuff "fully out there". Talking about this isn't a lifeline, it's one of the tools in my toolbox. Making notes, observing, writing in these threads, it's all part of this process and project that I'm slowly moving forward with. Like one user said, always one step somehow closer. Constantly aligning myself a little better.

I've studied myself, this situation, and other things related to it. They give me a semblance of clarity. There are a bunch of concepts and keywords that help me make sense of things by recognizing similarities, at least. At least I'm still trying to dig deeper into myself and not just fight cardboard versions of events and people, like I feel she is doing.

I feel like I'm slowly moving towards something better, even if I'm also racking up these failures.

Yeah, all these words resonate: codependent, toxic, trauma bond, BPD, sunk cost fallacy, obsessive-compulsive disorder, autism, low self-worth. I've read up on them and on discussions where other people are dealing with similar problems.

I also read an interesting article about how differences between neurodivergent and neurotypical ways of processing things can sometimes make it seem like the other person is gaslighting you, or vice versa. That's a really fucked up thing to be aware of. But it also adds to how I see this situation: something might look like one thing while actually being something else. But whatever the explanation is, it's still a lot to deal with on a daily basis when a situation is as fucked up as this.

And whatever this is, I want to get myself to a place where I don't have to take part in it anymore. That's something i'm sure about.

I'm constantly pushing against my programming a bit. I feel like there is a clear wall in my mind that I'm punching against. Inertia.

Right now I'm working with these three focus points:

1. I'm becoming aware of a lot of things as I think, observe and write stuff down. It adds to my clarity bit by bit, BUT it also silently forces me into the role of a person who simply observes.

2. I try to do "physical stuff" that moves me forward too. Every day, or at least every few days, something changes in my environment or makes moving forward somehow easier. Like a few days ago I did some maintenance on a bike that hadn't been used in years. One week I spent all my free time figuring out the apartment and job situation in nearby towns for my future moving-out project.

3. The (BIG) mental side of making the decision to leave and dealing with its consequences.

Obviously, I'm not ready yet. And yes, at the same time I am aware that looking for that perfect readiness is also another type of rabbit hole.

Yes. I am also now working with this point in mind, too.

Ive got to call this out as attention seeking/bait/larp behavior.

You spent 2 weeks getting a cheerleading team supporting you and your over-wordy explanation of why you didn't execute your plan makes no sense.

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>>34955017

That is a fair point. Well, none of this is easy. Even after all the writing and mental work I've done, I can discuss this here or with an AI (I've also done some of the work with one of those during this year), but in the end I'm still the one who has to go through with it. No one else can do that part for me.

In many ways this all feels easier to understand now than it did before, but actually doing it is still a challenge. There is clearly still some work to do.

This is all a process, and the discussion and all the information I've gathered have been helpful.

I've saved the previous discussion to a folder. I come back to it every now and then and think about it. I'll save this one too.

And I'm thankful that you give me honest feedback as well. The good and the bad, all of it is useful to me.

I won't be here much longer.

>>34955587
Anon. There is no solution or process except doing it. You are avoiding the doing because you are allowing yourself to be ruled by fear and longing.
You've rationally concluded that this relationship is bad for you. Or, if you haven't, you need to recognize that.
Once you properly believe that this is bad for you you will leave.
If you think you'll be unable to wholly convince yourself then you need to just force your feet. Stop thinking about it, think only about your decision that the relationship is bad for you and suppress any other thoughts until you have physically left. You don't need to prepare, nor discuss, nor wait. You just need to move your feet.

>>34903010
OP, there’s a lot not adding up here. You don’t work? What the hell do you do all day? This sounds more like you get on venting but fearful that real people find out how low you’ve sunk.

>>34955610
> There is no solution or process except doing it.

Yeah. I know.


> You are avoiding the doing because you are allowing yourself to be ruled by fear and longing.

It's mostly fear. Fear of what she will do.

I looked at the situation many years ago and thought that, with the way things were going between us during conflicts, at some point something was going to happen. And it did.

Now she also threatens to press charges whenever I try to talk about breaking up, among other things. So I've had to prepare for that possibility too.

But yeah. At some point I just have to do it and deal with the consequences.


> You've rationally concluded that this relationship is bad for you. Or, if you haven't, you need to recognize that.

I have rationally concluded that, yes.


> Once you properly believe that this is bad for you you will leave.

Yeah. That's the part I'm still working on.


> If you think you'll be unable to wholly convince yourself then you need to just force your feet. Stop thinking about it, think only about your decision that the relationship is bad for you and suppress any other thoughts until you have physically left. You don't need to prepare, nor discuss, nor wait. You just need to move your feet.

Yeah. I know.

>>34956383
>OP, there’s a lot not adding up here. You don’t work? What the hell do you do all day?

I talk about that here:
>>34925362

She doesn’t work full days, and when she isn't at work we spent pretty much all of that time together. Previously i mostly just... ran from reality. I would survive day to day until i "activated" for a few weeks, worked on the problem, and then went back to surviving. Now i've been working on this for months, and I'm still not stopping.

As for my unemployment: she doesn't have a driver's license, but she does have a car. At first it was just "i don't have a job yet, so of course i can drive you to work." Eventually it turned into her basically being unable to get to work without me driving her. She has literally told me that on numerous occasions.

We get by on her paycheck+the welfare i get. But if she quits working, she won't get the same amount of welfare i do, because of her health and apartment situation. So there's also pressure on me to instantly find a reasonably well-paying job after being unemployed for years.

I also got stuck mentally for years on the idea that if i finally had a job, i'd come home from one job to another. I need some time alone to unwind, and we did try to make room for that in the evenings for years, when my friends also have free time, but it always seemed way more complicated than it should have been. I've been pretty isolated for years because of all this.

Now I'm at the point where I'm trying to find a job and break up. Funnily enough, that was my plan when i first talked about breaking up years ago: get a job and pay her back. She strongly opposed the breakup and i backed down, and we've now spent another 4–5 years trying to make this work.

...And i still want to break up. I always come back to it eventually. Now i have been thinking about it for months, constantly.

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>>34956383
>This sounds more like you get on venting but fearful that real people find out how low you’ve sunk.


Well, there are two sides to this. I'm alone and i can't really talk about this with my relatives or friends, so yeah, i do get some mental support from talking here. But the advice is also genuinely helping me.

On the other part, you are absolutely right. I DO fear it. I've always been insecure and reclusive, and getting bullied in school all the way into adulthood didn't exactly help with that.

When things are good, my gf sees me as her soulmate. When things go bad, which happens pretty often, she sees me as some narcissistic demon who gets something out of tormenting her.

When i've talked about breaking up before, she's said things like:
>surely you are not this kind of person
>surely you are not doing this to me?
>i'm going to be so broken after you that i'll never be able to find another man again. My life is ruined.
>i'm not going to protect you anymore or keep what you've done a secret. If you go through with this, i'm going to tell everyone how sick you are!

So it's not that i don't know what to do. It's that i'm still afraid of what happens after i do it. I'm trying to build up the courage to face that.

I'm also scared that she might hurt herself. She has threatened different things over the years, and i genuinely don't know what she might do when i finally leave.

And i have to admit, sometimes i don't even really know what i am anymore. The things she says about me come with such certainty and are repeated so often that sometimes i start questioning myself. I can only imagine how all of this would sound to her parents and friends.

But i've never threatened her with anything like what she has threatened me with. Never.

I still see this more as two people who tried to make a bad relationship work for far too long. But i'm alone in that too.

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I wish i had stopped this way earlier, before it came to this. Wish i was smarter. Years ago. Looking back, the situation has only gotten worse over the last few years, and i kinda knew it would.

Before, our arguments would sometimes "only" leave me sweating, cold and shaky, with dry mouth and anxiety. But during the last few weeks i've also started getting numbness in my left hand during her rants. Maybe it's just stress or something in my head, but i'm starting to worry that it's a real physical symptom and that something is wrong. I don't know if listening to someone go off on me can actually cause something like a stroke, but i'm starting to think i'm not going to wait around and find out.

I've told her that i can't take much more, even though i know i've contributed to this current situation too. Like before, she seems unable to stop herself once she gets going. She demands that i act and talk in a certain way to show that i'm sorry, and i'm unable to do that in the middle of it, so it keeps going. Things are relatively peaceful atm, but she has now often threatened to stay angry with me all next week if i don't say sorry properly. I have no idea what the fuck she wants from me.

At this point, i wouldn't like to "just leave", but it might come down to it.

Fuck, i wish i had done what i planned to do on friday. Now i'm clearly seeing the consequences of not doing it. We had problems yesterday and today too. The waters are even murkier now than they were on friday. It's much worse now.

I just hope she calms down soon. When i told her about my hand, she said it's yet another attempt by a narcissist to take control of the situation. I don't know how to reason with her anymore.

>>34957968
OP, if advice and encouragement from anons isn't enough, talk to someone in real life who you trust. Your mom or dad, if they fit. It sounds like you need someone to grab you and physically shake some sense into you.
You are getting stuck in repetitive, maladaptive emotional and thought patterns. This is typical of people in difficult interpersonal situations. It is also what is keeping you in this situation.
How often do you even leave your apartment?

>>34958031
>OP, if advice and encouragement from anons isn't enough, talk to someone in real life who you trust. Your mom or dad, if they fit.

I don't want this to turn into a he-said-she-said situation between two families, but i kinda feel like she's forcing me into that. I don't want any more conflict. I'm at my limit... Yet i might have to involve my family and risk starting a war just to get myself out of this.


>It sounds like you need someone to grab you and physically shake some sense into you.

The stuff that's happening right now is kinda doing that. I knew it could come to this, and here i am. A lot of bad things are happening with a pretty predictable consistency.


>You are getting stuck in repetitive, maladaptive emotional and thought patterns. This is typical of people in difficult interpersonal situations. It is also what is keeping you in this situation. How often do you even leave your apartment?

I see my family and friends a few times a year, if that's what you're asking. I saw my parents for like the fourth time this year just now. I've seen my friends twice. I get out of the apartment a few times a day, but it's mainly to run errands, like taking care of the cat or getting groceries.

>>34903152
The parenthesis literally change that section to where your joke doesn't work as well.

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I should have done what i was planning on Friday.

Today, the situation escalated. I was physically prevented from leaving and i had to call my mom because i didn't want to call the police. Somehow i got out. I called my dad too, and then i was away from the situation for an hour or two.

I have no idea what calls were made while i was gone. My dad called me back just now. Apparently, a few of those calls, and how the situation sounded over the phone (it sounded bad because it was bad), have basically brought him to the same conclusion as my gf.

That i might be a narcissist and should just calm down and go back to her. He also says we have at least one narcissist in the family, that "maybe i should look the condition up" and take a look in the mirror instead of just blaming someone else. I tried to tell him that i've been doing exactly that, but he didn't seem to believe me.

That call was like a gut punch. I thought i could rely on my parents. Now i feel utterly alone.

My parents and my gf seem to think i should just go back. I just can't.

And i thought i could rely on my parents. They have no fucking idea how things have been for years. How the hell am i supposed to explain all of this to them now?

I have no idea.

I feel so defeated. I thought i had a good plan.

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My dad called again just now.

"Go back to her and apologize."

I guess i will do that, for now. I still want to do this in a way that isn't so reactive, rather than just leaving with doors slamming behind me. Or something. I don't know what the fuck i'm doing or why right now.

I guess i can keep dealing with this for a few more days.

I suppose it's a good thing to know that i'm probably alone in this decision and that i might have to defend it to my parents. At the same time, i'm starting to think i really don't need to defend it. They can't (obviously) force me to spend more of my life in a relationship like this if i don't want to.

...Actually, it's probably a good thing to know where my parents stand on this. Imagine if i had gone there on Friday without knowing that they thought breaking up was a bad idea.

The more i think about it, the better this situation actually is. If only i didn't feel so emotionally beaten down right now.

But i guess i can just man through this.

Just a few more days.

Just a fucking FEW MORE days.

>>34960694
A few more days until what, man?
Look, if your parents aren't on your side, that sucks.
But ultimately you are a grown man with your own apartment. Leaving was one option that is now bad, probably, because you don't have anywhere to leave to.
That simplifies things. You need to throw out her trash and kick her out. Talk to your landlord, because you are the one on the lease, and have him change the locks. Tell him you need it done at a specific time and on that same day get her stuff out of your apartment. While she's at work.
What you need to man through is asserting yourself and just doing shit that needs to be done. Including working. How do you pay for your apartment, is it from your own money or is it from someone else's?

>>34961131
>A few more days until what, man?

My gf goes back to work, so i don't have to make my escape while she's right there. That's what happened last friday. My dad also said something has come up at their end, and they're doing a normal workweek, so i don't want to drop a bomb in the middle of it.

Leaving is still what i think i need to do, and i need to tell them that i don't want to continue the relationship, (regardless of whether i'm a narcissist or not.)

Someone said in the previous thread that i should figure out like 3 things that i can easily defend no matter what, basically things i don't want to be forced to take part in ever again. Those won't be hard to write down.


>Look, if your parents aren't on your side, that sucks.

Yeah, it sucks. My gf thought that made me angry. I told her i'm not angry, just sad.

But them basically "taking her side" based on a few phone calls was also useful in a weird way.

A) They haven't got a clue what's actually going on, and i don't hold that against them. I'm not even angry at my gf. When i really think about what happened, it doesn't surprise me that this is where we ended up.

B) They still might take her side because they don't know what life at the apartment is actually like, what our day-to-day looks like, or what our conflicts look like. And i'm still not feeling good about telling them all of that.

C) It made me think about this situation even more. I need to get to a point where they can't talk me out of it(I'm actually already there), even if my gf calls them. Which she just said she might do the next time we have an argument, because in her mind the door is now open to my parents since "i opened it" by calling them.

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>But ultimately you are a grown man with your own apartment

Exactly. Nobody really knows what goes on in my life, and most people probably don't give a fuck. And they shouldn't have to

I called my parents because i needed help. It was basically a reflex, because i obviously still didn't want to call the police. In hindsight, involving them like that was a bad move and it made the situation worse. My mom also literally said on the phone, "well, you're miles away, i'm just leaving for work, and you're there, what can we do?"

Somehow my gf saw the phone call as some kind of narcissistic power move and still sees it that way, even after i tried to explain what happened a few hours ago when i got back. That only made her angrier, so i stopped trying.


>What you need to man through is asserting yourself and just doing shit that needs to be done. Including working.

This is exactly where i'm at

It's like, okay, so i'm just gonna go back to the doghouse and basically give away my freedom and any possibility of a peaceful life just because my gf and parents think i should?

That's absurd.

If i tell my parents, her parents and my gf that the relationship is over, what the fuck can any of them actually do? Threaten me? With what?

Can they force me to continue a relationship because otherwise she'll tell the police? Can they force me to stay in a relationship that's making me unwell because maybe it's all just a misunderstanding and my brain is firing wrong?

What does that even lead to? My gf writes down how she sees me, i take it to a doctor and say "yup, it do be like that", and then i let everyone else decide what i'm supposed to do with my life?

The more i think about it, the more absurd this all seems.

I'm not doing that.

Somebody has to stop this, and ultimately that person has to be me.

Oh... and i pay rent with welfare money. I'm trying to find a job atm and that is my goal no matter what happens

>>34961131 #
>Leaving was one option that is now bad, probably, because you don't have anywhere to leave to. That simplifies things. You need to throw out her trash and kick her out. Talk to your landlord, because you are the one on the lease, and have him change the locks. Tell him you need it done at a specific time and on that same day get her stuff out of your apartment. While she's at work.

I think i can still leave for my parents for a day or two.

But there is too much trash and stuff to sort through, i can't just get the apartment cleared while my gf is at work. I guess i don't really even have to.

>>34961566
>>34961580
>>34961597
If you've got enough of your own money then the point isn't to sort through her stuff it's to literally bag it up and throw it out, so all of her stuff is off your property and she has zero grounds to enter. Home depot, contractor bags and heavy duty gloves, it's a few hours of manual labor. If it's worse than a few hours worth, genuinely, then you have an impending problem in that the apartment you rent is likely being damaged by pests and decay.
There's nothing basically wrong with waiting a few days for the right logistical circumstances unless it's another instance of avoidance.

Whether you leave or throw her out is up to you but if you leave you're gonna have to tell your parents what's going on with the trash and verbal abuse. I'm not sure how much I trust them given your dad latched onto gf's narcissism narrative so easily.

But yes, you're right, there's nothing anyone else can do. Not you parents, not your gf, not a doctor.
The only concern I'd have is if she accuses you of domestic violence and gets the cops involved herself. You should document, photographically, the trash, screenshot/archive messages, maybe even try to audio record one of your arguments by preemptively setting your phone to record, before she comes home, and keeping it in your pocket or something, turning it off only when you're alone again. And also possibly write up an email concerning the issues and events that you can send to a personal therapist, doctor, or attorney (assuming there's no friend or family with whom you'd be comfortable sharing certain info). If you're not concerned about such accusations, though, then that would be unnecessary.

>>34961717
>If it's worse than a few hours worth, genuinely, then you have an impending problem in that the apartment you rent is likely being damaged by pests and decay.
>There's nothing basically wrong with waiting a few days for the right logistical circumstances unless it's another instance of avoidance.

Yeah. Well, it is worse than a few hours. I can only hope there isn't any permanent damage.


>Whether you leave or throw her out is up to you but if you leave you're gonna have to tell your parents what's going on with the trash and verbal abuse. I'm not sure how much i trust them given your dad latched onto gf's narcissism narrative so easily.

Yeah. Sadly, i can't leave them much else than a bed i can sleep on for a night or two. I'm preparing for an absurd "war" where i have to defend my decision to end the relationship. At this point i don't really care what the fuck i have to do.


> But yes, you're right, there's nothing anyone else can do. Not you parents, not your gf, not a doctor.
> The only concern I'd have is if she accuses you of domestic violence and gets the cops involved herself...
>If you're not concerned about such accusations, though, then that would be unnecessary.

Yup. Well, sadly, at this point it would be insane not to be concerned about that. I'm just gonna say that i've taken some precautions and leave it at that.

Update: Dad called first thing in the morning and said basically the same things as yesterday. Gf told me yesterday was all my fault and that i should stop being so selfish and basically get back in line. I have said that i really deeply regret what happened yesterday, and i do.

I also regret that if i had just left last Friday, everything would have been much easier in a way. Now i know that when i get to the breakup conversation, she is probably going to do the same thing she does every time: get caught up in extreme feelings of sadness, anger and fear, "go for the door" she now sees open, call my dad or mom and try to get them to talk me out of it, cry and say that i'm emotionally abusing her or something.

It feels like she can't separate "i feel terrible because something terrible is happening" from "someone is intentionally causing me emotional pain", which is not what i'm doing.

So a conversation that should essentially be pretty simple is getting forced into something much more complicated because she reacts so strongly to the possibility of me leaving.

She asks me how she can know she can go to work in peace when she has no idea what i'm going to do, and i can't exactly tell her the full truth. The truth is basically "you are unable to talk about a breakup without it turning into a huge conflict, so what else can i do except make preparations without telling you?"

I've been away from my apartment for an hour and she has already called me a few times to make sure i'm not scheming anything.

I'm now just trying to figure out what i tell to who and when.

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I want to talk to my friends, but some of them are pretty close to her relatives. On the other hand, i fear that once the ball starts rolling, "her side" gets to them first, and then i'm in the same situation i am with my father now, or worse.

Selfish or not, i don't want to lose the only friends i have.

It was never my intention to talk about all this shit with my friends and family. I really wanted to somehow deal with it between the two of us. But i don't know what happens now. I'm second guessing even my friends at this point.

If my father is going to think something like that about me based on just a few phone calls and one bad situation, what will her relatives think? And what will they tell my friends?

If we were dealing with one shared version of the truth, it wouldn't be so bad. But as i've said, one of our core problems is that we see what is happening in two completely different ways.

So where exactly does this situation go if i'm completely honest about how i see it?

Don't know.

How much will she say?

Don't know.

Will people understand, or will they just think i'm some kind of monster who blames everyone else?

Don't know.

My father seemed sure that he knew exactly what was going on, while i just don't see the situation as clearly as he does. He thinks relationships need work and that i should just man up and keep trying.

And what can i even say to that without going to the huge details? That i've been self-regulating constantly and that life has been extremely stressful for the last year? That i sought help when this whole chapter started? That i've tried to get away from a stressful situation and someone has physically prevented me from leaving, and that this has happened way too many times?

I don't think it's unreasonable at this point to want this relationship to end. But i already feel like i'm alone in that decision.

I guess i am.

And i shouldn't have to defend myself for wanting to end my own relationship.

Btw. Sorry i'm being so verbose here. I don't have anyone else to talk to right now. I'm still trying to find an option where i don't have to tell everyone everything that is going on.

That was my plan on Friday.

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...And now my gf called and we actually had a nice conversation. She said my mom had called her and they had a good talk about the situation, and that everything is fine now.

She also basically did some damage control and said the truth: that things rarely get as bad as they did yesterday. My mom said my dad had slept badly last night, and hearing that made me sad.

My gf said that it would probably be better to just lay low for a while and try to get along peacefully. She also said that maybe i should go to therapy about my anger issues, and that we should just try to get along better.

She gave me the impression that she doesn't want to get other people involved or talk badly about me. I said i agreed and understood. I guess i'm going to believe her when she says that.

She herself said, "surely we can resolve our differences like adults." I said i sure hope so.

What i didn't say is that i don't really want this relationship to continue anymore, and i'm getting to the point where i don't really care what everyone except me thinks about that.

Like, yeah, i want peace. I don't want to fight anymore, and i don't want to get anyone else involved either. But at the same time i'm still trying to figure out what the solution is going to look like.

I regret calling my parents A LOT. It was a bad move. But it's not like i did it after carefully thinking it through. It was an extreme moment and i just wanted to get out.

I drank again yesterday, so maybe that's why i feel weird today. I guess it could also "just" be this whole situation.

bumbing while making food

Night bumb

>>34965227
Make your peace, man, preferably without alcohol but you know you better.
Regarding your friends and family, just get your story straight and in writing. Maybe even multiple levels of detail so you have multiple references depending on how much you want to share with certain people. All you can do is be honest and hold your head high. The people who aren't worth it will excuse themselves from your life. I know that's not easy. It's even a bit hypocritical of me to say, I've let my relationships and fear of relationships ending impact me very negatively.
I think the issue with your parents is that they've probably come to see her as a de facto daughter in law, given the length of your relationship. But that's not a reason to sacrifice your own wellbeing.
I'm glad that things are a little calmer right now. Not great that you're still being blamed for anger issues and narcissism, but acute calmness is much better than constant fraughtness. Is there anything besides the arguments that she's citing to support this claim?

>>34963563
Bro, what country do you live in?

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>>34965246
>Make your peace, man, preferably without alcohol but you know you better.

Yeah. At first i thought it was just a kind of joke. Like, heh, here's a loser dealing with his problems by drinking.

But maybe i should just stop playing with that. I don't usually drink much at all, mostly only on special occasions. Now i've drank 4–5 times during the last 7 days to the point where i've always had a slight hangover the next day. That's clearly not a good direction.


>Regarding your friends and family, just get your story straight and in writing. Maybe even multiple levels of detail so you have multiple references depending on how much you want to share with certain people. All you can do is be honest and hold your head high. The people who aren't worth it will excuse themselves from your life.

Yeah. Maybe that's the way to go. I still don't want everything to come out. But there are clearly different levels to this. Common sense says i shouldn't have to tell them everything, just enough for them to understand why i'm making this decision. I need to figure out what that "enough" actually is.


>I know that's not easy. It's even a bit hypocritical of me to say, I've let my relationships and fear of relationships ending impact me very negatively.

It's not hypocritical. Learning from other people's mistakes is a rare gift. And someone with some distance from a situation can usually give sound advice to someone who's in the middle of it. It's hard to see the exact size of the forest when you're standing in the middle of it.

You seem to understand just how bad this situation is. I do too. The decision still isn't easy.

>>cont
>I think the issue with your parents is that they've probably come to see her as a de facto daughter-in-law, given the length of your relationship. But that's not a reason to sacrifice your own wellbeing

Yeah. Plus, right now they only know four things:
>My gf and i have always seemed okay when we've been at their place
>Then suddenly there was this new situation where i apparently looked insane and my gf looked like the victim
>My mom called my gf, and she tried to explain the situation and smooth things over as best she could
>My mom and dad then talked to each other based on those two calls and made their own assumptions

...And here we are. I'm now seen as someone who might be mentally unwell and need therapy or even meds

And in some ways they're half right


>I'm glad that things are a little calmer right now. Not great that you're still being blamed for anger issues and narcissism, but acute calmness is much better than constant fraughtness. Is there anything besides the arguments that she's citing to support this claim?

I can only explain how i see this situation, and then try to explain how i understand she sees it. I'm genuinely trying to understand how we've ended up here

The short version is that we've had a lot of problems, and a lot of them have been caused by me. I admit that

For many years, I've suspected that i might be autistic. Over 10 years ago, before this relationship, i went through another period of depression and saw a doctor. I started a process to figure out what was going on, and the preliminary results suggested that i might be autistic. I foolishly stopped the process once i started feeling better and found a job. I also didn't want the process to become an issue for my boss

My gf is neurotypical, has dealt with some depression herself, and has had at least one person she considered narcissistic in her wider circle. Things between us had already been escalating for years before this last year, which has been the hardest

>>cont

I've:
>said stupid things about her appearance early in the relationship
>tried to break up more than once
>tried to logically explain things that happened during arguments or afterwards, which usually makes her angry because she feels i'm avoiding responsibility
>often shut down during arguments, either trying to explain my side, answering with only a few words, or asking her to stop and calm down
>often reached the point where i just want to escape the situation and get outside

She sees my avoidance as arrogance and, during the last year, as narcissism.

From my perspective, she:
>has a very high volume of communication at the start of a conflict, which can quickly turn into a wall of text or hours of talking
>gets increasingly angry and seems unable to stop unless i do something very specific that she wants, such as hugging her, acting as if i'm okay when i'm not, or taking full responsibility for something even when i don't agree with her interpretation
>sees me trying to leave the apartment during an argument as another attempt by a narcissist to dominate the situation

So there is a pretty fundamental difference in how we interpret the same events.

And i don't think either of us is capable of resolving that difference anymore.

I've also started getting physical symptoms during these arguments. Previously my left hand would sometimes go numb. Today i felt numbness on the left side of my face as well. I checked that i could still smile normally, and i could.

I've told her about it. She says it's another attempt to make the situation about myself, possibly a narcissistic attempt to take control of the situation.

I don't know what these symptoms are. I don't know what i am anymore, either. But i do know that i feel like i don't have a safe place left to go.

If i try to rely on my parents, i'm afraid they'll conclude that i've simply lost my mind. I feel weird a lot lately, and i'm obviously not handling this situation well.

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>>cont

I'm not crazy, or at least i don't think i am. I'm an adult who doesn't want to spend the rest of his life trying to make a long, stressful relationship work. I also don't want to live in an apartment full of trash.

But ending the relationship now feels almost impossible from every angle. And what happened on monday made the situation much worse.

I talked a big game about going to my parents, but maybe i shouldn't do that right now. They seem compromised, and my dad has had a rough year. I feel bad for stressing them out like i did.

My gf also still says she doesn't want to get other people involved. So i guess i'm going to try to approach this through some more official channels, outside my family. I'll look into a crisis centre as soon as i can, and i'll get the numbness checked by a doctor.

I'm afraid that if i talk to my parents and they refuse to see my side and talk down to me like my dad already did, i'm going to lose my temper. I need to get to a point where i'm calmer, but that's difficult right now.

My gf has been trying to be nicer to me outside the spikes of criticism and anger, and she constantly asks me if i'm okay. I lie and say everything is fine and that we just need to try to carry on.

But i don't want to carry on.

I dream that a year from now i'll live somewhere far away, alone and in peace, have a job, and send my gf money so she can focus on her own life and mental health instead of getting burned out at work.

Other than that, we'll be separate. I'm trying to fight my way towards that future.

This day has been hard. I feel weird. At one point earlier today, it felt like my eyes must have looked like a madman's, way too wide open. (Not the first time this year.)

I know another conflict could start at any moment, and i can't make it stop.

>>34903010
Please don't break up with her. It's not right, y'all need eachother.

>>34967337
>long, stressful relationship work
First of all, you should admit to yourself that you are in an abusive relationship. Not stressful. Abusive.
Your gf was doing just fine before she met you and before your lived together. Once you were invested enough to not immediately escape, she then initiated and purposely escalated her bahviours, always testing the next boundary before crossing it. This is a classical pattern of abuse.
If you have any doubts, she openly admitted it do you:
>a thing to her cause she gets a sense of control in a relationship
Those are keywords that mark out an abuser. this whole thing is about controlling you. Abuse does not necessarily show itself as tyranny and violence, even though angry outbursts are part of her pattern:
>When i talk about cleaning it all up by myself, she gets angry. Says she must be the one to do it, and she might get a nervous breakdown if i did something to it.
Again, abusive behaviour.
>the apartment is in such a state that we can’t realistically invite anyone in.
Isoltaing you from contacts other than herself: Classic abusive behaviour.
Now for your part:
>I'm not crazy, or at least i don't think i am.
This is true, but something in your psychological makeup made you vulnerable to her pattern of abuse, and finding out what it is will make everything vastly easier. I strongly recommend therapeutic guidance ASAP, because breaking free will not easy. You still cloing to the idea that you are respsonsible for her life, and somehow to blame. Even though your gf apparently did perfectly fine on her own before she started her behaviours.
This is necessary, because the moment you shows signs of breaking free, she will ramp up everything to eleven. Already shes got you to where you feel obligated to server her a s a driver, and she will use this to spring all kinds of crises, outbursts and meltdowns on you to fel like the worst person in the world.
Get professional help.

>>34967302
To reiterate on my prior post, a great example. You really need someone to examine with you why in all of the world you are putting blame on yourself.
>often reached the point where i just want to escape the situation and get outside
Yes, because some part of yourself is realizing what is going on. Listen to it, for your own lifes sake!
>gets increasingly angry and seems unable to stop unless i do something very specific that she wants, such as hugging her, acting as if i'm okay when i'm not, or taking full responsibility for something even when i don't agree with her interpretation
If a man was beating his woman until she does what he wants, what would you call that?
>sees me trying to leave the apartment during an argument as another attempt by a narcissist to dominate the situation
You shoudl leave and never return. Seriously. Though I get that you may not be ready for that yet.
>I've also started getting physical symptoms during these arguments.
Look up "psychosomatic symptoms". This is your body telling you to get the fuck out, and that you have already gone way beyond the point at which this can go on.
Ideally you walk out of that apartment, block her everywhere, and never ever speak another word to that woman ever again.

>>34967416

Well, the first years of the relationship were relatively normal. The trash/cleaning issues started when i went back to school to study for a new profession. I became so exhausted that i wasn't much of a boyfriend during that time, more like a zombie who would fall asleep at the dinner table. I think the combination of school and having basically no designated free time burned me out within a week, and then i stayed in that state for months.

The school eventually ended, but our relationship never really recovered. Things have slowly gotten worse over the years since then.

>When i talk about cleaning it all up by myself, she gets angry. She says she has to be the one to do it, and that she might have a nervous breakdown if I did anything to it.
>Again, abusive behaviour.

I still think it's some kind of OCD-related issue. She counts things (1, 2, 3) with faucets and doors, for example. When she sorts the trash, she needs silence at the beginning, otherwise she can become extremely distressed and has to start the whole thing over.

I've also always had self-esteem issues too, so i've contributed my own problems to the relationship. I understand that she hasn't felt secure for a long time, and some of that is on me.

But i do understand where you're coming from. Whatever the exact explanation for all of this is, i still think i need to get out, and at this point i don't think i can do it without professional help.

>>34967416
>Now for your part:
>I'm not crazy, or at least i don't think i am.
>This is true, but something in your psychological makeup made you vulnerable to her pattern of abuse, and finding out what it is will make everything vastly easier. I strongly recommend therapeutic guidance ASAP, because breaking free will not be easy. You still cling to the idea that you are responsible for her life, and somehow to blame. Even though your gf apparently did perfectly fine on her own before she started her behaviours.
>This is necessary, because the moment you show signs of breaking free, she will ramp up everything to eleven. Already she's got you to where you feel obligated to serve her as a driver, and she will use this to spring all kinds of crises, outbursts and meltdowns on you to make you feel like the worst person in the world.
>Get professional help.

I'm going to. It feels like nothing else is left.

And now there's a real possibility that she'll call my parents if i try to do what my original plan was. Then they'll call me and tell me to calm down and "stop abusing her". I really don't want this to turn into some absurd situation where it's me on one side and my gf and parents on the other.

I suppose part of my problem is that (and my gf would probably laugh out loud if i said this) i'm "too empathetic" , and i'm terrible at dealing with conflict. When i see how badly she feels during those breakup situations, i end up throwing my own feelings and thoughts in the trash.

I also overanalyze everything. I've spent years trying to figure out the perfect way to have this breakup conversation, just the two of us, in a way that would make her understand. Only a few months ago did i finally realize that she may never understand or accept it, and that's been a really tough pill to swallow.

I've spent nine years with this person. I don't want it to end in a huge conflict, but at this point it feels like it might.

>>34967423
>If a man was beating his woman until she does what he wants, what would you call that?

Yeah. I get what you mean. It's not a normal or healthy dynamic in any way.

>You should leave and never return. Seriously. Though I get that you may not be ready for that yet.
>I've also started getting physical symptoms during these arguments.
>Look up "psychosomatic symptoms". This is your body telling you to get the fuck out, and that you have already gone way beyond the point at which this can go on.
>Ideally you walk out of that apartment, block her everywhere, and never ever speak another word to that woman ever again.

As i said, i can't just walk out and assume the situation will resolve itself. If, for example, i leave for a few days and tell her to take her essential things and go back to her apartment and get the kitchen cleaned up so she can live there again... i have very little reason to believe she won't still be at my apartment when i come back, begging me to try to work things out.

And yes, i know i'm partly responsible for that pattern. The first time i tried to leave, i should have prepared better and actually followed through. Instead, i folded. Then it happened again, and again. From her perspective, my previous attempts probably don't mean much anymore because i've repeatedly backed down.

And yeah, i understand that my symptoms might "just" be psychosomatic. They're still pretty scary, even if i can rationalize them as possibly being caused by stress.

>>34903184
>Can't do it alone
yes you can, retard
if you cleaned for even 30 minutes a day, your apartment would be spotless after a couple months

>>34967552
Anon I’m sorry. You have learned helplessness (a VERY common pattern amongst autistic people) and need to get rid of “baby elephant thinking”
>back in the day, to circus uses to chain elephants to trees, problem being, elephants can easily uproot or knock down most trees in America
>soltiion, tie up the elephants as babies. They pull and pull, but tree doesn’t come down. Elephant “learns” that they can’t do anything.
>so even when they’re full grown and strong AF, they don’t pull anymore

You are the baby elephant rn. You don’t think you could leave as you were trained not to do it as angry emotions/conflict scare you (this is VERY bad, regardless of gender). You need to realize you are sting enough to pull down the tree.
As soon as you leave, call attny or a legal help organization stat so you are represented if shit goes sideways
>not legal advice.

Also
>im autistic and it took me a long time to get over this too.

>>34967570

80–90% of it is her stuff and her trash. But yeah, you're partially right. Right now i'm trying to clean up a little every day, focusing on the things i can sort out by myself.

The problem is that i'm pretty burned out from all of this. I'm not operating anywhere close to my normal level right now, too much stress, too little sleep, and the whole task often feels overwhelming. Some days i simply can't get much done, even when i'm alone.

I'm still trying to make steady progress, though.

>>34967613

Yeah. I actually kinda... know that i'm dealing with this. I'm trying to break through it. But you putting a name to it again helps me recalibrate and see the bigger picture. Thanks.

There are so many things to juggle at the same time that i often lose sight of the overall pattern. Sometimes i need someone to point at one piece of it and remind me how it fits into the bigger picture.

>>34967529
And here you are, blaming yourself liek the classical abuse victim.
>i wasn't much of a boyfriend during that time
A healthy relationship means that your partner would you during that time, not lambast about the dancing monkey not dancing enough.
>I still think it's some kind of OCD-related issue.
Its a "crazy bitch" issue, and its not your problem. Any thought on it is a wasted one.
>>34967543
>she'll call my parents if i try to do what my original plan was. Then they'll call me and tell me to calm down and "stop abusing her".
They will fucking what? You can already see the root cause for your problem right here. Because parents taking a random gfs ykking over their own felsh and blood is highly unusual, to say the least. This isn't the first time they've blamed you for other peoples problems, isn't it?
The second question you really, really need to ask yourself is why the fuck she has their phone number, and why the fuck your parents are this involved in your life while you are in your late 30s.
>I've spent nine years with this person.
The sunk cost fallacy is a bitch. How many more years do you want to lose?
>>34967552
>i can't just walk out
You can.
>assume the situation will resolve itself
It is resolved the scond you stop making her problems your own.
>she won't still be at my apartment when i come back, begging me to try to work things out.
In that case a restraining order will sort her out effectively. Ideally you report the whole situation to your local authorities, the state of the apartment and angry outbursts may just be enough to qualify as endangerment and see her in the caring hands of Psychiatrists for the foreseeable future. Which would be the best outcome. Really depends on your countries laws though.

>>34967337
It sounds like you have what start as normal issues that escalate because she gets emotionally hyperactivated and you get emotionally overwhelmed. You shut down form overwhelm, she interprets that as ignoring her feelings. Which is why she pegs you as a narcissist: she's interpreting your overwhelm as self absorption. I don't know whether this is pathological autism from you or pathological BPD/OCD from her or a non pathological incompatibility, but regardless it seems like the main issue is there, in how you two manage emotions and communicate.
Explaining to her that you get overwhelmed and physically cannot handle it when she yells and screams might help. Might not, if she's determined to peg you the narcissist. If I thought this were worth trying to make work, I'd say to tell her that you want to help and understand her but that when she pushes and yells it hurts too much for you to engage. That you leave not because you don't care but because you *do* care; you're not indifferent, you wouldn't be hurting if you were indifferent to her feelings. That tells her you are still centering her feelings but also need her to think about yours. However, with this particular girl, it's too late. Might still help to tell her that if you get into an argument in the coming days and need a reprieve.
For your part, if you are autistic, there might be subtle emotional things and tells you're not noticing and you might be frustrating her with seeming obliviousness. That's in no way a justification for her behavior, but something to keep in mind for the future.
>started getting physical symptoms
As the other anon said, yeah, these are psychosomatic, but that doesn't make them fake. Your nervous system is telling you that you are in danger and being hurt.
>live somewhere far away... and send my gf money
Dude. Come on.

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>>34967700
>you are, blaming yourself liek the classical abuse victim.

I had a sense of where this was going years ago. But i ran from the truth and from the conflict like a coward until this point. Years ago, i looked at the situation often and thought: "With the way things are going, something is eventually going to happen." And it happened just about more than a year ago.

So now i have to deal with that factor too. I have to move forward knowing that there may be retaliation and that she could potentially do things that cause problems for me. The best thing i can really do is be honest with the people around me about what is happening, and hope that someone at least understands.

I have at least one close friend who is diagnosed autistic, so that's something. But i'm not officially diagnosed myself.

Right now, looking at this shitshow i'm standing in, i'm realizing that i should have gone to medical professionals about my suspected autism years ago. I thought i could keep it private and just not talk about it. Now i'm starting to see that getting an actual assessment might be one of the few things that could help other people understand what has been going on with me.


But there is uncomfortable truth that is dawning on me as i'm writing this. It comes from what i have read about the process years ago: part of an autism assessment can involve talking to people close to you. The same can be true when assessing other things, including narcissistic personality traits.

That means my parents and my gf could potentially be part of that process! My gf has been calling me a narcissist for about a year now, basically everytime we have a serious conflict. My dad now seems to at least suspect it based on a few phone calls, and he has also told me there is at least one person with narcissistic traits in our extended family.

And i'm not talking about whether i actually am narcissistic. I'm talking about how complicated the situation has become.

>>cont

>>34967700
>your parents will fucking what? why do they have her number?
>why the fuck your parents are this involved in your life while you are in your late 30s.?

I haven't told my parents about any of this. I haven't even told them that i've suspected i might be autistic. That's now part of the problem.

I don't want to show up at their door and dump years of relationship problems on them, i've never wanted to do that. Normally, going to my parents' place meant having a calm weekend away from all the shit happening in my life. Now i feel like i've somehow lost that option.

They know that things got very bad on monday. I called them while i was extremely distressed, my gf was crying, and i kept repeating that i wanted to leave my apartment and that my gf was physically preventing me from leaving.

My dad asked me why i had "lost my mind" like that. I couldn't really explain it because it was extremely personal and i was still in the middle of it.

I later found out that my gf had told them her side of what happened, at that moment. And yes, I'm sure it sounded bad. She didn't lie, she said the exact truth. But i don't really want to expand on that by giving my parents my entire side of the story either(there is more to the situation). I'm afraid they'll just see that as a narcissist trying to throw his gf under the bus.

I've tried to explain that i was in an extreme state of stress and fear and that i called them because i desperately wanted to get out of the apartment. My dad just didn't seem to understand what i was trying to tell him.

And i don't want to tell them the full extent of what has been happening. That's partly because it's deeply personal, and partly because i don't want this to turn into a "he said, she said" battle between two families.

3
>>cont

...And my parents have her phone number because that's completely normal in a nine-year relationship. I have her parents' numbers too. We mostly use them for things like birthdays. She didn't call my parents and deliberately drag them into this. I DID.

I said to them that it was bad move, and a mistake, during the next calls i had with them. I told my gf that too. I was extremely scared and thought my parents might be able to help me. It was basically a reflex in an extreme situation. I'm not like that usually, i self regulate my output, A LOT.

They couldn't help me, and now the situation feels much worse than it did before.


I'm trying not to think about all of this too much, but i'm more anxious than i have ever been. I'm scared.

At least my gf is at work right now. But the weekend is starting soon, and i don't want to be here. At the same time, everything is currently framed around the expectation that i should just fall back in line, calm down and stop rocking the boat.

And that's exactly what scares me.

My original plan was to go to my parents and tell them only the gist of the situation:

>There isn't enough understanding, mercy and respect in the relationship anymore. We both see what is happening in radically different ways, and those differences can't be resolved.

I wasn't planning to make them judge who was right or wrong. I just wanted them to know that i had decided the relationship was over and that i needed somewhere safe and calm to go while i figured out the practical details.

Now I'm not even sure i can do that without this turning into another conflict.

I'm still trying to figure out what the least destructive way forward is, all the while knowing that this probably can't be resolved peacefully anymore, and that might have been the case for years. I just couldn't accept it and deal with what follows. It's still hard.

>>34969968
>But i'm not officially diagnosed myself.
And you shouldn't concern yourself with it, Autism is overdiagnosed to all fuck , to the point where the abolishment of the Spectrum is diagnosed. Legit autists can't buy grocieries on their own.
Pathologising yourself further does not help you at all. When you go to a preofessional, you should not deflect from your actual problems in this manner, but set totask how to get out of your abusive relationship ASAP and making clear that you need help with that.
>I'm talking about how complicated the situation has become.
Your abuser is currently waging a campaign to represent you showing actual self interest as you being mentally ill. Again, another classical pattern.
The better question is why your parents are listening to the slander and believing it.
>My original plan was to go to my parents and tell them
Uh.... dude. You're in your late 30s. You don't have to "tell" or "explain" anything to your parents. You are a grown up. If they kick up a fuss because some bitch tells lies about you, you are well within your rights to (temporarily) cut them off for being bad parents.
>It's still hard.
Thats why I advocate ot get independent help, someone you can actually trust and who will be on your side, and not the next best therapist either but someone who really seems trustworthy.
>everything is currently framed around the expectation that i should just fall back in line
How is that your problem? None of the involved have any leverage over you whatseover except emotional drama. You can literlal ywalk awaay immediately.

Just to give you a sperspective , if some chick starts piling trash in my apartment and doesn't quit within a few weeks at most, its over, immediately and without recourse. And thats true of every guy with healthy boundaries. The only thing you can be blamed for is not putting your foot down hard enough yet.

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>>34967337
>It sounds like you have what start as normal issues that escalate because she gets emotionally hyperactivated and you get emotionally overwhelmed. You shut down from overwhelm, she interprets that as ignoring her feelings. Which is why she pegs you as a narcissist...

Exactly. This is something i've realized and tried to work around for a long time. I somehow kinda get what is going on, or i think i do. I have a strong need to explain myself and make her understand why something happened. But she often sees that as me not owning my shit, so i've learned to regulate myself and do that as little as possible.

When i notice in conflicts that she is just going in circles repeating the same things over and over, i've sometimes tried to point that out or ask her to calm down. That usually makes things worse, so i've mostly stopped doing that too. So i'm often left as a kind of bystander in the situation, just watching it happen.

And i feel weird and dishonest about getting closer to her when she is acting like that. I don't feel like hugging her, pretending everything is fine, or saying things i don't actually feel just to make the conflict stop. So i usually don't. (Sometimes i lie, and sometimes that stops the situation) That is then interpreted as me abusing her, ignoring her feelings, or deliberately withholding something she needs. And that itself escalates her anger.

I've literally explained this mechanism to her. I've told her that i distance myself because i get overwhelmed, not because i don't care. I've also told her that when she keeps pushing and criticizing me, it doesn't make me more capable of engaging with her; it makes me less capable. I've also told her that sometimes i need to leave the situation just to calm down, and that i should have the right to do that.

She doesn't often think i do.

>>34967337
>However, with this particular girl, it's too late. Might still help to tell her that if you get into an argument in the coming days and need a reprieve.

Yeah. That's basically where i am right now.

Part of the problem this particular time was that after things escalated, i tried to drive away. My parents pointed out that driving while that worked up could be dangerous. Looking back, i agree with that. If something like that happens again, i'll give her the car keys and leave on foot instead.

But even if i had never tried to drive away, my gf still believes she can physically block me from leaving. That's the part i really need to make clear. Needing a break from an argument and physically preventing someone from leaving are two different things. But i must also admit that during the situation on monday i abruptly said what i had been thinking for months, that i want to breakup. So that also further escalated the situation. And that was also my mistake.

>For your part, if you are autistic, there might be subtle emotional things and tells you're not noticing and you might be frustrating her with seeming obliviousness. That's in no way a justification for her behavior, but something to keep in mind for the future.

Yeah. I know.

I'm constantly trying to account for the fact that we can experience and interpret the same situation very differently. That's part of what makes this so sad to me. I genuinely think i can understand at least some of where she's coming from.

I've read a lot about things like codependency, trauma bonding and BPD, but i'm not a doctor and i don't know what applies to her. I don't use those labels as arguments against her either. I know how it feels when someone takes a complicated person and reduces them to a label.

What i do know is that whatever the explanation is, the current dynamic isn't working. And i don't want to spend the rest of my life trying to make it work.

>>cont

She instead throws accusations at me, calls me names, and threatens me with things.

I very seldom threaten her with exposing her or telling everyone what she's done. I've only said that i might have to tell someone at least something from what has been happening if that's what it takes to finally get out of this situation.

Today she told me things our morning argument like "Nobody is going to take your side" and "maybe you should be medicated, clearly you don't realize how crazy you act."

At one point i again tried to explain myself and tell her that i understand why she feels the way she does. She on the other hand literally told me many times that she can't understand me, and i'm just left thinking: is this really that impossible to understand?

Apparently it is.

>started getting physical symptoms
>As the other anon said, yeah, these are psychosomatic, but that doesn't make them fake.

I don't know whether they're psychosomatic. That's something i need to get checked rather than diagnose myself.


>live somewhere far away... and send my gf money
>Dude. Come on.

She has been exhausted by work for years and has chronic pain from a condition that has gotten worse during that time+this relationship with me. I've been unemployed for years while she has supported us financially.

So part of me feels that when i eventually get a job and become financially stable, helping her financially for a while would simply be the right thing to do. Especially if she decided to out me as god knows what. I can then at least say: look, i know i fucked up, i'm trying to help her as best i can.

But you're probably right that i'm still thinking too far ahead and making her future my responsibility.

The immediate problem is getting myself into a situation where we can actually live separately.

I think i can still care about what happens to her without continuing the relationship.

>>34970141
>you shouldn't concern yourself with not being diagnosed. Autism is overdiagnosed to all fuck, to the point where the abolishment of the Spectrum is diagnosed. Legit autists can't buy groceries on their own.
>Pathologising yourself further does not help you at all. When you go to a professional, you should not deflect from your actual problems in this manner, but ask for help getting out of your abusive relationship ASAP.

I know it's a meme, and i hate that whole stereotype.

I don't particularly want to be a "card-carrying autist." But there is a huge difference, socially, between being perceived as someone with an autism-related difficulty and being perceived as someone with narcissistic personality pathology.

And for years, my gf and i were at least on the same page that autism might explain some of our communication problems. We actually talked about it as one possible explanation for why we process conflicts so differently.

Now that has completely changed. She has been calling me a narcissist for about a year, and sometimes the explanation has become that i'm either an autistic person with narcissistic traits, or a narcissist hiding behind a supposed autism explanation.

I'm not saying an autism diagnosis would magically solve any of this. I'm saying that the question has become much more complicated now, and i think getting properly assessed by a professional could at least help establish what is actually going on with me.

>Your abuser is currently waging a campaign to represent you showing actual self interest as you being mentally ill. Again, another classical pattern.

...Yeah. It certainly feels like that from where i'm standing.

>You're in your late 30s. You don't have to "tell" or "explain" anything to your parents. You are a grown up.

I know. The problem is that i need practical help. Otherwise i'm potentially back in the apartment with her, trying to end the relationship on my own while she refuses to accept that it's over.

>>cont

That's the part i'm struggling with. I don't need my parents' permission to end the relationship. I need somewhere to go and people who know what's happening when i do it.

And after what happened on monday, i made the situation with my parents considerably more complicated by calling them in the middle of it.


>independent help, someone you can actually trust

I do have a few good friends, and i'm seriously considering telling them the crucial parts of what's been happening.

I don't want to involve more people than necessary. But i'm also increasingly worried that my gf will tell her version of events to them first, and i don't have many close friends to begin with.

One of them is quite close to one of her relatives, which makes me hesitant. But if the situation were reversed, i'd probably want to know that a shitstorm was potentially coming rather than hearing about it afterwards from someone else.

I'd much rather resolve this privately between the two of us. At this point, though, i don't know what will happen when i actually end the relationship.

>How is that your problem? None of the involved have any leverage over you whatsoever except emotional drama. You can literally walk away immediately.

My gf does have some leverage over me in practice, even if she doesn't have the right to decide whether the relationship continues.

But i'm getting closer to the point where i don't care what happens after i make the decision. If she wants to make accusations or take legal action, then i'll have to deal with that if it happens.

I'd rather have professional help and proper documentation around the situation than keep trying to solve everything by myself.

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>>cont
>if some chick starts piling trash in my apartment and doesn't quit within a few weeks at most, its over, immediately and without recourse. That's true of every guy with healthy boundaries.

Yeah. Well, you don't need to tell me that my boundaries aren't exactly healthy.

Indeed. I wouldn't be in this situation if i had been able to put my foot down years ago.

Fucked up the posts


These:
>>34970166
>>34970177
>>34970187

...are responding to this post:
>>34967941

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UPDATE: I got an appointment tomorrow with someone at a mental health crisis centre. I'm going to try to figure out my next steps with them and take a proper look at what my actual options are. I think it's going to be good to finally talk face-to-face with someone about what's actually been going on. Next week, I'm also going to make a doctor's appointment so I can start the process of getting a proper assessment.

A lot of you guys have still given me great advice throughout all of this, and I'm genuinely thankful for it.

You are an emotionally withdrawn (beta) male and she wants a strong man to tell her what to do and when to do it. The fact you're incapable of this is what makes her lash out by leaving trash everywhere. Also, if you've dated for nine years and this is happening now, then I don't know what to tell you dude. You're pretty committed at this point and you need to be the adult in the room and put her in her place, as well as put yourself at the head of the household like it always should have been.

I didn't think trashpiles and weepy emotional stuff was going to be the centerpiece of this story.

I had an ex that waited until I was in school all day and then off to my night job before she decided to take a bunch of drugs and act like a wild fucking animal in my apartment. And when I came home at 3am, thoroughly exhausted from the day, she proceeds to claw at me like a werewolf and beat down my bathroom door. I ended up having to lock her in the bedroom and jam the door shut, then sleep on the couch in the living room. And the best bit? The best bit was that in the morning I was told it was MY FAULT. "You should have made sure I was alright! You're a bad person!" I had two hours of sleep and class the next day, but it was apparently my moral failing for not policing her when she decided to do hallucinogens on a Wednesday afternoon.

That's the kind of stuff that kills relationships. And it did for me. I booted her ass out after that. No sex is ever worth suffering for.

>>34970375
>she wants a strong man to tell her what to do and when to do it.
"Redpillers" are cringe faggots because they excuse and enable insane women and expect of men to "perform" manliness like trained dogs, which is Beta as fuck.
Any self resepcting man kicks a crazy bitch to the curb without much ado and moves on towards greener pastures.
>B-b-but a-all women
Yeah, only the ones (you) can attract because they smell a good doggy. Sorry bud

>>34970375
>>34970375

Upon actually reading your post, I do agree that this is the type of woman whose subtype of craziness requires a man who smacks her around. Again, no sane man wants to fulfill that role.

>>34970375

Yes. I have escaped conflict like a coward and should have left years ago. If i'd gone through with it 4–5 years ago, there would have been a lot less tying me to the situation.

Now there is a real possibility of legal trouble, which she has repeatedly threatened during arguments. And now she's also basically threatening to call my mom whenever i get worked up.

I actually asked her: "So you're going to use that against me every time I feel like leaving to cool down?" And she said, "Yes."

Obviously, none of that changes the fact that i should leave if i don't want to be in this relationship. But yeah, it's fucking scary. Call me emotional if you want. I don't want unwanted attention, and i live in a small town where people know each other.

At the same time, i'm not going to let threats and fear decide whether i stay in a relationship.

This whole situation is fucking absurd.

>>34970512
>Now there is a real possibility of legal trouble, which she has repeatedly threatened during arguments.
Record, save messages. Also there is likely no real possibility of legal trouble unless we're talking abotu the usual fake rape claims. Also record the state of your apartment and keep all of her messages. Ideally get friends around as witnesses for her outbursts and threats.
>And now she's also basically threatening to call my mom
Again. You're in your late 30s. Do you realize what you sound like?
>But yeah, it's fucking scary.
The entire point of it is to intimidate you, and whether you allow it to work is up to you. There is no pathway for her to cause you legal trouble, and you can insure yourself against potential future slander should she try anyways.
She wil absolutely blow a gasket and try to threaten and cajole you into returning, thats why I was mentioning a restraining order earlier. Likely she will also lose her shit in front of third parties, cops and judges if you keep up resistance, which will be her undoing.
Your parents have no say over you as a grown up adult and cannot harm you, if they decide to listen to her over their own felsh and blood, that is squarely on them.

>>34969972
>don't want this to turn into a "he said, she said"
Better than just "she said". You can be discriminatory in what and how much you tell other people, but she's already saying she's gonna denounce you to everyone else. You live in a small town and overlap socially. You've said as much yourself: better to get ahead of it.
>>34969977
>wasn't planning to make them judge
Not their place to. And if they try to punish you, even after you explain whatever amount it is you decide they have a right to know, then the fault's with them. You need to go out on a limb here and find out who your parents are to you. And you need to be a little more genuinely selfish. If you take their couch for a few days and they're pissed about it, let them be pissed. Fuck em.
>>34970166
>I've literally explained this mechanism to her
Maybe there was a better explanation or maybe you were missing some key words that would've gotten through to her... but probably not. If she's not listening to you telling her how she affects you then there's no point trying further. These sorts of people are themselves the narcissists, ironically.
>>34970177
>driving while worked up could be dangerous... give her the car keys
Yes, that's technically true, but you need to get out of this default of trusting her with things like that.
>>34970187
>is this really that impossible to understand?
To her, yes. Because she's the one with the mental problem.
>something I need to get checked
Yeah it could be something purely physiological getting aggravated by i.e. high blood pressure.
>helping her financially for a while would simply be the right thing
No. You owe her nothing. You think you do because your mindset is that you took something from her or that her being with you was charity.
>if she decided to out me
Few are going to care about you giving her money if so. You shouldn't care either.
Unless you're really into findom, you don't need to send her money. And if you are I'd recommend not being into it.

>>34970703
>there is likely no real possibility of legal trouble unless we're talking about the usual fake rape claims

Perhaps. Perhaps not. I honestly don't know what to think at this point, and that's part of what scares me.

>Also record the state of your apartment and keep all of her messages. Ideally get friends around as witnesses for her outbursts and threats.

I've already taken photos and videos. They show what the situation has looked like for years.

I'm also keeping relevant messages. I don't know how her friends and relatives would interpret any of it, though. They could just as easily conclude that "the evil narcissist made her do it" or that i'm presenting things selectively.

>And now she's also basically threatening to call my mom
>Again. You're in your late 30s. Do you realize what you sound like?

It's not that i think my mom has authority over me. I just don't want to stress her out unnecessarily.

And the idea that my gf can threaten to call my mom simply because i leave the apartment to cool down is fucking absurd.

It also makes me angry. She gets to do whatever she wants with our home for years, i have to sit through these rants every week, sometimes more than once a week, and apparently i can't even leave for a while to calm myself down without that becoming another weapon in the conflict.

>The entire point of it is to intimidate you, and whether you allow it to work is up to you.

Yeah. I know.

>She will absolutely blow a gasket and try to threaten and cajole you into returning...

Yup. Getting ready for that.


>Your parents have no say over you as a grown up adult...

True. But it would still hurt like hell if they chose to believe her over me.

>>34970733
>don't want this to turn into a "he said, she said"
>Better than just "she said". You can be discriminatory in what and how much you tell other people, but she's already saying she's gonna denounce you to everyone else. You live in a small town and overlap socially. You've said as much yourself: better to get ahead of it.

Yeah. Sadly, she's leaving me little choice there. I wish she'd think more carefully about the things she says to me. At this point, i don't even know whether it's an empty threat or not.

>wasn't planning to make them judge
>Not their place to. And if they try to punish you, even after you explain whatever amount it is you decide they have a right to know, then the fault's with them. You need to go out on a limb here and find out who your parents are to you. And you need to be a little more genuinely selfish. If you take their couch for a few days and they're pissed about it, let them be pissed. Fuck em.

Yeah. You're right.


>I've literally explained this mechanism to her
>Maybe there was a better explanation or maybe you were missing some key words that would've gotten through to her... but probably not. If she's not listening to you telling her how she affects you then there's no point trying further.

Yeah. I've come to that conclusion myself quite a while ago.


>You owe her nothing. You think you do because your mindset is that you took something from her or that her being with you was charity.

That was a pretty interesting way of putting it. It actually made me look at the situation a little differently. Thanks.

>>34970187
She's pulling some classic DARVO bullshit by the sounds of it. Also people like this HATE being exposed because their control of the situation and narrative quickly unravels.

Honestly, next time she has an absolute meltdown and physically prevents you from leaving and makes threats to weaponize your family against you, I'd record for your own safety. She will probably try slinging more narcissist accusations at that point, but she seems to be showing herself as someone who isn't afraid to lie to control the narrative. That could go very poorly as well if this ever does escalate to the point of the cops being called, since her side of claims of abuse are more likely to be taken at face value.

Good luck, OP. Please stop feeling guilty for her and go no contact when you can get away from her. Things will also make a lot more sense and you will find clarity once you are out of that abusive environment. Also, check out Out of the Fog (Fear, Obligation and Guilt). It will likely help with understanding some of her behaviours in the meantime and how to cope with them until you can get out of there, hopefully soon.

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>>34972735
>DARVO
>Also people like this HATE being exposed because their control of the situation and narrative quickly unravels.

She first accused me of using DARVO just a few months ago. And what happened on monday could easily be interpreted that way from her perspective: me panicking about what my parents might think, trying to control the situation, and getting angry about being "exposed."

My parents seem to have basically interpreted it that way too.

I thought i had a pretty good idea of what was going on, but there are a lot of moments where i feel genuinely confused. I second-guess myself even when i have what feels like plenty of evidence. Sometimes it feels like i'm constantly fighting against reality and trying to figure out which interpretation is actually true.


>Honestly, next time she has an absolute meltdown and physically prevents you from leaving and makes threats to weaponize your family against you, I'd record for your own safety.

Recording might be a good idea. But she already thinks i'm a narcissist and has suspected that i record her, so doing something like that for my own safety could also make the situation even more volatile.


>Please stop feeling guilty for her and go no contact when you can get away from her.

Were it that easy.

She constantly switches between trying to be nice to me and getting meaner and guilt-tripping me when i don't engage with her. It cycles. Yesterday, for example, we had conflicts in both the morning and the evening where she pushed me into conversations i didn't want to have. And also threatened to call my mom if i leave the apartment. Later in the day she was much nicer and asked me how she could make me feel better.

I told her i didn't think there was anything she could do.

"Just gotta continue somehow and hope this blows over."

>>34972735
>Out of the Fog

Thanks. This actually looks useful.

I'm still operating in a state where i'm constantly questioning my own sanity and perception of reality, though. She and my parents seem so certain that they know what's going on, while i'm sitting here wondering whether i'm completely misreading the whole situation.

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UPDATE: The crisis center visit went really well. I told him as much as i could in an hour and a half, and he seemed to understand the situation too.

And of course, at some point my gf called. I told her i was at the library. Thankfully, i had anticipated that she might call, and she did, so the explanation was believable enough, even though she wondered why i sounded so weird on the phone. She had a legitimate reason to call, not just to check up on me, but the situation still felt weird.

I was completely honest during the visit. I cried a few times and told him that the situation is really stressful and that sometimes i even question my own sanity.

The next appointment is on thursday, and i'm getting a doctor's appointment for early next week.

I hope i can somehow have a somewhat peaceful weekend. I feel... pretty crazy at times. I wish i could rely on my parents and go there, but right now i don't feel like i can. My dad will probably call today or tomorrow to ask how things are. I'm probably going to tell him everything is fine, even though i sometimes feel like i'm losing my mind. I feel like i have to lie constantly just to maintain some semblance of peace.

I wish my gf would just leave me alone, but she doesn't seem able to do that. She tries being nice, and when that doesn't work, she gets angry or guilt-trips me. Then it cycles back again. It feels like she's constantly trying to get me to comply with what she wants.

... And of cource i'm not gonna tell him that i feel like i'm losing my mind, just that everything is fine. Just in case someone misunderstood that.

>>34973223

Ngl anon from what you've described she sounds like she could be projecting the narcissist title on you, because her behaviour sounds manipulative and controlling as fuck.

Def keep reading through that site though and keep up with the crisis center. Once you start seeing through the manipulation, it becomes a lot easier to deal with and set boundaries until you can get out of there.

Also check out a concept called the "grey rock method" until you can make your leave. She likely won't like it but if you can keep your composure and stick with it, it might make things a bit more tolerable in the meantime.

>>34973943
I forgot to mention, look into "triangulation", because it sounds like that's what she's trying to do to you by weaponizing your family/friends against you. Narcissistic abusers love to do this to gain control over their victims.

Also, check out that "traits" section of that site I mentioned before, specifically. It breaks down a lot of methods of abuse/control and ways you can cope and deal with them, perhaps that could be helpful.

>>34973943
>projecting the narcissist title on you, because her behaviour sounds manipulative and controlling as fuck.

It sounds that way to me too. But i can't just put all the blame on her. I realized some time ago that healthy boundaries haven't really existed between us for years.

I eventually woke up to that, but she still seems to be operating according to our old, fucked-up set of rules and gets angry when the things that somehow used to work aren't working anymore. Now we're both stuck in this mess.

Maybe if she had more time and space to step back and think about what's actually happening, she could figure some of this out too instead of just throwing labels around. I hope she gets to that place at some point, after the relationship is officially over. I genuinely wish she could find some peace and happiness, but that's not something i can make happen for her.

>Def keep reading through that site though and keep up with the crisis center.

Yeah, definitely.


>Once you start seeing through the manipulation, it becomes a lot easier to deal with and set boundaries until you can get out of there.

Yeah. A couple of months ago i saw a video where a guy basically explained how telling someone that they should be ashamed of themselves can be used as a form of manipulation. After that i started actually paying attention to how often she told me to be ashamed of myself, and, lo and behold, it happened a lot.

I also realized that i basically never spoke to her that way.


>Also check out a concept called the "grey rock method" until you can make your leave. She likely won't like it but if you can keep your composure and stick with it, it might make things a bit more tolerable in the meantime.

Hmm... i should look that up again. I've read about it before, but i don't remember the details.

> > 34973948
>I forgot to mention, look into "triangulation", because it sounds like that's what she's trying to do to you by weaponizing your family/friends against you. Narcissistic abusers love to do this to gain control over their victims.

Well, she sees my parents as people who could help her get me to reconsider and "realign" the relationship. Maybe at some point that would have worked.

I don't think any of it necessarily comes from a malicious intention. But it can still function as a form of control regardless of the intention behind it.

I guess one of the more difficult things to accept is that someone can genuinely believe they're helping while still doing something that isn't actually helpful.

>Also, check out that "traits" section of that site i mentioned before, specifically. It breaks down a lot of methods of abuse/control and ways you can cope and deal with them, perhaps that could be helpful.

Will do. So far i've managed to keep my head, but i do feel like she's constantly testing my boundaries and trying to pull me back into the old dynamic.

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I'm anxious all the time. I feel like a caged animal, beaten with a stick. But i'm still able to function, at least to some degree.

I wrote most of this down shortly after the situation happened, during my 30-minute break from the conflict. I've since edited it, read through it several times, sat with it for a few hours, and decided to post it anyway. I think i have some idea of what's going on here, but i'm not completely sure. I need someone else to look at what was actually being said. This is my best interpretation of what happened.

The bottom line is that i'm still trying to find a way to leave. I wish i had more money saved. I wish i'd left last friday. I try not to think too much about how badly i fucked up by abandoning that plan.


Last night was peaceful. At the end of the day she said we'd do some cleaning at my apartment tomorrow. I said nothing. She fell asleep.

I went to sleep without setting an alarm and woke up around 11.00 am. She slept for another hour. I mentioned the time a couple of times. She got up around 1 hour and 20 minutes after me and soon started getting angry over small things and becoming passive-aggressive.

We moved to the other apartment after our morning coffee, and after i had a small breakfast. That's where she started going off on me. I was physically anxious the whole time, but i kept my cool. I didn't run outside or anything.

She said her hormones were out of whack because of how stressful monday had been. I understand that stress can affect her, but she's still responsible for how she treats me. Yes, i realize that sounds somewhat hypocritical given what happened on monday.

This is roughly how the discussion started. The order is somewhat mixed, but i tried to put it into phases. The final part is in exact order.

She said:
>You make my life hell. You constantly threaten and abuse me.
>You are a narcissist. Read up on it.
>It's narcissism, and your parents think so too.
>It's your fault that i'm not cleaning your apartment. Stop abusing me and i'll start cleaning more.
>You have no right to expect me to clean.
>You ruined everything. You've ruined everything in our lives! You sadistic bastard!
>Whose fault is it that monday went wrong?
>WHOSE FAULT IS IT?!

I said:
>You're the one who said we were going to clean today. I didn't even expect it to actually happen. I get that you're tired.
>I understand that you're angry and that you feel bad.
>You're the only one screaming here.
>Monday was my fault.


Next phase:


She said:
>We saw your parents last weekend, and the plan was to see mine this week, but you ruined that for me.
>You don't think about anyone except yourself. You don't care about me, your parents, or my parents.
>Can YOU deal with the fact that you're a narcissist?
>I'm completely on the same side as your mom that you're a narcissist.
>Your mom said she was scared of you when you called her.

I said:
>I regret what happened on monday. It was a bad move, and i didn't plan for it
>Please, can you just accept that, given how things are right now, we probably can't see your parents? Please deal with those feelings. It is what it is. I'm sorry.
>My parents don't know what's actually happening.

She said:
>Your dad said you can't come there to "escape".

Me:
>*pause
>What?

She:
>He said, "The birds have flown out of the nest." If you threaten to go there, they don't want you there.

Me:
>What did he mean by that?

She:
>That if you do what you do and then plan on escaping there, it's not okay. Especially now that they know what's up.
>And you lied to your mom.

Me:
>No, I didn't. I said you physically prevented me from leaving, which you did.

She:
>Yes, you did(she says i lied)
>So this is all new information to you?

Me:
>You haven't told me that my dad said they don't want me there. This is the first time i hear about that...


The discussion continued for another 20 minutes in much the same way. What she said about my parents left me sad and confused.

I still think, in my mind, that i don't really need their help leaving, at least in theory, even though a big part of my previous plan involved going there. Now i just have to adapt to the situation and find the next best option.

She has talked today and on previous days about me potentially being forced into involuntary psychiatric treatment. Today she said something about my going to my parents' place potentially resulting in them having me committed. I'm not sure whether they actually talked about that as an option.

My dad will probably call today or tomorrow. I'll try to stay calm and ask him directly whether they actually used the words "involuntary psychiatric treatment" or whether that was my gf's interpretation or a weird joke. I'll keep things simple with them for now. Maybe i'll have better ideas after my doctor's appointment or the next crisis worker visit.

Other details:

I repeatedly asked her to stop and calm down during the conflict, again. She couldn't. I understand that she's angry and frustrated, but eventually i walked to the balcony and sat there alone. About 15 minutes later she came out and asked whether i'd calmed down. I said yes. She immediately continued as if there had been no pause.

I went to the bathroom, then back to the balcony. I sat there alone for another 15–20 minutes. She sent me a few messages continuing the same argument, going in circles.

Finally i said i was going outside for 30 minutes. I said i had the right to do that and asked her not to call my parents.

I went outside and wrote all this down in my notes while i was away, trying to be as detailed as possible. I came back on time, sharp. She asked if i was calm. I said yes, that being outside and breathing the fresh air had helped.

Thankfully, she stopped at that point and called her parents, mainly to ask what they were doing. She didn't tell them about this week or Monday.

Things have been peaceful since then. For now. How the fuck does this sound to you guys?

>>34976360
If you were a woman, you would be told to grab your bug out bag and go to a womans shelter IMMEDIATELY.
Isolating you from even your blood related family and gaslighting you to this degree is an extremely dangerous version of abuse.
It is critical that you get out NOW; no matter where. Ideally some place where she cannot find you. A Motel a few towns over perhaps? If she shows up at your workplace, call the cops and get a restraining order. You should in fact do so immediately, while teling your story to the cops.
She is likely lying about your parents , and even if she has managed to worm hre way into their trust in this manner, they are still your parents. Once this woman is out of your lifes, any potential confusion will disspiate over time even if your parents may be confused about the situation for the time being, you can rely on that.
>about me potentially being forced into involuntary psychiatric treatment.
Thats not a thing. Being temporarily held against your will requires a court order in any first world country, which requires provable intent to harm yourself or others and a professional assessment. Any attempt to get that done would ironically likely end up helping you, as you would get tot talk to aprofessional third party.
Secondly, attemping this would mark your gf as a dangerous lunatic to aithorities, very well resulting in her being involuntary held instead.

Pack your shit and GO. The more she notices your attempts at gainign independence, the harder she will push back and do everything she can to keep you under control.
>>34976362
>How the fuck does this sound to you guys?
Absolutely nightmarish. She has now intensified her attempts to gaslight you into being the crazy one.
If you ever ctach yourself having any doubts about that, take a loodk at your apartment and realize just how utterly insane this woman is and how far she is willing to go to gain control over you. GO

Let me reiterate, this is a clear cut highly abusive relationship
First of all, currently she is trying to keep yourself from feeling anger about getting abused. You shoudl allow that anger, because it is what can galvanize you to take action.
Learn to tune out the "positive" parts of your relationship. Make yourself aware that this woman does not love you and merely seeks to control you as an object.No doubt her claism of your "narcissism" are a pure projection - expecting others to subjugate themselves under their every whim liek she does is typical of narcissists.

Get out of there physically. Ideally, you inform the apartments landlord or the local authorities of the apartments state, so she can be cleared out of there. This will give her something to do instead of harassing you after your breakup, or it will dimishe her chances at turnign other against you by being the crazy homeless lady. Even your parents will stop listening to her rather quickly.
Getting out and disabling her will be your highest proiority, and acting quickly is of the essence.
And again, prepare the restrainign order, record her ravings as well as her text mesasges and other stuff to make it go through smoothly and quickly. Once that is done, her craziness will easily drive her into breaking the reatrsining order, thus getting her safely inot jail or psychiatry where she can no longer harm you.

>>34903010
Dont care
Stopped reading at
>atm

>>34976630
>If you were a woman, you would be told to grab your bug out bag and go to a woman's shelter IMMEDIATELY.
>get out NOW

Yeah. But being reactive is what made the situation worse for me last monday. Being reactive is also what fucked up the friday escape plan i had prepared.

If i suddenly disappear somewhere now, i know exactly how it is likely to be interpreted: as me doing something unpredictable and "crazy" again. It could immediately lead to another call between my gf and my parents, followed by my parents calling me. So i need to be very deliberate about my next step rather than just running.


>Isolating you from even your blood-related family and gaslighting you to this degree is an extremely dangerous version of abuse.

Yeah. But i think it's dangerous if i let all of this start controlling my decision-making. That's when i'm playing into the situation instead of getting myself out of it.


>You should in fact do so immediately, while telling your story to the cops.

I don't think getting the police involved right now would necessarily be the right move. That's a door i don't want to open unless i have to. It could also make it easier for her to involve the police later.

I'm still hoping i can get out of this without police involvement, but i
I'm prepared to involve them if the situation actually becomes dangerous or i can't leave safely. And if it ever gets to that point, it won't simply be a matter of me having no record of what has been happening.


>She is likely lying about your parents.

I'm going to call my dad tomorrow and try to figure out what they actually think is going on. I'm not going to try to explain the entire relationship again right now. I mostly want to find out where they stand and ask directly about some of the things my gf has told me they supposedly said. I might call my mom too.

>>cont

>Potentially being forced into involuntary psychiatric treatment...

Yeah, i kinda suspected the situation was more complicated than that, and that it isn't as easily done as what my gf paints it to be. Right now i mainly need to keep my head clear and not make decisions based on panic


>GO. The more she notices your attempts at gaining independence, the harder she will push back

I'm going to prepare quietly rather than make another impulsive move. I need to get my things together, decide on a date, and talk to my friends beforehand so they know that a major confrontation may be coming

I don't want another situation where everyone hears about it from someone else first


>This sounds absolutely nightmarish.
>She has now intensified her attempts to gaslight you into being the crazy one.

I know this is fucked up, but from my perspective it's only slightly more fucked up than what has happened before. It's not really a completely new escalation; it's more like the straw that finally broke the camel's back.

She has previously threatened things like "telling everyone what i did." What's different now is that threatening to call my parents has become a recurring part of the arguments. And yeah, I

I realize i was the one who originally brought my parents into this situation. That was a mistake. But i don't think it's healthy for "I'll call your parents" to become something that gets thrown at me whenever i try to leave an argument or cool down.

And ironically, it doesn't really make me want to fall back in line anymore. Every time she says it now, it just reminds me of how fucked up this relationship has become and how much i need to get out.

In a strange way, that actually makes the decision easier.

I don't want another dramatic confrontation. I don't want revenge, and i don't want to "win" against her. I just want to get to a point where we are living separately and i can start rebuilding my life.

That's what I'm trying to work toward now.

>>34976362
She might be lying to you about what your parents said, but they probably said *something* like that. It's unlikely, not impossible, that she invented the 'out of the nest' line from whole cloth. If they did say something like that, she likely manipulated them into it.
Think of it like this: you are attached to this abusive woman despite her negative treatment of you. She is a skilled manipulator. Your parents don't get any hostility from her. So she's able to manipulate them pretty easily. Everything they think they understand about this situation is from her.
I would recommend, not imminently, calling to ask one of your parents whether or not you are welcome to stay at their home. There is a difference between them being pissed but tolerant and them calling the cops to get you out of their house. So you need to know before you leave. Don't call them immediately, though, as, in the negative scenario, the fact of the call can make its way back to your abuser. Be ready with an alternate place to stay (e.g. hotel, as another anon rec'd). Then, imminently before you leave, call them and ask. You are not having a discussion or explaining, you are asking and ending the conversation swiftly.

I'd be wary about contacting the landlord about the trash situation as you are yourself culpable for what happens in your apartment. Aside: do you have evidence of the trash in *her* apartment as well as yours?

Instead of leaving, throwing her stuff out and changing the locks to your apartment is still an option. You can call the police if she tries to force entry after that. Although getting the police involved is dicey and the best thing for you is to be somewhere where she cannot access you; a motel might actually be the best option, if you have the spare money, but it also makes things difficult in the sense that you will have to go back to your apartment and get her shit out and bar her access at some point.

>>34977483
>being reactive is what made the situation worse
No, being passive is and is what has been making the situation worse for you.
You lay out your scenario: your abuser calls your parents, your parents call you, everyone thinks you're crazy. And then what? So what?
>>34977490
>I'm going to prepare quietly
As long as you *do* it and don't delay.

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>>34977634
>She might be lying to you about what your parents said, but they probably said something like that.
>Everything they think they understand about this situation is from her

Yeah. I get that. Their understanding is based on one really bad situation that i dragged them into, and the phone calls that followed. It's easy to understand their POV from the information they have. And my dad probably did say something along those lines. Also, just her telling them what happened would already paint a pretty bad picture of me. There doesn't necessarily have to be any deliberate manipulation involved

I know there was much more context to what happened, but my parents don't. And at this point they don't seem particularly interested in hearing it either. It is what it is. I can't rely on them as my way out anymore, or at least i need to have a backup plan that i can switch to immediately if they aren't willing to help. And it''s actually useful to know that this might be the situation. At least now i can prepare for it instead of finding out after i've already left


>I would recommend, not imminently, calling to ask one of your parents whether or not you are welcome to stay at their home...

Yeah. That makes sense. I don't need to have another huge discussion with them. I mainly need to know whether i actually have somewhere to go


>I'd be wary about contacting the landlord about the trash situation as you are yourself culpable for what happens in your apartment. Aside: do you have evidence of the trash in her apartment as well as yours?

Exactly. And yes, i have photos and videos of her apartment too. The kitchen there is fucked. Thankfully, one or two days of work is "only" needed to get it operational

I'm also trying to do some small amount of cleaning in my apartment whenever i have the time or energy for it. Even half an hour a day if that's all i can manage. Small steps forward rather than waiting until i somehow have the energy to fix everything at once

>>cont
>Instead of leaving, throwing her stuff out and changing the locks to your apartment is still an option...

Exactly. If i just leave without a plan, i haven't actually solved the underlying problem. At some point i'd have to come back to the apartment, deal with her belongings and establish that we are actually living separately. And while i'm still living with her, she can keep trying to pull me back into the same dynamic.

That's why i probably need some kind of outside help with the practical side of this. I would rather not involve more people, but i'm starting to accept that i may have to.

It's probably one of the toughest decision i've ever had to make: who to tell, when to tell them, how much to tell them, where to go, and how to actually make the separation stick.


>>34977653
>being reactive is what made the situation worse
>No, being passive is and is what has been making the situation worse for you.
>You lay out your scenario: your abuser calls your parents, your parents call you, everyone thinks you're crazy. And then what? So what?

It's a small town, and the narrative everyone would be starting from would be that i'm an abusive narcissist, while both my gf and my parents believe that's what i am.

So yeah, i probably care too much about how this looks. But you're right that being passive isn't a solution either. I need to act, just without making another impulsive move that creates a new problem.


>I'm going to prepare quietly
>As long as you do it and don't delay.

Yeah. You're absolutely right.

>>34979463
>There doesn't necessarily have to be any deliberate manipulation involved
Omission is a form of lying.
>I mainly need to know whether i actually have somewhere to go
If they do say yes when they call, just be prepared to have to leave again. Also be prepared for them to ask questions, obviously, once you're there. But they might let you come there to try to entrap or intervene or something, so don't unpack your car the second you walk in.
>I'm also trying to do some small amount of cleaning in my apartment
Nice. I think it'll get easier as you see progress being made, hopefully, and your mental state should just be better with less and less garbage all around you.
>>34979469
>probably need some kind of outside help with the practical side
The crisis center can probably help you out with the procedural and documentary side of things, at least.
>I need to act, just without making another impulsive move that creates a new problem
Not denying that things have become more immediately difficult for you since you started acting, but sometimes you gotta go uphill to get out of a valley.
Think of it like this: shit's going downhill with your parents and your abuser is angrier with you, but are you closer or farther away from getting out of this situation now? I'd say closer. You're making small steps towards things like cleaning. You've gone to a crisis center and spoken with someone. You've made the mental commitment firmly, now. You've gotten some clarity on how certain people will and might react. And you've even started to experience some of the difficulties yet the world hasn't imploded.

>>34980236
>Nice. I think it'll get easier as you see progress being made in your apartment, hopefully, and your mental state should just be better with less and less garbage all around you.

The progress is usually minuscule because there is just so much to do, and there is so little that i can actually touch. But yeah, it's something. I just have to fight the feeling of futility every time i do it. It's nice to see things becoming a little more organized, bit by bit. But if it were entirely up to me, i'd just fucking clean the whole place in one marathon. I hate living like this.


>The crisis center can probably help you out with the procedural and documentary side of things, at least.

Maybe. I'll probably ask him about that. Other than that, i don't really know what to tell him or the doctor, for that matter. I guess i should figure that out next.


>Think of it like this: shit's going downhill with your parents and your abuser is angrier with you, but are you closer or farther away from getting out of this situation now? I'd say closer. You're making small steps towards things like cleaning. You've gone to a crisis center and spoken with someone. You've made the mental commitment firmly, now. You've gotten some clarity on how certain people will and might react. And you've even started to experience some of the difficulties yet the world hasn't imploded.

Yeah, sure. I guess i am closer now than i was before.

God, though, right now i almost wish she were being more overtly abusive again. She's in her good phase, and that makes it harder in a weird way. It makes me feel like i'm fighting against reality again. I'm constantly having to hide what i'm actually thinking and feeling just to keep things peaceful.

Every previous time i've eventually fallen back in line. This time i'm still trying to keep myself centered and remember why i'm doing this.

Yeah. I guess i am closer now than before. I just wish i could fucking see the finish line already.

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She constantly acts nice now, wants to make a truce, and asks if we can make plans for the next few weeks. Like setting up a weekend for me to see my friends and stuff like that. And she constantly asks things like: "Are we okay?", "Can we just get along?" and "Do you hate being around me?"

...And just yesterday she was telling me that my parents are probably ashamed of me and threatening to call my mom.

I guess my focus now has to be on keeping what happened in mind and not letting this good phase make me forget it. But it's hard to make all these plans knowing that some of them might never happen. They almost exist in a separate reality that might not actually come to pass.

And i find myself thinking all sorts of crazy shit. Like, if i don't see my friends now, when will i see them next, are they even my friends anymore a few months later? Should i "ruin" this next weekend with them by telling them what's actually going on? I don't know.

>>34980772
>She's in her good phase
Other anons have brought it up, but this is textbook cycle of abuse. Stockholm syndrome, in a way. I don't need to tell you it's not forever or real because you already know, but it is difficult psychologically to overcome this. Abusers do it because it works and likely because they're experiencing their own cognitive dissonance.
>hard to make all these plans knowing that some of them might never happen
I think you just gotta pay lip service and try not to get attached. It seems you're not a great liar or actor, which isn't a bad thing.
>are they even my friends anymore a few months later
But don't catastrophize. Your real friends would get it and would probably want to help if they knew what's going on. I can't say that everyone you call a friend would be kind and helpful, some people are superficial friends, but don't think that ending this is going to ruin all your friendships and don't think that you need to/should isolate yourself and deal with all this on your own.
The most pernicious type of thinking for reasonable people can be the "what if". Because it's really easy to twist yourself into knots and stretch yourself over a rack agonizing about all the bad things that can happen and that you have logical reasons to believe might happen. The logic becomes a trap, either self fulfilling or keeping you stuck in a bad situation. You get stuck because you're afraid of the initiation cost plus the logical possibility of not achieving the positive outcomes, no less the negative outcomes.

>>34980845
>She's in her good phase
>Other anons have brought it up, but this is textbook cycle of abuse. Stockholm syndrome, in a way. I don't need to tell you it's not forever or real because you already know, but it is difficult psychologically to overcome this. Abusers do it because it works and likely because they're experiencing their own cognitive dissonance.

Yeah. I get the cycle. I've understood it for quite a while. I don't think it's really calculated on her part. She seems to mostly act according to her emotions, and my emotional distance causes her anxiety, which then feeds into the cycle.

I see it roughly like this:
>We have a good phase, and we both try harder. She usually starts it and puts in more effort.
>I jump on board.
>Things go well for a while. I try to be better, more attentive, etc.
>But it's hard. It feels like a performance, like i'm trying to fake it until i actually feel it.
>Mostly, i suppose it doesn't matter what I'm really thinking or feeling about it. The result is that things are more peaceful and we have fewer arguments for a while.
>Then i get tired of maintaining it and fall back into my normal habits and level of attention.
>She reacts badly. At first she lets it go, but her negative feelings gradually escalate. That makes me withdraw even more emotionally.
>She gets angrier because she feels i'm disrespecting her.
>Every mistake triggers her. She often talks down to me, heavily criticizes me, and berates me.
>Things get worse and worse until the cycle eventually repeats from the beginning.

Sometimes the cycle is much faster, even within a single situation:
>She's nice and puts in effort.
>I don't respond the way she wants.
>She switches into the bad phase for a while.
>Then she goes back to being nice and tries again.

I still understand the logic of how the cycle works. I just don't want to be part of it anymore. It feels like something in me has broken down on some level. This has been going on for years.

>>cont
>hard to make all these plans knowing that some of them might never happen
>I think you just gotta pay lip service and try not to get attached. It seems you're not a great liar or actor, which isn't a bad thing.

Well, I've been lying for a long time now, because it's either that or another conflict. I guess the biggest problem is that i don't want to live like this anymore. I don't want to keep lying just to keep things peaceful.

>are they even my friends anymore a few months later
>But don't catastrophize. Your real friends would get it and would probably want to help if they knew what's going on. I can't say that everyone you call a friend would be kind and helpful, some people are superficial friends, but don't think that ending this is going to ruin all your friendships and don't think that you need to/should isolate yourself and deal with all this on your own.
>The most pernicious type of thinking for reasonable people can be the "what if". Because it's really easy to twist yourself into knots and stretch yourself over a rack agonizing about all the bad things that can happen and that you have logical reasons to believe might happen. The logic becomes a trap, either self fulfilling or keeping you stuck in a bad situation. You get stuck because you're afraid of the initiation cost plus the logical possibility of not achieving the positive outcomes, no less the negative outcomes.

Yeah. I think you're right about both. I spend a lot of time trying to anticipate every possible outcome, and at some point the attempt to make the "right" move just becomes another reason not to move at all.

I guess that's something i need to break out of.

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confused at night bumb

>>34977483
I would also argue if things do escalate with her, getting the police involved could also help you if you start a paper trail. Makes it harder to cry abuse if she ever tries to get the police involved herself.

Tl;dr personal anecdote of my own, I had to do that years ago when my ex started threatening to kill me and my new bf. Not much happened other than me just showing the messages, they just said all they could do at the time being was perform a wellness check on him and tell him to cease communication with me. Thankfully that was the end of that, but getting ahead there can be helpful if she were to ever try to escalate and make her own claims.

Perhaps even inquiring and just asking if they have any resources for abused men could be an option.

>>34984051
>I would also argue if things do escalate with her, getting the police involved could also help you if you start a paper trail. Makes it harder to cry abuse if she ever tries to get the police involved herself.

Yeah. I get that. I wouldn't want to do it unless I really had to, though, because involving the police is an escalation in itself.


>Tl;dr personal anecdote of my own, i had to do that years ago when my ex started threatening to kill me and my new bf. Not much happened other than me just showing the messages, they just said all they could do at the time being was perform a wellness check on him and tell him to cease communication with me. Thankfully that was the end of that, but getting ahead there can be helpful if she were to ever try to escalate and make her own claims.
>Perhaps even inquiring and just asking if they have any resources for abused men could be an option.

All of those are good ideas, but here's the thing.

If i had left 4–5 years ago, when i first seriously talked about leaving, things would have been much easier. Back then she already said that if i broke up with her, she would tell everyone what kind of person i was, but she didn't have nearly as much to point to.

The uncomfortable part is that i actually recognized our fucked-up dynamic years ago. I knew how things could go when they got really bad, and i knew that eventually something might happen. And it did.

Now, if she wants to tell everyone what happened, there actually is stuff she can point to. Some people might understand the context, some might not. In one of the incidents that went the worst, she was extremely rude to me and shouted at me, and i told her to calm down many times, before i finally tried to leave. And like in many previous arguments, she physically blocked me when i tried it. Thankfully, i have at least evidence of that happening before the incident that followed.

>>cont

I obviously hope it never gets to the point where any of this becomes a legal or public fight. I've always wanted us to be able to have a peaceful breakup. But she has consistently threatened me whenever i've talked about ending the relationship.

So it feels weird to look at resources for abused men, because i know i haven't been a perfect partner either. I've done things I regret too. I just don't think that makes everything else irrelevant.

>>34982190
>We have a good phase, and we both try harder. She usually starts it and puts in more effort.

What "good phase"? You are living in a fucking landfill, a trash fileld sewer, every day. There are no "good phases" when living like this. Learn to keep agrip on factual reality even when she pivots to making you feel good before the next wave of abuse comes. Fight it.
Make yourself aware that she is merely playing a game of "good cop, bad cop" with you while being both cops herself.
>The result is that things are more peaceful and we have fewer arguments for a while.
You already notice that thigns are not really good, but merely you being scared of further abuse. Make yourself aware of this and listen to it. There is nothing positive here.

>>34980772
> Like setting up a weekend for me to see my friends
A normal realtionship does not require "seeting upa weekend" so you can see your friends. Neither do you need permission to see your friends from her. Thinking this is a positive is Bonafide Stockholm syndrome. No, her offering to temporarily let you out of the proverbial basement cell is not a positive. At all.

>>34985479
>What "good phase"?

What i mean by a "good phase" is simply that we aren't constantly arguing and things are relatively peaceful for a while. I don't mean that the relationship is actually good or that the underlying problems disappear.

There are still plenty of problems during those periods, including the state of the apartment. I'm describing the cycle as i experience it, not saying that the "good" part is actually healthy.


>>34985482
>Like setting up a weekend for me to see my friends
>A normal relationship does not require "setting up a weekend" so you can see your friends. Neither do you need permission to see your friends from her.

My friends live in another town. Going there isn't cheap, and both of them are adults with their own jobs and schedules. We make plans together, find a weekend that works, and she makes her own plans for that weekend.

That's not her giving me permission to see my friends. That's just normal relationship logistics. When you're in a relationship, you generally have to coordinate things like that with your partner. But maybe the words i used gave off the wrong impression...

>>34985542
>When you're in a relationship, you generally have to coordinate things like that

Fair enough to some degree, but in the context of an abusive relationship it becomes a problem. Why do you not have any friends where you live, for example?
And yes, you should absolutely "ruin" the weekend by telling them. Its what friends are there for, and you need as many allies as you can get to both morally and physically support you. Like presenting a different view point to your gfs constant gaslighting , or offering a couch to crash on once your abuser goes into stalking mode.
>>34985465
>I've always wanted us to be able to have a peaceful breakup.
Btw, thats the hgook your gf uses to keep you chained up with her. Forget that idea, say goodbye to it. Getting out of an abusive relationship is a striggle, and like others pointed out you should get everything in order to to use all legal means to keep her at bay and away from you and your loved ones.

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>>34984051
>but getting ahead there can be helpful if she were to ever try to escalate and make her own claims.

Well, that's something i realized a few days ago. Not so much about getting the cops involved, but about talking to other people.

As i've said many times, i'd rather NOT get anyone else involved here. But if she does what she has repeatedly threatened to do and "tells everyone what i did", the optics are going to be much worse if her story is the first thing they hear. And yes, i know i played a part in creating this isolation. At first i didn't want her telling other people about our problems. But I'm starting to realize that talking to at least a few people may be the only way out. Otherwise the pattern is basically:
>I say we're over
>Leave
>Come back a day or two later
>She starts "negotiating" and threatening me
>I might fall back in line again

If we had roughly the same understanding of what happened, it wouldn't matter who talked first. But during breakup attempts and many arguments, she has consistently described me as:
>a terrible human being who is sick in the mind
>deliberately emotionally abusing her
>a "violent criminal" who should be locked up
>responsible for everything that has gone wrong
>someone nobody will take the side of once the details come out
>someone who is using her

My own understanding is very different:
>both of us have serious issues, and years of trying to make this toxic relationship work has brought us here
>our relationship dynamics are bad
>I carry the larger share of the blame, but she has also done things that hurt me
>I can understand why she sometimes feels the way she does about me, even when i strongly disagree with her interpretation
>I'd much rather end this peacefully, but that isn't entirely up to me
>there are too many problems i no longer have the energy or desire to keep trying to solve

>>cont

Those are two very different pictures of the same relationship.

I'd much rather keep what happened between us private and not break the mutual silence we've had about our problems. But what happens if she gets to everyone first?

She can still tell her friends and relatives that i'm a monster. I can't control that. But if i talk to my parents and a few close friends beforehand, at least they'll have some context when the shitstorm starts. And i'm not planning to throw her under the bus. Even at this point i don't plan on telling on what she has exactly done to our apartments, if i only can avoid it. Even though she has done things that have hurt me badly, i'm still trying to describe the situation as a fucked-up relationship with two people who contributed to how it ended, rather than as "she is evil and i am innocent."

That's also why i think telling a few people beforehand is different from starting some kind of campaign against her. I'm trying to make sure the people i may actually need for support aren't hearing my side for the first time after she's already told them hers. Looking at it that way, i think i'd be an absolute fool to just wait and see what she tells everyone after the breakup. I have to work with the assumption that she is going to do what she has threatened to do.

>>34985863
>the optics are going to be much worse if her story is the first thing they hear

Having experience with people like this, that may be initially true. But over time her story gets increasingly more holes in it, and her depiction will not match up with what people know of the real you. It is entirely possible that you may lose some people in the process though - those were never actually close to you in the first place.
On top, if she does go the escalation route she will become increasingly unhinged as long as you remain steadfast and don't retrurn to her. Eventually, it is her who will be isolated as her claims will grow ever more outlandish, possibly punctuated with intense meltdowns.
>She can still tell her friends and relatives
Why should those matter to you? Even in a regular messy breakup they can be expected to take your exes side, and their opinion has zero impact on your life.
>That's also why i think telling a few people beforehand is different from starting some kind of campaign against her.
Its good on you for realizing that. You are laying the groundwork for a support network after the breakup as well. No one in their right mind would take her side after hearing your story as you have told it here.

>>34985463
>physically blocked me... evidence of that happening before the incident that followed
OP, if you're afraid that she'll accuse you of physical abuse, you absolutely need to secretly record one, ideally multiple, of your arguments. Audio at least, video if you can manage it. Just start recording all the time with your phone, if nothing else.
>>34985863
>I carry the larger share of the blame
I do not understand this mindset of yours. It is part of what is defeating you, it seems, but also, unless you've been hiding that you're a perseverant wifebeater or something which it doesn't seem you have, not only is it not your "fault" that you became depressed and dysfunctional in part from an abusive partner, but fault is not a helpful way to look at this. Persistent accounting of faults don't help an ongoing relationship, and unremitting self recrimination doesn't help you personally.

>>34985881
>the optics are going to be much worse if her story is the first thing they hear
>She can still tell her friends and relatives
>Why should those matter to you?

Well, they don't really matter. I guess the important part is just making sure that my own friends (and parents) hear my side, the people i may actually need for support.


>That's also why i think telling a few people beforehand is different from starting some kind of campaign against her.
>Its good on you for realizing that. You are laying the groundwork for a support network after the breakup as well. No one in their right mind would take her side after hearing your story as you have told it here.

We shall see. I hope you're right. As i said, she seems to see all of this quite differently, and sometimes she almost convinces me.


>>34986732
>I carry the larger share of the blame
>I do not understand this mindset of yours.

I just genuinely feel that she would probably have had a better life if i hadn't come into it. Her previous relationship wasn't nearly as difficult or draining, at least from what i know.

I can see a lot of my own faults that contributed to how we ended up here, and i feel a huge amount of guilt about it. If i had stuck to my decision to leave 4–5 years ago, i might have saved both of us years of this shit.

I know that beating myself over it isn't going to fix anything. But i still feel responsible for the years that followed. Maybe i need to learn to separate "i made serious mistakes" from "therefore everything that happened afterwards is my fault."

Well, on some level i guess i am already thinking differently about this. I'm anxious as hell every day, yet i'm still working on this. I cry, feel crazy at times and have what might be psychosomatic symptoms, but i keep going.

>>34903018
>I've somewhat made peace with the fact that she won't take it well, but it is what it is
Good because she is not your responsibility. You are your responsibility.

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UPDATE BUMP: Got a doctor's appointment for my acute stress and anxiety symptoms, and another one for my mental state and a wider assessment. The ball is rolling.

Lifting this, writing something later...

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We got into an argument today about... something.

It doesn't really even matter what it was.

Early in the situation i started asking myself: how absurd is this situation really? Why the fuck does she think she has the right to talk to me like this? The whole thing should have ended quickly, but this too continued, of course. She just couldn't stop herself. Not then, not an hour later, and even coming back to it later and continuing. This endless tirade of blame, guilt-tripping and talking down to me.

I shouldn't have gotten angry (or should i?) but i did. She brought me down to her level for a moment. Now she used that as fuel:
>you are childish and narcissistic
>your parents think so too
>if you put on a show i'm gonna call your mom

Finally i went outside for half an hour. It was raining, so i just sat in the car like a... i don't even know what. And while i was sitting there i started thinking about something else too.

At the crisis center today, the guy i talked to also seemed to question my idea of paying my gf back after the breakup. He didn't say it was "weird", but he clearly seemed to question why i feel like i owe her so much. And that made me think again about some of the points other anons here have brought up.

Like why exactly is my time and energy worthless in this equation?

Is she somehow doing me a favor by being with me, like it's a charity? Why do i automatically think that i need to repay her for the years we've been together, rather than also asking what those years have cost me?

I know i've done serious things wrong. I know i've hurt her. I know i withdrew, avoided things, made mistakes and should have left years ago when i first thought about it.

But maybe "i made serious mistakes" and "therefore everything that happened afterwards is my fault" really are two different things.

Maybe it's just another instance of anxiety and anger, but i'm looking at it a bit differently now. Maybe i should focus on this thought and the feelings that come up around it and work with those next.

Like, why do i still feel so sorry and so willing to make amends even when she talks to me like this? Why do i still struggle with all these conflicting feelings and thoughts? Why do i feel like i have to compensate her somehow before i'm even allowed to leave?

Why am i like this? And how do i change?

>>34992850
Your are blaming yourself for her mistakes because you see her like a fallen angel. She is not. She was never an angel to begin with, and you never felled her with your ignobility. Your feeling of
>I just genuinely feel that she would probably have had a better life if i hadn't come into it.
represents the problem.
She is responsible for her own suffering. She is responsible for her own misery. Nothing has forced her to be unhappy and abusive except her own free choice.
Even if your relationship was ultimately bad for her, she had two choices: 1. don't hurt the person she claims to love, making things worse, or 2. leave if she is unable to help him or be happy with him. She has done neither and is in fact forcing you to stay. And she's doing so out of self interest, whether delusionally or sanely. That's her choice and her responsibility.
It's normal to be attached to someone you loved for a long time. But you are not to blame for her own mistakes.

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>>34993084
>She is responsible for her own suffering.
>She is responsible for her own misery.
>Nothing has forced her to be unhappy and abusive except her own free choice.
> Even if your relationship was ultimately bad for her, she had two choices: 1. don't hurt the person she claims to love, making things worse, or 2. leave if she is unable to help him or be happy with him.
>She has done neither and is in fact forcing you to stay. And she's doing so out of self interest, whether delusionally or sanely. That's her choice and her responsibility.

Yeah. Well, that's what i've thought for years. We've both made a bunch of bad decisions that have led us here.

I've also thought that if we just can't make this work without all the shit that's been going on, then maybe we should stop trying altogether. All this shouting and fighting isn't an answer. And you can't just keep looking at the history of a relationship if living in it today is hellish.

I've literally asked her several times that if she's so unhappy with me and constantly disappointed in me, why doesn't she try to find a better man?

The answer has never really acknowledged that as an option. It's always been about the sunk cost, or "but i love you and don't want anyone else".

And yeah, i kinda feel that she's being selfish too. She's basically been telling me for years that her feelings override mine.