Everyone has a story.. This is mine

Hugs to you. I feel a certain amount of anxiety on reading your posts.

The description you give of R pushing to get you to agree to start swinging reminds me of the old Kantian thing about how to treat others. Kant said that people should aim to "act so as to treat people always as ends in themselves, never as mere means."

By that he means that everybody is intrinsically valuable and so we should avoid treating them as tools through which we can satisfy our own goals.

It reads to me as if R is using you as a means to his end of engaging in swinging. (apologies if I have misread you).

In general, I would feel very uneasy about anybody who would try to push me into doing something new that I had expressed anxiety about. I would find it hard to consider a person who would do that as trustworthy - I don't know that I could trust that person to be considerate of me once we were engaged in the new thing.

Are you finding it possible to connect with people near where you live who are not involved in your relationship? I feel like you might need a bit of a support network.

Hugs again.

IP
 
I just want to go home.
I feel this ache in my gut and I am forcing tears back from my eyes.
I feel like I deserved this, I deserved to be cheated on. I deserved to be lied to. I deserved to be hurt and betrayed.

Why?
Because I made a stupid decsion.
Because I didn't think clearly.
Because I was reckless with my life.

And now what has this gotten me.
I am miserable.
I am alone.
I will be destitue if I move back home without a job.

I am hurting.
All because someone can't keep their promises.
All because someone doesn't care about anyone but themselves.
I can't do this anymore.
 
You took a chance on love. It's what our culture encourages us to do. "Chance" implies the risk you will get burned, and really we always are taking a chance when we love because we can't actually look inside the other person's brain and heart and know for a fact that they mean what they say and are strong and good enough to follow through.

A few people find their perfect partner(s) on the first try. Many more of us, myself included, get burned a time or two (or three or more...) in our search for love. Including you. That doesn't make you bad. You didn't deserve this. No one ever deserves to be lied to and disrespected by someone they love, ever.

Were you foolish to trust him? Impossible to say. You took a chance. You will learn and grow from this experience, and maybe it will help you avoid a similar type of person in the future. Or maybe it really was impossible for you to have known. Some people have really good masks, so good they even fool themselves, and you just don't know until you get close enough for long enough to see what's really under there.

You will be ok. You can find another place to live in the same area as your current job, or you can move home and couchsurf until you find employment or you can take any number of other paths out of this situation, but you are free and you WILL be ok. It will be hard, and it's ok and normal to be hurt, but don't lose sight of the fact that you have your whole future ahead of you still.

*hug*
 
What Annabel said!

Funny thing is once you make up your mind to do something, you start finding solutions. It might not be instantaneous, but it can happen.
 
I feel like I deserved this, I deserved to be cheated on. I deserved to be lied to. I deserved to be hurt and betrayed.

Look after yourself and if you can let go of the feelings that you deserve to have bad things happen to you.

It's understandable that you have those feelings - all of us who grow up in the Western world are taught from a very young age (less than 5 for kids going through the nursery system in the UK!) that making mistakes is a bad thing.

We are taught that there is a right answer and a wrong answer, that we should know them in advance and that if we make a mistake, we have committed some sort of moral crime and deserve to be punished for it.

It is no surprise that we tend to carry those feelings into adulthood.

But the way we are educated is flawed. None of us can predict exactly what will happen in the future. We can get better at it with experience but we can't ever be perfect at it.

Inevitably, lots of the things all of us try to do won't turn out the way we hoped they would. That is just the way the world is. All of us hope that new things will turn out well but sometimes they don't. Or sometimes they turn out very differently and the different way turns out to be good too in the end.

I hope you are able to look after yourself. How well populated is the place you are living in now? Can you look for groups to join that are doing things you're interested in? Is it possible to rent somewhere else to live nearby?

Sending you thoughts of strength.

IP
 
I feel for you. I hope Christmas went well.

I hope you post more on here. I'm wanting to know what your actions are? I feel not so alone knowing you have similar experiences...

I pushed B out of our relationship. I told T they could be friends. Just friends. It is going well. I met his family today finally.

I'm going to trust him.

I used to feel bad but I realized alot. I did things wrong but we all did. We did it and moved on. I accept it and try not to let it define me.

Look at it as an example. This is your one life. One life. Every minute gone is another minute you won't get back. Like the others said you gave love a chance. It ended badly yes (if ended).
But you can be strong. You already were through a lot of shit.
I think every moment (good or bad) is a minute worth living if good intentioned. You sound good intentioned, pissed but it's not like you want anything badly towards anyone. At times you probably wish R could be yours (and only YOURS) but what's wrong with being a little selfish, especially after sacrificing? But that's just wishing too. It's not like you pushed anything too much against W.

I hope you are well!!!!
I think no matter what you'll do I can understand, being there/having been there.
 
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