2 1/2 months out from the break up and after about 1 month of NC (no contact), I think I'm finally ready to tell you all about what happened.... without writing an entry that sounds like I'm vomiting emotions.
As followers of this blog know, I was dating a deployed United States soldier, who I refer to as Apache. Apache and I had, at least I thought we had, this amazing relationship that was able to survive a year-long deployment. We had discussed plans for moving in together, having children, the whole thing. I was completely and blindly in love with him, and thought that we could outlast anything. I knew that coming home he would have his own challenges reintegrating into society and dealing with PTSD. I resolved myself to stay by his side and help him through it all.
He came home in November 2010, and I knew things were different, immediately. He pulled away, and I watched as this close relationship we had fell apart. In January 2011, I found out that he had cheated on me with a girl he had been deployed with, and apparently he slept with her several times since he had come home. I confronted him, and we broke up. Two weeks later, he called saying how much he missed me and how much he had fucked up. We got back together.
We went through several on and off periods, usually when I found out that he had been sleeping with someone else. Why did i take him back? Because the army therapist i had been seeing kept telling me that this was "normal" for someone who had been deployed to act when he got home. So each time I confornted him about his infidelity, he would break up with me, and I would tell him "I love you. I'm here when you're ready." Two weeks later, he'd be back.
The last break up happened in May. It was the anniversary of his friend's death in Afghanistan, and he was going to the bar with friends. He had told me he was going to be getting extremely drunk, and I had told him I would pick him up whenever he wanted to go home. He never called, and when I checked his facebook the next day, I found out he had was extremely drunk and emotional, met this girl, told her his entire life story, and she took him and his roommate home, and he invited her out to dinner. I confronted him on it, and we broke up.
He didn't miss a beat and began seeing her. In fact, three days after the breakup, he told a mutual friend that "she made him believe in relationships again". WHAT?!?! He and I had broken up so many times that I didn't take the breakup seriously. There had been other girls, but he had come back to me. It makes me wonder how many of those other girls rejected him...I know at least one did.
Confronted by the reality of just how little respect for me he apparently has, I lost it. My ex wanted me to just fade silently into the background. I was angry and demanded explanations from him. We had been on and off so many times, that I didn't go no contact (NC). I carried on like nothing was wrong which had worked during push-pull before. And when I found out that he was going on a date with this girl, I was extremely intoxicated and resorted to the one thing I knew would hit him below the belt: I told him I was pregnant and that I was having an abortion. At the time, i wanted to make him hurt for all the times he had betrayed me & lied to me, humiliated me, and all the hurt I had endured since he had come home, after I had supported him through EVERYTHING he had gone through before, during, and after deployment. After I sobered, and realized what I had done, I came clean to him.
I still talked to him, and he would respond back to me... it was strained, but I was used to him needing a break, especially when he was stressing about something else in his life. I resolved to just give him time to come back.
A week after the breakup, I went to Washington DC with my students, and two things happened while I was gone. 1, a mutual friend of ours was struck by lightening and was listed in the newspaper as critical condition. 2. My doctor called me because they suspected a lump I had found in my breast the week before was cancerous. I contacted him for both those things, to see how his friend was, and to get support from him. He told me that his friend was okay, and told me he was sorry I was going through everything.
A week later, someone with a vaguely familiar name friended me on facebook. I accepted the friend request, and sent her a message asking how I knew her. While I was waiting for a response, I started browsing through her pictures. I found a pic of Apache and the new girl. The person who had friended me was her cousin. Right about that time, the girl sent me a message saying she thought I went to college with her. I sent another message back, telling her that didn't need the drama she was trying to bring, that dealing with the breakup was hard enough. She responded back that she didnt know what I was talking about...that my Apache had told the new girl that he had been broken up with me for months because I was "psycho." I responded back that she was sorely mistaken, we had been dating the night he had met her, and the new gf called me (my cell # was on FB). She was, at first, extremely sweet and apologetic, and said that she had no idea that he had a gf, and she would back off immediately. She must have confronted him. Apache texted me and told me how I had "ruined his life. And he never wanted to talk to me again." GREAT.
After that, I began receiving harassing messages from her. I really think that she had her cousin friend me to start drama between my ex and I to push us farther apart, and it worked. I didn't respond to her, and tried to keep my distance from him. After a month or so, I realized he was not coming back anytime soon, and a family friend of his told me that he had borderline personality disorder and sent me this link about how the
BPD relationship starts. It was the perfect pattern of how our relationshp had started, and how his other relationships had been. I just wanted my things back, and would text him once a week or so to get my things back. She would respond every time from her phone-- acting extremely nasty, telling me how pathetic I am. Apparently, my ex is making me out to be the persecutor, and triangulating in earnest. I refused to engage with her, and wouldn't respond.
A month ago, I called him and left a phone message about my things. This launched a volley of threats and accusations from her. And then he called me back, with her screaming in the background, calling me all sorts of names and daring me to fight her. I had had it. I'm tired of being made to feel like I'm psycho for having developed anxiety/depression as a result of being in this relationship or pathetic for still loving someone I had been with for two years, and supported through a horrific deployment. Her words stung, and I grabbed my keys, and started driving the hour towards her house. My cousin, recognizing that I was about to get myself into a heap of legal/physical trouble, had her state police friends pull me over. I showed the troopers the messages from her, and they said that they would get involved.
A few days later, I got some nasty messages from my Apache about how ridiculous I was being for having the police involved to get my things back--things that I didn't need. I told him that it was not up to him to decide, and that I wanted to come get my things, or I would show at this house with a trooper. He said that I was "stalking" and "harassing" him (I had texted him only three or four times, and have purposely stayed away from the city he lives in.) And that he never wants to see or talk to me again, and if he does he would have the police involved. But I got my things back the next day.
Then, a week or so after, I get a message from the cousin:: "I'm not trying to get in the middle nut it's time for you to move on. Did you forget that I'm a nurse!? This breast ca bs is bogus. A dear friend and coworker of mine recently died suddenly of an undiagnosed cancer. It makes me sick to my stomach to think some one would use that to draw attention to themselves. I think it's time for you to move on and leave well enough alone. "
What the hell??!?!? I've said nothing to my ex since last week, why this? why now? the cancer was not made up, though luckily the operation I had two weeks ago to remove the lump came back negative for cancer. Thank God. But I wasn't about to call him and tell him that...
I blocked her on FB, and didn't respond. I'm not stupid. I know she's fishing for a reaction that she can use to make my exBPDbf even more upset with me. It makes me wonder, though, about how happy their relationship is. If it was the "perfect" relationship, she wouldn't feel the need to be this possessive or aggressive. Right?
Then today, I get a message from the girlfriend. Apparently, my facebook unblocked her last night (and I have to wait 48 hours to block her again): "Yes we are still together. You can quit stalking me. I can see when u block and unblock me. FYI."
I have half a mind to message back, but I do NOT need this shit. I want the drama to be OVER. All of this, is high school shit. I'm on the road to getting better, to finally letting him go and moving on. I have to focus on me, and do what needs to be done.
