… and maybe even cheating on me, and man, I’m just tired of feeling like some stupid, worthless side bitch.
There are tons of people out there who have it way way worse than me but I’m sick of carrying this weight around anymore. If you’re reading this, thank you for hearing out what I can’t tell the other people in my life - I appreciate you so much.
We broke up and got back together a couple times so our relationship isn’t great to start with, and I think he’s too embarassed to admit he’s with me again. He acts and treats me like he loves me when we’re together, which is why it hurt that it took 8 months and me threatening to break up with him for him to tell his best friends and the woman whom he admitted was his crush that we’re together - and even then, I only have his word that he did it.
He refuses to bring me around his friends - or he will, but only with the ones he doesn’t care about that much, the ones that don’t meet his “real” friends.
Tonight he’s gone out dancing with all his “real” friends. He didn’t pretend to offer to include me. I’m not “supposed” to ask to come with because he expects me to know that it’ll be awkward for him around his friends. Basically, it’s only OK for me to be seen in his presence if no one else actually important is there (which is most of the time). Then he’ll unconsciously let his hair down and quit pretending to be charming and attentive and honestly just wring me the fuck dry of my energy and confidence and self.
However, his woman friend who texted him a few months back saying they couldn’t hang out together anymore because she had such strong feelings for him - the one who would actually make things awkward? - it’s OK that she’s there. He’s dancing with her, and all his other women friends he’s claimed has hit on him at one time or another, and his guy friends, and everyone except for the person that’s supposed to be important in his life. He could be doing anything in the world up there, physical or otherwise, and I’d just have to take his word for it. But he’s having the time of his life up there and pretending to be a bachelor again. I just have to stay at home and be happy about it. I’ll never be more than his side bitch and I just have to accept it.
I just expect things like this now. I feel like no matter how hard I try for us I’m an embarassment, not important enough to show others, so stupid for staying, and just sad about all of it. I feel like I have no place anywhere.
I can’t but feel if we were to get married, he’d ask me to stay home from our wedding so he wouldn’t have to be seen with me and he’d have the added bonus of being all gussied up in his suit for all the other ladies, the ones that actually matter, to see.
Sex with him dropped off pretty suddenly about a month or two into our relationship this time around. He blamed me for noticing. I don’t turn him on sexually anymore, unless he’s drunk and even that’s a weighty toss-up. I’ve been told I look pretty and I do take care of myself and whatnot, but no combination of lingerie or distance or desperation or so, so many honest conversations on my part ever reaches him. He always, always, always turns me down. I just stopped asking.
When we do have sex every month or so it’s only in the morning when he happens to have wood anyway. He finishes in under a minute or two (which I wouldn’t give half a shit about, and I never have, if it weren’t for the fact that I waited a month or so for this minute of intimacy, and now I’ll have to wait another and it makes me feel fucking sad and lonely). Then he doesn’t offer to help me finish because I’m apparently so difficult to please that I gave him a complex about it. So he just finishes in my body and gets on his phone and I have to act like it was a loving and fun experience that we shared while I wipe myself off the rag he hands me that’s stained from all the times that week he jerked it to women desperate for approval on his NSFW subreddits after telling me I’m too much of a burden when I try to sext him or send him nudes. If I don’t act like everything’s OK, I risk starting another big fight where no matter how hurt I am, I’m still the villain for questioning him and hurting his pride because he is simply always right. I’m too tired to fight anymore so I just take it. I used to like sex but it, and he, just make me feel worthless now.
He firmly believes that emotional infidelity doesn’t exist - as long as he isn’t touching anybody, then he’s not cheating, and I’m being an overbearing emotional crazy bitch who can’t trust him and doesn’t want him to be around other women because she’s an insecure, crazy bitch. I don’t feel that way; I feel like shit when he says I’ve scared him off from hanging out with his own friends who are women because I just wanted him to tell his crush we were dating.
He’s always reporting to me when other women hit on him, as if to remind me that he’s in high demand and he can do better than me any time he wants. It doesn’t make me feel like I’m sharing in his victories, but more like I have to compete with these invisible women for his affections. I both hate them and pity them. For so many reasons, I wish I could tell all those women to run away and find someone who makes them feel smart and capable and talented and beautiful and valued and equal and loved.
I can’t remember who I used to be before I met him, but I miss that person. I wish I had treated her better than I did.
I’m too embarassed to tell the people in my life the behavior that I’m accepting. I know even being single would be better than this but I can’t seem to get out. I’m not even in danger. I’m just stuck and fragmented and in pain, all the time, for many more reasons than I could even write here. I feel like a sidekick in my own life and I can’t seem to shake myself out of this.
I miss myself. I miss feeling good about myself and not some dirty secret. I don’t even know why he keeps me around. I don’t even know why I stick around. I hate myself for what I settle for.
EDIT: I guess I wanted to add that I still do try really hard to make things work out. When he says he feels like there’s a problem between us I listen and try to change things about myself, and even when we’re not fighting I’m there for him when he’s stressed and I like to give him massages and make him food and look nice for him when we go out and try to do gestures for him to show that I care. I’ve tried to talk to him in an honest but considerate way so, so many times about how the things I’ve mentioned are affecting me, during times when we’re both not too busy and we’re both calm. But he only ever tries to tell me why I’m wrong or crazy or hurting him for thinking the way I do. It makes me feel like I have no power in the relationship and I don’t even want to try anymore
You are a treasure!