Him: Don't expect me to text you all day, and don't expect me to text you at night. Don't expect me to be clean so we can make love.

Don't expect me to communicate or try to. Don't expect me to do what I say I will. Don't expect me to stay awake or keep plans because I get tired and forgetful. Don't expect me to be affectionate. Don't expect me to listen or care about your day. Don't expect me to change the things I said I would. Don't expect to be called beautiful. In fact, just want nothing from me while I make you feel bad over my insecurities and inability to see beyond my own needs. Give to me. Give me all you have so I can reciprocate with scraps. Touch me but I won't touch you back. If you cry it'll make me angry. If you have a bad day don't bother me with it. Open up to me so I can reject you. Be unhealthy with me but make me a better man.

I could probably keep going and going... I am letting it out. Letting it go.

I think he poisoned me though. I am really good at bouncing back, but it's been hard with him. It was so bad. I've never been in such a toxic situation. I lost myself in his sea of rules, until I realized making him happy was destroying me.

It took so long to get away from him. And it took me till now to realize, I had been emotionally abused. Nobody had done that to me since my dad.

Now I see, because I met him when my mom was dying, that I was vulnerable and desperate and he took advantage of that. For many years. I wasn't blind to it, we were off and on. But I definitely didn't understand that I was being manipulated and gaslit. I thought those were psychology terms that people overused, but that was him.

I was trying to be loving and loyal, he was just syphoning my good energy because he knows he's a piece of shite. And he'll never find a woman as good as me.

I will cleanse myself of him. I will be okay. But I am grieving for the years I lost and the love I wasted on someone who likely never loved me at all, he just took everything he could.