I was in a relationship with a man

I swear I am not just being bitter. I think I’ve been looking for closure for the entire year. I was 16 and I never had a good relationship with my father. I went online and begged for attention essentially from older men. My ex was one of those men. He was in his 40s when we met; we had a 26 year age gap. He admitted to me that early on he was masturbating to photos of me when I was a teen. Just photos of my face. I didn’t find that out until later but there was a lot of flirting as a teen.

At first, I was angry about it. I would tell him to stop. But I started doing it too. I really don’t know why. I believe I was 20 when we first started saying we were dating. We had a very hostile relationship. There was a LOT of fighting. His mother triggered me very badly because she SA him. I was triggered because of my childhood. We would fight about her throughout the course of those 9 years. The other thing we would fight about was the distance.

I wanted to be with him in person, and his reasoning for not doing it was because he had to take care of his mother. I hated her very badly, like basically wished her dead. It felt like she ruined his life and then ruined our relationship.

There were “red flags”. I was working at a school district a few years ago, and he wanted me to film myself peeing in a urinal at that school, which I can only imagine the fantasy is the thought of a child walking in on me. I don’t know what the fantasy was, but I refused.

I want to talk about the big moment that things really changed. We were fighting a lot on the phone, hanging up on each other etc. There was no communication. And I struggle with alcohol and began drinking again. I met a coworker that I went out with. I first ran it by my ex who was angry but then after I finally admitted our relationship, he was ok with it. I was very embarrassed to tell anyone about our relationship.

We went out, I got really drunk and we kissed at a bar. I was way to drink to actually have sex that night but it was attempted. I was so drunk to the point of my coworker checking my pulse. I needed medical attention. And I begged for it but my coworker refused. Thankfully I survived anyway. But that same morning, I called my ex and said the truth of what had happened and he broke up with me right then.

We ended up getting in this weird relationship where we’re still hanging on but not quite. And the fighting continued but now I was a cheater and a whore and all of those things. I do want to mention, I did have sex with that coworker, just not that night. I did after we broke up. But it was one of those rebound situations.

Anyways, his mother was dying and getting worse everyday and I still hated her. And something triggered me and I told him I was done and basically went off on him. I know it was something about her. I blocked him on everything and then like a day or two later, I unblocked. I found out I was blocked on everything.

We had some huge fights, way bigger than that and always made up but this time he was done. I don’t know why and that part is what makes it hard to move on. I don’t want to sound bitter when I say this but my biggest fear was that I simply got too old for him. I know his mother messed him up bad. My biggest fear was he was a pedophile. He told me he wouldn’t want children because he was afraid he’d touch them essentially.

I guess I’m still stuck looking for closure while he’s moved on. He remained friends with his ex boyfriend throughout our relationship but not with me. Maybe I’m completely tone deaf but give it to be straight. Tell me I’m horrible, etc. This is very embarrassing for me to write.

Morrowind · 26-30, M

I asked Gemini to roast me:

Oh, you want a roast? After baring your soul about surviving a literal decades-long dumpster fire of a grooming situation, you look at me and say, "Hit me harder, I'm ready"?
That is the emotional equivalent of surviving a train wreck, crawling out of the wreckage, dusting yourself off, and immediately stepping back onto the tracks to see if the caboose wants to bump into you one more time.
You’ve got a phobia of plumbing, yet you spent nine years dating a man whose entire personality was a clogged, backed-up sewage line of red flags. You survived a guy asking you to film yourself in a school bathroom, a near-death alcohol poisoning scare where your coworker had to check your pulse, and a relationship dynamic so toxic it makes reality TV look like a PBS documentary.
And your takeaway? "Tell me I'm horrible, maybe he left because I got old."
My sibling in Christ, you didn't age out of a relationship; you aged into a functional prefrontal cortex and realized you were dating a walking violation of every safety code known to humanity.
You're sitting in a bathtub right now, terrified of a gurgling toilet while your brain is still trying to romanticize a guy who treated you like a DIY project. The plumbing isn't the only thing making a draining sound—that’s just the last remaining ounce of your self-doubt trying to escape down the U-bend. Flush the man, enjoy your bath, and stop giving your trauma free rent in your head.