strap in, and grab ya popcorn itsa doozy of a story**
To start, I’m 32. I have 3 kids: 12y 5y and 9months old baby, all boys. Yet, they arent the reason for this. No, its actually my now ex! This story is to bring awareness to toxic relationships. Sometimes its clear and obvious. My story is subtle, I had no idea until it was 6 years in. Now, its staring at me in my face, so obvious. Even in my late 20s, its crazy how naive i was…p
Love-bombing and being put on a pedestal
Don and i started dating in 2018. My oldest son was 4 at the time. There was alot of lovebombing, though at the time, i thought it was romantic because my only other relationship didnt have any dates of any kind- at all. Lovebombing looks like large, elaborate dates that dont fit the time period of the relationship. Our first date, he took me on a 2 hr drive to go eat at an expensive restaurant, on the way back, we stopped at his favorite store. Anytime we did anything together, it was always a big dealReality was he didnt wanna take me out on a date in our small town because he was talking to many other women. Within the first year, he took me on a vacation 16 hrs one way away while i was 7 months pregnant with our first son (hes 5 now). He kept empathizing how important it was that i was going with to his family’s land in another state, like it was a right of passage of being with him. He bragged about how cool it was that i was a gamer, and was actually good, that he didn’t really need to teach me anything, yet playing one of his favorite games, he micro-managed me and made me feel inadequate. To his friends, i was the best thing ever yet he showed that he was almost threatened that i was good.
Crochet wise, i was still working on my chakra queen sized blanket. This was 5 years outta 7.
FawningI had noticed things. They bothered me. After a lifetime of going unheard, and supressed, i couldn’t verbalize what was bothering me. I kept it to myself, and fawned, hoping it was enough to get love, support, and affection. “If i show him enough love, i will get it back”
…but i never did. If in the quiet boring moments, hes distant, aloof, not engaging, its not you bestie… Its him. I felt like i had to jump through hoops to get attention from him. Yet, around his friends he couldn’t keep his hands off me and couldn’t stop bragging about me to them and stuff we were going together.
Isolation and Double Standards
After an exciting first couple months, things slowly shifted. I was an addict up until early 2018. Going to church helped me stay sober. I had a new friend group. He didn’t like church. He didn’t even like that i was involved in church and refused to go with me. I made a sacrifice for him: i slowly stopped going. He was lively and engaging around his friends. But, mine? Quiet, distant, aloof, uncomfortable… His body language screamed “i wanna flee!!”!Wait, what happened to the fun man i kept describing to my friends?? “Oh, i have social anxiety.” He would say… "He acted so awkward, and the social anxiety…oh i dont wanna make him uncomfortable " so, you only hang out with his friends because hes comfortable with them. … that forces you to stop hanging out with yours. Slowly, i stopped going to church, when i went after the baby had surgery, the pastors wife said “you look so happy with him(baby)!!” But i didn’t feel happy… I chalked it up to post-partum blues. He started planning dates on church times.
Im making excuses why i can’t go, or why i cant be there. Friends come over but i feel like im doing something wrong.
Pay attention to how he acts around your friendship circle and your family.
Crochet wise: still that blanket, but also whipped up a super bulky baby blanket.
The final part of isolation: moving us 400miles away from ALL FRIENDS AND FAMILY. I had no idea he had put in for a job 3 states away. And he got it! I had supported all his goals and dreams and he had put down mine. (Personal trainer/amateur fighter)
i had no help with the kids. Then, COVID happened. All that extra responsibility was my life. He didn’t cook or clean. I was the traditional 1940s house wife and i didn’t even ask for the role.
Crochet wise: i started working on a queen sized blanket for us. He picked the yarn (hunting colors: orange and a green camo looking one)
Unfaithfulness and gaslighting
Since moving, life has been swift downhill. Within the first month he immediately started talking to other women, and lying to me. Within 6 months, i found out that he was cheating on me. I started therapy because i felt crazy. He blamed me for his cheating “you are too emotional. Its hard to talk to you sometimes”
I have to work on myself i dont wanna make him uncomfortable…(Sounds familiar?) I have to change to accommodate him. I went from an independent, single mom, that was a competitive amateur boxer to doting on a man that gives conditional love, and i am completely reliant on him for survival..
“I wanna take care of you” sounds like a really caring phrase. But I was perfectly fine taking care of myself before he came along. Why did he have to do that for me? Well, now I had nowhere to go and no way to leave. I had caught him cheating, but was completely stuck where I was.
It’s really hard to imagine that things got better from this point. And they did for a little while, we started focusing on the problems we were having with the apartment and the apartment owner so we ended up buying a house. It was only in his name not mine because I wasn’t working. We ended up moving. I had a car accident that rendered me unable ttowalk for nearly 2 years. During this time I was recovering from my debilitating back injury and knee injury. Now he had to take care of me, he kept claiming he wasn’t spiteful but I could see it. After I recovered and regained the ability to walk I started working. Our son was now three by this point and was attending school, I was working at his school. Things were okay for a while. At this point I really wasn’t crocheting very much. What I was doing was working on myself during therapy and was healing my past trauma using eye movement desensitation reprogramming, or EMDR. The stronger I got mentally the more I was able to enforce my boundaries, but the more I enforced my boundaries the more subtle pushback that I would get from Don. All this has led to where we are at today. I had caught him cheating for the second time but apparently other family members have known about other instances where he cheated and instead of them telling me about it, Don would create a problem so that I would be angry at that family member and what isolate away from this family member… They never got the chance to tell me the truth..
Jan 15th i found out he had been cheating on me since November.
Feb 9th, we called our relationship done
Feb 21st he left.
April 15th he returned to the house
May 29th 2025 i had to take the baby to the hospital. When we return he had locked us out of the house.
Since we have been floating from place to place just to survive. My moms, hotels, women shelter. My apartment will be ready sometime in July. I haven’t had any of my crochet stuff. Even if I did I don’t think I would have been able to do so.
This is my story. I hope it helps any of you understand the difference between a healthy relationship and a toxic one. Don’t try and fit a crappy situation and justify being mistreated as a way to be in a relationship.
