I don't know how to move on after trying to build a life with someone for on and off for years, or even what to think of them as a person now

TW - Vague mention of sexual assault, cheating, vague mention of addiction and pornography

This is going to be a long post so I apologize, there’s a lot of context that needs to go into all of this. If my former partner finds this, I apologize to them: I’m not trying to gossip about you, I'm only looking for understanding and outside thoughts about the past four years. I can't carry this anymore. I’m sorry if any of my own biases slip in.

I am a victim of sexual assault. My first ever girlfriend that I met at college orientation understood my naivete and preyed upon it, pushing me to do things I wasn’t ready for and then normalizing non consensual sex at her preference. She would let herself into my dorm room while I was asleep. I eventually had a breakdown and left after my first semester, flunking most of my classes and wrecking my GPA going forward. I lost all interest in life, shaved my head, stopped eating and lost a huge amount of weight and really just went catatonic. I remained that way until I started using pornography, as a way for me to have control over my body and intimacy again. I understood it wasn’t healthy, but it was all I could do - I wasn’t ready to tell my family. Only recently, nearly a decade later, was I finally able to tell my Mom all of this.

Years passed, I went to another college, it wasn’t really my thing and I tried a third college where I really, truly began to thrive. I made good friends, I liked my courses and professors and I came into my own, exercising and socializing and even going on some very low key, low stakes dates. I didn’t even kiss anyone or hold hands - I was so happy just to be able to hug someone and feel safe. I hadn’t used any pornography in over a year, close to two by the time I graduated, I felt so free and like I could actually let love back into my life again.

I graduated directly into the pandemic, winter of 2019. January ticked over to 2020, and we all know what happens from there. Suddenly, I was completely isolated again and felt under immense stress and peril, like I had been with my abuser. I didn’t feel safe going outside and my family was completely unsympathetic - they wanted me to hurry up and get a job, not taking COVID seriously. I relapsed, I think because the situation was similar enough and I needed any form of comfort that was absent everywhere else.

Eventually, I relocated southward to be with my childhood best friend and his family for the pandemic. I got a job tutoring, it was stressful being out with so many opportunities to catch Covid, but I managed. I was there for two years and, in that time, I met who I thought was my true love - or they had been, up until just a month ago. They were so wonderful, we started talking long distance through reddit, and everything felt right. Eventually, we decided we wanted to try partnership and even moved to relocate to be together to start our life. Things were blissful for awhile. However, something I hadn’t properly accounted for was that they had a very strict no pornography rule for their relationships. I, comfortable and truthful in feeling that I was cured and not wanting my life to be dictated by my trauma, was okay in saying that I didn’t use that. It was a mistake, not a malicious one, but I did fuck up and not tell them earlier on the full extents of my personal trauma but again, it wasn’t something I really talked to people about at that point in my life. This was about four years ago. Ultimately, I ended up in another really stressful situation. I worked a terrible job to try and support us, it was the first time I had ever been in a “support a family and household” situation, because the time I would have spent living alone with a rent was spent in quarantine. I was working 12 hour shifts in a hyperbolic lab doing monotonous, physical work, sometimes for 6 days a week, and while I felt safe with my then partner, this was the only intimacy I had had since I was predated. All of this stacked up a certain way and you can see where it’s headed.

My trauma response started again and I got caught in a lie, and everything went scorched earth. Everything became volatile, they would scream and cry to the point of hysterics, sometimes so much the police would get called. They would stand in our bedroom door and just seethe at me, wake me up screaming. I felt like such an awful monster for months, all the while still trying to support us and enjoy the times that could still be good. I had to give them access to all my logins, socials and into my computer and my emails so they could monitor me and make sure I was telling the truth. I wasn’t allowed to speak to certain people they deemed a threat to our relationship, friends included. They would take screenshots of everything and even record conversations secretly to make sure I wasn’t lying. It is worth saying they have a lot of their own problems and issues like I do, for what that context adds. It was really toxic and I couldn’t prove to them that I was better - it was always something more I needed to do to prove I wasn’t cheating, even given my context of why what happened, my trauma. Despite that and our shared history of having been predated or that we’re both autistic adults, none of it mattered. To be clear, I do understand I messed up, of course I did. But not even the objective reality of my change that they could see from monitoring all of my online presence - I was presumed guilty, and always would be now. Maybe that is just how it is. This would carry forward into the years to come, up until the present.

Eventually, it fell apart, and they flew back to the city they started from. Their health had been in a bad way, exasperated by heavy drinking and drug use. I would have to leave work spontaneously to keep them okay and take days off for the same reason. Nothing I could realistically have done would have made this better and I can see that only now, I think. The things I couldn’t do were therapy for us, which was too much money out of pocket for only me working, and sex anonymous, having not had the emotional bandwidth with the current trauma occurring to commit to. I did end up doing this, only too late to make a difference. They left and I was alone in a house full of our shared memories, completely broken emotionally. For awhile they stopped talking to me and broke it off, then came back and wanted to work through it long distance. It was always on their terms, so that when eventually they did break it off for good, they had a new partner immediately lined up and I was alone where I had stood by them to help them through this process. This was the first time I consciously felt used, that I was just something comforting for them to have until they had something they wanted more, my dedication meaningless.

The guy they got with ended up being really abusive and it fell apart, for them to immediately get with another guy they met at a concert, I’ll call him College Kid, who is 7-8 years their younger. When I met them again by chance after moving for work, they were not well and we befriended each other, my plans of a friend group and a job having fallen through and made me in need of connections - I did miss them too, and I still loved them as much as I had years before. I listened to their concerns about their abusive ex and their current College Kid and tried to give them genuine input as a friend. We mended some of our shared hurt and became good friends and they recommended right away that we get an apartment together which threw me off - it didn’t make sense in my head why that could be a thing unless they were interested in exploring our old relationship, their current partnership with College Kid effectively dissolving, from what I understood after one dinner we had.  They had a dozen complaints, and they wanted different things, my former partner wanting marriage and a family and College Kid interested in neither, along with a host of other serious concerns. Looking back, I have to wonder if they were simply using me, even from the beginning. We got the apartment and continued to grow closer and, sure enough, they and College Kid broke up their long distance relationship – and then got back together a week later. I was so confused, with the amount of affection and closeness I was receiving in the context of our history, and increasingly frustrated. It continued like this until they went to a concert together a vacation week before he went to France for a work period. This was absolute hell, all alone and tortured with thinking of them together in the way that they knew I felt still, I made it no mystery. It was so back and forth, more affection and reminiscing about our past and dropping things like “what do you think a relationship for us would be” and “do you ever think of getting back together” all while giving me grievances over College Kid, especially that he left to France on short notice for work. I was steadfast, all in, husband level dedication, and I was allowed to act as such, it was confirmation in my mind. We kept getting closer and more affectionate as they continued to express discontent with College Kid. Eventually, they broke up in a massive fight again, and I tried to give them comfort in the aftermath. It was right before Christmas. On and off during our year together, they had been inviting me to sleep in the same bed with them, and had been for over a week at this point. I asked them if I could kiss them and one night they said yes, quickly sparking our old relationship. I was so, so happy - I hadn’t ever stopped loving them over the years and I thought that deep down, they were the same. Except, they broke up with me again three months later, right after I had signed another new apartment lease with them. They told me they hadn’t felt it was right and had meant to tell me for some time, but not until after moving apparently. They then immediately made moves to get back together with College Kid, who had been asking for them to get back together even during our three month relationship, which would have been overwhelmingly called cheating if our roles were reversed.

I left the apartment, city, and state entirely, and am now trying to understand what happened and what my life is. I poured all of my funds, time, energy, and future into this person, and it’s gone. My full dedication, even my immediate offer of proposal during the three months, wasn’t enough.

That’s my story. I am not looking for anything other than honest feedback and advice. I don’t have a specific question. If your input is that I messed up first and can’t have expected anything afterward, that’s welcome. If you think foul play occurred and I was used, even inadvertently, it might bring me some solace. I just want to know I’m not crazy and that I tried my very best and that it’s okay for me to let this go, and maybe some advice on what I should even do with my life now. I haven’t for a single day since meeting my former partner planned on them not being by my side and sharing this life and love with me. I was so sure it would work out - I thought that if two people shared a true, genuine love like I thought we did, they could make it work, no matter what. Maybe that’s still my own naivete, or maybe it stopped being that way for them. Thank you for reading. It’s nice to even just get this out of me and somewhere else.