Was I manipulated during my relationship?

I (F21) was in a relationship with M26 for 10 months.

People around me are telling me my ex was manipulative but I have trouble believing it.

To preface this, I am an extremely sensitive person and my partner was aware of that. I always communicated how his actions would affect me and so on. I was also very vocal about being extremely insecure. I honestly had no self confidence and he knew that.

I wanted to give you guys examples to help you understand. I genuinely have no idea if people are only telling me this to make me feel better. Even if people tell me he manipulated me, I’m finding it hard to be mad at him because maybe he did it unconsciously?

Here are some examples :

• He went on dating apps at the beginning of our relationship.

I confronted him about seeing him online (No, I was not being unfaithful myself. I kept the app because I wanted to keep our first conversation forever and I genuinely thought we’d get married someday.) He told me it was doomscrolling basically and that he was just bored so he went on it. He also stated that he DID NOT SWIPE while on the app and I don’t know why I believed that bc what else would he be doing on it ???? It was 2 weeks into our relationship so I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. I got angry, but then forgave him because he said it was nothing.

3 months later I thought about it again and wanted to speak with him. I asked him a second time, what he was doing exactly on the app. He told me the same thing, it was nothing BUT I asked him “did you swipe on girls ?” He said “yeahhh of course i told you that already”. Thank god I still had the text where he said he DID NOT. I felt so betrayed. He continued to lie and then said okay sorry “I didn’t want to hurt you, that’s why I didn’t say anything”.

We talked and I forgave him againnnnn. He told me he was sorry for lying to me, but absolutely not sorry for going on the app because he KNEW he didn’t do anything wrong on it. I thought, wow maybe he did do nothing wrong if he doesn’t even feel sorry. But, today I realize that it was a big deal ! this man emotionally cheated on me just by having that app downloaded.

This was a big one, but here’s smaller examples :

• We went shopping together for him. I told him “you didn’t choose the right person to take you shopping because I don’t dress well !” (I genuinely think that and wasn’t fishing for compliments, but it came from a place of insecurity) He said “yeahhhh that’s true”. I got very upset afterwards and he didn’t understand. I felt like it was just straight up mean ? It was very honest but a little cruel to say idk ? He could’ve said it in another way even if he agreed on my statement.

• We hadn’t seen each other for like 5 days. I told him “I missed you ! Did you miss me ?” he did not answer it so I was confused. I asked again and he kind of went « not reallyyy… ». Again, it’s very honest, but cruel. I was thinking, how can you just say that to me ? And he said ohhh there’s worse things you can say to someone. I mean yeah but obviously it hurt me ? He then said ohhh but we don’t have the same definition of missing someone. To him, when I said I missed him, it was in a negative sense ? Like feeling really sad and down bc you’re not with the person. He said do you want me to feel bad/sad when I’m not around you ???? I was just saying I missed him, to me it’s just, thinking of the person and wishing you were with them and it doesn’t have to be painful. I don’t know I felt crazy for reacting badly.

• He told me I’d be absolutely unbearable if I was ever pregnant. He was very serious while saying this. And I just laughed because I was like yeah must be true. But today, I feel like it’s very rude to say that ?

• He sometimes REFUSED to apologize when he hurt me because he thought he didn’t do anything wrong. I explained that even if he feels like he did nothing wrong he can still apologize for making me feel bad. I don’t know, I feel like it’s just common sense to say “Oh, I did not mean it that way and don’t see what’s wrong with what I did, but if my actions hurt you I’m sorry”

There are other stuff, but I think that’s what i remember the most. Please be honest !