Love Hate Love My Ex

I (NB29) started dating my ex (M29) in 2023. Things were good for a long time until one day in 2025 I realizes they weren’t. He had become really critical of me, micromanaging everything, and insulting me. One of the worst was calling me “gross” because I sneeze while we were in bed. My breaking point was when I sent him a nude of me masturbating and he told me it felt like a nude from a man.

I am nonbinary and he identifies as straight. I didn’t feel like it was a big issue because I believe sexuality is fluid and he had the right to identify as he chose. At that moment I realized he only saw me as a woman and was not interested in the masculinity of my identity.

Having a sexual photo of myself being called unattractive was horrible. In my whole life no one had said that kind of thing to me let alone to my face. My exact reaction in that moment was saying, “That was really hurtful.” He began crying and panicking. I confronted him and helped him relax until he fell asleep. Soon after we went on a break so I could understand my feelings and if I wanted to breakup.

I started hanging out with friends more often and relying on them for emotional support. I started going to the gym 5 days a week. I felt like if he didn’t find me attractive I wanted to be attractive in my own eyes. Of course he found me more attractive as I went to the gun. We were on a break so I started going on dates with other people. When he found out about this he told a lot of our mutual friends who have all since stopped talking to me.

Everything came to a head one day after a bad shift at work. I came home crying and telling him I needed space to calm down. He told me that we needed to figure out if we were going to be together or not as soon as possible that night. I began to have panic attack because I was so stressed from work and I had this on top of it. I told him I didn’t know if I wanted to be in a relationship or not because it was so painful and confusing. He said if I didn’t know right then that we had to break up. I said I didn’t know and according to his logic we had to break up. So we did but I felt like he forced my hand. I now realize that making someone who’s in emotional distress make a decision like that is a manipulation technique.

The week after the breakup I was about to move I tried to be civil. I did his laundry, slept on the couch, and we had polite conversation. I thought he was being nice at the time too but in retrospect it wasn’t good. When I did his laundry he left it on the floor instead of putting it away. I ended up pointing it away. He also venmo requested me for things he had done while we were on a break like groceries. I think it ended up being something like $150 by the time I moved out.

Three months later after I moved home I started a relationship with one of my old coworkers. I am nervous when I’m out in public with my current partner because I don’t want my ex to see us and make assumptions such as me cheating on him.

I love my new partner and feel accepted for all parts of my identity nonbinary and all. I also love my ex. It’s a different kind of love not so much an in love feeling but a having love for him feeling. I love who we were when things were good, I love his family. I miss our mutual friends. I wish we could go back to the “good part” or have worked through his insult about the photo. I don’t think I ever can or ever will. I don’t understand these feelings.

Can anyone tell me if my feelings towards him now are natural? I have not been in contact with him and I don’t want to go back to him. I just want to understand my feelings and how to work through them. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.