22F with 22M ex of 1.5 years - I feel emotionally destroyed after everything he put me through. I need advice on how to heal and move forward.

Before we ever got involved, he had been with a girl in 1st year. She was decent and wanted marriage; he filled that time with “young and free” behaviour, gave her hope but never actually committed. He had two friends — one of those friends was involved in drinking with a girl at a concert and trying to take her to an Airbnb.

Fast forward to 2nd year: he started texting me at the start of the year. I didn’t know the dynamics between him and that other girl. I only knew he hadn’t been roaming around her for a while and they weren’t together, and I wasn’t initially interested, so I would reply to his texts. But he did everything to engage me — asked me to hang out with his friend group, updated me about his day, took me out for ice cream, invited me to libraries to study and then take chai/ice cream afterwards. This went on for about 4 months. I thought he might be serious. I ignored small red flags like him staring at my thighs, a first-time sexy compliment over text (“your lips are so sexy”), and his friend who made a girl drink.

He portrayed himself as honest — one time he told me he needed to “see a female family friend” because her AC didn’t work in her college dorm/hostel and she was scared, and I thought that was so honest of him and also nice of him . In June he gifted me books and took me to coffee during my exams.

In late August I finally said yes when he asked me out. But he often seemed lost in thought; when I asked, he’d say he was tired.

He emphasized staying in Airbnbs and hotels — “we should stay at a really good and vibey place.” That’s when things started to unravel.

I learned how his big brother invites girls to his apartment. He immediately started taking me to vibey places and buying expensive food. He spent most time with me, but I never felt good inside — something felt wrong.

He would play a girl’s playlist on Spotify. I noticed a girl was his #1 best friend on Snapchat. When I asked, he said she was a family friend — the same “family friend” excuse he used for many girls. Later I saw him texting her on iMessage; when I tried to open his phone he got defensive and deleted messages. He removed her, added her again, fought about it a hundred times, and finally removed her after many fights.

Then I saw him liking an entire girl’s Instagram feed — she was from our class. I asked him not to do it; he called her a “model” and I slapped him. He had wandering eyes — we went to a coffee place and he stared at a model until I called it out. He said I always ruin moods and want to fight. I think he went back to try to get her number.

We fought a lot because he’d randomly say he wanted to switch routines and add junior girls on social apps. He claimed he tried to fix issues by involving his friends and asking for their advice.

I cried all the time. One month before my proffs I asked the girl he’d been with last year about their dynamic. She told me he randomly dropped her for no reason and that was the exact time he started talking to me. She said he texted her on and off saying he missed her, then acted happy, tried to make her jealous by roaming with me, and sat around her in class to keep attachments. When me and him started dating, 3–4 months later he messaged her saying he missed her and didn’t want awkwardness — she told him she didn’t care and was with someone who treated her better. I broke down because I trusted him; she sent me proof of messages.

Back in April/May when we studied together, someone would text/call him repeatedly — I saw a notification from that same girl on his Apple Watch and he left saying “wait I’m coming” and came back. And fast forward to when I got into the RS, I would constantly call him and he wouldn’t just pick up the same way.

During proffs, our relationship fell apart with trust issues. I checked his phone a lot. One time I found he’d added junior girls on his account. He added girls from quick add and lied saying they were his brother’s female friends. He also added a girl who once told him she liked him. I suspected he was interested in the new batch. I still stayed because of physical and emotional connection.

My grades tanked; he got perfect scores (I later found out he bought the exams). After exams we had vacations — he went to Lahore and disappeared for two days, going to lunches/dinners and not picking calls. I blocked him for 6 days. He texted everywhere saying he didn’t want to lose me, so we got back together.

3rd year began and his image in our batch got worse. I managed to get him into my clinical group. At first it felt like progress, but then he started staring at juniors in front of me, adding every junior, ignoring me in the clinical group, acting like he was single, and roaming with one girl while staring at her body in OT. He ignored me, called his behavior “professional,” denied everything, then tried to be intimate with me and called it fixing things.

This continued. I found his Twitter where he tweeted about loving Kylie Jenner and other disrespectful things. He told me he didn’t care anymore and acted cold and distant.

My mental health and self-esteem collapsed. I got angry and went violent because I felt violated. I screamed, yelled, went crazy, and came to his place via Uber to find answers.

He broke up with me. I tried to move on and hung out with new people. He saw a snap of me out and stood outside my hostel, acted violently, called me a slut in front of college, hit me, tried to snatch my phone, and accused me of cheating publicly. I was humiliated and the new guy left thinking I’d cheated. But most people took my side and isolated him.

In June he called, apologized, felt guilty, and said he wanted a fresh start. I listened and in July we started again.

When we restarted in July he hid our relationship publicly because he said I’d humiliated him. He hid me from friends and it didn’t feel right. In August I saw him liking the same girl’s LinkedIn post (the one who had been interested in him). He liked thousands of girls’ posts; he hid his likes and told me to “stop” when I confronted him.

I started getting crazy. He put in zero effort, never spent time on the relationship, and blamed me for supposedly planning something against him. September–October were awful. Then in November he suddenly promised to take me out every weekend — he actually took me out twice before I had to go home to study. On November 20th I was with my clinical group; he called wanting to see me. When I went to see him he accused me of being with a guy. I was with my whole clinical group. I screamed and slammed things in his car for 30 minutes, blocked him, and grabbed his collar. He grabbed my hand and showed me his fist saying if a guy grabbed me he’d punch him. I left.

He texted he never wanted to see me again and was done for real this time. He suspected pregnancy for a while and waited for it maybe.

He blocked me everywhere, including the spam account. I blocked him too. He immediately added someone else on the spam account and his main followers increased. He went to a batchmate’s wedding, danced and made sure I watched the stories. I didn’t react, so he made another account and texted me calling me a slut, accusing me of being on Bumble (I never made a Bumble). I had my brother tell him to never text me again and I blocked him for good.

Now I’m shattered. My mental health is broken. I can’t study, can’t focus, I sleep all the time out of depression.