I am struggling

Title: Realizing how unhealthy my relationship was has somehow made it harder to move on

I'm having a really hard time getting over my ex, and honestly the more I process the relationship, the more confused I get about why I'm still so attached to him.

After the breakup, I started talking about the relationship more in therapy and reading about emotional abuse. Looking back, there were so many things I brushed off because I loved him and wanted to make it work. If I brought up a concern, it almost never felt like a simple conversation. Somehow we'd end up in a debate, a "thought experiment," or a long discussion where I was defending my feelings instead of feeling heard. I spent so much time wondering if I was overreacting, too sensitive, remembering things wrong, or just not communicating well enough.

At one point he even sent me a list of changes I needed to make if I wanted the relationship to continue. I remember feeling awful reading it, but somehow convincing myself it was reasonable because I was so focused on fixing things.

The stress got so bad that I started scratching and digging my nails into my skin to calm myself down. I didn't really connect it to the relationship at the time. I just knew I was constantly anxious.

Then after we broke up, I learned that he had lied about major parts of his dating history. That absolutely wrecked me because I'd spent so much time questioning my own instincts only to find out some of the things that felt off actually were off.

What I can't stop thinking about is that even after all of that, I still wanted to make things work. When I tried talking to him about the lies and the hurt, he told me I needed to be okay with him being angry at me. I remember sitting there thinking, why are we talking about your anger right now when I'm trying to talk about the things that broke my trust?

Even when I told him about the self-harming behaviors that developed during the relationship, I felt like the focus shifted to why I hadn't told him sooner rather than why I'd gotten to that point in the first place.

The thing I'm most ashamed of is how much I've been spiraling since finding out the truth. I've lashed out, sent messages I regret, obsessed over trying to understand why he did what he did, and spent way too much time hoping he'll suddenly take accountability and become the person I thought he was. I don't think I actually want the relationship back. If I'm being honest, I think I want my friend back. I want the person I believed I was building a future with, and I don't know how to accept that maybe that version of him was never real.