How to salvage this

It felt so good with him when he is happy and not struggling. i felt like i was in heaven. it was the best time of my life. and even after the honeymoon stage, i could see that he was invested and loved me….i mean just how easy everything was with him, how much we were compatible…everything was just effortless and seemed to flow….i don’t have it in me to start all this all over again with some guy…..I am an old soul type of person….I don’t have the strength, trust or will to be with anyone else.

What I’ve learned is if a man treats you badly, you leave. Stick around and there will be worse to come because staying let’s him know you’ll put up with anything. Ask yourself after everything he did why do you want to stay?

Angiebaby: I feel just as pathetic as you pointed out. It’s just that it has gotten so depressing that I just am not able to focus on anything or able to do anything. Everything makes me cry. Even the most harmless of things. I just keep thinking how could a person have treated me this way, how could anyone be so evil….? I mean when I met him I was not in a good shape, I was out of an abusive relationship and he was the one who helped me, he saw me going through sleepless nights, crying like a baby, getting stalked and abused by my ex, and then he was also there when I took my then ex to the police, and then he was also there when my ex registered a false police complaint against him because he could see how much strength I was getting because of him…..In fact, he has been there for me ever since, he loved me to such an extent, that forget about loving him, I fell in love with myself….I reconnected to my wounded inner child and realized that I deserve to be loved just like that, I don’t have to do anything or be anyone else, I am just lovable, then I went on to do great things, I got straight As in all the subjects I was failing, I got myself placed on campus recruitments and also a host of other things…….However, 1.5 years of the relationship and things between us started going south. I started seeing that he has started arguing over small things that never bothered him before…And another 1.5 years later I found out that he had been cheating on me since the last one year with pr*stitutes and cheap exes. I just don’t want to believe that a guy that would do ANYTHING for me, go through anything to ensure my well-being, even the possibility of a ruined career (that is what would have happened if my ex had decided to harass him further with the police issue), would cheat on me for a pussy……I have not even given him a chance to explain or say anything about it. I am just shattered and have lost my ability to trust anyone….It is just very difficult for me to believe and accept all this….This guy seemed like an angel to everyone, EVERYONE. And no, I don’t want to look the other way when he cheats after I marry him….I just want to be sure that he wasn’t just lost and made a mistake…but yes, I got your point….he won’t change….I know that….I just cannot accept that…I feel like death when I think about how okay he immediately was when I found out he cheated (it took several days for him to feel bad), when I used to keep crying and telling him for hours over the phone how his actions are hurting me, how we can make things better, how the depression would get better, I even sent him to a therapist with my own money so that he could see that it is actually good to talk about your innermost feelings, I read books and articles about depression trying to help him…not because I am a fixer but because I couldn’t see my baby unhappy and depressed, he is a great person, he deserves to be more happy than the entire world after all…..but sadly…..I was wrong, he was cheating on me, he deserved every bit of the self-hate he has for himself. I just feel so foolish for making my entire life about him. And I did this, because HE made me feel and used to tell me that he has no one other than me that he can open up to or talk to, or who cares about him, it was just me, and then how could I leave him to his depression alone? But anyway, all I am trying to say is…I understand you guys are right…..I have no intention of being with a cheater. But I think I will lose my life trying to separate from him, I have really bad abandonment and coping issues, have worked on them with therapists but hasn’t helped….I am not able to do anything without him…..in fact even with him I am not able to anything…..I just stay depressed. I eat just 3-4 meals in a week, meet a few friends sometimes who just tell me to be strong so I have to pretend to be strong around them, my therapist also is tired of giving me the same advice all the time, I sleep for 2 hours every day, I break down in office many times, I can hardly spend 30 minutes with anyone without having a fight or feeling like dying. I have also taken to consuming weed in an effort to self soothe. I used to take it recreationally before also, but now it is just too much. It is just difficult to live like this…..If not salvaging the breakup, could I maybe use his love and care in the form of a friendship, which will be there in him as a form of remorse for a few months at least to get back on my two feet…..but well, I am not able to stand him either….I get anger outbursts and end up pushing him out whenever he tries to visit me…..I just constantly get reminded of all this and am not able to deal with it. I stay highly triggered all the time when he is around. And therapy is very expensive and mostly not that great in my country, I cannot afford it anymore, have wasted enough money and years on it. The therapy services that I am using these days are provided free of cost by my office but I do not feel they provide me with any beneficial solutions that I can apply in my life, they are just abstract concepts….I have started working on my codependency with the help of a book though….but it is just very difficult to keep up considering I can hardly control the crying, anxiety and the constant headache and lethargy. Also, I have become so fearful and distrustful of new people esp men, all of them look like predators to me….In my life I have dated many guys, I can count on my fingertips, only one person out of all of them was completely genuine and not manipulative. Otherwise I have only been around manipulative people all my life. I don’t know how to deal with manipulators, for instance, in my exes lies there was never a catch, how do you know someone is lying to you? Am I stupid if I can’t figure it out? I mean actions use to match words for all my boyfriends, and obviously one time a person can get angry, or not be available, those are normal things, if the person is generally god, you do not hound around them tring to see of they are lying, and I am a lawyer, I can even get strong criminal to speak out their mind, I make character sketches of criminals and kidnappers and rapists, I do behavior analysis as well, I am aware of NPD and other disorders. I consider myself to be fairly smart. But in a relationship somewhere you will put your guard down, you cannot be in investigative mode. You want peace. So I don’t know how to be more discerning when it comes to icking people up. And I belong to a third world country, not bragging, but I am catch in my country, any guy would be lucky to have me, so I have a lot of pretentious guys moving around acting like they are the best people on the planet. And in this country, it is not so easy to get girls, so it is the norm to act noble, lie, manipulate, cry etc, guys operate from a scarcity mindset as all the women would want to be with good men so all men pretend to be good men. The kind of behaviours that westerners consider to be very great, is distributed for free by men to women here because ONLY that will ensure that they get S*X lol. Here, literally, a man has to get married to get constant s*x from a partner. So it is very difficult to discern which man is a good man. And here MOST men are abusive, have backward thinking regarding women and s*x. So I will appreciate advice regarding how to check if a man is good or not.
More suggestions and inspiring words are seriously welcome. Thank you.

Maddie: could you shed morelight on how to go about breaking away paterns. They feel so familiar. Looking back I see, that largely I have just dated my first two boyfriends over and over again just in different bodies and had different names. So I realise I am stuck in patterns, but it feels very familiar.

he didnt even own up to the fact that he cheated on you. just gave you excuses why. why would you want to be wid a man who goes to prostitutes while dating you. eeeeks. i am sorry but that really makes me cringe. not to mention all the health factors. your just 26. young. you have been dating all the wrong men. i think its time you take time off men. just focus on self. pamper yourself. pick up new hobbies, enrol in few classes. so many things. discover yourslf. dont get in relations. enjoy life, have fund. save money and invest. travel. gather new experiences meet different people. work on your self. your carrying lot of weight. shed it. feel light. njy life and forget men and relationships for now. you need time to rediscover yourself.

*looking for something, not long for lol. Though I’m sure you long to start feeling better too!