I was recently discarded by an avoidant ex after a conversation where I asked for better communication and clear boundaries around what going out to bars/parties/people’s houses late at night in terms of what that looked like. And him to stop making constant sexual jokes to me about other women. He said he valued his autonomy too much and whenever I brought up a challenge I wanted to address together, he would just go along with what I said because he was too out of touch with his feelings to know what he felt. And he said he couldn’t handle how much shame he felt when I brought up things that bothered me.
I see now very clearly the ways in which this relationship wasn’t serving me and how it pulled me from a place of secure attachment into anxiety. At times, I would feel triggered, but I did always take full accountability for myself (too much, in fact) and said it was important to me he still go to do all the things he wanted to do and vice versa.
My ex is the uber friendly guy who is really great at surface level friendships. I’ve recently found out he’s spread the narrative around his friends, including some mutual ones, that I was a controlling girlfriend. He’s also straight up lied and omitted a lot of the truth. I can see why those stories are so believable because honestly, I also believed them early on.
I don’t and won’t explain my story to these people. I’m wondering if anything has been through something similar and how they experienced that? How do you validate yourself and make peace with the fact that people may hold unfair and bad perceptions of you?