Got out of a 18 month relationship that I thought was wonderful. He told me he wanted marriage. He asked for labels first. He basically had me move in with him.
He was cheating on me the entire time.
He didn’t show any signs of this and his commitment language got more intense until I found out. Then he simultaneously started openly flirting with other women in front of me and telling me he wanted to spend the rest of our lives together.
How the fuck will I ever know if a guy means it when he says he loves me? This guy did all the time but not only did he not love me, he hated me.
Comments
I’m so sorry that happened to you. Unfortunately even hyper vigilance cannot prevent people (men) from lying or leading a double life, believe me as a highly strung anxious person. You just have to trust your intuition and try to work on yourself until you feel healed from trauma, so you’re attracted safe healed people too but even that isn’t always a guarantee. If you’re hoping to meet your person, I guess ultimately you have to have faith you will, sorry this feels like such a non answer.
I am so sorry. It sounds like your ex was a master manipulator. On some level, he cared for you, but he is just an awful and selfish person. I highly recommend talking to a counselor. Don’t let your shitty ex ruin future relationships for you. And now that you are no longer together, you might be able to look at the relationship more objectively and may come to find that there were some red flags he was showing, but you were unable to see at the time because you were too close or due to his lovebombing.