Update: Vent, wasted 7 Years with a Manchild

Hi All,

I posted a few weeks back (see my profile for original post) and it gained a lot of traction so I thought I’d give an update. I just want to say, thank you so much for the lovely comments and PMs I received, they were all so supportive and really helped me in a really tough place.

A few days after my post, I ended the relationship as I was literally making myself ill with the guilt of being checked out completely. It went a lot smoother than I envisioned, he didn’t really seem to give a damn and I packed up some of my things and went to my parents house. I don’t love being 31 and living with my parents but it’s a damn sight better than what was before. My dog came with me and she’s happier than ever, she’s probably as relieved as I am to be away from the negativity and tension. She’s more playful than before as well which is so nice to see.

Weirdly, I feel like I’ve been slapped out of a trance and quite frankly I’m horrified at what I’ve been putting up with. Obviously in a Reddit post I couldn’t articulate every aspect of our relationship but now I’m starting to come to the terms with that there were aspects of emotional abuse. Everything was transactional for him (i.e asking for sexual favours for doing a household chore 🤮) and he genuinely believed that his mere presence was already a gift… In retrospect he actually checks the box for a lot of narcissistic traits. He complimented himself more than me, thought he was so much smarter than me, expected me to buy almost everything for the house and had the audacity to infer I was a gold digger (as I said before we have the same salary…).

Things were going amicably at first after the breakup but he’s been dragging his feet leaving the house and he also decided to send me a barrage of cruel and violent texts when he was drunk on the weekend. Accused me of cheating and the rest… like I had the time or the emotional capacity to do that? I’ve heard apologies and the rest from him since but I’m a firm believer in the idea that alcohol makes you say things you’ve definitely thought and I have no time for him now. I always got the vibe from him that he would love to beat the living shit out of me and his messages confirmed that. I don’t think he’s sorry for what he said, I think it’s finally hit him that he’s losing his middle class lifestyle where he has a nice car and a nice house (which my family facilitated) and a useful idiot who is basically his mother and maid which is why he lashed out. Whatever, roll on the house sale.

To any person who resonated with my previous post and is in a similar situation… it’s not going to change no matter how little or long you’ve been together. If you’re not enough for them to change now, you never will be. Don’t be a victim to sunk cost fallacy, you only have one life… don’t spend it dragging around a dead weight. I’d rather be single for the rest of my life than be in the relationship I’ve got out of ever again.

Again, thank you Reddit for being my soapbox, my original post was super cathartic. Many were right in the comments, I feel so free and relieved… life feels like it’s going to get better for the first time in a long time. I also got the promotion I mentioned in my previous post so I think the universe is finally being kind to me too!