that disingenuous, sabotaging act…

August, 2023, is when the bottom fell out. I had made the decision at the beginning of the year to return to school. The ex opposed it, citing I wouldn’t be able to care for the kids, or do the things around the house that I needed to do if I was in school. I made the unfortunate mistake of saying that I wanted to go back to school because I wanted a way to provide for myself with my money and my efforts. His response? “You don’t need to do that, I make more than enough money.“

Sure, the money he closed-fisted, being stingy with all but things for himself, and when he offered to help pay for something or lend me funds, it was always with a string or there were significant conditions attached. When he was…generous…it was always done with a benevolent air of “I’m giving you something special, I deserve to be appreciated for my offering.” I wasn’t willing to use his money for anything other than the bare necessities that were necessary to keep me and the kids alive with basic essentials. I had a ‘job’ that consisted of being paid by the state to care for my youngest child, but that was barely enough money to live off of and it was certainly not enough for me to be able to escape.

However, that August, my limit had been reached and I could not bring myself to put on a face any longer and tolerate his despicable behavior. We started sleeping in separate bedrooms sometime during June, essentially entirely on his initiative, and in part due to me no longer being willing to cater to the manipulative sexual advances I had been dealing with for nearly a decade and a half. After a month of him being deeply ill, with what he claimed was mono, his behavior kept deteriorating, whining a lot about how alone and lonely he was. Constantly sabotaging my time, demanding my presence, and even trying to guilt trip me into caring for him. I finally told him that after the years he had spent abandoning me, betraying me, and never having my back, I was not the person to beg sympathy or empathy from. I had none of that for him due to the years of neglect and emotional abuse.

Perhaps it’s important, perhaps it’s just merely a part of who I am and this reality doesn’t matter, but being polyamorous meant being manipulated by him in other broader ways too. My partner moved in in the middle of June, after he had already moved to the basement bedroom, and his patterns of behavior escalated with the sabotaging, instigating fights/arguments, and acting like a pouting toddler when he didn’t get his way. The night I realized I was utterly, thoroughly, and horrifyingly done with him, was the night he attempted to wiggle himself into my room, suggesting he sleep at the foot of my bed in a sleeping bag because he was so “lonely.” My immediately reaction was oh hell no, that’s very inappropriate. Not only was that trying to invade mine and my partner’s privacy, but he was also desperate enough to beg to sleep at the foot of my bed?! The thought still makes me physically ill when thinking about it.

He took my denial badly, kicking me out of his room and saying he was going to go to bed. I left his room, went back to mine, and then started getting blamey/guilt trippy texts from him. “I just want to spend time with my partner, is that too much to ask?” or “I need you to hold me and I just feel so alone.” If it was just these texts, and none of the other behaviors, my response would be an immediate “hold on, I’ll be there in a minute!” and I would rush to get to where my partner was so I could be with them. But when adding in the manipulative emotional behaviors, the coercive actions and entitled attitudes, these statements were the very last thing that would have made me have any kind of sympathy or empathy for him. As he continued to send guilt tripping texts, I strongly considered going back downstairs to talk more with him. Even though I had to get up early, both myself and the kids had school the next day, I was so so tired of having to deal with this person. I dreaded receiving messages from him, I loathed sitting next to him, and even felt nauseated at the thought of being touched by him.

Just as I was about to walk downstairs, I heard the front door slam shut. He left the house in the middle of the night, and when I walked down to check his room to see if he had actually left, I noticed a few sheets of paper on his bed, apparently hand written letters. I didn’t look closely at them, and frankly I didn’t care. Some part of me knew what he was doing, or rather trying to do, and that part of me wished he would never come back. My fatigue and absolute exhaustion from having to deal with him and all of the twisted games he had been playing for so long was all encompassing. As I watched the tracking on my phone, I saw he was just wandering around town, a town, by the way, that doesn’t have any rough spots or places that would be considered even remotely dangerous at night. The privilege of living in an area that had decent infrastructure and took care of its’ streets. After his wandering had happened for over an hour and he was now about 4 miles away, I looked at my partner and said “I’m done. I can’t do this anymore.” They went to pick him up, and the vicious look on his face when the two of them walked in the door told me all I needed to know.

I took the kids to school the next morning, came home, got ready to go to class and ignored the fact that he was closed in his room. I went to chat with him later that day, and he told me he had written letters and had potentially planned to not come back when he left the house. I asked him to show me the letter, and reading them was like reading generic goodbye notes, the typical “I didn’t do enough, I’m so sorry” and nothing new that he hadn’t said before and had never changed with. Did he instinctually know I was done? I don’t know, I didn’t care then and I don’t care now. Faking an attempt like this for attention and who knows, did he expect me to come around and feel sorry for him and want to be there for him? I think he did expect that and when it didn’t work, I didn’t care, the attempt was for naught.

I know what it looks like to accuse someone of facing a suicide attempt, but there truly are no other descriptors of what he did that night. He took his damn phone, which was being tracked by my phone and he had my phone tracked on his phone. He wasn’t subtle about leaving, and those notes? Pathetic, disingenuous, attention seeking, baiting behavior. Me, who deeply cares about mental health, the state of that health for myself and others around, accusing him of this should be enough to demonstrate how disgusting and frustrating his behavior was. It wasn’t sincere and it was intended to make me break.

Three days later, I left my class of the day, drove straight home, knocked on his door, and told him I was moving forward with divorce proceedings. I left the room, my stomach tight with the fear that he was never going to let me go. The next 3 months were going to be intense, and I just hoped that I would be able to survive.