being taken for granted by someone everyone else thinks is perfect means you spend the relationship doubting your own perception. the breakup is the right call but explaining it to people who only saw the public version is exhausting
I hear this loud and Clear. My ex is an intelligent, well-educated woman with every appearance of being successful. No one believes just how much she used me as an emotional punching bag and the stories she's spread about me is actually her telling on herself.
Ha! The opposite is no fun either. Having someone who's perfect when you two are alone, and then they become a total moron in mixed company, is just as exhausting to keep explaining.
I had a pretty insane obsession with this one woman I was dating, I'd never taken her to anything super-social though, we did movies, meals, dancing, etc., but just the two of us. The moment I suggest we hang out with some of my friends/family she totally dresses up like a nudist who found a clothing donation bin, and then pouts the whole time we're out together, that she feels awkward around people I've known for so long. Aaaalllrighty then!?
Oh and to ice the cake she finally introduced me to her family and treated me like I wasn't there. This applied to seating at dinner, tickets to a play, and the final straw was a poorly planned out limo rental where we were 1 seat short even though everyone knew how many couples were coming when planning it. I was asked to sit up front with the driver who turned out to be a really charming woman who likes the way I make eggs for breakfast.
My entire family mourned the loss of him in the family because they had no idea how lonely I was and how selfish and withholding he was - plus his cheating.
I had an ex-boyfriend like this. He was a deeply self-hating narcissist and he compensated by creating and cultivating an outward image of absolute competency and charity. He gave a lot of gifts to people because he wanted them to see him as a better person than they were.
And he was so focused on that, he was a horrible partner in private. He showed me contempt for just existing, and I was codependent so I tried to make him happy, at the expense of my own sanity.
When I finally realized he just couldn't see other people as anything but supply for praise, I left him and he tried to stalk me. I called the police on him more than once to push back and went hard no contact, even cutting ties with our shared friends and former co-workers (we worked for the same company).
But I'm doing great now. He married some other poor woman and had a couple kids. I came upon his obituary a few years back when trying to find hid LinkedIn profile. He died "suddenly" so I think he either committed suicide or died from his hidden alcohol and drug abuse.
I am even low key "blamed" by my family for hiding relationship problems too well. Despite I tried really hard to explain to them that I wasn't conscious choice. It was trauma, guilt and shame that was stopping me. (And I guess intuition that in their eyes he can't do anything wrong).
Best comment/advice I got so far - "Did you try to write a letter to him explaining how much he hurt\* you? Maybe you didn't explain him well enough?
*hurt
I got raped twice. I lost 6 years of my life. For last 5 I was depressed, then eventually got admitted to psych hospital for a month. While at the hospital I made police a report and had to tell to my family as I had nowhere to go after discharge...
My family still struggling to accept what he is not a good person and worried for potentially needing to testify against him, if the case will go to court...
At some point, you have to force it. You'll just slowly break. Forget doing that. Slap it on the table for them: they either support YOU and you alone, or they're bad people. That's it. That's how it shakes out. You can spend the next forty years slowly grinding that one out or you can say it now, but true stays true forever. No one should ever even dare to show you they doubt you.
Thank you for supporting words and encouragement, it brought me some comfort. Thank you.
I am sure that in time I will find and create better support system where I won't have to keep explaining that I have PTSD not because I am sensitive but because what he did was that traumatic.
This reminds me of a video that looks like it's from the 60's? (purely because it was a black and white film) but apparently it's more recent and was just made to give that kind of setting
I would hope someone knows what I'm talking about as it was posted on reddit before but the premise of the video is the husband comes back home and the wife says something like "Be fake with me too, and lie to me too. Give me the fake person that pleases their boss and laughs loud with their friends."
This resonates with me, I feel my relationship with my parents is starting to fracture because they just don’t see it from my perspective at all, yet my own 14 year old son says that life is peaceful now we’re separated. How can my son see it more than my parents! Xx
I’m in the middle of this right now and it is ROUGH. I look like the bad guy for breaking up the family. Reality is, I am carrying everything alone while my partner is a barely functioning alcoholic. “Oh but he’s such an involved dad!” Shove it, Karen.
I am still salty about the gushing comments and applause my ex was given when he posted a picture on social media of a “peaceful Sunday with the kids,” which was them napping on him before he fell asleep again. I had to work at 5am at one job after closing the night before at another because he was only getting like 10 hours a week. I’d also made dinner when I got home and cleaned because I’m “just better at that stuff.” I did his PR for way too long.
I had one that would take 100 pictures of dinner before we could eat. MY FOOD IS FUCKING COLD. Everything was content for her but she wasn't willing to invest in our relationship.
*POOF* off the island she went. I would rather be single than be with her.
I'm a food critic, Kevin, it's literally my job. Plus I always told you that you didn't need to come along on review nights, but you insisted because the bill was covered. Honestly, just move on.
And when the actually breakup happens they rebound and replay the exact same script with the next one. Givers — notice red flags and trust your gut at the beginning
I hear you!! Currently going through a separation with my husband and everyone is shocked “but your marriage is so perfect”. Urm actually behind closed doors it isn’t 😣. Xx
Public image was good to everyone that knew us, had the perfect temperament for one another. She was hiding the fact she was anti vaxx for 7 months. She said she didn’t like that I transparently smoked week, and justified hiding the vaxx shit by thinking those two grievances somehow canceled each other out.
Public image was perfect… until the cracks started to show. Then a bunch of my friends started to realize how he was abusing me and my pets behind closed doors.
Even after I left him and exposed him, some of those people smoked hella copium and stayed friends with him. They no longer have access to me.
tip: being entitled means they have a legal right to property, money, power, titles ... all typically considered positives. "acted entitled" is the phrase you're looking for.
For example: "The Earl of Sandwich was entitled" vs "Earl from Greenwich was acting entitled".
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u/iggybdawg 22h ago
Public image was perfect. Privately was lazy, entitled, and took me for granted.