i don't believe in resolutions (part 2)...

The police arrested him at work.  They sent me home that day, so that I didn't have to be there when it happened.  Apparently, he sat in the back of the car and cried, and told them that he had learned his lesson.  They didn't take him to the station, they supposedly told him that he seemed like a good kid, and let him go back to work.

He manipulated them as easily as he manipulated me.  He was a con artist and a liar, and he was good at it, he was able to fool so many people.

By New Years, he was already trying to mend things with me, despite the fact that he was legally not allowed to have contact with me.  He claimed that he didn't care, that he just wanted to be with me, to be able to have me in his life.  I was resistant.  I didn't trust him... he was relentless in his efforts, in his stalking, pretty much.

He wore me down, and I took him back.

Each time I took him back, I felt more and more stupid.  I KNEW he was never going to stop his affairs with the other girls.  As long as he had access to technology, he had a way to screw around on me.  He had secret e-mail addresses that he used for his constant whore, H, and for the others.  He had secret MySpace accounts, dating site accounts, Facebook accounts, Nexopia accounts... the list goes on.  Not to mention his best friend, his cellphone.  No girl was able to have a two minute conversation with him without him asking her for her number... no girl was able to accidentally send a text to his cellphone without him hitting on them.

He made plans with me one night, and I went to pick him up from work.  It was January in Edmonton, AKA colder than anything in the entire world.  I don't drive, so I took the bus, and I stood outside of his work for half an hour waiting for him.  Everyone else was filing out, they had been let out early... but not R.  He was nowhere to be found.  I later found out that he had been twenty minutes late getting out after everyone else because he had been hiding somewhere in the bathroom or the break room finishing up having phone sex with his ex-internet-girlfriend.  He left me outside in -30 Celsius weather, waiting for half an hour, because he was busy having phone sex... AT WORK.

He would flirt openly with girls in front of me, yet, when a guy flirted with me, he would freak out and be all over me.  He would get pissed when I would mention to said flirty girls that I was his girlfriend, and I didn't appreciate what they were doing.

I was always finding the most disgusting stuff... his phone sex conversations, nude pictures and videos he was sending to people, messages like "I just got out of the shower, I'm naked, wish you were here" sent to the 14 year old he was cheating on me with.  Him telling other girls about how much he wanted to fuck them, how he wanted to cum all over them, the most disgusting, sexually explicit shit I've ever seen... straight from my boyfriend and to the million other girls he cheated on me with, over and over again.

He convinced a sixteen year old girl that he loved her, and convinced her to move from wherever she lived in Ontario, to Edmonton for him.  I caught them on our two year anniversary, she was doing quizzes as notes and tagging R in them, because all of her answers were about how in love they were.  I caught them shortly before she was going to move.

People never knew about me.  He always claimed he talked about me all of the time, and told people how much he loved me... but they were always so surprised when R finally let me come out to stuff, and they found out he had a girlfriend, let alone a girlfriend of over two years.  He was always telling me that I wasn't allowed to come, because no one else brought their girlfriends or boyfriends, which was an obvious lie... and I found out it was a lie when everyone asked me why I never came out, because everyone else knew all of the other girlfriends and boyfriends so well.  He kept me a secret, like he was ashamed of me... but, really, it made it easier to be a disgusting pig if no one knew he had a girlfriend.  He was free to mess around with whomever he wanted, because no one ever knew that someone was already entirely dedicated to him and in love with him.  I didn't matter, I wasn't important... I was only there when he had an itch that needed to be scratched.

One of his school friends had a birthday party that he was so excited to go to, and I asked if I could come.  He informed me that I would be allowed to come, but as soon as people started showing up, I had to leave.  He paid me to leave, told me not to come back.  I came back later in the night, and he was entirely pissed, in two ways.  He was so drunk that he couldn't stand without being supported, and he was mad at me for coming back.  He spent the night with his head between two girls who were trying to have a conversation, and seemed incredibly annoyed by his presence, and when I told him that he should leave, that I was worried about him because of how much he had drank, he slammed me into a wall.

So, I left, and I was so mad that I walked all the way home.

I got a call an hour and a half later, while I was in bed, from him crying because he was supposedly lost, and had no cab money because he spent it all on booze.  I asked him where he was, and, of course, he wasn't lost at all, he had walked almost all the way to my house.  He then started yelling about how he would rather sleep in the river valley like a homeless person instead of sleep in the same house as me, how he hated me, and didn't want to see me... yet he was still walking towards my house.  Then he pretended to get hit by a car, and hung up the phone.  I left the house in my pajamas, incredibly pissed off, to find him lying on the front lawn of a frat house, too drunk to even stand up.

He ruined my twenty-second birthday.  He spent most of the night sulking and refusing to interact with the people that I invited.  He embarrassed me in front of my friends.  My guy friends wanted to beat the shit out of him, because he was shoving me around and dragging me around by my wrist, demanding that I talk to him, trying to separate me from my friends.  They made him leave the bar we were at, and he went to my sister's house, got in his car, and drove back to the bar, drunk.  He demanded that I drive home with him.  I refused, and my guy friends made him leave.  He called me a thousand times and sent me a million text messages.  He did it all night and all morning.  My friends took my phone away and turned it off.

He tried to even isolate me from our mutual friends.  We had mutual friends from work, but, I decided to transfer stores, because it was getting to be to much to have to deal with R at work every time we broke up.  He would watch me, but then treat me like a miserable piece of shit whenever we had contact.  Once I got my transfer, he began to feed me lies about how our mutual friends were supposedly talking shit about me, saying terrible things.  I was incredibly hurt.  I tried to talk to them about it, but he freaked out on me, got insanely pissed off, threatened me, called me stupid... and then kept feeding me the lies.  He convinced me through deliberate brainwashing that they were backstabbers.  I didn't want people like that in my life, and he seemed so compassionate and concerned about it when he told me about it, so I began to distance myself from them.  If he was so concerned and so caring about it, why would I have any reason to think he was lying, right?

I kept trying to leave him.  I knew he wasn't any good for me... but every time I tried, he would start freaking out, he would cause a scene, he would threaten to kill himself, he would threaten to kill me.  I couldn't live with that.  I was such an emotional wreck and such a broken person, that I took him back every time, I wanted to believe the bullshit and lies that he was telling me, I wanted to believe that he wanted to make those changes, that he wanted to be the person he told me he wanted to be for me.  I was also so incredibly afraid of being alone, of dying alone, like he told me I would.

He was so terrifying when we were apart.  He would call me the most horrible things, say the most terrible things to me, and he was so frighteningly cold.  His voice was bone chilling, and his laugh was so cold and malicious, it was truly terrifying.  He had the same tone and the same laugh that you hear in horror movies, when the psycho killer is stalking his prey, and he calls them on the phone or leaves them a message.  He would make up lies about me.  Before I called the police on him, I went to his parents for help... after I left, he went downstairs and told them that I was a drug addict and a liar to get out of getting in trouble for the things he had done to me.

He was so selfish, he never gave me anything or did anything for me without expecting something in return.  No matter how often I bought him stuff "just because" or did nice things for him... I always "owed" him something, he was always finding ways for me to pay him back, or asking me to pay him back.  He broke up with me before gift giving holidays and birthdays so that he wouldn't have to buy me anything, but, on the rare occasion that we were still together, he would do something incredibly selfish, like buy a CD that he wanted, burn it onto his computer, and give me the used CD as a gift.  I always put so much thought and effort and money into everything I did for him, and he was giving me used CDs that he bought for himself in the first place.  It's never about the expense of a gift, it's the thought that really matters, and he never put any thought into anything, he never cared enough to put thought into his "gifts" for me... only when he was trying to make up for some of his doucehbaggery.

Shortly before I left for Korea, the new art gallery opened in Edmonton.  I had wanted to go so badly, so R agreed to take me.  We were having a completely normal day, so I don't know why he did it, but he decided to outright insult me when we were buying the parking pass.  Offended, I decided to walk to the gallery ahead of him, and stand in line and wait for him.  Shortly after I got into the building, he came stomping in, screaming my name, yelling things at me, grabbed me by the arm, and dragged me out of the gallery.  He started forcing me back to the car, but he was blocking my way as we went along and screaming at me and flailing his arms around while I cried, in the middle of downtown, on a weekend, on a sidewalk with a steady stream of people walking by.

He got me back to the car, and started screaming at me even more, and, once he was done, demanded that we go back to the gallery and see the exhibits.

There was no way in hell I was going back there with him, he had just horrifyingly embarrassed me in front of EVERYONE there.

The fact that I wouldn't go back just pissed him off even more.  He threw the car into drive, and started flying around the parking lot at high speeds--it was the middle of winter, the parking lot was full of slush, new blizzard snow, and there was a solid sheet of ice under all of it.  He then took his reckless driving to the streets, swerving in and out of traffic, screaming at me about what a bitch I was and how he was going to kill us.  He then went back to the parking lot and demanded once again that I go back to the gallery.

I tried to get out of the car, he threw the car into reverse so that he hit me with the door, and then got out of the car, and made me get back inside.  He physically prevented me from leaving him, from trying to get away from him.  And that's what the entire relationship had felt like, I was physically, mentally, and emotionally restrained, with no way to escape.

He started screaming about how I was going to leave him, and how he was going to kill himself when I did, and putting a total guilt trip on me... he always has this way of making me feel like the bad person, and making himself out to be the one who was being hurt and mistreated.

When I made the decision to move to Korea to teach for a year, he seemed okay with it. He told me that a year wasn't long, that we would make it through and be stronger than ever. He told me that when I got back, that we would start our lives together.  He would tell me all about how when I came back, that we would move to Calgary together, and start over, and he would get rid of the people in his life that were causing problems, how, once we lived together, he would never cheat again, how he would get rid of everyone... but why did it have to take us living together?  If that's what he wanted, why couldn't he stop cheating and get rid of the bad people right then and there?  Why was he allowed to be disgusting for a year before I came back?

He was so convincing about how amazing everything would be, and then, as soon as I left, he gave up all effort to keep in contact. I knew he was spending all of his time on the internet, because that's what he does, so why couldn't he make the effort to respond to my emails? To come online to talk to me? It was really confusing. So, we broke up.  It was like we weren't dating, anyways.

After a few months of fighting, we "worked it out" and got back together, and everything seemed good. We talked almost every day, we seemed happy for the most part, and then I found out about H.  That he was cheating on me with her, how he had been having a secret affair with her for almost two and a half years of our three year relationship, how he had invested more effort into a relationship with her while I was gone than he did with me, how he talked to her every day, but he couldn't bother to answer my e-mails, how, when we were on skype, he was on msn with her, having cyber sex, and, just like every other time, he lied to me about all of it. Lied to me about how they kept in contact, what they did, told me everything she said was a lie, and then made all of the huge promises to me about how he would change for me, again. And, like an idiot, I took his word for it.  He promised he would stop talking to her and remove her from his life.  He never did.

We ended up breaking up in July, five days before our three year anniversary. Essentially, I demanded more respect from him after he had a particularly vicious blowout at me because I had asked him to have the courtesy to tell me he might be late when he made plans that intersected with the plans we already had. Essentially he told me that my feelings were wrong and selfish, that I didn't deserve courtesy, that I didn't deserve respect. And that was the way he treated me for the entire time we were together, like someone who didn't deserve courtesy and respect.  I put all of my effort and love into my relationship with him, and I was always an afterthought.  His infatuation with every other girl in the world took over as soon as I was out of sight out of mind.

In terms of me calling the police on him, the case (he was charged with uttering threats) was in and out of court for over a year, and when it finally settled, right before I left for Korea, he got 15 months probation, 50 hours of community service, and he had to take a course on spousal abuse.  When I first called the police, when him and I were broken up, the police encouraged me to get an emergency restraining order.  I spent the day in the courthouse, had to write out everything he had done, and stand in front of a judge and present my case to him.  He look HORRIFIED when he read and heard what R had done to me, and he granted me the restraining order.  I never issued it, though.  R had weaseled his way back in before I could.  I should have issued it.

After R and I broke up, I sent him an e-mail to see how he was doing.  He was always particularly depressive, so I was actually worried about him, though, really, he didn't care about me, so why should I care about him.  The only thing he said to me was that he had tried to go to Seattle over the summer, and, that, upon trying to enter the US, he had been detained by the Department of Homeland Security... and that it was my fault.  I informed him that the reasons he was on probation and detained for were entirely his fault, that I didn't make him treat me the way that he did, that he made those decisions, and that he was the reason he was detained.  It was one of the first times I really actually stood up to him.

All of this still plays with my head.  I know it took moving to a foreign country to get away from him, and I know it's good that I did, but, at the same time, I feel like an entire piece of myself is missing.  Like, by losing him, I've lost everything that was supposed to happen in my life.  That, because he said he wanted to marry me and have a family with me, that I won't get that opportunity with anyone else.  That he was right when he told me that I will die alone, lonely, with no family, because he was doing me a favour by being with me, because no one else will ever want me.

It just feels like my head is so twisted around with all of the ways that he brainwashed me and manipulated me and controlled me, that it will never be right, and it bothers me that our mutual friends still think he's a good guy.  Part of me is still that girl that loved him more than anything for years and who would have done anything for him, who did everything for him, who let him get away with stripping me of my last ounce of self-worth, self-respect, self-esteem, and dignity.

I just spend my time in a state of confusion about him, and I feel so stupid when I think about everything I let him put me through... and I feel even more stupid that I let what he did still affect me to this day.  It bothers me that I get upset at the thought of him treating some other girl the way he promised he would treat me, and that he'll marry her and have the wedding and the family that he promised me... and that I'll be alone, just like he wanted.

Because no one wants someone this damaged.  He broke me so that he'll get what he wants, for me to be alone for the rest of my life, for me to not have the marriage and the family and the life that I want.  Because, right now, I feel exactly like how he wants me to feel... worthless.  Because the girl who calls him racial slurs, and who cheated on him, and who lives in Michigan while he lives in Alberta, who claims she doesn't care about him is worth more to him than the girl who did everything in her power to make him happy, who invested all of her love into him, who cared more about him than anyone else ever will.

So, he wins, he gets exactly what he wants... and I'm left alone, holding the broken pieces, and feeling stupid.

So, that's what I want to leave behind in 2010.  If you stuck with me this far, then kudos to you, my friend.