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I thought I was a good person...
**crosspost from r/relationship-advice** *apologies for length of post & repitition from other posts/comments & the formatting; I thought it would be easier to read* **Female, 37. I?ve always considered myself to be a kind, caring, giving, loving, optimistic and compassionate person with a lot to give. I'm strong, determined, confident and independent (most of the time :-p). I'm curious, intelligent, love to learn new things and can be somewhat adventurous. I?m very passionate about many aspects of life, can be funny (apparently), fun to be with, a little quirky at times, and a little cheeky.** I welcome a challenge and I?m willing to push my own boundaries to overcome fears and achieve things that perhaps once seemed overwhelming to me. I consider myself to be open-minded, though since the side-effects of an illness a few years ago (below) it sometimes takes time for new perspectives to make sense to me, to gain clarity and understand. I'm creative and artistic; I published a positive media magazine a few years ago (hoping to re-launch soon), I sketch nudes and I write. I like to help others whenever possible, to organise/promote/run community and fundraising events, volunteer where I can, take in stray/wild animals that need help, and I foster babies in need of love. I have two teen boys of my own (14 & 19) and at the moment I?m fostering a beautiful 6 month old baby boy (born 7 weeks premature, drug addicted). I have a wonderful group of friends and I?m always there for any of them if they need anything, as they are for me. **I grew up with an emotionally and physically abusive brother, a clinically depressed mother, and a father that was always working away. At 14 I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes and was in and out of hospital frequently. I had my first child when I was 17, second when I was 23 in a marriage that fell apart 2 years later, after post natal depression. As a single mum I found my strength again, found new passions and perspectives, and homeschooled my boys for a few years; my youngest had speech and learning challenges (he is now 14 and flying aeroplanes in a high school Aviation program and at Air Force Cadets). At 29 my kidneys began to fail. I went on dialysis and at 32 with only weeks left I received a double transplant (kidney & pancreas). So I?ve dealt with a few things in my life thus far, all of which I believe have made me a stronger woman.** February 2010 I fell in love with a wonderful man (both 35 at that time). What we felt for each other neither of us had felt for anyone else before. We made a commitment to each other, made promises, made future plans to grow old together. The passion, the chemistry, the depths we went to together, the love ? it was extraordinary. **But it wasn?t so simple; I lost his baby (miscarriage) early in our relationship (we didn?t even know we were pregnant), we moved in together (normal adjustments, plus our kids), after a botched birth control implement I bled for almost 3 months straight, in regular pain, taking hormone treatments on top of my transplant meds (steroids etc), became severely anaemic, had blood transfusions that threatened my transplant, all ending in a hysterectomy. My ex wanted more children; I felt like I had failed him in a HUGE way. I already felt insecure about my transplant going into the relationship; could anyone love me, accept me and commit to a future with me when my life holds so much uncertainty (my transplant could fail anytime), but now there were added insecurities and failures to deal with. He assured me he loved me, he would never stop loving me, and he would always be there for me, no matter what. So I threw caution to the wind, and trusted him.** Through all the health concerns and stresses I was not able to do the things I was passionate about in life, the things that make me who I am, the things about me that my ex fell in love with. Although I managed to still find the energy to do special things for him, to acknowledge him, to give to our relationship, I lost myself...completely it now appears. I became insecure, somewhat needy, and quite sensitive/emotional (crying lots). Neither my ex nor I knew how to deal with this. Other things happened in that time that I feel exacerbated my fears and my ex admitted to not being the reassuring type. Things spiralled out of control from there. A year after we met he ended our relationship. **We kept seeing each other casually until around 5 weeks ago. Although I?ve been getting some professional help for my insecurities etc for some time now, I?ve worked hard on myself, and learnt a lot about him and our relationship, the ?casual? aspect drove me a tad crazy in the end. We did everything a couple would do, minus the commitment on his behalf.** Although I fully accept my ex for who he is, and I still love him unconditionally, there were personality traits that challenged me on different levels; his love of porn, his fascination with sex/other people?s sex life, his need for 2-3 hours alone time a day (quite introvert), the type of interactions he has with other women (seems to need a certain amount of attention from other women), his defensive behaviours. Not one to stray away from a challenge, and REALLY wanting to understand him so completely, I tried to learn all I could about him, about these parts of his personality (read books, blogs, article, went on forums etc), and face my deeper fears that they triggered so that such things would not affect our relationship long term. Happily I came to understand, appreciate and even enjoy all these quirks about him and his personality needs. **During our ?casual? time he was on a dating site that progressed to him flirting with and pursuing dates with other women. Due partly to the lack of commitment between us now, and despite being very open sexually, willing to try anything once, not shy in expressing myself, keen to please...I regrettably began to feel sexually inadequate as time went on.** We would often fantasise about threesomes together. On April Fool?s Day (still in casual time) I told him I had slept with two women the night before. He became very aroused so I kept the story going for the morning. We laughed about it after and he told me to feel free to spin such stories in future, pretending they were real, as it was incredibly hot. He told me I needn?t tell him if they were a story or not, to leave him guessing as that was even more of a turn on. **A few weeks later, in a feeling-sexually-inadequate moment again, I started another story about having a lesbian sex experience. He got SO turned on!! We both did. The next time we were together, he couldn?t get enough of me. He was all over me, SO attentive sexually ? I LOVED it. It was what I had been craving from him. Suddenly I became more interesting to him sexually again. He was curious about ME again, and so passionate. I kept the story going for a few months as it felt so amazing to have his sexual attention the way he was giving it to me. Then he started feeling uncomfortable with it; we had spoken about him joining in, but of course he couldn?t, it was a ?story?...though it had even begun to feel real to me. I eased off and wanted to tell him that none of it was real, but it had bought us so close; he was telling me he loved me again, we were spending so much more time together, we were opening about our sexual fantasies and desires in so much more depth, we were connecting on all other levels more also. Then, the dating site...the closer we became I took my profile offline. I told him this and he agreed it was a good idea for me to do so. I wrongly thought he may have taken his offline too, but when doing some work on his laptop one night I went to the internet history to find a site I had been working off 20 mins before. I found his OKC account was still active. I felt uncomfortable. He explained that he was on there just casually chatting with women most nights. I asked why it was set to single not ?seeing someone?. He didn?t consider we were even ?seeing each other? ,just FWB. I was hurt and felt confused.** That night I went home and created an account on OKC pretending to be someone else to see what his profile/activity was. I contacted him (I know, silly), ended up pretending to be my fake lesbian lover and took my hurt out on him through that guise. It was awful. I?m not a nasty person, I rarely ever get angry or express my anger if I am, but I got nasty with him through this fake profile. Over the following days, he knew something was wrong. He knew I wasn?t being honest. I was a wreck by this time, so far beneath the woman I knew myself to be. I confessed it ALL to him in the end. **Four days after the confession he again professed his love for me, said he didn?t understand how something so beautiful and deep (the connection and love between us) could feel so bad sometimes, but that if we stayed in that space of love and acceptance we?d be fine. He said he knew he made it hard for me to accept him and his behaviour sometimes, but by the fact that I did he knew he wanted to be with me. I told him I couldn?t do casual with him anymore as it was driving me crazy. He said he didn?t want to; he wanted to be in a committed relationship with me again. That changed a week later after a misunderstanding and me reminding him I couldn't do casual, regrettably via an ultimatum. We were on-again-off-again like this for some time.** One of the attributes I didn?t include in my description above of who I am as a person was honest. My ex once said I was the most honest and open person he had ever met. My friends know me to be that person. I prided myself on being that person. But now, I had lied, I had spun a huge story that ended in a mess. In another ?off? stage of ours I once again stretched the truth about two sexual acts to keep his sexual attention (at this stage he was having dates with a girl off OKC). And most recently I initially denied having two throwaway accounts on Reddit; one which I posted about how I was feeling sexually now, which I didn?t feel he needed to know. The other I used to comment on one of his comments to a post, pretending to be someone else in the hope he would understand my feelings and perspective on a situation. **I?ve messed up! I?ve become a dishonest person :-(** I went to a wedding recently. Apart from the bride; a beautiful friend of mine, and her groom I knew only one other person at the wedding. Unbeknown to me, both the bride and groom had spoken to many of their friends/family about me. When introducing myself people would respond by saying they were so pleased to meet me as they had heard what an amazing person I was; what I?ve been through (transplant etc), what I have achieved despite my challenges, my community work, fostering, how I?ve raised my gorgeous boys, and the kind of friend I had been to the bride. I was astonished at how many times I was greeted that way by wonderful people; kind, generous people that all held respectful and admirable roles in the community. EVERY time they complimented me I felt like I was going to vomit; all I could think was how I had lied to the man I love, how because of this I no longer felt like the great person they were referring to me being. I accepted everyone?s compliments graciously, not wanting anymore attention, yet I was churning inside. Then the groom himself, when introducing me to a friend of his, said that next to his beautiful wife I was one of the most extraordinary women he had ever had the privilege to meet. That was it; all too much. I smiled, gave him a hug then soon after exited the reception with a bottle of wine. Sitting beside the nearby water, I was a sobbing mess. TL;DR: **My ex and I had something incredibly beautiful, full of promise. I know I have many good qualities, I know I did bring a lot of positive things to our relationship and I gave to him in many positive ways also...but none of that seems to matter anymore, to him or to me. Due to circumstances and insecurities that arose I strayed from who I know myself to be. I lied. Furthermore, I became weak; I cried on my ex?s doorstep begging him to talk to me, to understand me, for months I chased him and tried to fix everything ? except myself, it seems. All of this seems to overshadow any good there was, any beauty inside I do have; he can?t see it anymore, and I?m struggling to now.** **He hates me for who I have become and won't forgive me, which I understand. That aside, and more importantly, I hate myself for who I?ve become, for what I allowed myself to be reduced to, and I don?t know how to forgive myself. I feel flawed in the deepest sense.** **I thought I was a good person. What now? Do I ever get to be that person again?** more