Here for support and understanding and to hopefully help!

[Starfuri]

Hello All,

I am from the UK, but living and working in Holland.

I'm here because i am still in the fog, and talking certainly helps.

We were together for 3.5 years, I'd never been in such an intense relationship before ( I'm 40, have had my share of relationships ). I was healthy and my life was great before I met her ( good job, lots of friends, happy by myself for several years ).

We did everything together, travelled together and with our kids, made future plans etc.

I didn't see the red flags, I was too occupied with the good I saw in our relationship. How she looked at me, smiled, the things we did together, the sex, the intimacy. I ignored the fact she would go to the sauna with male friends she openly admitted were into her, I ignored the fact she was jealous of all my female friends, ignored the put downs and push n pull - it just made me want her more.

We put a bid in on a house together a few weeks before the break up - we sat and cuddled and talked about where our kids would sleep, how many more kids we would have together - how we would get married and she wanted to spend the rest of her life with me.

She would often say how much it would hurt her if I left her / I'd never given any indication I would.

One day it was like I woke up next to a different person. She said she wanted to talk - that she loved me deeply a week earlier but now doesn't, that the house and baby is something she wants - but with someone else. That we should break up and she doesn't want to see me anymore.

It took a few days for it to sink in and we exchanged some messages for the following 6 weeks - resulting in us agreeing to meet up on last time for sex.

Wasn't just sex though, she had planned a day just like we were together again - we watched movies in bed, cooked together, she told me about what her kids were doing, how they missed me and she did - that she had a lot of love for me. Foolish perhaps, but I believed this to be sign maybe we would get back together.

Boy was I wrong.

The next day we woke up, had breakfast, had sex and immediately after sex, she lay in my arms and said to me:

I don't want a baby with you. I think there is someone better out there for me. I hope they get on with my kids as well as you do. I hope the sex is good with them. You healed me. You will get through this with therapy. I don't want to be with someone who might leave me in the future. She then showed me her profile on happn and the guys she was talking to...

I couldn't believe what I was hearing, then she asked me to pleasure her one more time, I declined and started to get dressed to leave.

As I left, she looked at me with vacant eyes and a smile and said "I hope your ok with this"

I wasn't, and to this day am messed up and emotionally empty.

A few weeks later, the police arrive at my door - I'm being accused of stalking her - which is odd because I want her out of my head, not in it.

A few more weeks later, child protection services arrive - they received a complaint I was a negligent father ( the file is already closed with no further action needed ).

By this point i had lost so much of myself, i almost lost my job.

It's been 5 months NC and my head still can't get around how this went south so hard and so coldly destructive.  I am in therapy (which i strongly recommend to anyone who has been through similar) and seeing my past relationship for the toxicity it was - my therapist believes she has BPD and i struggles with that for a while - because it was not my experience of the relationship - but as i was asked to hindsight the negative aspects - the shaming, the name calling, the lies - i am starting to come around to the idea. 
I don't want it to define my experience though, as i believe at one point she genuinely did love me - a love and feeling like no other i had experienced and i would rather look at how my own actions/personality allowed this to begin with. 

That said - i now have 0 interest in much things, i feel emotionally unavailable to everyone and it sucks - they say it will get better and i suppose it will - but its odd that i miss someone who hurt me so thoroughly.

[bloomie]

Hi and welcome. Thank you for sharing the grief and confusion that has brought you to this community.  I am so sorry that you have need of us, yet grateful you found us and that you are building a support system around you as you heal.

but its odd that i miss someone who hurt me so thoroughly.

And yet, makes perfect sense when you consider that you were all in, sincerely in love, and planning a future with this person and their kids.  You believed what you were meant to believe. You believed what you saw, heard, what was possibly strategically displayed to you and you trusted someone who is untrustworthy and who it seems has serious issues. It is alarming that they have brought threat and harm to the very stability of your life and your children's lives. That is a lot to unpack and process.

One of the things I have found in my time here, is that by sharing my experiences and in the experiences of others, engaging in the conversations going on here, it has helped me like little else to be able to define and discern what toxic and disordered behaviors look like in actual intimate relationships. Because I have learned there are discernible patterns and common behaviors.

What I have learned has been validating and has help inform my choices and life and healing going forward in a powerful way.

In time, what once seems so inexplicable clicks into context and clarity for us with a great deal of aha moments. Sometimes those aha moments are painful, but for me, the bigger picture became crystal clear - that I was dealing with someone who has at the very least, some level of mental illness and character disturbance. I have found relief and a place of acceptance and peace in time.

Settle in and take look around. There are great helps in our resources at the drop down menus above and kind souls here to support you out on the boards. I look forward to supporting you as you make your way forward.

[Starfuri]

Thank you for the considered response, i look forward to engaging with the community and its resources.
I have gone through so much emotion - loss, hate, love, regret, jealousy, anger, numbness, confusion - its crazy and it was sometimes all at once.

The no contact has definitely helped too, but i feel i am yet to accept it fully.  That i get and she is blocked everywhere i can think of and i have removed memories from my material life - what additionally sucks sometimes is that my son says he misses her kids and her sometimes - i am open with him and why we don't talk anymore - but he sees my relationship with his mother and looks to draw life parallels still.

I was super upset i didn't get the say goodbye to her kids - but i take solace in the fact the last time they saw me, it was a fun evening with lots of cuddles.  I only hope she painted our seperation positively with them.

I gave up on getting closure along time ago, i seek my own closure now.