Originally Posted by
Obs3ssion
I really do relate to what Jodi was going through, even though I think she's guilty of premeditated murder. When I was 30 I had just gotten divorced from the man I thought I would be with forever - after 8 years of marriage and finding out that he'd been cheating for at least 5 of those years. I was in a really bad place in terms of self esteem and insecurity, desperation, depression.
Then I met a kid - still in college, 21 years old - over the internet. (AOL chat rooms at the time, hahahahaha...) Anyway, he lived about 150 miles away but I often did business trips to the area where he was in college. We met in person and then things took off from there. Monthly booty calls, meals, extras paid for when I was in town and then I would disappear again so he could resume his "real life." He was totally using me from the start. He was in love with someone else and I knew it. I saw a letter he'd written to her (while supposedly "exclusive" with me) and it ripped my heart out. The more aloof he was, the more desperate I became. I vowed to make him forget about her.
Long story short, he ended up moving to where I was, living with me, living OFF me and I let things continue because I was so desperate for him to finally get over his "lost love" and love me the same way. I bailed him out of jail (he was caught stealing from an employer, although he denied denied denied), I bought him everything, I did everything for him. So pathetic. I was still traveling for business fairly often so he'd have the apartment to himself for 4-5 days at a time. I caught him carrying on (just talking on the phone as far as I knew then) with a girl he'd met since moving in with me. I confronted him, he denied anything was going on, and we moved on. Then, one day, I found out he'd called an escort service...he denied denied denied but I had finally had it and kicked him out. I thought I would die, after all I had done for him...seriously, I was so sick I must have thought I owned him at that point, how could he do this to ME???!!! He moved in with a friend down the road and I was still obsessed with him...what he was doing, who he was seeing, was he sorry, did he still want me...
I was so beaten down by what happened in my marriage, I was really ill. I never once thought about hurting him - I didn't even wish bad things for him - I just wanted to hurt myself. I wanted to be free of all of it.
Thankfully, I turned all that pain into motivation to change my life. I moved 1000 miles away (and yes of course, by that point he'd decided he wanted me again and started stalking me...leaving notes on my car, threatening suicide, begging me not to move...and then when I did move, he called nonstop, said he was going to move out there to be with me and then called the police when I stopped answering his calls altogether because he thought I was missing!).
TL;DR - Toxic relationships can REALLY fuck you up!