Sometimes "It's Over" Means "It's Over"

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VagabondAstronomer
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20 Feb 2015, 2:12 pm

Since my second marriage collapsed almost nine years ago, I have been involved with a woman who had been my high school sweetheart. From the get go, it was turbulent. I left her once and saw another woman very briefly, but reconciled. After three years, it collapsed again. My mental state deteriorated after I had a major meltdown, and since have been unemployable. I stayed with her for another year, but after enduring verbal and mental abuse (the has a short fuse), I decided to get away from her by moving in with my parents.
Again, I reconciled with her, but did not move back in. Instead, I wanted to give it some time. She grew pushier and pushier.
Finally, during the holiday season, I finally said I'd had it; I simply could not tolerate her temper flare ups, her drinking, her deceptiveness, her anger. Talking to her one night, when she was clearly drunk, it hit me just how crazy she sounded, and I said enough. I told her I had taken all I could take; she accused me of not trying harder.
What part of "all I could take" she failed to comprehend I can't say.
Since then, she has been going out of her way to make my life hell. She has the lion share of my personal property, including things like tax paperwork and my car; she insisted on holding on to it "because no matter what happens, it will be safe here". I've made attempts, but she has thwarted them. She is now telling people that I abandoned it (I maintained contact), or that it's all hers since she bought it for me (a blatant lie).
At this point, I've pretty much written it all off. Sadly.
In the end, though, it is better this way. We just couldn't get along. I am far too passive and not nearly as outgoing as she is (she says she's on the spectrum, but I really don't see it). I don't drink, and her temperament runs hot.
No means no means no.
Being alone my suck, but being in a bad relationship is something I've decided I no longer want.
- namaste



The_Face_of_Boo
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20 Feb 2015, 4:17 pm

What else it would mean?



ominous
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20 Feb 2015, 4:29 pm

I'm sorry to read about your bad situation, Vagabond. I'm especially sorry about your stuff. Surely there is some legal way to get it back?

I have a history of getting involved with people who are less than stable and avoid relationships altogether now because of that. I really do prefer being alone. I hope you find that is the same thing for you.



VagabondAstronomer
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20 Feb 2015, 5:09 pm

ominous wrote:
I'm sorry to read about your bad situation, Vagabond. I'm especially sorry about your stuff. Surely there is some legal way to get it back?

I have a history of getting involved with people who are less than stable and avoid relationships altogether now because of that. I really do prefer being alone. I hope you find that is the same thing for you.


Yeah, I'm pretty much at that point. My first wife? Was manipulated into that marriage. Second? Quite a bit younger. This relationship? What the heck was I thinking.
No. Done.
As for my things, I've already sent off an email informing her of my intent. She has yet to reply to me directly, but she has said some pretty hateful stuff to others, which basically amounts to "he's never getting it back."



ominous
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20 Feb 2015, 5:26 pm

We tend to be taken advantage of when it comes to relationships and that's why it's best to avoid them until we are truly sure we can embark on something functional and healthy. I don't believe I can do that, due to so many problems trying to interact with people in general. I have latent PTSD from an abusive childhood (like a number of later diagnosed autistics) and I tend to seek out replications of that abuse despite logically knowing better and working my way through those issues in therapy.

I know now what constitutes a healthy relationship enough to identify that none of mine have been. I can also identify healthy relationships when I see them and unhealthy relationships when I experience them, even at the friendship level (unfortunately I also tend towards attracting unstable friends). I am totally cool with being on my romantic own for the rest of my life. I am working on developing healthy and functional friendships with other people, and working on developing a healthier and happier self.

Like you, I had to experience a lot of misery to get to this place, but it's been liberating and a good lesson for me overall in life. I hope you can sort the end of this relationship without too much additional drama. It sounds exhausting.



VagabondAstronomer
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20 Feb 2015, 8:13 pm

ominous wrote:
Like you, I had to experience a lot of misery to get to this place, but it's been liberating and a good lesson for me overall in life. I hope you can sort the end of this relationship without too much additional drama. It sounds exhausting.

I'd be tempted to say "you have no idea", but it sounds like you do. Thank you.
I have fourteen pages of my diagnosis, and every time I read it, the more it underlines all I've been through, even the tendency to be manipulated.
Yeah, prefer my own company now. As I said, I'm done. But I'm good.



ominous
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20 Feb 2015, 8:30 pm

VagabondAstronomer wrote:
Yeah, prefer my own company now. As I said, I'm done. But I'm good.


Me too! Sucks we had to take such painful roads to get there, but at least we got there, right? I enjoy focusing on all the things the dramatic romantic relationships kept me from focusing on in life. I truly think I missed out on a good 15 years of 'development' because I was too busy in dysfunctional relationships for the sake of relationship.



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20 Feb 2015, 10:46 pm

Most people that have these kinds of issues, tend to have personality disorders, or other types of mental problems. Needless to say, these people have a natural gift for picking us out of the crowd.

I know that everybody says to work on improving yourself first (which is a good idea), but other people need to learn that it's wrong to take advantage of "vulnerable" people like ourselves.



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20 Feb 2015, 11:15 pm

SilverStar wrote:
Needless to say, these people have a natural gift for picking us out of the crowd.



I used to joke that I had a 'psycho magnet' which is ableist against kind people who suffer from psychoses so I no longer use that term. People who care about me have long asked me 'how do you find these people' as I seem to find them repeatedly. Short answer is I'm autistic, they find me. :\



VagabondAstronomer
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20 Feb 2015, 11:42 pm

SilverStar wrote:
Most people that have these kinds of issues, tend to have personality disorders, or other types of mental problems. Needless to say, these people have a natural gift for picking us out of the crowd.

Well, this girl was my high school sweetheart, and there was a reason it didn't work then, though at the time it didn't make sense (I was seventeen). When I came back into her life, my life was in shambles. I guess it was easy pickin's.
Live and learn.



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22 Feb 2015, 8:07 am

omg no way! I so totally never knew that... I thought its over meant lets get back together in a week. You have enlightened me



VagabondAstronomer
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22 Feb 2015, 9:35 am

darkphantomx1 wrote:
omg no way! I so totally never knew that... I thought its over meant lets get back together in a week. You have enlightened me

Glad I could help be a candle in someone else's darkness... :-|



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22 Feb 2015, 3:31 pm

VagabondAstronomer wrote:
darkphantomx1 wrote:
omg no way! I so totally never knew that... I thought its over meant lets get back together in a week. You have enlightened me

Glad I could help be a candle in someone else's darkness... :-|


Most people here are really nice. That guy is one of the maybe handful or two who aren't. You learn to gloss over what they read in time, because we don't have an ignore feature. Just scroll past it without reading and try not to let him and others like him get to you. That's what I have been learning to do. x



VagabondAstronomer
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22 Feb 2015, 3:53 pm

ominous wrote:
Most people here are really nice. That guy is one of the maybe handful or two who aren't. You learn to gloss over what they read in time, because we don't have an ignore feature. Just scroll past it without reading and try not to let him and others like him get to you. That's what I have been learning to do. x

It's a given that the anonymity the Internet offers tends to bring out the absolute best in people... ;)



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22 Feb 2015, 4:01 pm

VagabondAstronomer wrote:
ominous wrote:
Most people here are really nice. That guy is one of the maybe handful or two who aren't. You learn to gloss over what they read in time, because we don't have an ignore feature. Just scroll past it without reading and try not to let him and others like him get to you. That's what I have been learning to do. x

It's a given that the anonymity the Internet offers tends to bring out the absolute best in people... ;)


When I see someone being a jerk here I tend to go and have a look at their last string of posts on various topics. That makes it a lot easier to weed out if someone is a) just having a crappy day, b) just having a personality conflict with another member, or c) just a crappy personality.

I think, with most autistics, we are pretty much the exact same persons online as off - as we can't really 'pretend play' personalities like a lot of other people can. I wish I could blame the internet for some folks crappy personalities here, though. ;)



VagabondAstronomer
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18 Jan 2020, 3:24 pm

SilverStar wrote:
Most people that have these kinds of issues, tend to have personality disorders, or other types of mental problems. Needless to say, these people have a natural gift for picking us out of the crowd.

I know that everybody says to work on improving yourself first (which is a good idea), but other people need to learn that it's wrong to take advantage of "vulnerable" people like ourselves.


This is an old topic, and yet it is associated with my most recent. To be honest, I had forgotten I'd written it.
Anyway, in discussing this with my therapist, he believes it is quite possible that she had BPD. She had molested as child and teen by her stepfather, and began drinking at a fairly young age (which I truly believe contributed in no small part to her sudden death on the 10th of January, 2020).
She was a "lost soul", as he put it.
And I truly believe that.