Do we just break up or what? Is he actually emotionally abusive?
This is a long background story, but I'll try to make it as concise as possible.
I was in a long-distance relationship with a wonderful Australian man I met online for 4ish years. We were engaged and had the application process for his fiancé visa well underway. It was taking much longer than expected and I felt trapped and alone and increasingly bitter about the entire situation. About seven months ago I made the worst possible mistake I could ever have made and cheated on him with my now-boyfriend. I'd cheated on him in the past with a woman but we chalked it up to impossible distance and my youth and foolishness and it helped that I wasn't too emotionally involved. This time it was too much. I had real feelings for my now-boyfriend. My fiancé was beyond crushed. We basically stopped talking. I emailed desperately, trying to get him back, but he did what was best for him and maintained that our relationship was over.
I was drinking and doing drugs like crazy, partying with new-guy, numbing myself to the reality of the situation. I had serious regrets. Obviously I regretted crushing the sh-t out of my ex's heart, but I also selfishly regretted losing him. I still maintain he was my greatest ally and resource in life. At the same time, I started to develop deeper and deeper feelings for my new boyfriend. Eventually things progressed and we were attached at the hip and he was living in my apartment. I lost my friends and acquaintances for various reasons. We fought a lot. I'd never fought like this. He would be crazy paranoid and accuse me of cheating. He would go through my emails and texts. I got used to it, accepted it, allowed it. We began a little toxic cycle. Partly I think I was okay with it because it was the punishment I wanted for cheating, partly I think I was just unfamiliar with emotional abuse and it snuck up on me the way I now understand it usually does.
We got pregnant and I had an abortion. I reached out to my ex about the abortion. It crushed me because I was happily looking forward to starting a family with him for so long. I felt like I wasn't just losing a baby; I had come to terms with the abortion and knew it was the best choice for everyone, but I was so crushed with the feeling that I was losing the chance for the future I'd been hoping and waiting for. He sent me a text on the morning of, just saying he was thinking of me. He also sent flowers which I didn't know about till later. I didn't dream of telling my boyfriend I'd shared any of this with my ex.
Immediately after the abortion my boyfriend and I went to the grocery store to stock up on supplies which was a bad idea because I fainted and paramedics came in a freaking fire truck and made a huge fuss and it was a somewhat traumatic ordeal. I remember laughing it off. We got home and the phone rang, my boyfriend answered and someone said there were flowers for me in the lobby. I lied and said I didn't talk to my ex, it was just some strange coincidence. But he knew they were from my ex because he'd seen the "break-up flowers" (with notes saying cute things like, "It was beautiful while it lasted", etc) he'd sent before. My boyfriend went to the drug store to get the supplies we meant to get earlier and said nothing of the flowers upon his return. That night was the most painful experience of my life, I don't even remember it. The next day was okay, but my boyfriend was distant. That night he got plastered and I knew what was coming. Fighting and shouting. The flowers and how I'd lied to his face about not talking to my ex. Also the flowers had mysteriously disappeared which is still bizarre, but he conjured up all kinds of ideas about how they'd disappeared and who else had been involved.
Somehow we brushed over it and continued our little toxic cycle. The classic pattern of closeness and distance and blow-up and make-up. So many fights I can't even remember now. The making up was so sweet. We had a big fight over something and separated for a few days. I went to the bar and got too drunk to walk myself home. Some guy walked me home. I guess I'd been texting my boyfriend of my perilous situation and he trekked all the way to the bar I was at, and then to my apartment. He opened the door and the guy who walked me home was standing there. I hardly remember it. That guy promptly bolted and my boyfriend promptly smashed some beer bottles and somehow broke the crap out of a desk chair and screamed and screamed. I was crying and begging him not to leave, pleading and promising that nothing had happened. He was searching frantically for his keys, which I guess he'd thrown too. He kept pushing me to the bedroom and telling me to stay away because he didn't want to see me. I didn't listen. He slapped me comically. I had glass in my feet and there was blood everywhere. I guess at some point I fell in the tub and bent the hell out of the shower curtain rod. The cops came and I don't know what happened. They didn't want me to be alone and I had no friends to come over so they just made him clean up most of the glass and decided to leave us be. As soon as they left he took my car to his house, I passed out for a few hours, then took the rapid to his neighborhood, and texted him to ask for directions from the rapid station, and he came and picked me up because it was a really crappy area and apparently very dangerous for me to be navigating alone. After all of THAT we STILL CONTINUED. We brushed it off. I don't even know how, it seems insane in retrospect.
At some point I started drinking less, doing less drugs. I was finally understanding that this was reality, this was my life. The fights seemed more and more contrived. I started being more honest, more responsible, more cautious. I started to realize it wasn't always because of my actions. I started to realize I wasn't being treated fairly despite all of my attempts to be completely honest and fair to him. I started to get tired of being accused of being the villain when I was finally actually doing nothing wrong. I emailed my parents about how I was going to break up with him just so I'd feel like I had no choice. I called my sister for her support. I wanted out. But I kept getting drawn back in. We got back together this past Monday after a night of hell on Sunday. Monday morning I talked to my ex. It was painful. I felt hopeless and helpless. I was as close to taking my own life on Monday as I've ever been. My boyfriend left work early and we quietly held each other for hours and I was just relieved to have someone there. Then we sort of continued as if nothing had happened. Last night he was a bit drunk and woke me in the middle of the night (he's done this so many times) to ask me why I drove to Avon that afternoon, why I hadn't texted for two hours. (I'd taken a long drive to get out of the house and neglected to text while doing so.) I was angry but sleepy, so I gave him answers and he left it alone and finally went to sleep. I slept angrily on and off and this morning I told him it was f---ed up that he would go back to that, after he'd been doing much better about not being so paranoid and crazy, and furthermore it was messed up that he never apologized for the crazy awful stuff he said to me on Sunday and that he blames me for everything and basically that I think the whole situation is f---ed. He left for work and then we texted and sort of agreed (as we have many times before) that this isn't healthy or good and we're not making each other happy but that it sucks because we love each other.
I've had plans to move down south with my sister for a while now, but haven't done anything to put my plan into motion. He knows this. He also knows I've been talking to my ex, and he said the other day that he can't deal with me still talking to him, but I said I wasn't just going to stop talking to him, that it was a promise I couldn't make.
We both sort of agreed that maybe we could try to make things work to spend time together till I move. But now it seems like it just isn't working.
I guess my questions are: Should we just break up and try to move on? Is it dumb to think we could work out some kind of limbo land? Is he actually emotionally abusive and I should forget about hoping for something in the future? Should I worry that I still regret messing things up with my amazing ex even after 7+ months with new guy?
Sorry for the disjointedness of this whole mess - I tried my best to give an accurate description of the situation.
Comment on FlorenceArabia's post
Just an extra thought: He left the spares we made for him which makes me feel slightly less anxious about him busting in whenever he feels like it. I told my ex I'd email tonight or tomorrow, and if I didn't to call my sister. This might have alarmed him, but I emailed to tell him I was okay and that I was sorry, but I felt like I needed to do some safety planning. I feel silly now, and my bf's "good behavior" tonight made me feel like a jerk for thinking he's abusive, but I have to keep remembering all of the times he's undermined my self-esteem and humiliated me and accused me and made me feel like (and told me out-right) I'm a piece of sh-t. It's a crappy situation and I have to do what's best for me and my future. I have to tell myself it isn't just being selfish. It's my only chance on this planet and I can't sacrifice my happiness for anyone. I'm going to call my sister and parents this weekend but tonight I'm in survival mode. Sorry, just venting.