Summerpeach -HUGS (and I love your name)
There are only a handful of times when I can say with certainty that his intention was to hurt me in some fashion....
One was right after we slept together for the last time the night of his drunken car accident(after he was barely spending any time with me to begin with....and also right before he decided to go back to his ex), but the morning after...right after eehhummm (no details needed) we were laying there, and he actually said these words "Christine is going to kill me"....
He had never mentioned this girls name before...and I said "Oh? Who's Christine?"...
And he said "Oh. just a girl from high school here, i've been hanging out with her a bit".
Why I did not slap him across the face right there and say NEVER speak to me again I will never know. Oh wait...because I still refused to believe that he was the liar he turned out to be.
It was CLEAR passive aggressive emotional abuse.
That was actually the "adult" convo I had with him later bringing that up and telling him how that made me feel... and he was oh so understanding and said "I know, I don't know why I said that, she's actually the girlfriend of a friend and she was always bugging me to get together and catch up, I only saw her once". Funny how the story changed. It's the in your face abuse, followed with kind words later that keeps someone in a state of denial and confusion....always wanting to see the best in them.
And the second time was when I initially turned down his request to be friends again (though I went back and forth with that and sent myself into an emotional tailspin)...well, he did another clearly covert passive aggressive move and made one of his photo albums visible on facebook....(I was not his friend, so he had to change his settings to make it viewable) the album was of him and his girlfriend at his families ranch and he was teaching her how to shoot.
This was significant because it was something he talked about doing with me.
His desire to hurt me, though well disguised, was right in my face. And something so hard for me to fathom he would want to do.
And because of those few actions, it actually makes me think that ALL of his actions have some manipulative tendancy to them.... I couldn't help but think that the only reason he "apologized" to me was to try and give himself the opportunity to refuse my response and turn it around on me....which he did.
And the painful struggle, what I have been internalizing all of this time is that he actually chose to treat me that way, yet do whatever he could to get his ex to come back to him....he went to spend time with her and flew to be with her family. I've put A LOT Of my self-worth on this.
And I just imagine if he actually didn't go back to his ex when he did....how much longer I would have waited around for him, how much more I would have put up with. How much worse I would feel about myself now.