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Vent - read or don't up to you
5 years ago
Preface: I recently got out of a really bad relationship, and I'm currently going through the process of getting over it. I think venting and writing out my thoughts will help. Sharing them to someone helps more. However, rather than dump a thousand words about my suffering on my friends, I figure leaving it in my FA journals where it'll get buried by the sands of time is probably more mature. If you're reading this, I feel the need to assume this opening paragraph can read with the same tone as the opening page of every single Series of Unfortunate Events books. Look away. Stop reading. This isn't going to be pleasant. With that out of the way, there's some catch-up to do.
Characters in play: Sino, Anubis, and Harar. Yeah, those are their usernames, I'm not popular enough for it to matter if I say their real names or not, and there are few enough people reading this that it doesn't matter if I use their real names or not. ... And "real name" I mean "real username", it's the furry community, everyone uses pseudonyms and whatnot it's part of the twenty first century.
Sino - my ex
Anubis - the guy Sino got into a dom/sub relationship with because I told him I was okay with polyamory and he felt like I wasn't good enough at sex to fully please him
Harar - Anubis' primary partner
Being in a relationship is like making yourself the "machine" in "machine learning". Thousands of event flit by and you need to make decisions, and usually the right answer is "consider your partner", so that by the time you break up you've been adaquately trained to regularly think about your partner. This is a big part of why breaking up hurts. When you're in a relationship, you think about your partner a lot. That doesn't change because you aren't in a relationship anymore, all that changes is how thinking about your partner makes you feel. For abusive and manipulative relationships, this is especially painful. Not because, abuse or manipulation are inherently special, but because everytime you remember something, you relive those emotions. This is fine if you're reliving happy memories, unless there's a lot of elements in them that reminds you of bad things, which makes you sad. Then you relive the memories of bad things, and feeling sad, and feel sad because you're reliving the emotions. Abuse and manipulation are horrible memories, when you felt horrible in the moment, and reliving them makes you feel horrible now.
This is... pretty basic psychology, honestly.
But see, one of the ways that Sino was abusive, I can't exactly fault him for because he needed the help that he needed, but.... Looking back at it... there's something sickening about realizing how this sounds:
"When my Sino is sad, he doesn't need to hear me say 'I love you', as much as he needs to hear 'Anubis loves you'."
...
"When my partner is sad, they don't need to hear me say 'I love you' as much as they need to hear 'your other partner loves you'."
And there's other implications about that, and they're true. Sino consistently told me I was his primary partner, always talked about how we're going to be together forever and all that other stockholm-syndrome lovey-dovey shit couples say, but would, in the same breath, turn around and say things like "if it weren't for you, I would be happy being in a live-in dom/sub role with Anubis and Harar", and constantly talked about how he didn't need to be held by me, he needed to be held by Anubis. Sino talked about Anubis and Harar so much, that it became standard protocol for me to consider Anubis and Harar in my relationship with Sino (I still don't know Anubis or Harar's real name, and I've only seen each of them twice).
I was trained to think about them just as much as I thought about Sino, and that leaves me, in the aftermath of nine months of abuse and manipulation and torture, realizing I basically didn't just break up with Sino, I broke up with Anubis and Harar. Not that, Anubis or Harar ever think about me, and I doubt Sino's found it a struggle to get over me since he was the one who dumped me, after nine months of abusing and manipulating me, but from my end, it's like I lost three partners all at once.
Every time I see a suit that reminds me of Anubis' fursuit, it stings. Hyenas? Sting because Sino and Harar have hyena fursonas. Red pandas? Kinda suck cuz they remind me of Anubis. Anubis, the Egyptian God, stings, because it reminds me of Anubis. That's not their faults, that's part of the pains of breaking up with someone. But it is Sino's fault, because I shouldn't have to feel like I broke up with Anubis and Harar as well.
... I let Sino manipulate me into believing that my concerns about our relationship were in my head, but looking back on it... those concerns should've been red flags that made me leave. I should've left. I should've cut the line and let him out of my life long before this ended. When we first talked about being together, I told him I didn't want us to be too serious or think we're 'the one' or anything, and I told him I didn't want to be in a relationship. But he pushed me on to be in one, and then ignored my requests that we not take it seriously, and I let him sweep me up into his fantasy of having a boyfriend his family approves of while having a relationship he actually wanted on the side.
... the pandemic, and all the social distancing and quarantine and stay-at-home orders that come with it have made moving on hard. I can't see my friends whose relationships I neglected because of Sino. I can't see my friends and make new memories that involve people other than Sino, and I can't make memories without constantly thinking about Sino, Anubis, and Harar, who are all my exes despite my only being an ex to Sino.
...
Is it petty, to want to reach out to them and let them know this? Anubis and Harar never knew about anything, because Sino didn't take my concerns seriously, and Anubis and Harar never talked to me, and since Sino never told them what was going on, they never knew anything. Numerous times I told Sino I wanted to reach out to Anubis and Harar, since they're older and have been dealing with polyamory a lot longer than me or Sino, but Sino always made it clear that that was a bad idea. Looking back, it's clear to me that's because he was so preoccupied with being a good pup for Anubis, he didn't have time to be a good boyfriend to me. If Anubis ever found out, it'd mean Sino wasn't his perfect little pup, even if it meant I writhed in emotional agony, sometimes literally.
Is it petty to want to tell Anubis this? Even if I just sent him a link to this journal? ... I think Sino's lucky. Whenever Sino hesitated to say "I love you", he made it clear he didn't want to. Whenever I did, I tried my damn hardest to hide it, because it'd just break him as much as him openly hesitating and refusing to say it to me broke me. But I always had to say "I love you", and often had to follow it up with "Anubis loves you too".
... It's weird remembering this, because I realize just how bad that relationship was. How selfish Sino was. How manipulative he was. How abusive he was. All without even trying. I think he's lucky, because if the roles were reversed he wouldn't hesitate to tell people what I did wrong and accuse me of being abusive, but for me it's taken three months to realize that what I thought was "kind of manipulative and selfish" is obviously genuine abuse. ... He's really lucky in that.
Characters in play: Sino, Anubis, and Harar. Yeah, those are their usernames, I'm not popular enough for it to matter if I say their real names or not, and there are few enough people reading this that it doesn't matter if I use their real names or not. ... And "real name" I mean "real username", it's the furry community, everyone uses pseudonyms and whatnot it's part of the twenty first century.
Sino - my ex
Anubis - the guy Sino got into a dom/sub relationship with because I told him I was okay with polyamory and he felt like I wasn't good enough at sex to fully please him
Harar - Anubis' primary partner
Being in a relationship is like making yourself the "machine" in "machine learning". Thousands of event flit by and you need to make decisions, and usually the right answer is "consider your partner", so that by the time you break up you've been adaquately trained to regularly think about your partner. This is a big part of why breaking up hurts. When you're in a relationship, you think about your partner a lot. That doesn't change because you aren't in a relationship anymore, all that changes is how thinking about your partner makes you feel. For abusive and manipulative relationships, this is especially painful. Not because, abuse or manipulation are inherently special, but because everytime you remember something, you relive those emotions. This is fine if you're reliving happy memories, unless there's a lot of elements in them that reminds you of bad things, which makes you sad. Then you relive the memories of bad things, and feeling sad, and feel sad because you're reliving the emotions. Abuse and manipulation are horrible memories, when you felt horrible in the moment, and reliving them makes you feel horrible now.
This is... pretty basic psychology, honestly.
But see, one of the ways that Sino was abusive, I can't exactly fault him for because he needed the help that he needed, but.... Looking back at it... there's something sickening about realizing how this sounds:
"When my Sino is sad, he doesn't need to hear me say 'I love you', as much as he needs to hear 'Anubis loves you'."
...
"When my partner is sad, they don't need to hear me say 'I love you' as much as they need to hear 'your other partner loves you'."
And there's other implications about that, and they're true. Sino consistently told me I was his primary partner, always talked about how we're going to be together forever and all that other stockholm-syndrome lovey-dovey shit couples say, but would, in the same breath, turn around and say things like "if it weren't for you, I would be happy being in a live-in dom/sub role with Anubis and Harar", and constantly talked about how he didn't need to be held by me, he needed to be held by Anubis. Sino talked about Anubis and Harar so much, that it became standard protocol for me to consider Anubis and Harar in my relationship with Sino (I still don't know Anubis or Harar's real name, and I've only seen each of them twice).
I was trained to think about them just as much as I thought about Sino, and that leaves me, in the aftermath of nine months of abuse and manipulation and torture, realizing I basically didn't just break up with Sino, I broke up with Anubis and Harar. Not that, Anubis or Harar ever think about me, and I doubt Sino's found it a struggle to get over me since he was the one who dumped me, after nine months of abusing and manipulating me, but from my end, it's like I lost three partners all at once.
Every time I see a suit that reminds me of Anubis' fursuit, it stings. Hyenas? Sting because Sino and Harar have hyena fursonas. Red pandas? Kinda suck cuz they remind me of Anubis. Anubis, the Egyptian God, stings, because it reminds me of Anubis. That's not their faults, that's part of the pains of breaking up with someone. But it is Sino's fault, because I shouldn't have to feel like I broke up with Anubis and Harar as well.
... I let Sino manipulate me into believing that my concerns about our relationship were in my head, but looking back on it... those concerns should've been red flags that made me leave. I should've left. I should've cut the line and let him out of my life long before this ended. When we first talked about being together, I told him I didn't want us to be too serious or think we're 'the one' or anything, and I told him I didn't want to be in a relationship. But he pushed me on to be in one, and then ignored my requests that we not take it seriously, and I let him sweep me up into his fantasy of having a boyfriend his family approves of while having a relationship he actually wanted on the side.
... the pandemic, and all the social distancing and quarantine and stay-at-home orders that come with it have made moving on hard. I can't see my friends whose relationships I neglected because of Sino. I can't see my friends and make new memories that involve people other than Sino, and I can't make memories without constantly thinking about Sino, Anubis, and Harar, who are all my exes despite my only being an ex to Sino.
...
Is it petty, to want to reach out to them and let them know this? Anubis and Harar never knew about anything, because Sino didn't take my concerns seriously, and Anubis and Harar never talked to me, and since Sino never told them what was going on, they never knew anything. Numerous times I told Sino I wanted to reach out to Anubis and Harar, since they're older and have been dealing with polyamory a lot longer than me or Sino, but Sino always made it clear that that was a bad idea. Looking back, it's clear to me that's because he was so preoccupied with being a good pup for Anubis, he didn't have time to be a good boyfriend to me. If Anubis ever found out, it'd mean Sino wasn't his perfect little pup, even if it meant I writhed in emotional agony, sometimes literally.
Is it petty to want to tell Anubis this? Even if I just sent him a link to this journal? ... I think Sino's lucky. Whenever Sino hesitated to say "I love you", he made it clear he didn't want to. Whenever I did, I tried my damn hardest to hide it, because it'd just break him as much as him openly hesitating and refusing to say it to me broke me. But I always had to say "I love you", and often had to follow it up with "Anubis loves you too".
... It's weird remembering this, because I realize just how bad that relationship was. How selfish Sino was. How manipulative he was. How abusive he was. All without even trying. I think he's lucky, because if the roles were reversed he wouldn't hesitate to tell people what I did wrong and accuse me of being abusive, but for me it's taken three months to realize that what I thought was "kind of manipulative and selfish" is obviously genuine abuse. ... He's really lucky in that.
