Three Ex Manipulators

I used to have a tendincy to fall in love with men that manipulated me until I was rock bottem.. completely lost, depressed and hopeless. I did not understand that I was letting this happen and that it was my choice of men until the tirth one.

I think being manipulated is like being brainwashed, a person works on the mind of another person until this other person is unsure and unsafe (in feeling) enough to be molded into the kind of person that is handy for the manipulator. It is terrible.. it is sick.

It is as if the personality is raped and torn, it feels like that for me. What happend to me is that I lost my personality in all the tree cases, ofcourse it was there still but I did not know it anymore. I was completely living in the other peoples world (of the men I was with), completely paying attention to what they wanted. It completely messed me up, breaking up was always terrible. But each time I found out how well I recovered and how soon I lost this 'messed up' part of me as soon as they where gone. It reminds me of a song by Katie Melua in which she sings 'Being close to crazyness is being close to you"

I am aware of the fact though, that it is a bit crazy that I have let it happen three times. And that I do not seem to be able to pick a guy that is able to let me be who I am. And one that does not do crazy things.

To show that the past three where really no good, I will tell a little about each of them. Otherwise it might just seem that I 'think' they are manipulators, but am looking at it the wrong way.

The first one was a very nice guy, until he started talking to me about how confused I was, and started giving 'advice' to change. As soon as it started to happen I felt more confused then before, so I listened, to change myself. To make a long story short, in the end it turned out that he was out to steal my money. I did not have a lot but what I had, I gave to him so that he could give his children (he had two little ones from a past relationship) a room in his new house. I thought he would give it back as soon as he could, but never did. In the same way he let me pay for different other things, and when the relationship stopped, I was without money pretty much. I am an artist, and struggle to get enough money as it is, so it was really sick. He got me to do it by talking in certain ways, 'working' on me to get it done. In the same way he 'worked' on me to make me do things I did not like sexually, this is what I have had the most problems with from this relationship. I was not ready for all those things, I was young and making love only was big for me already. But he wanted more, things he liked. Sometimes I cried silently after having 'sex' (I wil call it sex and not making love) and he 'must' have known, but never did anything. One time we had sex he did in in such a rough way that it hurt, I told him, and showed him that it was absolutely no good for me, but he ignored and went on until he was done. Then went to the shower and to bed. Leaving me where I was, crying. And even then.. when I asked about it later on, he managed to make me believe that I had misunderstood it, misinterpreted it and that I was too afraid for intimacy. 

The second one was a very good chess player, he won contests and made most of his money this way. He was friendly, surely.. but had a strange side to him. I think I recognize it as a kind of autism. I.. was not really in love with him I think.. but after the last relationship I was lost in my 'hunger' for warmth and someone that would be nice for me. He was like 14 years older then me but I did not care, he liked me. The first evening already, he wanted to make love and asked me to stay. While he could clearly see I was a fragile person and unsure. I stayed, but said no to making love. In the morning after though, he had talked on me for a part in the night 'worked' on me. And I let it happen mostly. It was not making love but it came close. It was clearly to fast for me and I was not able to keep on saying no, I was ofcourse, but I did not understand how to care about myself enough to do that. The second time we made love and after that many times. I never enjoyed, truly. Because he did not hug, did not kiss and did not show a lot of affection, he just made love and that was it. Before and after there was nothing. I hoped every time for affection and each time I let it happen telling myself that affection would be there. I got lost in the relationship at some point, allowing him to tell me that it was all in my own mind and that his way of doing things was normal because he was a man. I believed it.. made myself believe it.

One time I completely broke down, cried for hours, and he went downstairs to sit behind his computer and ignore it. I went downstairs after a time, asking him if he did not care about how how bad I was doing and he raised his shoulders. After 8 hours of feeling terrible he finally came to me to give a hug of lets say.. 5 seconds, and then went to sit down again. Not caring one bit. And putting acting as if I was the problem myself. Which I was, not not for his reasons. My problem was that I choose him and accepted his ways.

The tirth one was very nice the first time, we talked and talked, went to the forrest and the beach. It felt wonderful and full of love, I believed I had finally found a good person and started to fall in love with him. He came with me to my house the first time already and we cuddled all night, no making love completely but almost. It was very intense for me and amazing. I though he was amazing and wonderful. But then.. the next day we went to the beach again and he told me that he had a girlfriend, and they had been together for 10 years already! I broke down in tears because in one moment my wonderful feeling about all that had happened turned out to be 'wrong'. He hugged me but told me that he wished that I could see the value of the experience and not cry. I tried to understand this and hoped inside that he did like me, and had just lost himself in this situation.. so that it had some kind of good reason. I understood that he would stay with his girlfriend. After this we wanted to stay friends, and I was still in love with him but he started pushing me away very soon. I thought he cared about all of it, he acted like that and in this way he was able to keep me in this certain spot of accepting what he had done. But he did not care, it later turned out. He broke up with his girlfriend and found a new one :( after we had met one more time for a couple of days, painted his new house together and actually made love several times! When I went home he just broke contact and said that he was not ready, that being with me was too intense.. I believed him. He did not tell me he had a new girlfriend, I did not know, and was in love with him completely again.. and patiently waiting until he was over his ex girlfriend. He acted as if I was all crazy for being so sad and angry when I found out that he had a new girlfriend.

 

And now I am single, for a 'long' time already. I have no courage to go and find a new person to be with anymore. How can I ever know what their true intentions are? I cannot.. And it is clear that I pick the wrong guys, somehow.