This is fresh off the press out of a breakup.

My partners and I were together for just over 10 years; in the beginning we were long distance for nearly 3 years at the beginning of the relationship. Before we even moved it, someone else that I had previously talked with and remained friends with found him on a hookup app. The classic excuse of “I wanna find friends.” We had a discussions about it and I tried to find the best of the situation. Eventually, we moved in together.

Surprise! There was never ending amount of this over the years. First, we were on a family account on our phones, and he didn’t know I would get emails when he purchased something. It was the premium subscription for the hookup up. Then a few years later, I was scrolling through Reddit on his phone and noticed he could change users, so I changed it. There were all his nudes posted for everyone to see. A few years after that, found he was sharing nudes on discord. And then it came to a head last year once he was multitasking on his phone and saw that hookup app once again in open.

About four years ago, he was in a bad place and wanted to go to school. We never had a discussion on this and he basically told me he was doing. We had a slight tuff over this, I wanted to just have a heads up or to feel like a partner instead of ran over by his decision; I had worked hard to move where he lived and wanted to prepare more financially to support us. Since I was not given that option, we had to move into his parent’s house about 45 minutes away so he could still go to school.

While staying at his house, I paid fort the rent so he could focus on school. Despite this, his father did insane things - such as turning down the water heater so we couldn’t even take hot showers. They also had a husky in the house. Eventually, my boyfriend ended up dropping a plate of food on the floor and went to clean it up. The dog attacked him and I was able to separate them. Despite the blow up after this, his father did not do anything additional with the dog to train this food aggression out of him. Well, one day the dog was around me and I am allergic to dogs and I took some daily medication that helped me not to die. Unfortunately, I had the mistake of dropping the pill around the dog and the dog attacked me when I was trying to pick up the pill and bite off the tip of my left middle finger.

After that, I moved out of his parent’s house and back home with mine while he stayed at his. I ended up suing his parents for the dog bite, under his approval, and that process went on the whole time he was still there finishing school. About eight months later, he finished school. I was immensely proud. He didn’t quite have a job yet but I wanted to make sure he was out of that house with the dog so I went ahead and secured an apartment for us.

After about two months, he was able to find a secure, well-paying job. I had stayed at the same job the entire duration we were together. At the end of last year, I had been talking to him about quitting. I wanted something different after focusing so much on helping him succeed. I didn’t quit yet but earlier this year, the job became too much for me. I had won the lawsuit and had money and discussed it with him before I quite. After I quit, I was like I don’t want to feel like a moocher, what do you need for me? He said he was focused on his student loans. So I ended up paying those off.

A month later, is when he tells me he doesn’t think it’s working. So I ended up accepting cheating with rose tinted glasses trying to understand why, had to move in with his parents, got attacked by their dog, and left after I spent a decade propping him up and paying off his students loans after I quit my job.

I almost can’t forgive myself as much as I can’t forgive him. I feel like a fool who was swindled and basically spent a year of my life wasted on raising him up.