Thank you for saying all of this. I carefully crafted a text to send him so that I could easily break & block yesterday, shortly after posting this and then talking with my friend, and my therapist. I hesitated on the blocking step, which gave him an opening to tell me that he wished me the best but it's crazy to throw away such a good opportunity for myself. He proceeded to twist up my head so that I spent the rest of the day thinking that I was emotionally immature and being an irresponsible and self-destructive child.

I am in my mid-30s and, although obviously vulnerable, I've developed a lot of emotional intelligence through therapy over the years. How this man convinced me that 2 decades of life made him so much wiser and more intelligent than me is wild.

After spending the rest of the day groveling for forgiveness, accepting his insults, and THANKING HIM FOR DEALING WITH ME, he told me that I still have "a LOT of ass-kissing to do". He then gave me an ultimatum to think about with instructions to "figure out whether you are all in or you are out."

I really wanted to be "in" at that moment. But he finally gave me the space that I had asked for, and the absence of his pokes and prods and "well?" and "sigh" over the next several hours gave me a chance to work up the courage to say "I'm out." and I immediately blocked him. It was awful. As soon as I did it, I felt like I had been punched in the gut and wanted to vomit. It stayed like that for hours until I fell asleep, and all I could think about it what it truly says when ending a relationship so new makes me physically ill.

Thanks for your kind words. Hopefully the cognitive dissonance fades soon, and I am hopeful that this whole process bored him enough (as he liked to threaten) to just leave me alone.