I took a break from SLAP and social media for a little while after my recent incident.
Coming back, it was overwhelming to see 14 separate thoughtful private messages from many kind SLAP pals and I am incredibly grateful for all of you reaching out. It truly means a lot to me.
I met someone and was seeing her out of town for a week. We were way too similar though in the end. She had just lived through an even rougher, more violent attempt at her life (narrowly survived slitting her throat) and still had bandages on when we met. We never discussed any of this prior to randomly deciding to meet up. Turns out we both have children and a crazy abusive ex on top of some other things in common. Just two incredibly broken people supporting each other, which was nice but there were a lot of red flags too. She fell in love with me so quickly though and I wasn't really on the same page. It was pretty obvious to her I wasn't ready for a relationship and that I was still in love with my ex. In fact, just the idea of my ex was looming over us the whole time until she ultimately called me at 2 am on the last day I was there, wanting to see me, and of course, my weak ass immediately answered the call and showed my true shitty crazy colours. I've been through this kind of thing a couple of times before but actually committing to the relationship and with my ex knowing I was trying to move on so she would try to sabotage it all out of spite but this time was different. I hadn't told her anything and it was purely coincidence. Still, though I knew this would happen again in the future and didn't want to hurt her or lead her on anymore. She was crying and begging me to stay but I just had to leave and call it before doing any more damage to a very vulnerable person. I still feel fucking terrible about it but it was the right decision, I just should have executed it differently.
Now my ex has gone from reluctantly seeing me to us just baring everything about who we had been with and what transpired despite us both being insanely crazy possessive people. It's pretty incredible we've managed to work through this while having insane sex and surviving a little honeymoon phase that almost quickly reverted back to old times but it really feels like we are both trying to do better. It's all so fucked and powerful feeling.
It was a nice vacation and I enjoyed my time with this new woman but I am really not proud of myself and how I handled everything.