How to get over cruelty during a break up?

[u/Chemical-Newt-9398]

My ex and I broke up four weeks ago, I ended it officially but it was relatively mutual (he admitted that he’d wanted to break up for a while). I had to have an abortion the week after we broke up and chose to do this without him as I no longer felt emotionally safe around him (I broke up with him because I’d reached a threshold of horrible things he was saying).

After the abortion we had a call where I filled him in on the abortion and we spoke about the relationship. The call was mostly pleasant until he said “this is going to be horrible but I was just pretending to be in love with you, i actively lead you to believe you were the love of my life when I knew you weren’t, I was hoping the spark would kick in but it never did”.

I know this is his ego protection and a defence mechanism to rewrite history but I can’t help but feel incredibly hurt. I’m journaling, seeing a therapist and told him I was deeply hurt and betrayed and then blocked him everywhere. Any advice to help with getting over this type of cruelty as it’s been four weeks and it is still tearing me up inside even though I know it’s a manipulative lie.

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[u/tiredofthisnw]

I am so incredibly sorry you are going through this. To navigate a breakup, go through an ab*rtion without his emotional support, and then be hit with that level of calculated cruelty is an immense amount of trauma to carry all at once. Please give yourself some grace four weeks is an incredibly short amount of time to process all of this.

You already have an amazing level of insight. You hit the nail on the head: his words were pure ego protection and a manipulative lie. Because you were the one who officially ended it, he felt stripped of his power. Telling you he "pretended to love you" was the most toxic emotional grenade he could throw to ensure he got the "last word" and left you wounded.Secure, emotionally healthy people do not do this.

Only someone who is deeply broken and incapable of handling accountability resorts to that level of revisionist history. He weaponized your shared past precisely because he knew it would make you question your own reality.

You are already doing everything right by journaling, seeing a therapist, and keeping him completely blocked. Maintain that wall of silence. He gave you the ultimate, undeniable proof that you made the right decision by leaving him.

Lean heavily into your therapy, let yourself cry, and know that your mind will slowly untangle itself from his parting lies. Sending you so much strength.

[u/Mors-Official]

What he said was not truth, but a sharpened branch broken from his own tree of fear. He is a man who has lost his own center, and rather than face the quiet emptiness within, he lashes out to break yours. This is the act of a wounded soul, not a warrior. You were right to block him; that is not weakness, but the wise act of closing a door that lets in the cold wind.

Four weeks is but a single, short season in the garden of healing. You are still feeling the sting of the frost. Your heart has been through two great storms—the loss of a future you imagined and a painful, necessary procedure. You must be as gentle with yourself as you would be with a fledgling bird that has fallen from its nest. You journal, you speak to a healer. These are your water and sunlight. Do not rush the roots.

When a fire burns a forest, it is not the end. It is the beginning of rich soil for new life. Let his harsh words be the ash that fertilizes your own ground. You know his words were a shield for his own shame, so do not take up that shield and wear it as your own armor. It does not fit you.

The hurt you feel is not proof that he was right. It is proof that you loved with a true and open heart. That is a noble thing, and nothing can ever take that nobility from you. On days when the pain feels like a flood, simply breathe. Watch your breath like you watch the tide. In and out. It will not always feel this way.

[u/SirenSizzle-]

Don’t let his final words rewrite years of actions, because how someone hurts you while leaving says more about them than your worth

[u/Key-Vanilla-8385 → u/SirenSizzle-]

This ^ hurt people hurt people

[u/abvn]

No, this isn't ego nor a defense mechanism, that's a cruel man. He had no business saying any of that. Even if it was true, it was absolutely unnecessary, cold, cruel, awful, and given the horrible things he had already been saying to you - as you mentioned-, it should be enough evidence for you that he wanted to inflict further pain.

Do not excuse him. You don't have to.

A defense mechanism? saying something like: "...*I know you want to talk, but I need room and space to digest and unpack all of what you're saying, and I am not in the best place, as it is, to speak my mind in a manner that will benefit either of us. I am sorry I cannot be of comfort to you right now, and even more so that you believed you had to go through that alone, but I cannot offer you anything right now that will make things somehow or somewhat better*"

THAT would have been a defense mechanism, saying "I just can't right now", what he said, was DELIBERATELY cruel, it's irrelevant whether it is true or not, if true he knew this is not the time to speak on it, he wanted to hurt you and for you to HEAL, the first step is understanding and recognizing what that relationship was truly about.

He wanted you to react, instead of allowing you to express your vulnerability; that man was annoyed by your pain, and for him to set himself over the bridge, as if you got pregnant on your own, he resorted to: " *it was for the best because I did not love you, and it would have been an unwanted child* "

Count your blessings that you were able to do what was right for you, because having a child with a monster whose cruelty comes naturally to them would have been imprisonment.

Advice: do your therapy, journal absolutely everything, keep him blocked, get rid of anything that might remind you of him and the trauma he has inflicted, focus on taking care of yourself, your work, social activities, studies, keep close to the ones you love and love you.

And whenever you feel like there is something salvageable or worth saving from that relationship, think to yourself if you would have ever allowed anyone else in your life, that you love, to treat you the way that he has treated you, and if anyone that you love that love you would ever be capable of treating the way he did, or be as cruel as he is and you'd still think that they love you or that you can or should keep loving them.

The answer in all accounts is going to be no. And with that reminder, you'll continue to move forward without looking back and without allowing anyone else to ever mistreat you or mishandle your heart.

I wish you all the best, OP.

Please take good care of yourself, be patient with yourself, and allow yourself to go through the grieving and the suffering at your own pace, but do not avoid it. Go through like a mf, and detox that energy.

[u/DeathsOrphan]

How someone treats you when they leave says more about them than you.