In 'family therapy' with my ex, because he wants to 'do right by me' and salvage at least our friendship. Mostly doing it to keep the peace until our lease is up. He wrote me a letter describing his feelings and things, saying things I did wrong under the guise of wanting to 'help me grow' and 'take accountability' and y'all I am so flabbergasted.

I've known this man for about 8 years now, dated for 3.5 of them until I broke up with him in May and I'm wondering if he ever even knew me at all???

Accused me of crying on purpose during our arguments to make him feel bad and stop the conversation while in truth I hate that when I get overwhelmed I cry, and I would rather we just focus on the matter at hand instead of stopping to focus on me. Also said that me 'crying on purpose' (which I wasn't) was somehow gaslighting him???

My favorite was that I 'emotionally neglected' him which I will admit I did eventually...but only after he had purposefully withheld affection for multiple years except during sex so I just felt like a whore with the title of girlfriend. The man would yank his hand away if I tried to hold his hand like I was a leper, in private or public.

I also like how he said that emotional neglect is the worst form of abuse, even worse than sexual, which is interesting since he literally sexually assaulted me and I'm still not over that, along with a nice round of victim blaming about why didn't I speak up, or tell him (Spoiler alert. I shouldn't HAVE to say you sexually assaulted me. Would I need to tell you I threw a pie in your face if I just did???)

And in that same paragraph say he isn't victim blaming.

Plus other stuff but this post is already so long and that letter was six pages and I'm not hashing the whole thing out here.

I'm just floored genuinely.

Did I ever know this man???