I had an ex pressure me real hard to get an apartment with her so she could move out of her mom’s house. When I was apprehensive she started tanking her relationship with her mom, starting fights over extremely small issues, and then pointing at those fights as reason that she needed to move out immediately.

When I still didn’t drop everything to cohabitate, she moved to a town an hour away and started pressing me to borrow a car or hitch a ride to go visit her (my vehicle can’t do more then half an hour on the highway without overheating). The first and only time I went I had gotten a ride intending to spend the night. She was at work when I got there so I cleaned up some trash and had dinner delivered.

I don’t have a great memory of what all happened when she got home, but I ended up having a panic attack during which she was very intently pressing me to admit that something was my fault. After what felt like hours she abruptly grabbed her keys and left without saying anything about where or why she was going. I had to call my mom for a ride because no one else was answering.

Ex returned before my mom got there, apparently she was “giving me some space” and was now angry that I didn’t appreciate it. The next day I got a short-story-length text from her asserting that I needed to apologize for “freaking out over nothing”.

I reckon this wasn’t even really the worst thing, per se. But it was the last thing, so it sticks out a lot in my mind. Somewhere I have a folder filled with screenshots of the worst of the emotional abuse/manipulation. It’s easy to forget the unsavory parts of someone you loved once. You have to keep a record so you don’t get used.