January 1, 2024— That’s when he asked me out. I had known him for years beforehand but for some reason, I adapted feeling for him not too long before this and decided to give it a whirl. I should probably mention the beginning of our friendship though so you understand a little more on why his end behavior is severely shocking.

We were friends at 13 and 14. We were friends for a while until he, one day, threw me under the bus. I had this friend who had always been disloyal to her partners even at the age of 14. She had done a lot for her age when it came to relationships with boys and I confided in… let’s call him Jeremy. I told Jeremy about her interactions and decisions when it came to someone whom he knew. She was hooking up with a guy who Jeremy knew pretty well and he also knew that he happened to have a girlfriend as well. I told Jeremy not to tell anybody what I had told him and I trusted that he wouldn’t. I later on found out that he had told the girlfriend about what was going on, but not only that; he just so happened to mention to her that I was the one who told him. That caused a lot of ruckus in my friendship with the girl and that was the start to me despising Jeremy.

Now we had talked a few times throughout the years. I wouldn’t say we talked necessarily horrible to each other, but we weren’t close either. I talked to a couple of his friends over the years and that gave us a mutual friend I guess. He started following my socials one at a time once a week at the end of November, 2023. The last one he added was my Snapchat. I definitely debated if I should add him back or not because I was in a good place back then and I wasn’t sure on how it would go. Clearly, I decided for it and added him back and we started talking a few days later.

Fast forward to January, he asked me out after we had been flirting for a little over a month. I said yes because I genuinely really liked him and that’s where my mistake lies I guess. In May of 2024, that’s the first time that I snooped through his phone and also the first time that I found something on it. We had a huge fight and I don’t even completely remember what it was about. I went through his Snapchat account to see if he had done anything I wouldn’t appreciate. The reason I thought to go through it is due to the fact that every past relationship that I have had always ended in someone cheating on me so I do have trauma to that—Keep that in mind. I found this girl on there… Let’s call her Alexis. I’m going to preface with if he had let me know he was adding her and talked to me about it, I wouldn’t feel how I did and how I do now. He was talking to Alexis about our relationship issues and trying to get advice on what was going on. She doesn’t know me and I have never met her so she doesn’t understand how I think at all. He also had one of my friends added on Snap at the time who knew me very well and he could’ve gotten her opinion instead. He removed her from his account so that I wouldn’t see and sent her something which said something along the lines of, “I’m going to unadd you and respect my girlfriend’s wishes, but here’s my number in case you ever need anything.” The only reason I found the account is because he forgot to remove it the second time he added her without me knowing. Believe it or not, this doesn’t come close to half of the things he has done to me since then. It only gets so much worse from there.

I graduated in May of 2024, but he still had one year left. He attended a career center not too far from where he resided. When starting school back up in later August to early September, he started hanging out with this one group of people who were in his class. I’m not 100% sure if he had always hung out with them or if it was a new thing, but either way, they are extremely relevant to this story. When he started hanging out with them, it was fine at first, but he eventually started talking to me less when he was out and he would always start arguments before going out which aided in us not talking as well. I didn’t know until later that he spoke horribly about me to everyone and I’m pretty sure anytime he was with them, he was doing that as well. It got to the point that I brought up how he was treating me and he just denied, denied, denied. I didn’t want him hanging with them too much anymore, but he made known that if given the choice between me and them, he would choose them and I loved him too much for it to come to that. That friend group consisted of 4 boys (including Jeremy) and 3 girls. One of the girls had a boyfriend who was really nice. I did end up meeting him as well as all of them eventually. Another girl was dating one of the boys in the friend group. And then another girl… I was told that she had a boyfriend, but that ended up being a lie as well. Jeremy told me that he never really talked to the girls and he hadn’t even met the one girl who was dating one of the boys. The first time I met all of them was at a small get together at this girl… Catherine’s house. She’s the one who was dating… Vinnie (both were in the friend group). Now when I was introduced to everyone, at the time I thought it was weird that I was introduced to Catherine, but Jeremy wasn’t as he told me he never met her before. Now I am a very introverted person and nobody was really talking to me. I was being excluded and there wasn’t going to be a way to change that unless I drank something and mind you, I went into that not wanting to drink. After I got completely hammered, I thought everyone was nice and I thought I had a good time if you’re not including how sick I got that night. The girl who had no boyfriend… Adeline, wasn’t there that night, but she was the only one. I became friends with Catherine. She was my favorite of the group. Catherine and I went walking together a few weeks later at some park that wasn’t far from where she lived. We talked a lot and that’s probably the quickest I’ve been able to just talk to someone I had only met a few weeks prior. Well as we were talking, she was telling me how Jeremy had been to Buffalo Wild Wings with all of them a few times including Adeline. I knew that Jeremy had gone to that restaurant on Thursday’s, but to my knowledge, it was a guys night thing and I was never invited to it. So not only did he lie about meeting Catherine, he lied about hanging out with Adeline who is very much single. That bothered me as is, but bothered me even more when I saw on his texts how they talk and interact with one another. It wasn’t exactly cheating at that point, but it was completely not okay. A month or so later, I’d had enough and needed him to make the choice. I needed him to choose if what we had was worth it or if his instantaneous fun was. He didn’t choose me.

I was on my way to his house with a box of his stuff sobbing my eyes out. I knew that we were done, but after everything we had been through, it just didn’t feel real. He still had my location and saw that I was on the highway heading towards him so he FaceTimed me. He kept telling me to turn around and he didn’t want to see me, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t hold onto his things anymore. I didn’t want that constant reminder of him and everything that has happened thus far. That went on for ten to fifteen minutes before he said we wouldn’t be over if I just turned around because he needed to be alone. I didn’t turn around and go home just yet. I was still heading towards Jeremy’s because I knew deep down that if he can treat me like this, he can do much worse. I knew that it needed to end, but I couldn’t make that choice. I was so attached to him and now, I’m not so sure it was love. I think it might’ve mainly just been attached and me not wanting to be alone. I think I might’ve stopped loving him after the first incident. He talked me into going home and we stayed together after that.

In November, 2024, it once again gets so much worse. I had just gotten back from vacation with my Dad and had promised a girl I was friends with that I would stay at her house. She was never a good friend to me the four to five years of our friendship, but she was a friend and I didn’t have any so I needed it. Her name was… Ayanna. I’m going to skip passed that whole night and just tell you that it resulted in her molesting me. I’ve never been into girls or her for that matter, but she had been into me years prior. I just thought she had gotten over it. I told her that I didn’t want to tell Jeremy about what happened. We had a long conversation that I thought we agreed on and it was a mature one before I left at 2 in the morning instead of staying. Two days later while I’m at work, I started getting texts from Jeremy about how he knows what I did, how he’s not mad and thinks it’s “hot,” and whatever else. She told Jeremy, but she didn’t tell him what actually happened. She told him that it was all me. Ayanna said that I initiated it and wanted it. She said that I told him it was the best time I ever had. She told him a whole load of lies and he believed it. I got a panic attack and had to leave work early due to it. He didn’t talk to me for a few hours and then randomly calls me later when I am at home. He asked me if I was ready to talk and I just remember thinking how weird that question was since he’s been the one not talking to me. After I said yes confusedly, I hear Ayanna screaming at me through the phone. I cannot believe he ambushed me with a three way call. I didn’t say anything and all I did was hang up. He said that if I wanted to stay together, I was going to have a three way call with them later that night so we can clear the air on what actually happened. I had enough and said that I didn’t want to be together anymore, but man oh man was he good at manipulating me to do what he wanted. I’m not even sure what he did to get me to agree to it other than just say over and over again that I was going to. Obviously, that phone call went exactly how I imagined it. Her screaming and me crying. If that wasn’t enough to prove to him who was right, then I don’t know what would’ve been. Thankfully it was enough. After all of that, after that entire day, he decided to finally believe me and we could be together. I failed to mention that when he still believed that I went and cheated on him, he said a whole lot of things to Ayanna that is cheating. He said how he wants to see her breasts because he’s “never seen big ones before.” He told her that they can hook up once me and him break up because he hears we’re into sharing men (meaning that she always has liked my sloppy seconds). He said to me that he wants us to do it again and he wants to watch because he’s never seen me from that angle and he thought it would be attractive. I’m also pretty sure Jeremy mentioned a threesome at one point as well. As I’m writing about all of this and thinking about it all, I’m not sure how we ever got to the conclusion that we should get married.

Jeremy was still friends with that one group of friends all the way until around February of 2025. There was never a way I could get him to see what I saw so I had to accept it. Months prior to the story I’m about to tell you, we had a huge fight and I didn’t want him going to a bonfire with his friends if there was girls there unless I went with. He convinced me to go with and as I agreed, he told me that he got it to where no girls were going to be there so I wouldn’t have to go with. Fast forward to… the Super Bowl I think? We went to his friend’s house for the game. Although I’m not sure why as we didn’t watch it. The only ones there were the guys and Catherine. The two other girls were not. There wasn’t anything that happened at the house, but it’s what happened after that matters. So I was already the oldest one there. Only by not even a year, but I was the only one graduated. The guys were all seniors and Catherine was a junior. I wasn’t exactly welcomed into the house, but it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. We all just chilled until they all started running around this small house with a flatscreen tv sitting on the floor not even 5 feet from the couch. They were playing tag which I wasn’t going to participate in. Jeremy didn’t participate until someone tagged him and he got up and ran along with them. I didn’t say anything, but instead, I got up from the couch, I grabbed my coat which was in the front room on a chair, and I went to just leave. Jeremy saw me and said that he was going to say goodbye and he’d come with me, but I really wanted nothing to do with him. That was. probably the first time I really noticed how big of a difference in maturity we both have. I didn’t wait on him and I just started walking out to my car (I drove us to his friend’s house so I was the designated driver). He came out to my car as I was getting ready to leave. I locked my door so he couldn’t get in, but rolled my window down so he could talk for a second. He tried getting me to stay or letting him come with me, but I just wouldn’t agree. I wanted to go home and I wanted away from him. He said how I still have his beanie in my car so I threw it in the snow and took off. I was friends on Snap with one of his friend’s girlfriend who was in college and now in Ohio at the time. We had been talking for a little while I was at the house. She thinks like me which is why I think we got along. I told her how I was at that house and I told her who was there because I almost guaranteed she didn’t know which I was right. Her name was… Josette. She knew the guys were there and where he was but didn’t know that I or Catherine was there. When I got home, I got a text from Josette asking if I wanted to know something about Jeremy which I did. And she told me that there was a bonfire a while back and that Jeremy had told everyone to not tell me who was all there. They all helped him hide the fact he was hanging with girls once again. Which I still don’t know if anything happened or not. Why, once I agree to go, lie to me and tell me I don’t have to go anymore? Why tell everyone to lie to me as well? There’s still so many questions I don’t know the answer to and probably never will. I told her in return that a little while before that moment, her boyfriend had told mine that he was going to end things with her. She texted her boyfriend, her boyfriend told mine that I said that. I hadn’t lied but Jeremy told everyone that I did about that. He also took it into his own hands to text her himself and tell her that I was “going crazy” and that I was just lying. So since she was made to not believe me, I wasn’t friends with her anymore and I wasn’t friends with Catherine anymore after that night either.

After that instance, we had only a month until the date we planned to get married. We wanted to keep our anniversary date which is January 1, so that’s what we had planned to do. Jeremy let it be up to me if I still wanted it or not. And I had thought about it so much. Marriage to me means something completely different than apparently it does for him. You shouldn’t be disloyal in a relationship as is, but marriage loyalty, honesty, respect, friendship. All of that is amplified. All of it is supposed to mean more and I thought that by getting married that it would to him. After careful consideration, I told him I still wanted to go through with it so we did. And spoiler alert, it changed nothing.