10. A CHRISTMAS GASLIGHT
I decided I would tell my partner I wanted to break up while I was at my parents’ house for Christmas. At that point in our relationship, he was a workaholic and super distant.
For the past two years, it felt like nothing I said or did even mattered to him. I tried to talk about how unhappy I was but it just didn’t phase him.
The last conversation I tried to have with him involved him interrupting me with a giggle fit because he “started thinking about how funny and cute a basket full of kittens would be.” I didn’t think he would even blink reading my message about separation but he actually told me he’d like for us to work on our relationship.
He hadn’t booked off anytime for Christmas so I was alone. I felt terrible that I had left my parents. When I was opening presents with them on FaceTime, his iPad notifications were going off loudly in the background.
I went to turn down the volume and I was shocked to see the messages on the screen. They were all from one of his old co-workers and something felt off.
I opened up their chat and read the whole thing. Turns out, he’d been planning to cheat for months while I was away. Besides her, there were two other co-workers he was talking to flirtatiously, one of which had children closer to his age.
I confronted him and he lied. He also tried to erase his text messages on his phone, not realizing that they don’t get erased on the iPad regardless.