not long before i broke up with that person, i limited our communication almost entirely to email because i couldn’t deal with the book-long texts all the time.

today i opened two blank documents. i pasted all of my emails into one, his into the other, and ran a word count.

it was 20,500 to 4,100.

one time, post-breakup, this person tweeted that i still “had contact with” his kids.

while not a lie, it sounds a lot different than “i still let my kids text and call her in my presence.”

i felt like there was no right way to talk to him. my conciseness made things worse, but i also couldn't be gentle enough to avoid hurting him. gentle enough didn't exist.

he really liked to tell people about this conversation, but he never showed what i said here:

even when limited to email, i felt like he was trying to overwhelm, overrun, and confuse me by mixing up the order of the emails by replying to one, and then replying to a different one, and constantly starting a new chain of emails instead of keeping the current thread going.

(the first time he started a new chain, he said it was because of technical problems. i don't know if that's why he kept doing it. even if it wasn't something he could fix, it didn't help with the "he types more than 5x as much as me and i feel steamrolled" thing.)

there was one email in which i said "please keep reply under fifty words." (he replied with forty-four.)

at one point he told his eldest child, who has a phone, not to contact me anymore. he didn't tell me i wasn't to contact the child or that he had instructed the child not to contact me. i had him blocked on all social, but had not blocked his email or phone number.

i found out from another adult in the child's life who reached out to me. i was horrified and terrified to learn that i was a 30-something year old adult texting a minor child who didn't belong to me that i was not supposed to be talking to.

he talks a lot about boundaries. setting them, respecting them, how important they are. but there were so many times when i didn't feel like he understood or cared about them at all.

in a reckless last-ditch effort to reconcile the relationship, i sent him a WEEK'S worth of screenshots of messages i'd had with my psychologist.

he later told people he wanted to "lay her shit bare" and post them all on the public internet.

he really liked to talk about how, in those CONFIDENTIAL messages with my psychologist, i had talked about abusing my exhusband. there are a lot of things in my past i'm ashamed of, including how i treated my exhusband. but there's nothing in my past i've ever tried to hide.

i was in a relationship when we started talking (and getting way too close way too fast). i would talk to him about how i was struggling with my relationship because he wasn't, you know, like other guys. he didn't really even identify as a man! because of this, he seemed safe.

but there were times like this where he would insert himself as my hypothetical boyfriend when i was talking about patrick (who i'm back with now, thank god). now i just see it as grooming me and i’m so, so sickened.

after i broke up with him, he mailed me two or three drawings his kids had made for me. placed delicately between them was.... his social security card.

another way to manipulate me to keep talking to him? was he going to accuse me of stealing it?

this is the type of behavior typical of men who know they are losing control over a woman and are A N G R Y about it.

this kind of seems like a compliment, right? maybe? it's not. this is called undermining.

(phrases like that are designed to make you think, "AM i a good person....?")

he used his children as manipulation for getting me to talk to him after i broke up with him because he knew how much i love them. this was the final example of that. it didn’t work; i didn’t “pay the courtesy.” it hurt me and he made sure it hurt them too.

it made me feel like an AWFUL person. which was the goal. ("AM i a good person....?")

the ONLY way to stop emotional manipulation is to end all contact. completely, entirely, forever.

he asks for financial help & monthly support on here & patreon, talking about being a single dad trying to provide for his kids, working part time. that's all well & good except that by omission he makes it sound like he has the kids full time. he has them under 30% of the time.

when i finally realized that it wasn't going to work, started understanding through therapy why it wasn't going to work, and just could not handle it anymore, i called him to tell him it was over. he didn't pick up, so i left a breakup voicemail. i just had to get it over with.

breaking up with him was my cardinal sin.

(also, "a week with no communication" never happened. i at least emailed him every day.)

or was my cardinal sin not breaking up with him SOONER, since here he faulted me for trying as long and hard as i did? i'm sure if i broke up with him WITHOUT trying, he wouldn't have found any fault in that. right?

"i wanted to give up and refused to"

"i was ready to say fuck it all [but i didn't]"

this is martyrdom and superiority (i'm better than you).

i think this is what he was talking about when he told the internet that i had gaslit him. the gaslighting was telling him i wanted this to work and then ending up breaking up with him after all. i....

these are things i said. i really was seeing clearly. i just didn’t want to do what i knew i needed to do.

one time he told me that an ex, upon seeing a pic of his dick for the 1st time, had said it was the most perfect penis they’d ever seen.

why did he think it was appropriate to tell me this??

and was it supposed to make me want to see it too? (totally not Typical Guy behavior)

i can't talk about him without talking about this:

why? why didn't i or any of his other closest friends hear about this before it became convenient to shut down an argument (with a woman)? why hadn't he been processing any of this out loud, online, verbosely, as he does everything else *including this* now?

was he seriously having a breakthrough of identity at the same time as preying on and beginning to groom me, a woman with horror stories of abusive men in my past? i mean was the timing just really that bad and that's all it was? he just happened to realize THEN he's not a man?

he chose his coming out trans moment as a way to shut a woman up and win an argument on the internet?

he didn't change his pronouns from "he/him" to "he/they" until after i broke up with him?

this is all.... coincidence....?

here is the problem. he's basically insured that he's above reproach (WHICH IS A VERY TOXICALLY MASCULINE THING TO DO) because:

i was friends with him for around 4-5 months. my romantic relationship with him was *less than 2 months.*

this thread is to help people, esp women. know how these behaviors manifest; the words they take.

believe & protect women (trans women are women) x https://twitter.com/fieryskulldiary/status/1217274389529595905?s=20

i found this paragraph in a 197 word text he sent me after i broke up with him. he used that phrase “want you in my life in any capacity” AGAIN(!) and followed it immediately with superiority (“i’m willing to do the work”) and undermining (“you’re worth that as a person”).

when i saw him in person (not only was it a short relationship, it was also long distance) i had to tell him to STOP TOUCHING MY BACK. his hand was always on my back while we were walking or standing! i’m pretty sure that’s a controlling male microaggression. it felt so icky.

it’s not someone being genderqueer/queertrans that i have a problem with. if you’re looking to bond over transphobia or exclusionary feminism, you’re in the wrong place.

what i have a problem with is this:

that he has a negative history with women. that he exhibits countless behaviors of misogyny and toxic masculinity. and that he weaponizes his newfound () identity to circumvent accountability and wield power over primarily women, but also anyone else who would confront him.

next up: what to know if you think this person or someone similar has been talking to you.

i may (?) have been the only person on here to date this person but i’m not the only one to be made uncomfortable by or scared of him nor is he the only person to do these types of things.

the two of you will do a LOT of bonding over both of your traumatic histories. this particular person will offer to listen and "hold space" for you frequently. he may appear in your DMs or offer that his are open. if you begin to talk a lot, he may check in on you regularly.

he does this with all kinds of people, but women and feminine people in particular. take inventory of your life and your mental state. you are probably in a vulnerable state right now. if you are, he's clocked that.

this particular person will be very eager to talk in private about his ex that he was with for twelve years. he cannot legally speak about her publicly and is looking for anyone to listen where he can talk about her.

he wants everyone to know the "abuse" he suffered at the hands of this woman for over at least a decade. he will describe her in misogynistic terms. bitch. evil. stupid. incompetent. lazy. bad mom. doesn't love their kids. hates their kids. resents their kids.

here's where you do what i forgot to do: believe women.

you will never hear her story, at least not from me. but i've heard her story. believe her. believe me.

he says "ftp acab." but he's taught his children how to use the police against his ex. he will tell you a story that makes perfect sense about why and how that happened. he's not telling all of it.

this is how his ex left him. the blue highlighted part is what he will tell you. it is what he tells his children.

he may talk or "joke" about how he thinks his ex is actually a lesbian. this is pretty homophobic, especially from a supposedly queer and queer-affirming activist AND it's one of the most misogynistic things men can say about women who leave them.

it doesn't get much more misogynistic than "she must prefer women if *i* and *my* love, patience, devotion, and male body weren't good enough for her. i'm such a great guy! where's she going to find someone better than me?!"

this thread is VERY MUCH about him. https://twitter.com/tashakaminsky/status/1271944608755351554?s=20

next, i'm going to talk about this: https://twitter.com/mm_schill/status/1276391151432597504?s=20