December 29th, 2023

November 2023
I woke up today feeling different. I had no desire to reach for my phone. The air was still and I felt calm. It was peaceful and my heart was joyful.
I have had a traumatic year, exasperated by the end of a year-long situationship which almost broke me. It was severed cruelly by him six months ago and by writing this I am putting it finally to bed and closing the chapter forever.
He was my online personal trainer which blossomed into what I thought was a close friendship but it was built on lies. He spent two perfect weeks in the sun with me, but it was a fantasy holiday romance. Despite the chemistry being insane, I thought we had a connection, we shared the same views on multiple topics. He was everything I hoped to find in a man, we worked out together, danced together and he taught me how about nutrition and how to eat properly after years of dietary neglect.. He messaged me from the moment he got up to when he went to bed everyday, he sent funny reels to make me laugh throughout the day, he gave me pet names and when we were together in person,  he held my hand and made me feel safe. We went to nice restaurants together and he always paid for my meals and drinks and treated me how I had never been treated before. He cooked for me and checked in with me when I was poorly.
But it was a croc of shit and through my healing journey I have unravelled his sociopathic tendencies. He mirrored what I wanted to believe in a man, to reel me in and gain his trust. Then he slowly began to pick me apart.
It began with the training sessions. The steady criticisms of my technique holding the weights grew into threats not to train me if I didn’t match up to his expectations. This led me to feel confused and anxious before training. Occasionally I put the phone down on him after a scolding and he would call me back and tell me it was my fault and if I trained properly he wouldn’t speak to me in that way.
I was trauma bonded after years of emotional abuse which I opened up to him about, and which he finally used to gain his power over me. I was desperate to please him and would embarrass myself by telling him it wouldn’t happen again.
He never wanted me to tag him in pictures or post us being together, he played down us being together all time.
One time, after a summer of the gym being closed, I was excited for the opening and to be back training with the girls. I sent him a short video of my session, I really enjoyed it and was in high spirits, but he chastised me ruthlessly, telling me my technique was awful and don’t send him videos again, haven’t I learned anything etc etc? I spent the evening feeling worthless and again, the apology came the next day.
This pattern went on for several months but, having an obsessive personality, I convinced myself I was in love with this man, I felt comfortable being intimate with him and the sex was off the scale. I drove my close friends mad, trying to analyse his behaviour and told myself we would be together eventually. After all, my ex husband never wanted a commitment when we first started seeing each other and I foolishly thought this was normal.
Looking back there were so many red flags I could have sewn them together to make a king size fitted sheet ten times over. I was managing his social media and helped raise his profile. A woman popped up in his inbox sending nude pics and then next thing I saw, he was on a 15 minute call to her. Often women would message him with flirty texts or an arrangement to meet for a coffee and he would respond back in the same manner and then delete them but never before I read them first. The fact he deleted them immediately should have been the sign for me to walk away. But I had crippling low self esteem and this man was giving me the attention I craved for the first time in years. I ignored the messages, after all, he told me we weren’t serious and we could see other people and we were, for the most part, 3000 miles apart.
The end came in April this year after I spent a weekend at his, he started to pick apart my messages, bombarding me with questions over a potential business opportunity abroad and not giving me time to answer before firing another one at me. 
Then I got a text telling me he “didn’t feel it anymore and didn’t find me sexually attractive.” There are a thousand ways to end a relationship but this was cruel, especially two days after we had spent hours in bed together. We went no contact almost immediately and I was grieving what felt like a death. It was so painful and for months I clung onto the hope that he would change his mind.
But I  am deep into the healing work. He told me I was intolerable, like my exhusband told me I was a failure. They were just projecting how they felt about themselves and this criticism is on them, not me.
I know I am not perfect, I am strong willed, fiercely independent and I speak my mind without filter. I don’t like criticism and I like to get my own way. HoweverI would never intentionally hurt someone’s feelings, yet this man, who I opened up all my vulnerabilities to for the first time in 25 years, ripped them apart with no conscience or remorse.
Weeks ago I was sad and I told my daughter I missed him. She looked at me like I was crazy. “Why would you want to be with someone like that? It’s like being with dad all over again.” And the switch flicked. She was right, I had found the same man but in a different body.And so my healing journey began and I enrolled on an online therapy course.
I am no longer sad or anxious or pining for the potential that will never be. I owe my heartfelt thanks to him, for he gave me a valuable lesson. He taught me about myself and how I have people pleased for too long, how I will never accept emotional chaos in a relationship and how my needs will never be dismissed again. If I meet a man and they don’t match up to what I want, I wont waste time and effort hoping things will change. I will walk away immediatelyI feel stronger and calmer and recognise my worth and what I bring to a relationship.
Best of all, I recently qualified as a Les Mills Bodypump instructor.
Challenge creates change and finally, I do believe I have changed for the better.

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