Endgame: How I Broke-Off My Engagement

I dithered on writing this one, simply because much of it is too painful for me to recall and the whole relationship was so complex that I needed to spend a lot of time making sure I got the story straight. But, it all still needs to be written-out. My longtime readers have been waiting quite a while for this. This is the story of how I broke-up with the ultimate fruitcake: my Ex, Lying Whorebag.

Final Leg of a Journey

The final leg of my journey with my Ex was bad. Very bad. This wasn't merely 'the relationship from hell' (as hackneyed as that phrase might sound), but for me it was a sort of baptism of fire. It was the end of my naïve belief in the inherent goodness of women. It was the final, shattering blow which laid-bare exactly how a woman could be rotten to the core without her even knowing it. It also was a strategic watershed: never again will I ever allow a woman to abuse and manipulate me the way Whorebag did.

She was very good at disguising how she could be a leading-quality bitch. I know that I've always portrayed her in my stories as being very much a total bitch all the time, but in the beginning of the relationship she seemed quite sweet. In fact, every now and then she could do and say very sweet things. With the proper use of flattery and gentle touching, she could really evoke strong emotions in me. Maybe for more than 80% of the early parts of our relationship, she could be sweet like that. She knew what kind of behavior to fake in order to get me to respond in the way she wanted. But these sweet things... it was just her way of manipulating me into loving her. I think she claimed she loved me because I was the first man who didn't treat her like shit. Before she met me, all her previous relationships were with bad-boys who neglected her and stole from her and yelled at her and made her feel worthless. One of her female friends once came-up to me and quietly thanked me for 'breaking Whorebag's vicious cycle of going from asshole to asshole.'

But all things being equal, I think maybe Whorebag didn't know how to behave when confronted with a man who was halfway decent. Up until she met me, it was something that had been outside her realm of experience.

Through some act of cosmic whim or genetic fubar, Whorebag was an almost exaggeratedly parodistic compilation of all the very worst stereotypical female traits out there. Everything about her was extreme: her mood-swings, her vanity, her lack of honesty, her fickleness, her materialism... even her beauty was extreme. As Chief Clancy Wiggam on The Simpsons once mused: "Why are the pretty ones always insane??"

Her natural beauty was far above average, this was quite true. But with the right make-up, clothes and hair she could look like a soft sex-kitten. She had long, shiny, raven-black hair. She had the body of a swimsuit model. And most captivating of all were her eyes. They were green like sparkling emeralds. With the right make-up, they became dark, mysterious and exotic. They were the first thing I noticed when I met her. Early-on in our relationship, I wrote her a little poem called 'Sunken Treasures in Your Eyes'. It was about how I could gaze into her eyes for hours and feel myself slowly being drawn-in by them.

In many movies, the villainess is drop-dead sexy; indeed, the most insidious vices are always seductive and Whorebag was no different. If Satan wanted every soul on the planet, all it would have do is disguise itself as a beautiful angel and everyone would willingly follow it into the jaws of hell. Any successful manifestation of evil is, by necessity, beautiful.

So, Whorebag's personality could often be quite sultry. Her voice could sound like a Sirens' song. When it came to sex, she was a genius. It was, without a doubt, the best lovemaking I had ever experienced in my life. It was the most satisfying, exciting and happy sex I've ever had. She could overload my pleasure-centers and make me writhe and scream in delight for what seemed like hours. At times, she knew my body even better than I did. Early-on in our relationship, we would make love at the drop of a hat. Afterwards, we would cuddle or we would hop in the shower together. It was always a pleasure to do either.

A few guys even got jealous of me when they saw me with such a fine-looking woman. And some of her female friends... they were jealous of her, because she would always brag about how great I was and how I wonderful and romantic I was.

One time, she called me and asked me to meet-up with her and her friends at their regular hair salon. They'd been getting their hair done, and I had a feeling that they hadn't had lunch yet. So, when I came-over, I brought them pizza. I walked-in and presented Whorebag with the pizza-box... As they ate, Whorebag's friends grumbled to each other about how their boyfriends would certainly not come to meet them at a hair salon, and would definitely not bring them pizza out of the blue and how lucky Whorebag was that she had such a generous and thoughtful man in her life. And the hairdressers... well, they grumbled the same message too. They also wished their boyfriends would bring them pizza out of the blue every now and then. Yes, perhaps this illustrates how women only desire the men they can't have (especially when those men are visibly generous) but my point is: they all acted like I was a catch!

Her parents and friends told me that I was the best man Whorebag had ever been with, and they were all happy that she was finally with someone who treated her decently. At our engagement party, all of my relatives told me how beautiful my wife-to-be was... One of my dad's friends took me aside: "Your fiancée is nice." He gave me a nudge. "I mean reallllly nice. You're marrying a model, you bastard!" (It wasn't until after I broke-up that many of my relatives admitted to me that after the party, they came-away with the distinct impression that Whorebag was a 'high-maintenance bitch'. One can never underestimate the accuracy of first-impressions sometimes.)

Some days, I would spend entire afternoons thinking of her, telling myself how lucky I was to have finally met the woman of my dreams. I loved Whorebag to the point where I did things that were clearly against my own self-interest. I never imagine that I could ever be like that. Being manipulated is something you either spot while it's happening to you or spotted after the fact. And if the manipulator is skilled enough, you might never even realize that you were being played until after they're long gone- if ever. She seemed too good to be true because she was too good to be true. It was a fool's paradise I was living in.

I was fooled into loving her for a simple reason: she was a nonstop lie-machine whose beautiful features were a mirage. I didn't know that she was like that when I met her, I started-off wanting to trust her. She was not only quite comfortable with living a contradictory life, she also chose to paint-over her contradictions with copious doublespeak and a total lack of introspection. Whenever she did something malicious, she would do it while while weaving enough camouflage to try to convince herself and others that she was somehow in the right. Furthermore, this was further compounded by the fact that she really considered herself to be an honest person... mainly because her definition of 'lie' would change every 5 freakin' minutes. In practice, this is indistinguishable from being a pathological liar.

Anyway, Whorebag swore a thousand times over how trustworthy she was and how much she loved me. And she insisted that she was always wholly reasonable. I know that I'm a loving, reasonable and trusting person, so I guess I allowed myself to see these qualities in her, too. Never before in my life had I ever been so successfully manipulated.

Naturally, I'm sure a lot of people out there will dismiss this story as being something for which only I can be blamed. Yes, I should've broken-up with her earlier. The trick is, an abusive woman never starts-out being abusive. She always keeps it hidden until she knows you've got your defenses down and you've invested so much of your emotions in her, that it'll be harder for you to leave. If she beat me over the head with a rolling-pin the first day she met me, of course I wouldn't have been so sucked-in by her. Nowadays I would label her an emotional and financial parasite, but normal parasites are smart enough to not destroy their hosts.

Yes, all throughout our time of troubles, she would demand that I always treat her fairly and never raise my voice at her. Naturally, she was under no such obligations to me... she gave lip-service to fairness while doing the most outrageous things. One can generally make apologies to someone who is forgiving, one can usually forgive someone who is apologetic... Whorebag was neither forgiving nor apologetic yet always demanded both forgiveness and apologies from me. It was to her advantage to force me to stick to rules that she clearly did not believe in herself. She would not tolerate any double-standard that didn't benefit her. She refused to be judged by standards that she herself did not establish. As a result, I will admit that I did at least three things wrong: I was too tolerant, I was too patient and I was too forgiving. She deserved none of those things.

(I wanted to throw-in this picture of Cary Grant as an illustration. Cary tended to play nice guys in his movies. Naturally you can see that his beau had a surprise hidden in her purse... )

The Relationship

After we got engaged, there was no way in hell any human being could ever fulfill the demands that she gradually began to pile on me. Her demands were all contradictory; as soon as I fulfilled one demand it would immediately conflict with yet another demand. It was useless to point this out to her because she would just claim that I was trying to make excuses for how I was ignoring her needs. After we got engaged, I thought it would be a wise idea if she moved-in with me... you know, to see if we could successfully live together. And I was 100% right; this arrangement helped me figure-out just how nuts one of us was.

I worked hard to build a future for us. I was working, paying our bills, trying to meet her needs and basically acting like an adult. Standing behind me in a self-described 'supporting' position, she would do shitty, childish things and justify it all by convincing herself (and me) that she was in fact, more loving and supportive than I could ever be. How would she possibly claim this? In her mind, I had to divide my energy among my job, my other responsibilities and her. But because she was unburdened with those extraneous things, she was free to devote a larger percentage of her effort to addressing what she felt were my needs. Because of my divided attention, she reasoned that I was neglecting her... but I was enjoying the fruits of her undivided attention. Of course, that's total bullshit, but she really acted like it was true. In short, no matter how much I said I loved her, she would always insist my attention was divided and she wasn't getting a big-enough share of it. In fact, she said that her feelings for me had to be more intense than anything I, an emotionally-stunted male, could ever be capable of feeling. (That's right, according to her, men aren't capable of feeling love as deeply as women are. She felt that men just lack the ability much in the same way that a school of fish can't turn into a church choir. Perhaps men aren't 'capable' of loving as deeply as a woman because we lack certain monthly juices? Naturally, this notion of hers is worthy of your scoffing.)

The first nail in the coffin of our relationship was when she admitted to me that she'd cheated on me with one of her ex-boyfriends. It was at that point that I decided that maybe she wasn't so trustworthy after all.

The First Nail

We had an argument over the phone one afternoon. Specifically, it took place fairly soon after we got engaged. The argument was about how long our engagement period should last. I wanted 2 years. She wanted 6 months. Naturally, she wasn't willing to go one day longer than 6 months. She obviously had no clue as to how long it took to plan a wedding. When I tried to tell her that 6 months wasn't enough time, she started saying that she wanted a 6 month period so badly because 2 years is too long, and I was holding our relationship back.

Okay, how about 18 months, then?

No, still too long. 6 months or nothing. "I don't want to be engaged forever!"

So, the argument went on and on like this... eventually, she flew-into a rage and started crying. I was trying to calm her down over the phone, but she wouldn't calm-down unless I agreed to her 6 month demand. And I could not agree to that because it's just impossible to arrange a wedding in that amount of time. She hung-up the phone in anger.

Naturally, I was worried... what would happen now? I wanted to compromise, but she wasn't willing to give an inch! I mean... she arm-twisted me into asking her to marry her, and now she was trying to arm-twist me into an engagement period that was far shorter than what I wanted.

She called me back at 3 AM... her voice was strained.

"NiceGuy? Um... I... I'm so sorry I..." She burst into hysterical tears. "...I slept with my ex-boyfriend!!!"

"What?!" I was flabbergasted. "How could you?!"

"I... I don't know!" She was still sobbing. "After we fought, I had to talk to someone... so I went to his house. And... I don't know why we did what we did, but... I slept with him! I'm so sooooo sorry!!"

I hung-up on her. Dumbfounded. Dear God. Why would she do something like that?? The phone rang again. I let it ring until the answering machine picked it up. It was Whorebag, voice frantic with tears.

"Babybabybaby!! I'm sorrrryyyyy!!! Please?!?!?! PLEASE FORGIVE MEEE!!!!!! OH, NiceGuy, I LOVE YOU!!!!" (Yes, even Whorebag could be visited by a fitful seizure of honesty once in a long while.)

I picked-up the phone. "Honey I... I'm really stunned. I... don't know what to say..."

"I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY!!!!!" She kept crying.

"How could you?! I mean... how could you just sleep with him like that?!?"

"I don't know... I... I was so upset, I just wasn't thinking!!! I'M SORRY!!!!" She insisted. I sort of felt a little dizzy.

"Look... I- I'm going to need a little while to think things over... I need some fresh air."

"I'm sorry!!! Please forgive me?!"

"Let me think things over for a while, and I'll call you back... Bye." I hung-up and went back to bed. I lay there thinking, and I fell asleep. The next day, I slept until noon, walked-out of my apartment and went to see a movie. I was sighing the whole time. God, I... I just can't believe it. I mean, she accidentally slept with her ex-boyfriend?! How can you accidentally have sex with someone? She was pleading temporary insanity? Can I truly trust this woman now?! But I really, truly loved her.

I came home. There were four messages on my answering machine.

In a nutshell they were as follows: "I'm sorry! Please forgive me!", "Baby? Are you there? Please pick-up the phone! I need to talk to you!", "I'm coming-over to your apartment right now... I... I'll wait outside all day for you." and "You're not at your apartment... I really need to talk to you. Please call me?"

Late that afternoon, I got another phone call. It was Whorebag.

"NiceGuy??"

"Hello?" I felt the urge to apologize for putting her through all this mental anguish. I felt like she was really sorry and perhaps it wasn't right for me to ignore her pleas for forgiveness. "Um, Whorebag, I've been thinking all night about us..."

"I... need... help!!" She was panting.

"What? Help?"

"Its... it's my blood pressure!! It's... oh God, too high, and I'm too dizzy to drive!! Please help me!" Well, sometimes she would get bouts of high blood pressure. She was fairly high-strung, and it would make her dizzy when it happened.

"Where are you?"

"Please don't be mad, I can explain... I'm at my ex-boyfriend's house!"

Oh, greaaaaat.

"I don't know where that is."

"Please help me! My parents would kill me if they found out I was at his house again. Please?! Please?! I really need you!!"

"Why not ask Mister Wonderful to drive you?"

"Because... because he just won't help! Please! I need you right now!" She sounded genuinely emphatic.

I sighed and asked for the directions. I scooped-up my keys and walked-out to my car, grumbling to myself.

Great, just fucking great. I drove over to her ex-boyfriends' house. I'd never met him. I'd only heard of him. He was in a ska band, and according to Whorebag, he'd cheated on her constantly and hurt her feelings every day of the week. Yet, she still kept coming back to him- even when she was engaged, obviously. I parked in front of her house. I was about to ring the doorbell, and I noticed that the door was ajar. I opened it and poked my head inside.

"Whorebag?"

"I'm here!" She called. I walked-in, she was lying-down on the couch, her facial expression clearly showed that she felt very sick. Sitting next to her was her ex-boyfriend. Shaven-head. Grungy clothes. He had a promotional inflatable Corona bottle in the living room corner. We briefly made eye contact, but it was too quickly for me to see his expression. I ignored him entirely. Whorebag weakly raised her arm and held it out to me.

"I can't walk! I'm too dizzy!" She wheezed.

I walked-over, bent-down and put my arms underneath her.

"Okay, I'm going to need you to hold tight onto me. Hold me tight!" I said. She did. With all my might, I lifted her off the couch and walked towards the door. Oof! God, I'm weak. After going-out the front-door, her grip on me loosened and I felt her slipping.

"I said 'hold on', Whorebag!" I grunted. Her grip tightened again. With some difficulty, I struggled-back to my car and placed her in the front seat.

I got-in to the drivers' side and started the engine.

"I'm so sorry!!" She wiped her tears. "I'm sorry!! Why do I treat you like shit?!" She pounded the car seat with her fist. "I was so stupid!!!"

We drove. I rolled-down the window to give her some fresh air.

"I got your phone calls..." I began.

"Where were you?!" She panted. "I... I waited outside forever for you!"

"I needed some time to think, and I went out for a few hours... But why did you go to his house? I mean... why did you go there? I mean, of all places!" I asked.

"I... I know it looks bad, but please believe me! I went there to tell him that I was never going to see him again, and how angry I was at him for having sex with me when he knew that I was engaged. I told him that I loved you more than anything, and that he should never even try talking to me again."

"Really?"

"Yes, I promise that's the truth."

"And then your blood-pressure shot-up and you started getting dizzy? I'm not being accusational, I am just trying to understand your side of the story..."

"Oh, NiceGuy... I... I have... " She started crying again. "If you never forgive me, I'll understand!!!" She scrubbed her tears all over her face with her hands. "Oh, I never meant to hurt you! I want to die! I'm so bad to you!!! " She leaned-forward in the seat and put her head on the dashboard. I stopped the car outside my apartment building.

"Hon, I hate seeing you in so much pain. I..." I sighed. "Honey, I love you." I put my arm around her and cradled her head. "Shh, shh, calm down. Take deep breaths. Whorebag, I love you! Baby... I really, truly love you so very deeply. I still do." She began to breathe more slowly and calm-down. "I love you with all my heart. But I'm going to be honest: what you did last night, it really hurt me."

She wailed and started weakly pounding her fist against the dashboard.

"No!!! I want to die now!! I want to die knowing that I hurt you!!!" She hollered into my chest.

"Honey, no, calm down... Please? Can you take some deep breaths? I don't like seeing you in so much pain. Come on..." I patted her and held her close. "Pumpkin, I'm a very forgiving person. If I ever screwed-up and hurt you badly, I know I would hate myself and want for you to forgive me. I don't like seeing you cry, it really pains me to see you so upset. Do you think you deserve to be forgiven?"

"No, I don't! I deserve to die!" She screamed.

"No, you don't deserve to die honey. No, no." I sighed and ran my fingers through her hair. I never imagined I'd have to deal with a situation like this. "You're my baby! I love you very much. I forgive you, okay? I forgive you!" She sniffled and slipped her arm around me.

"Do you mean it?" She panted, tears dribbling down her cheeks.

"Yes, I forgive you. I don't like what you did, but I think you deserve a second chance." She started to calm down, slowly. "Baby, I want to forgive you and get this behind us. Really, I want us to move-on. And I promise I'm not going to bring-up this incident in the future to make you feel guilty, either. I'm glad you told him that you never want to see him again, I think that was the right thing for you to do. But do you understand that you've made it harder for me to trust you?"

"Yes, I... " She looked at me, tearfully threw her arms around me and sniffled into my chest. "Baby, I've learned my lesson! I'm so sorry! This has proved to me that I've got to be loyal to you! I've got to be good to you!" She held me tight. "Baby... after everything I did today... you still came to help me!" She started crying again. "Oh, you're so good to me!! I've never been treated so well by anyone! NiceGuy, I could only spend my life with you!"

I hugged her for what seemed like forever. We went into my apartment, I held her until she fell asleep from exhaustion.

So, like a sap, I forgave her. Why did I forgive her? She admitted doing it. She seemed sorry. She seemed like she was really hurting inside for doing it, and she said she'd truly learned her lesson. So... I forgave her and I promised that I wouldn't try to use the incident against her as a guilt-weapon in future arguments. I wanted to wipe the slate clean, get that problem behind us and move-on. But, now I think it would've been better if I dumped her then and there. Then at least she'd know that she was unambiguously in the wrong instead of being left with enough wiggle-room to fabricate some fictional justification to herself that I was somehow the main reason for our relationship problems.

Litany of Woes

So, we put that behind us. And the relationship continued for about three more months without significant incident; indeed, she was on her best behavior. But slowly, issues started popping-up. As time went on it was as if Dorothy underwent a slow-motion transformation into the Wicked Witch of the West... and it happened so gradually and subtly, I didn't notice any change until it was too late. I apologize if the next few subsections seem like a list of nonstop, meandering complaints but I really need to set-up specific examples of how the relationship gradually ate away at me...

As time went-on with my Ex, I began to feel that the relationship was faltering. I was very stressed-out, emotionally. The relationship didn't seem to be benefiting me very much at all. I worked long hours, had to pay all the bills and share the chores while she showed signs of doing almost nothing all day. On a typical day, I would leave for work at 6:30 AM, and come home at 9 or even 11 PM. Some nights, I would even have to work until 2 AM. I would sometimes have to work Saturdays and Sundays, too. It was a very demanding company that I worked for, but I raked-in a very decent amount of money. I claimed that some of my frustration stemmed from the fact that I thought she wasn't contributing enough effort (hoo-boy, the fights we had whenever I dared to say that!) Even though I asked her to get job and share some of the bills, she claimed that I was wasting all my energy at work and was unable to put enough effort into our relationship and meeting her demands on me. That was why we had troubling issues. All I had to do was find a less-demanding job, and I could then free-up the energy to make as big an undivided effort as she was making. (Read: everything is my fault.) If I ever said that I felt like she wasn't making a very visible effort at all- how DARE I be such a selfish bastard!?!?! How DARE I devalue her contributions!?!?! At least she didn't cheapen her love by bringing-up the issue of money, which is what I was doing all the time.

But our engagement period did not bode well for the future. I wanted our marriage to work, and it the thought of it failing really bothered me.

In whatever spare time I had, I spent my extra energy doing whatever she wanted to do. For instance, if I ever rented a movie from the video store, it always had to be a movie that she approved of, and she would rarely let me enjoy a movie that only I wanted to see. On the rare occasion in which she would deign to watch a movie that I wanted to watch, she acted like it was an act of extreme generosity on her part that she could leverage for the next ten times she insisted on picking the movie.

"I'd really like to see this movie, and I feel like you never let me get the movies I want." I would say.

"Oh, that's not true..." She would reply. "Remember the time when we watched "Virus" together? I sat through that horrible movie because I let you choose. You always ask to pick the movie every time we go to the video store."

"I ask to choose the movie every time, because you almost never let me! "Virus" was the single exception! Since you picked the movie last time, how about I pick one this time, and you can pick it the next time?"

"No science-fiction, no comedies that have your sense of humor. No." And that was that.

And she never allowed me to pursue any of my hobbies without acting like I was ignoring her- at times, she even demanded that I find new hobbies that suited her. I mean- I can't force myself to enjoy hobbies that she would choose for me!

Sometimes, I would take her to bookstores so we could have a quiet afternoon to read together. I would pick my books off the shelves, she would get hers... and I would spend part of the time listening to her nattering-on and on about what geeky subjects I was reading (history, economics, current events, politics) and how I should change my reading habits so that I wouldn't be so 'different'.

If I ever wanted to go and see any of my friends, then she would bitterly spit at me that I was neglecting her. Now, if I was constantly with my friends in my spare time, I could understand this kind of complaint... but I would try to see my friends no more than once every two weeks. Is that truly an unreasonable thing for me to do? Over time, I felt that I was losing contact with my friends. I would explain this to her, and she would act insulted.

"So you don't want to be around me any more?!"

"No, not at all... I just miss my friends."

"FINE! Go see your friends, then!" She'd cross her arms and pout. (Seriously, she'd POUT. Should a real adult pout?) I could never see my friends without her trying to make me feel guilty the whole time.

In order to create a new circle of acquaintances that was more convenient for her, sometimes she would take me to gatherings of her friends. At these gatherings, I could not talk about topics that I liked talking about. Like movies, politics, travel, history, Taiwan, current events, my favorite TV shows, books, issues at my job, video games... If I talked about my favorite topics, then she would angrily take me aside and indignantly hiss at me that I was being a geek "again" and I was embarrassing her in front of her friends. So, either I learn to socialize properly, or just shut-up. Naturally, it would be safer for me to shut-up for the rest of the evening. And then she'd yell at me on the way home that I was acting like an antisocial snob because I wasn't talking to her friends. It was useless for me to point-out this Catch-22, because she'd only insist that I should learn to talk about still other things.

"Like what?" I would ask. "What should I talk about? What possible topics can I talk about that won't bother you? I was trying to be social, but you kept pulling me aside and telling me to shut-up."

"You can talk about ANYTHING! Just don't talk about things like movies, politics, your favorite TV shows, travel, Taiwan, news, books, history, your job, video games..."

"My God, that's pretty-much everything I know! What's left to talk about? 'Boy, this coffee's good'?"

"Just learn to stop being a geek, for chrissakes?! Why can't you act normal?!"

Indeed, why can't I act the way she defines 'normal'? As if her own behavior can be considered normal...

The Rules

Indeed, she was a very manipulative person, as was attested to by her parents and sister. In fact, she might've even employed a systematic method of manipulation against me. One day, we were talking about various electronic bulletin-boards that we'd participated-in over the years. She mentioned that she gave advice to women on a 'Rules' e-board.

"A what e-board?" I asked.

"'The Rules'. Um..." She shrugged. "I'm a Rules girl."

"Huh? What does that mean?"

"Well, there's a book called 'The Rules'." (At the time, I'd never heard of it.) "And, I would give women advice on The Rules."

"What are these Rules about?"

"Oh, it's about relationships. You know, advice on how to attract men and get men to commit. That sort of stuff."

"I see... Did you follow your own advice when it came to me?" I asked, wholly unsure of what to think about this. What were these Rules that she considered herself to be an expert on?

"Well..." She smiled. It was hard to tell if it was a knowing smile or an innocent smile. "We're engaged now, does it matter?" Indeed, one of The Rules is to never tell your man that you follow The Rules...

Gee, she made it all sound so innocent! I found out later that 'The Rules' is an extremely sexist and turdy book giving exploitative guidelines on how to manipulate men into marriage; it was a bestseller when it was published in 1995. It contains little homilies like: "(The woman) doesn't have to do anything more on a date than just show-up... don't make it easy for him... he has to do all the work." And: "You will probably feel cruel when you do The Rules. You will think you are making men suffer, but in reality you are actually doing them a favor... They get to experience longing!" This last one's a joke, right? Oh wow, thanks for making me long for someone! Thank you for expanding the horizons of an emotionally-retarded male like me! *Puke!* Interestingly, one of the two female authors of 'The Rules' has since gotten divorced. (Heh!)

The Malaise Deepens

She could fly-off the handle over the tiniest and most ridiculous things...

On one occasion, she asked me to go-out and buy her a chocolate bar. She asked for candy, while sitting-up in bed, watching TV. Now, normally there'd be little wrong with a small request like this... actually, every other week she asked me to run-out and buy her fruit or candy at all hours of the night and usually I did that kind of thing for her. But this time was different- I had just come home from 14 hours of work, it was past 11 PM, I was dead tired, and it was snowing outside.

"Can you go-out and get me one?" She asked.

"Sorry Hon, I'm in for the evening. I just came back from 14 hours of work, it's snowing outside, and I'm tired as hell." I replied. In fact, I was stripped-down to my underwear and just about ready to go to bed.

"I want a candy bar." She repeated.

"Sorry, not tonight." I began to pull-back the covers. "I'm too tired to go out again."

"NiceGuy, please?" She put her hand over the spot I was about to lie-down on.

"I'm dead on my feet. Maybe some other night."

I laid-down and closed my eyes. She poked me.

"I really want one. I have a craving."

"Sorry, no. I really need to go to bed. If you want one, you know where the store is."

She started poking me. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Ugh, enough of this.

"Okay, okay, okay, if you get dressed and accompany me to the store, we can get you candy."

"Fine." She sounded irritated.

She sat still and didn't move. She was still watching TV.

"Are you going to get-dressed?" I asked.

"Uh-huh." She intoned.

I waited. About five minutes passed. Ugh, the nearest store is going to close in about ten minutes... at this rate... ugh, fine fine fine, I'll go get it myself.

I got-up, got dressed and left. On the way-out I heard her shout: "Where are you going?!"

I went-out to the store. All the while, I'm grumbling to myself.

"Lousy, razzafracking mumble mumble..." I bought her candy and drove home. I walked-in and tossed the candy bar at the foot of the bed.

"There." I snapped aggravatedly.

"Where the HELL did you go?!" She demanded indignantly.

"I got you what you wanted."

"Yeah, so leave without telling me where you were going?!"

"You didn't move, the store was going to close soon, so I left. There's your candy. I'm going to bed."

"Don't act so goddamn pissy! I told you I would go with you!"

"You didn't move, so I left. You got what you wanted, okay? You got your freaking candy, so be happy."

"Now I don't want it anymore!" She grabbed the candy bar and threw it across the room. It hit the wall with a 'thwack!' "Stop acting like I'm a brat!"

How is one supposed to answer a yelled statement such as that, especially in that context? Naturally, this showed she was incapable of even comprehending the contradiction involved in shouting 'stop acting like I'm a brat!' and throwing her candy across the room because she doesn't want it anymore.

You Work, You Pay

This was, basically, her philosophy on who should pay the bills. She didn't have a job, therefore she couldn't be expected to pay any bills. Naturally, she and I both agreed she needed to get a job... but to go for 8 months without finding a job indicates that you're either incompetent or not looking very hard. She did get a job in that time, but she quit after three days. Ostensibly because she didn't like the other people working there. I was upset, because I'd been wanting her to find a job for quite some time. But she was adamant that she could absolutely not work with the other people there, and she was going to a find a different job. Well, no that story isn't 100% true... she didn't quit her job. She asked me to quit her job for her because she was 'too embarrassed' to do it herself. I told her that only she should be the one to inform her employer, but she was adamant in her refusal. So, the next day, I had to call her boss and tell him that she was quitting because of personal reasons, and she was too embarrassed to do it herself. And... her employer thought it a little odd that I'd be quitting her job for her. (She was still effectively jobless by the time I broke-up with her).

Since by default, all the financial decisions were in my hands, you'd think that I'd be able to at least do things like make a budget... but no. She was always expecting me to buy her expensive presents or jewelry. She would always insist that we go shopping for her on a regular basis, Ostensibly, because she couldn't afford to buy anything on her own and because she would claim "I don't have anything to wear". (She would say this, in all seriousness, while standing in front of a whole closet full of clothes.) Expensive clothing and jewelry didn't always fit-in to the budget. If I could not buy her jewelry without busting the budget, she would consider it an act of war and she would indignantly label me a cheap bastard.

When I had to work late, she didn't like it. I would get treated to bitter, hours-long ranting about how there was something horribly, horribly wrong with me working so hard and how I had to change my job to suit her needs better. I spoke to her mother about this once... I said that Whorebag was constantly complaining about the fact that I had to work late and that it was starting to make my life a living hell. Her mother quietly talked to her about the importance of letting me work my job, seeing as how I was supporting her... But nay, it didn't have an impact. Whorebag still insisted that I was working too much, and I wasn't spending enough time with her, and that the only way for the situation to get better was for me to change jobs. Period.

Pumping NiceGuy for Information

Then, there was the issue of how she would try to finagle personal information out of me. At random times, she would insist that I 'open-up' and talk about my feelings. I mean, random times. Sometimes she would insist that I do this in bed at 2 AM when I had work the next day.

"I just want to get to sleep right now and it's not a good time for me to talk about my feelings. That's how I feel." I would mumble. Then, I would feel her hand slapping my back in frustration.

"My God, you never talk about your feelings! Why the hell are you hiding things from me?!" She demanded. She wouldn't stop until I said something to get it all over with. Well, I did trust her early-on in the relationship... but I found that if I ever told her personal information as a sign of trust, she'd later spill it to her family members (and my family members, too). Such personal information as who I've slept-with in the past, for instance. (I don't like having this information get back to my sister or parents. Is that at all understandable?!) When I confronted her over this, she chided me for keeping secrets from my family and how information of that type was no big deal anyway... so if I was upset about her doing that, then I had the problem and had to chill-out.

She wanted to be in charge of whose needs had to be met and when... and her needs always took top priority. On top of that, she really didn't give a shit about me at all. She only wanted me to talk about my feelings when it suited her. When I did tell her about my feelings on the aspects of our relationship that troubled me, she would insist that I have the problem and stop being so selfish as to think that my needs are the most important. For instance, (yet again this pops-up) whenever I said that she could help reduce my stress-levels by helping to pay the bills, she would start crying that I was trying to make her feel bad when I knew that she was still 'looking for a job'. I'm a selfish bastard who only cares about money, she claimed. And once again, she would pull-out the increasingly stale argument that she put so much more emotion and love into the relationship than I was, so what kind of bastard was I to devalue her contributions by bringing-up the money aspect?? Ugh.

If she really cared about my feelings, would she have screamed at me for voicing them? Nay, she only cared about my feelings insofar that she could use them as a weapon against me. I always tried not to yell about our relationship problems. I wanted to discuss our relationship problems in an open and honest manner where we could calmly discuss things and minimize each others' hurt feelings. But she would always insist on yelling. She would always raise her voice. She would always fly into rage. She just repeated the same counteraccusations over and over like a skipping record. If I ever suggested that she was acting outrageously, then she would consider it an act of war.

"Why is it every guy has to find someone to blame?" She would demand. "You're just like my asshole ex-boyfriends who tried to blame me for everything!"

And she would always shift the burden of responsibility for everything back at me... I was being outrageous by suggesting that she was being outrageous. I wasn't doing enough in the relationship. My love for her wasn't real love like hers. "Oh, maybe you love me in your own little way..." As if I felt some kind of ersatz pseudo-love for her, but it wasn't anywhere as close to real love as the way she felt for me. Only she (a female) was capable of feeling strong love, but I wasn't... Ugh.

Uncommon Capacity for Selfishness

One time, she decided she wanted a cat. I didn't want a cat because I'm allergic to cats. Furthermore, the apartment didn't allow cats.

"I want a cat." She said on multiple occasions.

"Honey, no. I can't live with a cat. It makes me sneeze." I replied. "And our apartment doesn't allow them. It's in the contract." And that was that.

One night, we made love. It was very good love-making indeed. Afterwards, she lay next to me and run her hand over my chest. She was being sweet... very sweet.

"NiceGuy, would you do anything for me?" She asked in her innocent, lovey-dovey voice. (Nowadays I know better: this is a form of entrapment. This is a question with only one correct reply... and giving the correct reply is a green light for the woman to make all sorts of demands on you.)

So, I gave the only correct reply: "Of course, baby. I would do whatever I am capable of doing for you."

"Then..." She paused and looked at me with those eyes. "... would you get me a cat?"

Sheesh, what do I say to this? "Honey... the apartment doesn't allow cats."

"We can keep it a secret. It'll be our secret."

"Hon, I can't. I'm allergic..."

"There's a shampoo we can use to help that. And I'll keep the apartment really clean. You'll be fine!"

"Hon... I don't want a cat. I do not want a cat in this apartment."

"But... but..." She looked almost teary. "You said you'd do anything for me! How can you marry me when you won't even do something simple like get a pet! You want me to be happy, don't you?" Etc, etc.

And it went on and on like that. Ugh, why the hell do women try to do that?! To make a long story short, she used her patented female Post-Coitus Guilt Ray (tm) and managed to extract a promise from me to get her a cat that weekend. And I did. And cat food, and cat toys and everything else a new cat-owner could ever want. My allergies are indeed minimized by the shampoo, but the cat decides to chew-up part of my favorite Indian tapestry. And I warned her, this was violating the terms of my apartment contract so the cat has to be hidden.

One week later, the building's maintenance guy was fixing some shingles outside our apartment window. The cat came-up to the window... the maintenance guy told the apartment manager. I come home and see a note in our mailbox that I'm in violation of my contract and we had to get rid of the cat.

And we did. Naturally, Whorebag was sad to see the cat go. And she said she'd partially reimburse me for the cost of the cat someday... but she never did.

Little Miss Can't Be Wrong...

I'm a person who is always willing to compromise and find mutually beneficial solutions. There's no way I can always realistically expect to get everything I want, I know that. I think a compromise means that you fulfill some of another party's wishes in order to guarantee that some of your wishes will be fulfilled. Like: 'if I can pick the movie this week, you can pick the movie next week.' In short, a compromise is when you're willing to not get everything you want in order to guarantee that you'll at least get some things that you want. Oh, females just love the word 'compromise', but only when it means that men should concede something to them (they're absolutely dumbfounded by the idea that there could ever be any sort of reverse obligation). And Whorebag's idea of 'compromise' was pure doublespeak; it was more like a war of attrition. She would hold-out until I gave her what she wanted... and maybe I'd get something in return if I was a good boy. Example: "If you buy me that bracelet, I might wear your favorite dress the next time you take me out to our favorite restaurant." And no matter how many times I would say 'no', she would keep-on demanding that I do the bracelet-buying if any progress on the 'compromise' was to be made between us at all.

That was a compromise!! I buy her something and she might wear something for me when I take her out to eat!! Naturally, I replied by saying that's not really a good trade. She would then stamp her foot and claim that she was willing to compromise, so why wasn't I willing to compromise too?? Why was I being so inflexible? No matter how I tried to refuse, I'd be arm-twisted into buying her the jewelry. Then, if I did anything to make her the slightest bit upset in the interim, she was free to cancel whatever promise she made to me. Typically, she would end-up not wearing that dress for me...

In one of Bill Cosby's comedy routines, he said: "I have a secret way of winning arguments with my wife. You see, when we argue... I cry first! And then, I run and lock myself in the bathroom, and won't come-out until she apologizes!" It wasn't until after I met Whorebag that I could fully appreciate what Bill meant by that...

Whorebag never allowed me to win arguments. She could never be wrong in any given situation no matter what. If I ever successfully used logic to win the discussion, she'd burst into tears until I recanted with some form of Maoist self-abnegation. Few things hurt me more than to see or hear her cry, so this would usually work as a way to make me retreat, if only to stop the sobbing that painfully cut me to the bone... Whether she knew it or not, crying turned into a form of blackmail for her to use. It was her way of punishing me for outmaneuvering her. If I was ever right about anything, she'd cry until I retreated. If I didn't retreat within 10 minutes, she would lock herself in the bathroom and refuse to come-out until I apologized.

Oddly enough, she would often demand apologies, but whenever my apologies were not coerced out of me, they meant diddily-squat. She would never accept them if they were freely volunteered, and my forced apologies were usually only grudgingly accepted when accompanied by concessions, gifts or promises never to do it again. In fact, she often said quite succinctly that she didn't accept apologies from anyone at all. Naturally, this made her free to harp-on my past wrongdoings as unresolved sore-points for her to leverage for guilt value in future arguments; accepting my volunteered apologies wouldn't have allowed her to play this sort of guilt-tripping game with total abandon. However, on the rare occasions that she ever apologized to me for anything, I had to accept her apologies at face value with no questions asked. No matter how back-handed, hollow or weakly-worded the apology might've been and however little closure I received from her apologies, I was required to accept her words and never bring-up the issue ever again.

Furthermore, she projected her own mental quirks onto me. And it was about this time that she declared I should seek psychological counseling, because I was unable to see that I was really the true cause of all our relationship problems. There had to be something wrong with me, she insisted. Why else was I acting like there were things wrong with her if I didn't have some sort of problem?! (She also hinted that I might have bipolar disorder or attention deficit disorder. No one had ever before suggested that I might have either of those. Maybe she just wanted to increase my confusion? To this day, I don't know what she based those accusations on, but she started to make me wonder whether or not I really was mentally ill. Few things are more unsettling than wondering if your own sanity is suspect.) She insisted that she only wanted me to seek counseling because she cared about me and wanted me to 'get better'. So at her request, I started seeing a psychologist (Dr. Lipsitz).

The sessions were helpful, they began to make me realize how all was not well. In the third session with Dr. Lipsitz, I invited Whorebag to go with me... specifically because I wanted my psychologist to understand the kind of person I was dealing with at home. So, she came and the three of us talked. Well, actually, she talked most of the time about all the ways in which everything is my fault. Afterwards, the doctor told me that Whorebag was, at the very least, very critical of me and didn't seem very supportive at all. And, she suggested to me that I was, in fact, a highly reasonable partner of the relationship and perhaps Whorebag wasn't a 'stable' personality to be paired with.

As time went by, I began to regard Whorebag as an entirely self-centered, manipulative and vicious liar. In hindsight, she was probably two steps away from being an entry-level psychopath. (I'm not exaggerating. It is ironic that she would insist that I seek mental help and get medication. She herself had been on X number of prescription drugs for her mental foibles, such as panic attacks. Her chronic high blood pressure was undoubtedly linked to how high-strung she was. Her behavior began to scare me as time went on. I think she needs serious help.)

A Diamond as a Hot-Button

Another nail in the coffin of our relationship was her attitude towards using her ring as a method of coercion... the full story about the ring is a doozy and must wait for another time. But the important thing is, she'd sometimes use our engagement ring as a weapon. If I won an argument, she'd rip it off her finger and angrily throw it across the room. Or she'd threaten to throw it away or sell it. One time, we were having a heated argument as I was driving my car on the highway. The argument was over an issue that was so trivial, I can't even remember what it was about. She rolled-down the window and dangled her 1.1-carat diamond ring between her thumb and forefinger.

"I'm gonna drop this... "

"Please don't make jokes like that. It's not funny." I was going 55 mph and was getting very nervous that she might accidentally drop it, even if she wasn't going to drop it willfully.

"Oh, I'm not joking. No, I'm gonna drop this... " She sighed nonchalantly. "Yeah, this is gonna be gone forever as soon as I let go of it... La la la, oh well..."

"Your ring is not a toy!" With great irritation, I slowed-down the car and began to pull-over to the side of the highway. She immediately rolled-up the window and slipped the ring back on her finger.

"Gee, you sure can't take a joke!"

Ahh, see? It was just innocent teasing!! Of course! What was wrong with me that I couldn't take innocent teasing?? (And believe me, I took this sort of threat seriously. Whorebag's sister, Theresa, while perhaps 30% more levelheaded than Whorebag, was nonetheless prone to similar kinds of temper-tantrums and would sometimes use suicide threats to get attention. Here's an infuriating side-story that I swear to God is 100% true: Theresa was engaged to a nice guy named Johnny. Before breaking-up with Johnny, Theresa also used her ring as a weapon. Theresa had her final big fight with Johnny, so she ripped her engagement ring off her hand... it was a really nice one, too... and angrily threw it into a snowy parking lot at night. He was shocked and flabbergasted that she'd do something so stupid. He spent the entire night digging-around in the snow, looking for it... while more snow kept falling. Johnny was genuinely a nice guy, and I really felt sorry for him. The next day, his parents and I spent at least 5 hours in cold weather trying to scan the parking lot with Radio-Shack metal detectors and digging by hand. The ring was never found again. And afterwards Theresa was apologetic for throwing-away her ring, but she also claimed that it was mostly Johnny's fault because he was being such a 'jerk' at the time. Ugh!! Why the hell do women do such destructive, wasteful things like that and proudly claim someone else made them do it?! I swear, you just want to slap these chicks!! Nothing is ever their fault!!!!)

No Prenuptial, Lest She Get 'Screwed'.

I also began to wonder if she might try to divorce me in the future... if you recall from the story of how we got engaged, she used a variety of pressure tactics such as threatening suicide. Now, she was revealing herself to be untrustworthy and selfish. I wanted a successful marriage, and I began to worry. In fact, I came to realize that I never insisted that she sign a prenuptial agreement... I thought that maybe I should try to at least find-out if I could convince her to sign one. I mean, she did say she loved me more than anything, didn't she? So, I decided to raise the topic.

"Do you love me?" I asked.

"Yes, of course I do." Whorebag replied.

"Well... if I asked you to sign a prenuptial agreement before you marry me, would you do it? I mean, you do say you love me above everything, so I'm sure that a prenup wouldn't be a big deal..."

She scowled. "If you loved me, you wouldn't ask me that kind of question!"

"What?! That's a fair question, isn't it? How does it mean I don't love you?"

She started to sound angry. "If you loved me, you wouldn't ask me to sign a prenup! You'd marry me unconditionally! Why the hell do you only care about money!?"

"Okay, I don't mean to sound like I only care about money... But, don't get-off topic, will you just answer my question please?"

"No, I wouldn't sign one." She shot-back matter-of-factly.

"No? But if you really wanted to marry me..." I started to reply... she interrupted.

"I don't want to get screwed if we get divorced!"

"Screwed?" I asked, somewhat offended by the accusation that I'd try to figuratively screw her over. Where was she getting the idea that I was going to somehow screw her in a divorce?

"Yeah. I don't want you running-off and leaving me without any means of support!"

I was shocked. Shocked that she'd say these things. I was speechless. I didn't know how to react, because the things she was saying were... were... just how in hell do you respond to that?! She didn't want to get 'screwed'! In a divorce, she'd much rather see that I got screwed? Was she making plans for a divorce before we even got married or something?! Wha?

It was information like this that started to make me think that maybe Whorebag wasn't a good marriage prospect. While her attitude revealed by the above discussion wasn't the final nail in the coffin of our relationship per sé, it was among the final handful of nails.

Whorebag the Abuser

It took me so long to break-up because I was so very madly in love with her. What can I say? When I love a woman with all my heart, I'll be faithful and I'll stick by her through tough times. I thought I was being a good and dependable fiancée by weathering the storm by her side; I didn't want to be the type of guy who'd dump her if our problems were manageable, and I spent a very long time hoping that our problems could be overcome. I guess... the façade of lies she set-up for me to fall in love with... it was fairly effective because it obviously worked pretty well. I really believed that she was the perfect woman for me. But, as time went on, I saw that all kinds of beautiful things about her were fake, and I actually fell in love with a living mosaic of fraud. Any attempt to explain the truth about her behavior to her would be met with a tempestuous ocean of lies and a seething broth of counteraccusations. She was, at her core, an emotional-abuser.

I say this not because I'm a self-pitying baby who is trying to elicit sympathy from my readers, I say this because months after breaking-up with her I read an article online about common traits of female abusers, and I was shocked that many of the traits fit Whorebag almost perfectly. Here are some samples from the article:

"SHE IS A LIAR. She will constantly lie to you. Often over trivial matters as well as big issues. She does this because she is unable to accept who she is. She cannot face reality about her own shortcomings."

"SHE PASSES THE BUCK. It is incredible how often I have seen this character trait in the female abuser. Unable to accept responsibility for her own actions everything becomes either, "your fault" or, "their fault." It is almost never, "my fault." She will abuse you and/or the children and then blame everyone or everything else..."

"SHE WILL SCREAM INTO YOUR FACE FOR HOURS. A common tactic is this one. She will start an argument over some trivial matter and work herself into a frenzy. Suddenly you find yourself facing a torrent of accusations. When you ask for time to answer the accusations she will constantly interrupt you so that you cannot make a defense."

"MENTAL ABUSE. This can be one of the most painful and long term agony's a man can go through. It can involve everything and anything that strips you of your manhood and self esteem. She may ridicule your sexual performance to your face or in front of friends. She may accuse you constantly of being "useless" at anything you try and do. She will accuse you of being "mentally sick" because you will not admit to being "stupid." She will do things that cause you maximum pain such as, selling the wedding/engagement ring. Flirting with your best friend. Having affairs and telling you all about them. Comparing you, unfavorably, to other men she has slept with. She will laugh at your efforts or claim you to be inadequate as a father or husband. Threatening to stop you ever seeing the kids again. The list is endless but the results can be utterly devastating."

And, (because it features prominently below as the last straw in our relationship): "SHE INVENTS STORIES TO DISCREDIT YOU."

Now, I'm not trying to claim victimhood status, and I'm not asking for my readers to feel sorry for me. I'm just telling the story like it was. Yes, if the above criteria describes a female abuser, then I was caught in an abusive relationship... But I don't consider myself a victim because I was voluntarily in the relationship and I was smart enough to finally get-out. I didn't stay in the relationship for so long because I'm a self-loathing masochist with no self-esteem who secretly invites abuse, I stayed because I truly loved her very deeply and I wanted to build a successful relationship with her. For the longest time, I really had the hopeful thought that our problems could be dealt with. And in the back of my mind, I always hoped that she'd one day just grow-out of her more childish habits. Yes, I know that sounds stupid, but when you love someone, you often find it hard to believe that they're incapable of changing for the better. Naturally, I probably encouraged some abuse by not being more strict with her... but, to tell you the truth, had I been more strict with her I think she might've responded by directing physical violence against herself and against me.

When I started to think about possibly breaking-up with Whorebag, another factor made me a bit afraid of breaking-up: she felt it was perfectly justifiable to do illegal and destructive things as revenge afterwards, and she knew people who'd be willing to do those things for her. For instance, one of her closest female friends (Janice) broke-up with her "jerk" of a gang-member boyfriend. A week afterwards, Janice and Whorebag went for a drive at 3 AM to the ex-boyfriends' house. Janice brought a brick with her. As Whorebag drove, Janice hurled a brick through the back-window of her ex's car. They drove-off, squealing with the exciting thrill of what they'd just done. Had Janice ever been questioned by the police, Whorebag would've been her alibi. They'd both prepared their cover-stories beforehand. But the police never found the vandals...

Whorebag had been in relationships with a few gang members in the past. She really found the whole bad-boy, gang-color thing to be a real turn-on. When she was in high-school, she had been summoned to court as a material witness to at least one instance of gang-related violence. She always refused to talk about the specifics of the case, but I think it involved assault with a firearm. Furthermore, I'd been on the receiving end of some low-level vandalism from at least one of her ex-boyfriends, although we were never sure which one. On two separate occasions, I parked my car outside her parents' house when I spent the night. And I found that it had been pelted with eggs overnight. Naturally, this was relatively harmless, but it made me wonder if one of her thug-contacts could potentially do much worse to me if she ever asked them to...

Whorebag's Parents

Early-on in our relationship, Whorebag painted her parents as ogres. That they were always punishing her for tiny offenses. They were always making unrealistic demands of her. They were oppressive to the point where her childhood was stultifying. And, for a while, I believed her. As I got to know her parents, they revealed themselves to not be bad folks at all. The reason why Whorebag had her complaints was because her parents actually tried to punish her when she misbehaved and they tried to restrain her when she went ballistic.

More and more, I could find a supportive voice with her parents. Her parents liked me a lot because I wasn't at all like any of the "yahoos" that Whorebag had been with in the past. Her parents realized that I was the best man their daughter had ever dated (and I heard this statement from a number of independent sources close to her parents, so it's not just me tooting my own horn.) And they also knew that their daughter was capable of being a true, "manipulative bitch" sometimes (their words, not mine). They knew that she wouldn't tolerate any kind of dissent on my part, and that I periodically needed some back-up when dealing with Whorebag. They tried to help every now and then, but Whorebag would have nothing of it. She'd insist that it was strictly none of their business, and the relationship was entirely her (and my) business... Naturally, she insisted that I stop talking to her parents about our relationship problems at all.

In fact, according to some things her sister quietly told me, her parents were privately wondering how I could even tolerate this sort of relationship. Her parents were good to me until the very end... My brother was also a source of support. He would sometimes tell Whorebag that she regularly trampled on my feelings and it wasn't good for the relationship if she shut-off her ears when I was asking her to do things like get a job or help-out around the house more. She would angrily retort something like: 'what about my feelings?! Why the hell do you automatically take NiceGuy's side and try to blame everything on me!?!' And she stopped talking to my brother altogether for at least a month because she claimed he was 'against' her.

Checkmate

The exact final nail in the coffin of our relationship was driven after she started talking to my brother again. One day she told him total lies about kinky and perverted sexual fetishes that I'd been secretly hiding for years... She told him total and complete fabrications and acted like it was all in good fun. (Did she just want to get a cheap laugh at my expense? Or maybe she wanted to drive a wedge between me and my brother because he scolded her the month before? Or maybe she wanted to humiliate me as punishment for some tiny thing I might've accidentally done to offend her and since forgotten about? Who the hell knows where her ideas came from?!) I don't know why, but that's what she did. When I found-out, I lost my temper. I got extremely angry at her for doing this. I walked-away from her and left the apartment in anger, I didn't like losing my temper. I spent 8 hours at work in order to cool-off.

I got a call on my cell-phone from Whorebag. She sounded cautious.

"Are you okay?" She asked.

"I can't talk now." I'm surrounded by co-workers, I can't scream at her on the phone.

"You were mad when you left. Are you okay?" She asked again. I just don't want to talk to her right now.

"I'll be okay. It's not a good time to talk, I've got to go... bye." I hung-up.

I was totally lost for guidance. I needed some kind of advice for how to handle this situation. I called her sister and told her how I felt... Yes, Theresa was kind of screwed-up too, but sanity appeared to be among her more prominent features for much of the time. I told her that I was considering the ultimate method of nuking this Giordian knot I was bound-up in: breaking-off the engagement. Theresa replied that both she and her parents would support me if I broke-up with Whorebag because... because they had witnessed that I always did so many good things for her, yet she would do almost nothing in return. All of Whorebag's immediate family agreed that she was slowly destroying me and she just didn't deserve me, anyway (Theresa's words, not mine). Theresa said that I had to do something to change the situation. No matter how I didn't like being an asshole, I had to finally lay-down the law and force some sense into her if we were going to get married. She said, no matter how much Whorebag cries and screams, don't give-in to her.

"Whorebag's defense strategy will be: 'I feel bad, so I'm going to make you feel worse.' You can't give-in to her." Theresa explained. "In arguments, she gets... I don't like saying this because I'm her sister... but she gets EVIL."

"What if she tries to hurt herself?" I asked. "I mean... in the past, she's grabbed knives and threatened to cut her wrists. And one time, she even started crying and hitting her forehead against the wall. She said she was trying to knock herself-out..."

"It's just an act. Don't try to stop her because she'll only do it to guilt you into apologizing for everything." She replied.

Fine, then. I said goodbye and hung-up. I felt heat shoot-up into my head. I did something that I never did before- I immediately went home and started yelling at her.

"How the hell could you do that?! I'm so angry at you! My God, why the hell did you lie to my brother?! Why the fuck do you want to embarrass me?! Where the hell do you get the nerve?!" I shouted. I don't like yelling or getting angry, but I did anyway. She needed to be told-off for once! "Half the time, you act like you don't give a shit about me! I do SO FUCKING MUCH FOR YOU, THIS IS HOW YOU SHOW YOUR LOVE FOR ME?!?!" I hollered at the top of my lungs.

How did she react? She got scary. She threw a screaming/crying fit and started throwing dishes around. She played the innocent victim. She insisted she didn't know that saying those sort of things would make me angry. It was all just a big joke, and if I was upset at her, then it was because I couldn't take a joke. What was wrong with me that I couldn't take a joke? She declared that I had the problem.

She was trying to steal the argument's initiative. I was tired of her blame-games... her slinging of counteraccusational bullshit back at me in an attempt to guilt me into apologizing for my alleged wrongdoings. Not any more. I kept yelling at her exactly how I felt. I was trembling, I was so angry.

"NO, SHUT-UP! YOU'VE HAD THIS COMING!" I shouted. "YOU'RE GOING TO SHUT-UP AND LISTEN TO ME FOR ONCE!!!"

Then, time for blackmail. She collapsed in the corner and started bawling. Not angry bawling, but 'I'm hurt' bawling. And kept right-on bawling... And bawling.

"I'm sorry!" She cried. "Okay?!?! Are you happy now?! I'm SORRY for what I did! I can't go-back and change what I did!!! WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?! WHY THE HELL DO YOU BLAME ME FOR EVERYTHING?!" In short, I had to accept and shrug-off her actions as a fait acompli. Why I was being a bully by making her cry? Why was I being a sadistic evildoer? If only I'd stop being so mean, everything would be fine. She kept weeping and weeping and weeping, hoping that I might take pity on her and retract my angry statements and beg for forgiveness. I stood silently and watched her cry. I checked the clock, fifteen full minutes of crying passed.

She even started scratching herself with her fingernails- hard. And butting her head against the wall- hard. As dismaying and unpleasant as the spectacle was, she'd done this a few times in past arguments as if to say 'now look what you've made me do!' As much as I wanted to restrain her from hurting herself, I didn't- because it she would only try harder to keep doing it. Yes, I know that seems sick, but it's the truth. Here's what must've been going through her mind: 'He's made me hurt myself! Why is he being so mean?!' and then: 'He's not stopping me from hurting myself! Why is he being so mean?!'

But I also began to worry: if she got bruises and scrapes, would she claim that I had been hitting her? My God, her behavior is starting to disgust me and make me really scared to boot.

I finally said with deliberate calmness: "Cry all you want, I don't feel sorry for you. Cut the victimhood act. You lied to my brother and slandered me behind my back. I can no longer trust you. I can not forgive you for this. You're going to call him right now and tell him that it was all a lie."

She raised her head, eyes red with tears, and spat-back. "I SAID I'm sorry!!" She screamed. "I SAID I didn't know that I shouldn't make jokes with your brother!! How the hell am I supposed to know that would make you so mad?! I didn't KNOW!!!"

"Oh, fer Chrissakes, you don't have to be a rocket-scientist to know that you're not supposed to make-up outrageous stories about your fiancée like that. Are you saying that you're a moron?!"

"You're so fucking insensitive!! Why the hell won't you accept my apologies?! I said 'I'm SORRY', ALL RIGHT?!!?! I'M SORRYYYYYYYYYY!!!!" She hollered as if 'sorry' is some kind of magic word that makes everything better. "ARE YOU HAPPY NOW THAT YOU'VE HURT ME?!?!" I raised my voice and started talking over her.

"Yeah, oh, yeah I'm really happy to make you cry. I just loooove making you cry because I'm an evil bastard and you're an innocent little victim who never does anything wrong." I snorted. "I am not accepting apologies today. I can not forgive you! Comprende?! I can't fucking trust you to interact with my family. You weren't just playing a joke, you were a damned liar! Why the hell can't you admit that?!"

"You're the liar!" She bellowed. "You lied to me on the phone from work!! You weren't feeling 'okay'! That was bullshit! Why the hell didn't you tell me this on the phone if you were so angry?!?! You've been lying to me all day!!! I can't trust YOU!!"

Ugh. This is going nowhere. That's it, I thought. This is truly the straw that broke the camel's back. There was a line in the sand, and she crossed it long ago. I can not deal with this infantile bitch at all. I'm ending this. I decided there and then that I had to get her out of my life as quickly as possible. She was still screaming at me in a nonstop torrent of accusations, I started to tune it out. But somewhere in her blue-streak of incendiary venom, she suddenly hollered: "...AND I'M PREGNANT!!"

What? The world stopped.

"W- what did you say?" I replied in disbelief.

"I'm pregnant!"

The moment of silence between us was deafening. It was the loudest silence I've ever heard.

I managed to open my mouth to say something after a long pause. "And when were you planning on telling me this exactly?!" I managed to say.

"I found-out yesterday!"

"But... your birth control?"

"I stopped using it!"

"What?! You're pregnant... and this is how you tell me?"

"It just slipped-out! I... I was still deciding what to do. I didn't know how to tell you..." She stood-up, tears flowing down her cheeks, and started pounding her stomach. "But I'll get-rid of this unwanted thing, if that's what you want!"

Okay, is this another lie? Would she lie about being pregnant? Was she trying to get more emotional control over me? I just don't know anymore. She was capable of saying or doing anything when she was in this state. She sounded like she was being serious, but who the hell knows how her mind works when she's in a wild-eyed fit?

Shaken, I left her alone in the apartment and spent a sleepless night at a friends' house.

Bearing the Unbearable, I Finally Snap

My rational side knew I had to leave her, but my emotional side still wanted to love her. A painful schism erupted in my psyche. The two halves of me went to war with each other. Emotionally it was the most traumatic, wounding experience of my life.

I had no place to go but out. Deciding to breakup with Lying Whorebag was the most difficult decision I ever made. Even though I was really in love with her, she had revealed herself to actually be a selfish, screwed-up witch who didn't give a flying damn about me. Something had to crack.

The day after, words cannot describe the pain I felt. I was going to breakup with her. I had to override my love for her and do it. Seriously, without a doubt, this was the worst pain I'd ever felt in my life. My heart was writhing and screaming in such intense, pure, mind-destroying Agony that I would have rather died. Seriously, it hurt that much. For the first time in my life, I truly wanted to die rather than go-on experiencing the continual ripping sensation that was going-on inside me. Now that I'm writing this out, I can see that the English language (or any language for that matter) can not possibly describe even a fraction of the severe pain that I felt. Agony. Despair. Anguish. Woe. Suffering. Torture. Torment. Crushing grief. All of these words can not convey the slightest idea of the massive soul-destroying MISERY that I was experiencing that day. I think this was the closest I ever came to having my self-control go totally bye-bye.

I know it's cliché to talk about pains in your heart, but that's what it felt like. Someone hammering tens of iron needles into my heart. And twisting them. And turning them. And shooting nine-million volts of electricity through them. I started to think I was truly going crazy. Was I having a nervous breakdown? I wanted to die. I wanted to die. I wanted to die rather than feel this way. I wanted to die. Death would've meant sweet release from this constant agony. If death was nothingness, at least I wouldn't be suffering any more. Death seemed like bliss.

My car was parked in an isolated alley. There I was, sitting in my car alone. Crying. I couldn't stop. I was hysterical with bereavement. I just kept crying and crying and crying. I had no idea that I had so many tears in me. They just kept coming and there was no way to stop them. I thought that maybe after 1 or 2 hours, I'd grow tired of crying? No, actually, after 2 hours I was till crying. I just could NOT stop. No matter what I did. I don't know how long I cried. I tried taking deep breaths to calm myself... about 3 seconds after calming-down I would start to cry again. I hyperventilated so much, I almost passed-out a few times. I trembled so much, I couldn't even open the car door without fumbling for what seemed like forever. I thought I'd gone totally insane with grief. I mean... never in my life had I cried nonstop for hours without a break. And this wasn't quiet, dignified sobbing either- I was in hysterics. I was in a frenzy. I never imagined I was even capable of making these kinds of noises. Horrible, horrible anguish was making it utterly impossible for me to so much as catch my breath. I was in such unbearable pain that I just couldn't concentrate on anything- the whole city could've blown-up and I wouldn't have noticed.

I had hit rock-bottom. My life felt like it was over. I immediately tried to schedule an emergency talk with my psychologist for later that afternoon. On my cell phone, I sobbed to the receptionist that I thought I was going crazy, and I demanded to speak to her as soon as possible or I might have to check myself into a mental hospital. When my appointment time came, I managed to calm-down enough to drive there... My eyes were so stinging and clouded I almost got into a traffic accident. With massive effort, I managed to stop the tears and I eventually arrived at my doctors' office. But when I walked-in and opened my mouth to say something to the