This story is a whirlwind of fairytales, and nightmares, from start to finish. It’s going to take some time to flush it all out in its entirety, as I’m still reeling from the effects. It’s more than what can be covered in one post, so stay tuned for more to come.

Who is Fatty V?

For starters, he’s probably the most amazing lover I’ve had in my life. If I were to write down a list of everything I want in a life partner, he would check nearly every damn box.

He was intelligent and educated. He was independent and ambitious. He loved music and played the saxophone. He encouraged and inspired me. He was my first “Dom” and woke in me a desire for submission I had never felt before.

I’ve never fallen so hard, and so fast before. He was everything I ever wanted (and a few things that I will never accept in a man again).

I’ve also never been so blind to and dismissive of some major red flags. Despite how amazing I think and feel that he was, many of my close friends have been less enthusiastic about the way he behaved and treated me.

It all started on January 1st, 2021. I had received a message on FetLife from V. It was unlike any message I’ve ever received before, and unlike anything I’ve received since then. Instead of being full of thirst and sexual innuendos, Fatty took the time to respond to every single element of my profile. The end result was a book worth of messages written to each other, over the course of several months (over 60 pages each!). We were both falling hard.

Except, I wasn’t ready for a relationship.

You see, I had just broken up with House Cat a couple of months back. House Cat is my longest relationship (nearly 7 years). He’s also my best friend. He was the man who supported me and helped me get sober. I was still heartbroken over the end of our relationship. And despite the horrible fight we had on New Year’s Eve, I was STILL wavering. I wanted him back, but I needed things to be different, and he was clearly not ready to be different.

So on the heels of heartbreak, Fatty V comes into the scene. His ex had broken up with him around the same time my relationship ended with House Cat. Except, she had ghosted him. Full “no contact”, and he was crushed and left wondering “Why?” (This becomes painfully important later on.)

I guess you could say that we were both rebounding, and desperate for some validation. Except, I had the wisdom to know that I wasn’t ready, whereas Fatty V, well, he jumped in the deep end before learning how to swim.

The Problem with Fatty V

You would think that 2 people who have written an entire book’s worth of content to each other would be able to communicate effectively. Right???

WRONG!!!

I don’t think I’ve had worse communication with any other partner in my life. Even after writing a book to each other, I still felt like I didn’t know this man. Most of what he had written had been in response to what I had written to him.

Very little of what he wrote contained original thoughts, nor was it personal or vulnerable. Very little of it was professions of love or desire for me. What he did reveal to me, I later learned was mostly untrue.

I’m not talking about white lies or insignificant lies. I’m talking about lying about entire relationships and why they ended. Why he felt he needed to lie to me, I’ll never know.

Despite an intense physical connection and an adoration for the person that he was. I was missing the emotional intimacy. His hesitancy to reciprocate my outpourings of emotion left me feeling unworthy and unloved.

I’ve since realized that my anxiety in relationships comes from Trauma. Years and years and years of childhood trauma. At one point in time, I could have read the list of symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder, and believed that I was mentally ill. Well, I am mentally ill, but my mental illness is trauma-based, and as such, I don’t believe it should be incorrectly labeled, no matter how perfectly I exemplify ignorantly conceived lists of symptomatology (more on that later.)

Fatty V also had a LOT of issues with my lifestyle and my friends. Despite my FetLife profile stating that I was Solo Poly, V pressured me into being monogamous with him. I readily bent to his will. Eager to give him everything he desired in me.

I am a relationship anarchist at heart. It comes from a place of desiring to know people, intimately. I don’t like restricting or limiting my relationships for another person’s comfort.

On the flip side, I am also a submissive at heart. Despite my outward appearance of control and having my shit together, I would like nothing more than to spend the rest of my life serving the man that I love and adore.

“Anything for you my love” is one of my favorite phrases when I’m in a relationship. Because I believe that when you find your person, you should give your all, you should do everything that you can. If you really and truly love someone, then it becomes easy to do anything and everything asked of you.

What did Fatty V do to me?

First, and foremost, he gave me hope. In him, I found a man that was intelligent, handsome, charismatic, sexy, articulate, passionate, driven, and generous. As long as I can remember I’ve wanted to be in a “power couple” relationship. One where we set big goals and work together to make them happen. Fatty V was the first man that gave me a glimpse of that reality.

I know that a lot of the responsibility for what went wrong falls directly on my shoulders. I’ll be honest with all my readers here… For the first half of our relationship, I cheated.

Despite Fatty V knowing that I was solo poly, I wasn’t honest with him about how much I was really fucking around with other men. Poly only works if everyone knows and is consenting. Ethical Non-Monogamy is all about Transparency. So that everyone involved can give Informed Consent.

Fatty V did not know about all my debaucherous deeds. Actually, he specifically stated that he wanted no part in it when we discussed it. But I wanted to have fun while I was seeing where it went and thought I could keep it on the DL and juggle the lies long enough to figure out what it was I wanted.

He was amazing, and love-bombed the FUCK out of me. But he wasn’t bringing it on the emotional level that I needed. So, I didn’t want to settle down for someone that couldn’t connect emotionally with me.

Well, V caught on to me, and my lies. I didn’t see it then, but I definitely see now how toxic his methods were. You see, the man put a hidden tape recorder in one of his shoes under my bed, so that he could record anything that happened in my bedroom. He would park down the street and watch my house. When I left to go somewhere, he would follow me. And these are only the things he was willing to admit to. Later on, I could him logging into my email and Facebook to read my private messages.

I didn’t discover any of this until much, much later. At the time I was devastated. Despite his flaws, I truly saw him as someone I could devote the rest of my life to.

We didn’t talk for nearly a month. I was miserable. I would call him. Text him. Email him. I’d beg him to respond to me. I got a few scraps here and there. It was mostly about him wanting to organize getting his things from my house.

I was crushed. Heartbroken. I hated myself for destroying everything before it could even really begin.

I know NOW that NO MAN deserves my loyalty if he isn’t able to ask for it. I’m not your woman until you can communicate your feelings for me and your expectations of me. Don’t expect commitment from me if you’re too chicken shit to talk about commitment.

Simply put: I’m not your fucking bitch if you don’t ask me to be your bitch! AND… If I’m acting like I’m single, it’s because YOU don’t have the balls (or the desire) to lock this shit down.

Then he came back one day.

I was working the customer service job I had at Amazon at the time. He just showed up out of nowhere one day.

I literally clung to his leg bawling, begging him for another chance. If I were put in the same position today, I would have done the same thing. Even knowing everything that I know now. I STILL would have fallen at his feet, begging for forgiveness and a chance to do everything right. That’s how much I loved him.

He gave me the second chance I tearfully begged for, but only if I agreed to his conditions…

I had to stop all communication with everyone that I was fucking, and everyone that I fucked in the past. It meant cutting myself off from nearly my entire support system, but I loved him and I wanted to prove that love to him, so I did as he asked.

I stopped talking to House Cat. I stopped talking to one of my best friends of more than a decade. I stopped talking to nearly everyone. I deleted them from my friend list and ignored any messages sent to me. I went full ghost.

We spent the next 4 months living nearly every day with each other. You would think that it was happily ever after, right? Well, not so much. Most of it was happy. Most of our interactions were loving. BUT… I have CPTSD, and I have a whole lot of issues because of it. And Fatty V had a lot of hurt and trust issues from my lies and cheating.

I don’t think we could have every built anything meaningful on top of the shaky foundation that we had created.

I was hyper-aware of any negative sentiments he had towards me, which triggered my anxiety and all my “lizard brain” defense mechanisms (fight/flight/freeze/fawn). And he had LOTS of disapproval to express.

I also have a Disorganized Attachment style. Meaning that I operate on both sides of the relationship “crazy sale”. I am both Anxious and Avoidant. I desperately want intimacy and connection, but I’m so distrusting that as soon as someone gets too close I push them away. Any small negative interaction and I immediately assume that they hate me, or that they are only keeping me around to take advantage of and use me.

Over the months there were many times when I would lash out at him. Tell him to leave and never return. Run away from our fights and into my office to escape. Or go totally paralyzed catatonic, only able to cry, while curled up hyperventilating under the blankets.

I honestly don’t know why he stayed for as long as he did (but I think it had something to do with the $500 bet we made over weight loss, which I paid, honorably, despite this sinking suspicion that he didn’t want me anymore).

My emotions were clearly out of control. Even still, my emotions can swing wildly out of control. Despite years of working on myself, I still have a long way to go to get better.

The Last Fight

Every Christmas Fatty V goes back home to Texas to visit and stay with his mother. Fatty V is a big mama’s boy, he talks to his mom every day and he loves his mom very much. I found it endearing and it was one of the things I loved about him. That Christmas, he stayed with me, which was honestly an incredibly wonderful thing for him to do for me. I had one of the best Christmas’ of my adult life (at least as far as presents go, since most dudes, I date are either broke as fuck, too ignorant to understand how special a gift can be, or too selfish to think about spending their money on anyone else but themselves). He left on Dec. 28th to spend January with his mother instead. That was the last day that I saw him.

Can I just say that being away from my lover has never been easy for me? At my core, I am a lover. I need an emotional connection. I am a giver. I need reciprocity. I am also a nympho. I need physical intimacy.

When I am not with someone I love, I am depressed and lonely. You see, I value intimacy highly. I crave deep connections and have always wanted a relationship based on emotional connection and partnership.

Pretty much as soon as he got to his Mom’s he got sick. He was extremely sick for several days and then lingered with sickness for weeks afterward. He also had issues with his car and needed to deal with first trying to get it repaired, and then finally looking to purchase a new vehicle. ALSO, his dad had just had surgery. Fatty V was supposed to be there to help with that, and there were complications with his Pop’s surgery. All of these things were taking up Fatty V’s time, making him less communicative with me.

But I can both understand that he’s busy AND miss hearing from him. Right?

The final straw came after a conversation where he triggered me. In summary, I told him that it hurt being away from him for so long. To which he responded that if I need to “move differently” he understands. I took that to mean that he could care less if I fucked around with someone else. All I was saying is that it was hard. That I missed him. That’s it. What I needed to hear was “It’s hard for me too.” I asked him to call me, but he resisted at first stating he was engaged in “family time”.

Funny thing is, I had been reading a psychology article that very day about the breakdown of communication in relationships. I KNOW that I am FUCKED UP. I have such a hard time communicating when I’m triggered. It’s something that I’m constantly working on and trying to get better at.

So, this psych article was about the four horsemen when it comes to a relationship falling apart. I read the article and I identified with all 4 of the problem issues that predict the demise of any relationship (Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness, & Stonewalling). And as is my way, I spent the day reading articles from the Gottman Institute website. Obsessively taking notes on ways I could communicate more effectively.

SOO. I was using the technique taught in the article. First I say “I feel…” Then I say “I need…” Then I say “Can you please…” So as an example, in this situation instead of me coming at him and criticizing him by saying something like “you never give me enough attention” or “you always make me feel unimportant”. I would instead say “I’m feeling unimportant right now.” “I need some reassurance that you still love and want to be with me”. “Can you please not say things like I can “move differently” when I tell you that I’m hurting because I miss you”. For a split second, I was excited to try out this new way to communicate.

I had hope, but hope quickly died.

When I finally got Fatty V on the phone I let him know that his comment hurt me and that all I was saying was that I missed him. He immediately brought up all the things he’s been dealing with, which again, I understand it’s a lot, BUT I can both simultaneously understand where he’s coming from, and still miss him and feel hurt that he’s not communicating with me. So I come up with my 3 sentences and I start to say them and he cuts me off with “you know what, I’m sick of your threats. If you want to leave me then go.”

Then he hangs up on me.

I immediately start messaging and calling him. Then I did my thing… Ya know… That thing that I do where I just shove people as far away from me as hard and as fast as I possibly can. I called him names and told him to never call me, text me, or see me again.

He’s honored my request and is doing just that.

Remember how his last girlfriend just ghosted him out of the blue and he had no idea why she would do that? Well, ignoring me and not answering my calls or texts is a classic Fatty V way of stonewalling, which is one of the 4 horsemen. It took me this long to realize it, but I can just about guarantee that she was sick of the stonewalling treatment from him and decided to give him a taste of his own medicine. And boy was he hurt. He still had her picture on his phone as a screen saver nearly 6 months later! (Imagine how I felt, dating him, having to look at that photo every time he opened his phone. Talk about feeling fucking worthless.)

Side Note: if you ask someone what happened that caused a break-up and they say “I don’t know”, THAT’S a red flag. If you ask someone what they could have done differently to prevent a breakup and they say “I don’t know”, THAT’S a red flag. If they act clueless, then it might just be because they don’t have enough self-awareness to pick up on the clues.

The Final Straw

You would think after all this that I would be done, right? I mean how many red flags can a person wave in your face before you actually pay attention to them? Who am I kidding though?

I am weak. So Weak!

If Fatty V came through the door right now I would fall at his feet. I would sob uncontrollably. I would hyperventilate. I would whimper and groan in agony. I would be a pile of pathetic. If he grabbed my hand and walked me to my bedroom, I would follow. If he laid me down in bed and slid in next to me, I would curl up in his arms weeping. If he removed my clothes I would spread my legs and make love to him. All of this I would do with no discussion and no questions.

I’ve tried to reach out to him so many times after that fight. I’ve tried to apologize. He won’t respond. I am left feeling more worthless than ever. I feel defective. Like I am just useless trash.

I can honestly say that when he came back and gave me that second chance, I poured all my love into him. I have never worshiped a man the way that I worshiped him. I’ve never pampered a man the way I pampered him. My nickname for him was “My King”, and it was my deepest desire to love him and treat him as such.

THIS is why the Born Again Virgin phase of my life needs to happen. Because I am so controlled by sex. I’m addicted. I let it rule me. I let the act of it validate my worth. It has power over me. I do not have power over it.

Last Wednesday my cousin came to visit me for a few days. I feel a bit bad that I am going through all this while she’s here.

Well, Thursday I see that there is a card in the mail from Fatty V. (I’ve got the USPS Informed Delivery thing and I get a photo of my mail in my email before it gets delivered). Anyway, I was sick all day long worrying about it. I couldn’t think about anything else.

When the card came and I told my cousin to open it and read it and tell me if it was bad or good. She says “Aww, can I be you?”

So I read the card…

In it, he says that his mother has bought me a ticket to Hawaii in August (his birthday is August 13th) as repayment for how hard this has been on me with him being gone.

I immediately think that he’s just been stonewalling me to surprise me and makeup with me in this very sweet and romantic way. I call, sobbing, thanking him, and telling him I love him…

Then I notice that the card it dated 1/19, which was 2 days before our fight. This is weird because he has NEVER put a date inside a card before. I have all his cards, I triple-checked. In addition to that, the card was postmarked on the 24th, which is 3 days after our fight…

So… he didn’t put this in the mail until AFTER we fought. Maybe the trip to Hawaii was true, but maybe not. IDK.

What I do know is that he sent this card to hurt me. It wasn’t to makeup and it wasn’t because he loved me. It was to break my fucking heart. It was to throw in my face what I could have had if I would have been a better girlfriend to him. It was to let me know I lost more than just him. I lost this romantic, fairy tale happy ending he was going to give me to.

I texted him I would be contacting his mother to return her money for the ticket. HOLY SHIT! He hadn’t said 2 words to me in the last week, but he came on STRONG when I said I’d be emailing his mother. The email is on standby for now. His father is still recovering from surgery and the last thing I want to do is cause drama and stress when they are already dealing with so much.

Besides, revenge is a dish best served cold, if served at all.

His reaction told me all I needed to know.

The Lesson

First, you can’t build a healthy relationship on a poor foundation. All the lies, cheating, drama, and lack of communication from very the beginning just killed our chances of this thing turning out healthy in the long run. His distrust of me prevented him from getting close, which is what I NEED in a relationship. It created this push-pull relationship dynamic that just ended up being a toxic cycle we both felt trapped in and unable to escape or avoid.

Second, I need a partner to check ALL the boxes. There was one very big box that FAtty V did not check for me. And that was his inability to meet my emotional needs. I talk about this a little in my post about being a Born Again Virgin.

Last, but certainly not least, I NEED TO LOVE MYSELF MORE! If I wasn’t so insecure, then I wouldn’t need men to validate my worth. I wouldn’t need to be in a relationship just to feel like I’m deserving of a relationship. If I loved myself more, I wouldn’t settle for men who aren’t capable of fulfilling my emotional needs. I wouldn’t be so desperate for reassurances, and I wouldn’t be so hurt when I didn’t get them.

The honest-to-God truth is… I’m a great catch. I’m sexy and sexual. I’m kinky and open-minded. I’m understanding and not judgemental. I’m intelligent, driven, and passionate. I’ve got my shit together. I work my ass off, pay my own bills and own my own house. I have the strongest desire to be a faithful and loving good girl slut. I want to be in a relationship. I want to be the “bestest” girl for my partner.

My problem is, I keep pouring my love into mother fuckers that want to hang up on you and ignore you instead of simply saying “I miss you back”.

My problem is, I keep putting energy into men who have no time or desire to put energy back into me.

My problem is, I keep falling in love with men who aren’t ready for love. I keep hoping to build intimate connections with men that are emotionally unavailable.

This is the catalyst that has propelled me to embrace my new persona. I will be taking my power back and building the life I always dreamed of. The door of opportunity is already opening and I am ready to experience what this new world has in store for me.

Much Love,

-Siren-