disclaimer: i have never gone behind his back, i have never cheated on him, and i have always been truthful with him.

i can’t pinpoint exactly when it happened, maybe it was a gradual shift but my new boyfriend began to show me a side of him i hadn’t known existed before. he had always been the chill laid back type, so easy going, so easy to talk to, but now he had become judgmental and argumentative, to the point where i was having to be careful what i say around him. he was overly jealous, and even brought up the issue of cheating. i couldn’t get my head around this, i had just made the conscious decision to dedicate myself to our relationship and i would never even consider going behind his back. i was fully committed.

and so it began. he would start to see “clues” around the house of me cheating on him. like the position of the recliners in the living room or how many dirty dishes were in the sink. there was no logic to his accusations so there was no way to prevent or counteract them.

he would interpret random parts of what i say as “slip ups” to prove i had been doing something behind his back. or if i had a good day at work it must have been because i was seeing some other guy. it seemed so outrageous to me, being accused of cheating, i would never cheat on him, i would never go behind his back, and i have never given him reason to think so.

the beginning of the downhill spiral of our relationship was probably around the time when he accused me of hacking into his phone through the phone of one of my kids. i am not even sure that is possible, let alone knowing how to do that. i am a waitress and have barely figured out my own phone and devices, i have no skills in technical things, and absolutely no experience in hacking.

of course there were so many other incidents, like when he read my journal from years before we were together and mistook it to be my current journal. and like the time he thought i took longer than he expected to arrive home and demanded i drop my pants in front of our kids. and like the time he went through my phone and misinterpreted those spam messages that try to be personable like a real text message and then try to get you click on a sketchy link. and like the time he got diagnosed with a UTI and somehow mistook it to be an STD that i gave him.

it was like he had completely denied my commitment to him. and it was getting worse at break neck speed. like i said, i have never cheated on him and never given him any cause for doubt. but he was punishing me as though i was constantly cheating. it wasn’t fair. and i knew i wouldn’t stay in this situation much longer.