I think you are right about my ex. I realized something today. I think he is with someone, the woman he broke up with me to try to date once. He thought her very beautiful, and he slept with her twice, but said both times were unsatisfactory and that she smelled funny or something like that. That he had turned from her and wished it were me. Then he came back to me.

But I think now he regards sex as one of the least important things in his life, because he's on an anti-opioid med to quit drinking, and the medication had eliminated his sex drive. With sex unimportant, I'm sure he's turned back to her. I learned some things tonight that make that clear.

This woman I think he's with deleted a post, and I think she did it in order to hide their relationship. My ex is selling his house. This woman had left a review of a real estate agent a week ago. At first I thought she was selling her house too. But recently, he started to like that real estate agent's posts and since he has, this woman deleted her review. She deleted it, in fact, since I emailed him telling him that I think they are together because they are both selling their houses and I suspect they plan to move in together. I know him. He would think he's saving himself by hiding their relationship. But all this action, this deleting, does is confirm that they are in a relationship.

So I'm beginning to suspect this began awhile ago, before he broke up with me. And now I wonder how far back. I wonder if he used me to help him beat a domestic battery charge.

And now I'm feeling suicidal again. I don't know how someone can behave as he's behaved. I don't know how he could tell me four weeks ago that I was the one and then go back to this woman.

He isn't doing any of this to be nice to me, by the way. He's doing it because he's afraid of me. I could do a number of things as a result of him having plead guilty to battery (he was offered a plea deal down from domestic battery).

Why do you think people become jealous? I have tried to understand why I am so set on piecing together what happened. I think I wouldn't be this obsessive about it had he not tossed me down stairs and nearly killed me, or then manipulated me to give him money to pay the attorney for his defense, and then dumped me.

I'm in therapy. I've been in it for nearly half this relationship. My therapist once agreed that the relationship was precious to both of us, despite all our problems. Now I think she and I were both wrong.

I don't know how to get over someone hurting me this badly. I just don't know. I feel like I'm sinking again. Anyway, thanks for listening.

How do you maintain distance from your depression? I know what you mean, by the way, about family. I have an ex-husband, a very good friend of mine, but he's like family. I said to him much what you wrote here: that his good opinion doesn't count because his care for me is at this point the way my family cares for me -- unconditionally. It's just not the same.