My 14 year relationship is coming to an end. I ended it. But I am absolutley devestated and it has taken every ounce of strengthI had left to stay strong on this. We have fought so many times and told each other we were done but it never lasted long. But it's now been almost 5 days since we have spoken and I'm trying to stay strong because part of me feels like this is what i need to do and everyone in my life agrees. But I've been told everything is my fault for so long that I can't help but question now that maybe it partly is. Maybe if I would have been emotionally and mentally stronger I could have made our relationship better. But it just always felt so impossible.

When we met both of us were so happy and deeply in love. I wanted nothing but to be with him and give him all the love I had and it seemed like he felt the same. I was always loyal to him and wanted nothing to do with any other man. He was everything I wanted and needed. But a few years in around the time I thought he would propose I found out he had been secretly talking to a LOT of other women, sending vulgar messages, exchanging nude photos and asking to meet up. I don't have proof he ever did and he denies he ever did. It completely destroyed me. I couldn't believe it. I trusted him so completely and our relationship was beautiful and amazing in my opinion. I was giving him everything he could have possbily needed.  So, we split. Then he begged me back and said how stupid he was and i was the love of his life and he wanted to marry me and he would never do anything to hurt me ever again and he learned his lesson and asked me to trust him again. So as soon as I started working on rebuilding the trust that was destroyed I found out he also lied about being in the military. When I found out he still tried to keep lying about it even though I had proof. We split again and the same thing happened and I ended up taking him back. Then very shortly after that he got an offer to go to New York for his job. He did construction. He could have easily said no and they could have sent someone else. I begged him not to because I was just starting to try and heal and trust him and my anxiety was at an all time high and I was still suffering from the heartbreak of it all. He got so angry at me that I was so emotional about him leaving and we got into a nasty fight. And he ended up going to New York. I tried so hard to keep it together while he was there but I had overwhelming anxiety and all I wanted was for him to keep in touch with me and I did need a little reassurance at times. But I wasn't lashing out or acting crazy. Just sad, anxious and emtotional. When he came home I found a phone number in his bag and it had a womans name on it. He claimed he had no idea where that came from and it wasn't his. I called the number. It was the bartender that worked at the hotel he stayed at in New York. She told me everything. How they exchanged many text messages and even sent them to me.  How he begged her multiple times to come back to his hotel room, etc. She never did. He even asked if he could come to her parents house where she was living. So anyway I was an absolute mess after all this. But somehow I still loved him so much and I just could not let go of the man I fell in love with. He promised he was done being so stupid and for some crazy reason a big part of me needed to believe it. I had never loved someone this deeply. And even after he did all of that to me I still couldn't find the strength to leave him. 

We stayed together and for the next few years the damage all that had caused me became very obvious. I struggled a lot with trust, anxiety, ocd, paranoia, etc. And I no longer trusted myself. We had horrible fights becuase of this. Many times I needed to talk or needed clarity or reassurance it turned into a horrible degrading fight. He would scream at me and call me every name you could think of and tell me he hated me and I was broken and that all he needed me to do was get over it and trust him again so we could be happy and move forward. And I started hating myself that I had such a hard time doing that.That's all I wanted. So as time went on and I saw no real signs of him lying to me or hiding things from me I very slowly started to gain back trust. And as of the last few years I'd say for the most part I honestly did trust him. And during those years we had many great times together and were very much in love. But that was mixed in with horrible arguments, crying, name calling, etc. But I felt that he did love me and wasn't interested in messing up what we had anymore. But I did still struggle from time to time and needed a little reassurance. And maybe that became my toxic trait. But I did try so hard to hold back so many times. Sometimes it felt impossible. And i just needed him to tell me everything was okay and he loves me and would never hurt me again. And sometimes he had enough self control to do that but many times he didn't. And a lot of times that would greatly calm the storm inside me.But because of this over the past few years it's the reason he can't marry me. And no matter how hard I tried or how hard I tried to make him happy whenever the subject of marriage came up he said, "We aren't ready" or "I can't marry someone who still acts insecure and like they don't trust me". So I ended up becoming depressed and feeling hopeless because although I know I still struggled with trust and anxiety it was no wear near as bad as it was years ago. For the most part I thought things were pretty good.  I loved him with all my heart but because of the damage that had been done I felt like everything in our relationship would always end up being my fault. 

So now SS came to live with us. He started attempting to abuse our cat. I took the cat to my moms. And becuase I ended up not feeling comfortable around his SS I ended up staying at my moms and it was non stop arguing with SO and I. I was horrible for stealing his cat from him which is actually OUR cat not just his. And I was horrible for leaving him. I still saw him almost every day or every other day. But it recently got bad and we had a bad fight and I told him I can't take it anymore and I was done. He told me he wanted the cat back and I said no becasue months ago they found out he was abusing the cats at SS's moms house and he threw one against the wall. During our fight SO tried to tell me he never told me his son threw a cat against a wall at his moms house and that I must be mentally ill if i think he told me that.  he tells me I am the one who has been emotionally and mentally abusing him for years and I don't know what emotional or mental abuse actually is. Maybe to some extent he is right becuase of my anxiety and me needing reassurance often. I honestly don't even know anymore. I just feel exhausted. I think back at all the good times and how when we weren't arguing and everything was going okay he was always so sweet and so loving most of the time and I can't help but feel like my anxiety and me not sticking around during all of this with his son and everything is destroying us now. 

I am forcing myself to do the no contact because I know if I don't the cycle will continue over and over. But it's incredibly painful. But I'm scared he was trying to make it better and I became the toxic one in a way.