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The Sleep Deprived 🇺🇸

I have a long rant story to get off my chest.

I shouldn't be upset, but I am. Rumors about me have gotten back to me, and I know who started them. I recently got caught in a lie, which was kind of my fault. I(22f) broke up with my boyfriend(46m) shortly after my daughter was born. About 2 years ago. We agreed to stay living together so that we could both be in our children's lives. After about a year and a half I was considering dating again. I brought it up in conversation and we discussed our boundaries. One noteworthy one that he set was that he didn't want to know about it. He asserted that he would feel I was rubbing his face in it. So we agreed he would have nothing to do with it. In the time that followed, I considered how I wgo about it. I had no vehicle of my own, nor did I have time to myself to have my own friends, much less a lover. The house was in disrepair, and I was struggling to cover as many household responsibilities as possible with little to no help from my ex, and the only social life I had was when we would visit his small group of friends. He mostly kept me away from his father's side of the family telling me that they didn't like me, which may very well have been true as I was too overstimulated to try and figure out for myself and his mother's side was only his mother. My adult siblings had too much going on most of the time to spend time with us. So I resigned to the only adult contact being time spent with his friends. I began noticing his best friend and his best friend started noticing me. We began to flirt for a bit, but it was simply playfulness to begin. I had begun sleeping with my ex because he would often grope me without my consent, slap my ass, or speak to me in a sexual manner. He had me believe that it was unfair of me to expect otherwise so I resigned, but we made it clear to each other that it was sex and only sex, verifying it to each other multiple times. This went on for a time. It is noteworthy that I have a nurse who visited me monthly. It was a hospital program I signed up for upon my daughter's birth. One month she came to visit, and the house had gotten to such disrepair that she believed it necessary for cps to get involved. To clarify, the roof was home to critters and raccoons, there was a gaping hole in the side of the roof, there were holes in the walls on the inside of the house, a broken window, dog poop in the basement, a mold problem in the bathroom, leaks in our plumbing, leaks in our roof, and this was after accepting help from friends to fix other issues he had no intention of handling either. I had spent my time trying to handle everything myself, but we needed money for the repairs and none was being saved. I discussed this issue with him, and he told me I just needed to look on the bright side, that he had no intention of putting away to savings, but instead would have me wait till his debt,(credit card, student loans, mortgage, hospital) disappeared naturally on their own freeing monthly funds to be used on repairs. This was unacceptable to me as it was currently not a safe or healthy environment for the kids and I to dwell in the meantime. He refused to ask his friends or family for a temporary place to stay for the children and I, believing that we just needed to give him time, and not cooperating with his plan was unfair to him, but I would not have his plan jeopardize the children, so I mashed down my pride and went to stay with my parents( status: my father disowned me, my mother abused me physically and mentally) having no other options. By that time things had progressed with his friend and I ended the sexual encounters I was having with him explaining to him my feeling for his friend. I'll call his friend D. I let D know about those sexual encounters and we agreed on proceeding exclusively henceforth. While living at my mother's, I would regularly take the kids to go see there father. I told him one week that I was going to spend the next Saturday at the mall with my sister, but that we could meet up later. Remembering our previous conversation about not rubbing his face in any of my new relationships, I neglected to tell him that D was also joining my sister kids and I. When Friday came, he ignored our previous conversation and "came up with the bright idea" to meet up at the mall. I told him we could meet up later but actually showed up earlier so that I could still enjoy my time with my sister and D. He began texting me and D about convening at the mall earlier than we had agreed upon, so we collaborated and lied to convince him that D wasn't already there, and that he was on his way instead. D said he didn't want to make trouble for me with him. Well shortly after, he sent D time stamped photos of our cars parked next to each other, and then time stamped photos of us together with my sister and children from afar. He had apparently been watching us and taking pictures for some time. He sent his regrets for not getting to hug his son even though we told him he could come over, then went phone silent for the rest of the day. He later informed me that he contemplated suicide, got himself arrested for acting erratically, and cried so hard they thought he was on substances, landing himself in the drunk tank. He was broken hearted my my betrayal. He then went to his dad's side of the family, mother, and his dad friend family for solace. I then began to hear rumors that I had cheated on him(he apparently never told anyone that we had broken up) rumors about the sex we had post-break up, rumors that he had been planning on proposing to me, and when I asked him to set the record straight he himself claimed to my face that we had never broken up. He tried to say that it wasn't him spreading the rumors, but due to the details, he was the only one who could have started them. It grew to be too much for me trying to cope with this smear campaign. I had apologized for the lie. I know I should have spoken the truth, but I asked him directly for the future, if he would prefer that I tell him the truth when I'm spending time with someone in that way, or if he would rather me keep it from him and make up an excuse when collaborating to make plans to see the kids. I never received an answer to that question. The stress was so much that one day after speaking to him about these matters and him making it clear that nothing would be changing, I cut off contact. I visited his home to pack the remainder of my belongings, and left for good. I struggle as a single mom, accepting no child support as he would continue to make contact until I freed him of out agreement, and made it clear that if I went after it through official channels, that he would go after the kids to counter. I have not been allowed to work or had any opportunity to recieve further schooling, so my only option currently is working a fast food job for very low pay, and splitting my check with the babysitter, and pinching my pennies into buying us our own home. I am seriously considering surrogacy as no other financial options have been viable, and support has been cut off from most other people I knew through this my existing smear campaign of me, but we're getting by, and although we are no longer dating, my friendship with D Is still stronger than ever, but I still occasionally hear new rumors about me, this post is actually me trying to cope with the latest shitty thing I heard, which is that someone I previously knew to be a friend, passive-aggressively referred to my children as my ex's alone when asking D as to their wellbeing. Although married, she flirted with D anyways, and took offense to our relationship allowing my ex's stories of me to fuel her indignation. It comforts me that someone out there may read this and know the truth, even if they do believe me to be the villain of this story, at least they know the truth. I apologize for the typos, but I will not be fixing them.