And the cycle of harm continues...

Running from the massage parlour to the gym to escape accountability, and revealing my craziest prediction yet about the future

There’s a classic comparison between how men are always excited for change after a break up while women process the grief much earlier. Immediately after the break up, my ex had a wake up call. He suddenly did everything I had been asking for - get back to basketball, get an addiction specialist, slow down on music-making, agree to couple’s mediation, focus on recovery. Publicly, he transformed into a gymbro. (Can I just say how embarrassing that was for me? I had friends who correctly guessed that we had broken up just purely based on his Instagram. That’s how predictable this break up has been.)

I dig deep into the nuances of my ex’s gym bro transformation in the 9 chapters below.

1. The Cycle: becoming a whole new person

His public and private excitement for change, physically via gymming and mentally improving his relationship with porn via therapy, is understandable but confusing. His rejuvenated attitude towards life is disconnected from the anguish and loss long term serious couples go through after calling it quits. I find this a pattern in his behaviour throughout his life, an inability to sit with the harm and hurt caused. To instead dive into a new identity, which is a much easier process.

I too was part of his new identity creation the last time he had a community call-in that was this serious. He met me shortly after a major fallout with his last team (an all-woman team except him). Lots of major changes in him followed after meeting me, which must’ve been unsettling for people who have known him longer. In my piece about sexual racism, I mention how he heavily leaned into the culture because I am more traditional. Although it is natural for partners to healthily influence each other, the ease with which he has ditched that aesthetic and identity for a new one after the break up makes me suspect that a lot of it was a facade. He is just absorbing the vibe of whoever is around him. I also feel that he has relegated back to his old Yale-NUS self with this hyperfocus on his physical image that I never saw when he was with me. A mutual friend said that perhaps that is his most comfortable version of himself, who he is most familiar with. So who are you, really?

With me, other than the entire wardrobe revamp to only wear traditional Indian tops, he joined dance classes, uncharacteristically insisted on a Ganesha statue in his home despite being an atheist, and had a sudden interest in Grey’s Anatomy despite his sister being a fan for decade prior (I’m in healthcare). I can’t help but wonder if the mirroring was intentional to manipulate me. I do not know. By and large, I felt that the initial connection was genuine. As a result of the psychological damage and how he has made me not trust my gut anymore, I will never truly know.

So it looks like a cycle, all too familiar because I was part of the last one. Cause harm —> can’t sit with discomfort —> dramatically reconstruct life —> drift apart from friends and people from the community in which harm was caused —> find solace in new friends who will not have to grapple with the hurt party’s feelings —> get very close to them and do new cool things, build a new life —> this continues until harm strikes again. Repeat cycle.

2. He changed - that’s what you wanted right?

When someone acts on something you have been asking for only after grave consequences, they are not authentically invested in a growth process. They do it to desperately keep something for themselves. My ex effected these change immediately after our break up, then tried to convince me that he could fix the relationship since he had “changed” - all of this happened as little as 1 week post break up. I don’t see you differently because you journalled for 5 days. What had stopped him from listening to me the first 10 times I stated my needs? In the 6 months of me actively supporting him in his addiction recovery, every need I stated sounded like a chore to him, yet another to-do item on the list of demands I’ve been asking for to mend a relationship. I was trying despite being in a relationship that had stopped serving me months ago. Even the labour of thinking what concrete steps will help him & us was taken upon me. Am I happy he is finally addressing a 18 year long porn and sex addiction? Yes. Am I delighted it happened at the direct expense of my time, psychological health, and energy? No. So, let me be angry.

On a more compassionate note, in the first month of his sudden gym evolution, I was concerned for him. I felt that he was going from a zero to a hundred with no modulation, and it’s a full speed train waiting to crash. Am I surprised he is now injured? No. This is not a “I told you so” moment, but again demonstrating how predictable things have been and I’ve been seeing this from a mile away.

3. Why do you need all this credit?

Soon after the split, I saw a video where my ex publicly proclaimed how things have changed for him because he saw that he was following his dad’s footsteps. You know that moment when someone tells you something you’ve known all along? It was that. Not only was I like, wait, you only just realised? But also, he did not realise this himself. I had told him this right after our split, that he’s on his dad’s path; both of addiction, and of that lifetime of running away from his consequences until they will eventually catch up to you one day. To watch him claim to be on this transformative journey with no tip of the hat to what or whom put him on this journey is insulting. We have blindspots, I pointed them out, you get to do self-discovery, and I get to fear for the rest of my life if my partner is cheating on me or has a secret addiction or is doing narcissistic mirroring even when things are going good. It’s not fair. So yes, I will reclaim my credit.

4. Social media and validation

I am tired of hearing him drone on publicly that we need to be kind to ourselves, have self love, and do more things for ourselves. Bitch, our whole relationship was selfish. You consciously chose to lie to continue benefiting from me, whether it’s my direct investment or how I softened your image. Don’t pretend you were previously not looking out for yourself, and suddenly now you are - you entitled prick. (I’m in full call out mode.)

Did Mr Gym Bro once think of how I would feel about him posting all of this pseudo inspirational stuff? Where I have to see him be flashy online about doing something I was privately requesting for previously, plus his sharing about how he is so surprised to be a motivation for others? Why is there such a childish need for external validation via social media? Man literally has a weight graph on his stories everyday. Does he think about the fact that maybe nobody really wants to see him half naked all the time? Or how his weight is actually the least of his problems, ever? In the relationship, I know it was a source of insecurity; we’ve never gone for a beach day in Singapore even once in 3.5 years because of this. Now you’re the only guy in the series who takes off his shirt in an ad for clothes (for medium to darker skin tones, no less, be fucking for real). Unnecessary, internalised fatphobia, distracting.

If you’re going to share your dumbass journey, please also share how you reached this point and why life took such a 180 degree turn for you. Don’t half ass your story. Look, I’ve made mistakes too and I’m not better than him. We are human, not infallible. But when you’ve fucked up as majorly and as recently as he has, take a fucking backseat for 2 seconds, shut up and listen, and stop making yourself the main character.

5. Boy, retire the word “trauma”

Reading addiction books and chalking up all your actions and harm caused up to the addiction and trauma, with no responsibility for your own actions, is not growth. Make more music about your trauma, but I’ll listen to it again when you can rap about all the women in your life you’ve hurt. Me, my friend who you slutshamed, the anonymous girl most people know about, the girl who took her life that I only just found out, any previous exes/teammates. We can make a Whatsapp group. I beat myself up a lot for dating you despite this undeniable history of harm, but I remind myself that I was only aware of 2 of the women harmed and it was a long enough time ago that I was convinced you had changed. So I give myself some grace.

I still remember the last time I met him was during our 1 month post break up mediation session (there was nothing to mediate since we did not agree on fundamentals but I was seeking some closure). I directly asked him why he does not have close friends in Singapore outside of our mutuals. He tried to say something “My father used to…” and I cut him off so quickly. Namaste bhai, I do not want to hear about your father anymore. You are 32 years old, he died 4 years ago, and I am clearly not asking about random lost childhood friends. Give me some real answers here. You can only blame your parents up to a certain point, and let’s not forget that your sister has the same set of parents and she is not actively harming.

Talk not only about the trauma you’ve experienced, but also the trauma you’ve inflicted and perpetuated. This goes out not only to my ex, but to all leftist men who love to psychoanalyse themselves. Who take up space in predominantly female spaces and have lots of female friends who give you free therapy, life advice, holds space for you. Ask yourselves honestly - what is the narrative you hold about your own life? Do the people around you agree with this narrative?

Because my ex holds onto a strong false narrative about not having second chances in life, which could not be more untrue in our relationship. It’s not even true within the community. How many women have as many allegations against them as he does and still gets platformed? When I was his partner, of course every time he was denied an opportunity, it pained me, but as a woman, I knew it made sense. And I knew that with time and him slowly gaining trust and proving he is a safe person, these opportunities will be come again. I spent the relationship focusing on my class privilege that I totally glossed over your male privilege. Ultimately, in a cishet relationship like ours, it was avoiding the latter privilege that was more harmful. Stop weaponising your trauma to position yourself and your music in certain spaces, talk about your damn male privilege instead.

6. Accountability - the new buzzword

I knew something was wrong when you watched me cry inconsolably on the night we broke up and you didn’t even flinch. You never tried to apologise that night, showed no remorse, and was still defensive. You tried to offer some pity hug which I blatantly refused. A lot of people have been asking me to consider if you are a narcissist (lack of empathy, entitlement, mirroring, and arrogance). Personally, self-diagnosing is not helpful for me, because it makes me feel worse that a healthcare professional like myself would see past these signs.

With everything said and done, I’ve been asking myself what accountability looks like. I don’t know the answer, and I think it’s on him to figure out. I’m trying to find ways to move on without being reliant on what his process is. This means being satisfied without any reconciliation or direct acknowledgement of what I’ve been through. I am grateful to my friends who sat me down in the first month of my healing to tell me that I am hoping and waiting for realisations and admissions from him that is not going to come because he is too neck deep on focusing on himself. So, we live, we learn, we move on.

7. Addressing harm as a community

I will keep this short. I can’t speak on behalf of my team, and I don’t want what I say to negatively affect our work. Man and I co-founded a mutual aid collective with 2 other friends during COVID, and the work still continues today. I took an indefinite break from the work earlier this year to recover from whatever I am going through. Meetings continued without me. All of us were still learning how to navigate the situation, and what seemed like a personal conflict that no one knew how much to get involved in. It helped to frame the situation as, hey, someone has caused harm to someone else within our same community - what are we going to do about it? I removed myself from that process and after some time to figure out what to do, the team did take action. Speaking from my point of view, I am grateful for a team that managed to create a S.O.P. on the go to deal with this. It sufficiently addressed the boundaries I needed from him and centred me in the process, while also not abandoning him. It is easier to leave someone like him in the lurch when they fuck up but harder to have a conversation with them to address the harm caused, which is far more valuable. I wasn’t a part of that so I can’t speak for how effective the latter was, but I’m so glad they tried. Moving forward, I know this space will continue to remain safe for me.

If I’m honest, I am surprised that he seems to have drifted away from many of our mutual friends, or perhaps I’m in the dark. I imagine doing so requires some level of confronting on what he’s done to me before meeting them, which is difficult. So I wonder, who is his community now? Is it just rappers, and gymbros, and a lot of artists that appear to be much younger than him? Sometimes I feel that cishet males with big egos have difficulty hanging around people of similar work/backgrounds/egos/ages because they need constant affirmation that they would not receive from a contemporary. I honestly also feel surprised to see him take up public space and that too with folks that he probably hated on in the beginning of his rap career. Um, growth I guess? But I say this to link us back to the first thing I mentioned - it’s a cycle. I wonder if this is the new community.

8. What do you feel when you see him now?

No, he died that day. The person I loved died the day he confessed last June. After 3 years, his facade finally came down, and it was time for curtain call. For the past year, I’ve been grieving and attending the funeral of someone who does not exist anymore. When I see pictures of him (since he unblocked me on social media despite my request to keep me blocked so that I don’t find myself on his page, but whatever), I just don’t recognise the man. This person is technically alive, but he’s not who I used to fight for. I fought my parents to take our relationship seriously, despite all the instability attached to him that any traditional dad would be worried about. I was also fighting the community to prove he had indeed changed from his past allegations by building a relationship that I thought was robust and harm-free. I was also fighting my own heteronormative expectations of what I thought my happily-ever-after was going to be. I still remember my mother sharing her concerns about his family background, and I, being Ms Little Woke-sy, reassured her that we shouldn’t judge people based on their history and background. Imagine how I feel when man let me down and proved her right. Maa never brought it up and she would never rub salt on my wounds like that, but I think about that moment. Oh, what a fool I was.

9. Closing thoughts

Some days I’m so bitter that I say things like, “Yeah now, he can go for as many dirty massages in a day as he wants, no more restriction or girlfriend trying to make him a better person.” Other days, I try my best to hold onto the good. I frame my experience as not inauthenticity, but just an example of people trying to be their best selves with me. That’s what he was doing, despite lying to himself. Some days I really wonder if I was a victim of narcissistic traits. Other days, I try to remember the nights I had a blanket over me with a hot chocolate in my hand, feeling solace and comfort in a person, even if it’s a version that did not exist in reality. Some days, I get so upset thinking that there is a therapist out there telling this man with the biggest ego to “be kind to yourself”. Other days, my head just goes numb and I can’t process any thoughts, so I focus on making sure I wake up on time for work.

From now on, I’m only going to date conservatives ok. At least I’ll know what I’m getting into. No more leftist softboi bullshit, navigating through the feminist jargon and painted nails. Give me a damn pro-lifer, at least he should oppose the death penalty on those grounds so we’ll work with that, fuck!

Now for my craziest prediction. So many things that I predicted of him came true, so I’m just going to accept that I’m a psychic badass. What one final move do you think will complete his faux transformative journey? Call me crazy. Within the next few years, my ex will eventually… convert to Islam. I said what I said. His last trump card. What have other men done to prove redemption and that they’ve turned over a new leaf? Why does @msofian post a picture of his wife and kids at the Mecca on Instagram after he’s caught cheating? This has nothing to do with the religion and everything to do with how men abuse it to either justify their behaviours, or distance themselves from it. One too many Muslim sisters have complained about this sect of men to me. It makes total sense - there’s community in it whom don’t know him well so he can start afresh, he is learning Arabic when he can’t even read his own mother tongue, he centres his trauma so what better way to be a double-triple minority? Subh** to SubhanAllah. I’m announcing it here so that one of you can message me in 5 years that I was right.

This read is dedicated to anyone who pats him on the back for the bare minimum or looks to him for inspiration. All of my writing also applies to people who’ve been in similar situations - take away what serves you.

This piece is such a messy jumble of thoughts, I’m sorry. I am writing for myself and for my friends. If it doesn’t make sense to you, it’s alright. I am tired of these thoughts constantly circling in my head; writing the thoughts down has helped. But I can feel that this writing era of my life is ending soon. I have about 1 more article left in me. I am tickled to see how my writing has evolved over time. You can witness in real time how my sadness turns into rage. Feel free to let me know what you think, even if you think my critique is unfair.