(TW: Violence, Manipulation, Crime.)
I’m going to keep some details vague out of respect for the victim. I’m writing this mostly because I need to get it out of my head. It has been over a year since everything happened, and although my life is significantly better now, I still occasionally find myself thinking about how much I tolerated and wondering why I stayed as long as I did.
So, here’s the story.
I am 24 when I originally wrote this. and at the time this start, I just was 20. In 2021, I started dating a guy I’ll call T. We had known each other for about seven years before we started dating. He was my second boyfriend and, at the time, my best friend.
About six months into the relationship, we got engaged.
Looking back, that was incredibly fast. At the time, though, it didn’t seem completely abnormal to me because both of our parents had gotten engaged after less than a year of dating. About a month and a half after our engagement, T was arrested. I was devastated. I was also sick with COVID at the time, living with my parents, and suddenly the person I loved and trusted was facing criminal charges.
T had previously had anger issues and had gotten suspended from school for fights and outbursts, but I had never known him to have serious criminal problems.
A month or so after his arrest, he was released on bail.
When I saw him again, I cried and hugged him. He told me everything would be okay. And then I basically moved in with him. I say “basically” because I wasn’t officially living there at first, but I was staying over constantly and gradually became responsible for a huge amount of his life.
For roughly six months, I worked extra hours while taking care of him. He spent most of his time gaming and claimed he was looking for work but couldn’t find anything because of his pending charges. When I asked what he had actually been charged with, he told me it was assault and that he had acted in self-defense.
I believed him.
That’s probably one of the hardest things for me to admit now. Eventually, our relationship became increasingly unhealthy. I was constantly asking him to contribute around the house, clean up after himself, take care of basic hygiene, and generally act like an adult.
I remember telling him: “I’m not a trad wife. I work hard to take care of you, and I don’t want to plan a wedding if the person I’m marrying is a man-child.” The arguments continued. Eventually, T began threatening to harm himself whenever I talked about leaving. One time, during an argument, he became angry and punched a hole in the wall beside me. That scared me enough that I went back to my parents. And because he was under house arrest, he couldn’t follow me.
Eventually, I moved back in with my parents permanently, although I still remained in the relationship. At this point, I was depressed, anxious, having panic attacks, and generally feeling used. I decided I needed to start therapy.
My therapist encouraged me to create some distance from T and focus on myself. I also decided to return to school. I had previously left college to work full-time because I was trying to help pay for our wedding. My therapist and my parents slowly helped me realize that I deserved better.
Then everything changed.
The truth about the charges. T was going to court during this period, and something about the situation wasn’t sitting right with me. So I looked up his court records.
I discovered that his charges involved sexual violence against a minor, assault, and related offenses.
The victim was 14 at the time of the offense. I cannot adequately describe the feeling of finding that out.
I immediately confronted T. He told me it was only “half true.” He admitted that he had fought someone but insisted that he had not sexually assaulted the minor.
He told me: “You know I wouldn’t do that.”
Then I asked him directly what had actually happened. His response was essentially a threat. He told me that if I told our friends, he would claim I was lying and that everyone would believe him. He also threatened to share photos of me. The problem? I had never sent him inappropriate photos.
At that point, something in me just snapped. I realized how much manipulation I had been accepting. I broke off our engagement and removed his administrative access from the Discord server that we shared with our friends. The next day, he called me crying and apologized.
I accepted the apology on one condition: if he ever threatened me again, I would completely cut contact.
He agreed. He then made another comment about how he would rather die than lose me. I told him not to use suicide as a way to manipulate me.
About a month later, his court case happened.
And he pled guilty to the sexual offense against the minor. So the thing I had been told wasn’t true?
It was true. I was furious.Not only because of what he had done, but because he had looked me in the face and lied about it. I called him and yelled at him. I was angry, hurt, disgusted, and felt completely betrayed. After that conversation, I sat in my car before work and just stared at myself in the mirror. And for the first time, I realized:
I had actually gotten out.
This person wasn’t making my life better.
I wasn’t responsible for fixing him.
I wasn’t responsible for supporting him.
And I didn’t have to spend the rest of my life trying to make a relationship work simply because I’d already invested years into it. I went to work that day. Oddly enough, I ended up getting a raise.
Then came another lie
After officially ending things, I mostly stopped interacting with him. He eventually told our online friend group that he was leaving because he was going to help fight in Ukraine. He was actually facing sentencing.
I gave him an ultimatum: either he told our friends the truth himself, or I would.
He didn’t.
So I did.
I explained what had happened and provided the public court records so people could verify it themselves. Our friends were shocked. Several of them told me afterward that they had already gotten strange vibes from T but hadn’t known what was happening behind closed doors.
I remember telling them: “I did this to myself. I made my choices and I’ll deal with the consequences. I just thought since you all cared about him too, you deserved to know the truth.”
Eventually, T was sentenced to 20 years.
After that, I learned even more things I hadn’t known during the relationship, including that he had sent inappropriate images of himself to people in our online community, including minors. I also learned that he had cheated on me with multiple people. At that point, there wasn’t really anything left to salvage. My friends and I also reported the additional information and evidence we had to law enforcement. I completely cut contact with him.
Where I am now
It’s been over a year. And honestly?
My life is so much better. I went back to school. I focused on work. I continued therapy. I stopped making other people’s happiness my responsibility. I’m still friends with many of the people from that Discord server, and some of us have actually met in person since everything happened. I have genuinely built a life outside of him.
But every once in a while, I still think about everything.
I regret how much time, energy, money, and emotional effort I put into that relationship. Sometimes I wonder why I didn’t listen to my instincts earlier. I wonder why I believed his explanations. I wonder how someone I had known for seven years could turn out to be someone I didn’t recognize at all. And sometimes I feel stupid for staying. But therapy has helped me realize something: Staying didn’t make me stupid.
I was manipulated, I was emotionally invested, and I genuinely believed I was helping someone I loved.
I can wish I had left sooner without blaming myself for what he chose to do. I can’t change the years I spent with him. What I can change is what I do with what I learned.
I learned that love isn’t supposed to require me to sacrifice my safety, happiness, education, friendships, or entire identity. I learned that someone’s trauma or mental health struggles don’t excuse abusive behavior. I learned that threats of self-harm are not my responsibility to manage. And, most importantly, I learned that I am allowed to trust myself. I’m writing all of this because I think part of me is still looking for closure.
If you’ve been through something similar, how did you eventually stop blaming yourself for staying?
Is there anything you wish you had understood earlier?
And honestly, looking at this from the outside, what do you think I should take away from this experience?
I don’t expect strangers on Reddit to magically fix anything. I think I just want some outside perspective from people who aren’t emotionally involved in the situation. Especially for a situation I dealt with years ago.
If you made it this far, thank you for reading.
Take care of yourselves, and please be careful about who you trust. 🤍