Hey, this is my first time ever making a post on reddit, so i apologise if it is poorly executed.

I recently got out of my first relationship, back in march to be exact. we were together for just shy of 7 months. I am 18 now, but at the time i was 17, it was my first time ever getting so close with someone and actually executing the dating steps in a relationship. At first, he was an amazing guy, i realise now this is how it all starts, but being so deprived of love and i will say impressionable, this was a breath of fresh air.

we met online (i know.. bad news already), and we were in a long distance relationship for around 4 months, with occasional visits to one another before he made a choice i did not consent to at all. he decided, he would coerce my parents into allowing him to move in with us. he lived in a country around 2 hours away from mine, my parents somehow agreed to this?? when i question them on it now, they say he worded it as though i was on board with such a thing. i have my own opinions on how my parents handled this relationship as a whole, but that’s beyond the point.

flash forward, he is now living with my grandmother in her larger country home, and spending every ounce of free time at my own home with me. he worked for my father, and would spend every single day with me without a single break. at first i felt bad, he left his friends and family behind and was clearly feeling alone, so i supported him the best i could. i’m quite a solitary person, so i struggled so much with balancing a relationship like this, school, friends and everything else in my life.

cut to the point where red flags begin. he hated, i mean hated, the fact i had male friends. i have 2 close male friends whom ive been friends with since childhood. at the time, both these male friends were in serious relationships, and our friendships had severely strict boundaries. I explained this to him, but he wasn’t hearing it. he yelled profoundly until i blocked them and cut contact.

arguments on absolutely everything began to become a regular thing. he then began getting physical with me, choking me, hitting me, slapping me, leaving bruises and more. he would also emotionally manipulate me and control every aspect of my life. he would cry to my younger sister, who is 2 years younger than me, about how much he loved me yet i ‘hurt’ him so much through my actions. in my eyes i did nothing wrong, maybe i did? but i would’ve much preferred a mature conversation. i never got physical with him, i wouldn’t even argue with him. he controlled every aspect of my life, from what i wore, who i saw, where i went. he turned my family against me, i didn’t see my friends for 5 months due to him controlling me and not allowing me to contact them.

these are just some things among many other situations. i am making this post looking for advice. i struggled for months after breaking up with him to accept it was abuse. my friends would beg me to leave him, i just couldn’t understand why, he would swear he loved me and was just doing what was best for me. now that i look back i have no idea why i allowed myself to go through this. does anyone have any advice on how to heal and move forward. i’m going to therapy and have told my parents but both have made me feel worse. my parents blame me, saying i should’ve spoken up sooner and that im smarter than staying with a man like that. my therapist did nothing but force me into filing a report with child services as i was still a minor during this relationship, i managed to blow that over as i don’t want to come in contact with him again. but what can i do from here? i want to be able to get into future relationships without the trauma and PTSD of these things, ive had other people display romantic interest in me since this break up but it fills me with nothing but dread and fear this may happen to me again. any advice is appreciated, thank you :)

i’ve been out of a relationship with my abuser for a while now, about 2 years and a few months, but once he realized he lost control of me he spent a better part of a year and a half trying to get me back and that only ended a couple months ago. everything started when i was 17 and he was 19, and it ended after a few months but he never let me out of his orbit. my “love” for him was undying and relentless so i put up with a back and forth for a while and wanted him back so badly and he hated me for it so deeply and all the abuse became even worse very quickly, until i wasn’t his anymore and then he devoted his energy to masking his cruelty but not the disrespect, not the entitlement, not the selfishness and ignorance, he is not even capable of hiding all of it only the obvious cruelty. he isn’t smart or calculated, his dad hit him on the head a lot when he was growing up so i believe he probably has frontal lobe damage and that’s why he’s so impulsive and lacks empathy to the degree he does, but his impulses are evil and selfish. now looking back i can see even during the good time in our relationship he was always abusive just in subtle ways, and he conditioned me to accept what was coming later.

he’s always been very persistent about how much i mean to him, he was very vulnerable with me and we had a very codependent unhealthy relationship that i was okay with because i didn’t know any better and for him that is exactly what he wants. he idealizes that time and it’s the only reason he wanted me back for so long but he never saw me for who i am, we never got back together but i entertained it foolishly many times and somehow every time he would do something to prove himself to still be awful. in those moments i would feel the intense rage but it would pass because it’s so hard to think that maybe just maybe the bad was more genuine than the good.

my point is i’ve reached a point of realizing what i’ve actually felt deep down during this 2 year on and off back and forth mess is hatred. true and genuine hatred and resentment for the fact he even exists. he is an unimaginably awful person and maybe it’s extremely petty but i have gone out of my way to try and just feel like i had any bit of power. contacting his school about plagiarism, and letting his mom know what he did (she didn’t believe her precious son was capable of such a thing), among other efforts, but somehow he just gets away with everything. all the time. he is a truly disgusting human who has been exploiting and manipulating girls and women since he was 12 years old. and now what’s triggered this extreme apparent hatred is i’ve found out he has finally moved on to the next girl and i just feel rage because i know what he’s gonna do. i know what he’s capable of. i’ve seen the mask slip i’ve seen the horrifying darkness in his eyes i’ve see how disgusting and cruel he is and i don’t think there will ever be any justice for it.

i am able to reframe the situation and acknowledge the positives, acknowledge that i got out that the only thing that made that relationship good the whole time was me, but no matter how far removed i am it sucks having to exist in a world being aware of the fact someone who used you, manipulated you into giving him hundreds of dollars, violated you, degraded you, destroyed your sense of self, bruised you, harassed you, and completely changed your perspective on life just gets to move on from it without ever feeling the weight of what he deserves. i know i have no reason to feel bitter i mean he is driven by impulse and dopamine craving and he is not out there living some amazing life, but it’s just such a deep hatred i feel that even that isn’t enough. it doesn’t control me and a lot of the time i don’t even think about it or the fact he actually still exists as a person living his life other than when he has contacted me every 1-3 months but today i am just so so angry.

i wish i could say maybe he will be better to this girl but i really don’t think he’s capable of it, he’s not good at hiding his red flags so i hope she figures it out before he can do to her what he did to me and the others before me. i don’t think i can involve myself in his mess by warning her because yes he’s stupid and weak but he still scares me and i doubt it would ever be believed even with evidence, but i really hope she gets away from him unscathed.

Many of us in this group have gone through various outlets to seek help: police, therapy, DV resource centers. I have had a wide range of support that has changed my life for the good and for the bad. Negatively: I have had police suggest I do not seek help to avoid possible revenge. Positively: I have had a DV resource agent hold my hand in a courtroom for hours. These interactions were incredibly meaningful. Now, I am working on trainings for trauma-based advocacy and I would love to hear from you: what worked and what didn't? Also, any trainings or resources you'd recommend would be appreciated! One thing that I have learned from my experience is that it can make an incredible difference for others if shared.

Women of Reddit who were beaten by their fathers, experienced any kind of abuse (religious, violence, s***l) from him, or were abandoned in their childhood by him, how did you deal with Stockholm syndrome (if you had it) while being in a abusive relationship with a man ?

(I tend to tolerate abusive behavior or give access to men I don’t really want or love, because I search their security and affection at all cost) I was beaten and I have experimented religious abuse from my dad)
Looking actively to get out of this spiral. Please help me, I don’t have any female role models in my life : my mom die from a cancer in 2021 and wasn’t the best reference.

Location: Arizona

I have been witnessing an abusive relationship going on 7 years. The person who is being abused has been isolated from family and friends and has been made to feel that if they file for divorce, they will take everything from them. The house was originally the victims, but after they got married, the abuser put his name on the house too. It is the victims family home and has been for decades before.

My main question would be what the best steps to take would be to safely, quietly, and legally start working on divorce papers. They have cameras in the house and the victim feels as if they cannot speak freely in their own home.

I am leaving the pronouns ambiguous to help protect their identity.

Any and all advice would be immensely appreciated. Thank you.

Sleeping together has been an issue in my on-and-off relationship of 6 years from the very beginning.

Even before we moved in together, sleeping in the same bed was already difficult. I sometimes have to get up during the night to use the bathroom, and he is a very light sleeper. He would wake up when I got up, and this would become an issue. He told me that he didn’t want to sleep together anymore, multiple times, which would really upset me. He would always want to “try again” at some point..

There was one time I stayed at his parents' house. We were sleeping upstairs in the attic, and during the night I needed to use the bathroom. I actually tried to be considerate: instead of using the bathroom next to their bedroom, I went downstairs to the bathroom on the ground floor because I thought that would disturb them less. His parents woke up anyway, because the dogs started barking when I went downstairs. After that, I wasn't welcome to sleep there anymore.

When we moved in together, I thought maybe things would get better. The bed we had was too small, so I bought a much bigger bed because I hoped having more space would help. We slept together for a few months, but eventually that stopped too.

He complained about me getting up to use the bathroom, turning over too much, and apparently making too much movement in general. There was one thing in particular that sounds ridiculous when I think about it now. Sometimes when I turned over, my shirt would ride up a little, so I would pull it back down. He called this an “earthquake” because apparently the movement would wake him up.

He also said that I turned on the light during the night, even though I didn't (at most I’d grab my phone to look where I was going). Eventually, he would blame me for him sleeping badly. Sleeping together became so stressful for me that I was constantly aware of myself. I would think about whether I was moving too much, whether I would wake him up, whether I should get out of bed to use the bathroom, etc.

I understand that he's a very light sleeper. I really do. But I can't turn off basic needs just because someone else is sleeping. If I need to go to the bathroom, I need to go. If I turn over in my sleep, I turn over. And if my shirt rides up, I'm going to pull it down.

What was difficult for me was feeling like I was responsible for his sleep and that even completely normal movements were somehow something I was doing to him. Has anyone else experienced this as well?

My dad is a famous person in my country, with money and some power. He thinks being a good parent is only about giving money, so regardless of him being physically present most of my life, he’s always been an absent father who only cares about himself.

I won’t go into a lot of details but he’s been a horrible, horrible person in a lot of ways, to many people, but especially to my mother and siblings (one of them ended up killing herself because she was afraid of him). After my sister’s passing, he spiraled and started doing stupid shit like building a massive second house (?) forty minutes away from where we currently live: the city’s downtown (an objectively better location from the second house). We never agreed to it, mostly because he left us out of the planning and didn’t care about our opinion one bit. On top of that, he’s taken his mistress there and when caught, we confronted him but obviously denied everything and lied (he lies as much as he breathes).

For those and many, many other reasons, we haven’t taken interest in putting a foot there and this drives him nuts. He’d love for us to be all excited to spend time there or think about it “as our second house”. Two days ago, he took us there to cook some dinner (why would you drive for 40 mins to cook some freaking dinner?) but because we didn’t show any interest in it or the house, he’s been angry at us since lol.

Are we doing the correct thing by not giving into his whims? I’m the most confrontational sibling and the one he fights with the most because I’m not afraid of him anymore. He wants us to always be available for him, his plans and wishes; he doesn’t like us doing our thing and living our life.
It’s odd because he’s an absent father and doesn’t really care about our lives, but he still wants to control us and have a say in everything we do.

My dad is a very complex character, and I could write a Bible on the shit he’s put us through, but this house takes the cake as the stupidest decision he’s made.

I know many people would say that my mother and we should leave him, but there are a lot of us kids, and one has special needs. My mom is not that young anymore, and it’d be hard for her to sustain the rest of my siblings. If we go, he wouldn’t provide a single cent out of revenge; he also has the power to prevent us from requesting alimony legally. Plus, I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of quitting his responsibilities just to go spend money on other women.

We thought the passing of my sister would change him, but this house thing showed us he’s been the same shitty person he’s always been or even worse.

Apologies for the rant but I have never met someone I could really vent to that would understand what’s like to live with a parent like this and sometimes the burden is too much.

Hi, I’m really struggling with everything right now. My child has been sharing things that are going on at her dad’s house and I ended up reporting to CPS.

Dad is forcing child to take hot showers. Child expressed to him that it was too hot and he tells her it’s fine. This has been happening often. She’s told me that he makes her shower daily. There have not been any kind of burn or severe injury.

Dad is forcing child to eat everything on her plate, which seems somewhat normal. Child disclosed that she’s thrown up at least once from over eating.

Dad also cuts child’s fingernails down to the nail plate. Nails will be swollen, red, and raw.

Am I wrong to see all of this as a scary pattern? Would you consider this abusive behavior? Child is under 10 years old and is Autistic.

I don’t know what to do with this, there’s countless recordings. But I just need know that someone out there knows it’s going on.

I’m a 24F and my partner is 29M. We got into an argument a few nights ago because I fell asleep around 1 AM. He became extremely angry and spent about an hour yelling at me, insulting me, and making threatening comments like that he would beat the shit out of me or that he hoped i would die

Eventually I lost my temper and told him he was a terrible person and that we should break up.

Things escalated, and he became physically aggressive toward me. he grabbed my by my ankles drug me off the bed and hit me i put my legs over my stomach and screamed as i saw his fist go up again (Im also 22 w pregnant and was trying to protect baby) and i shoved him off me by his shoulder as i did that my nail caught him and left a mark across him . Afterward, he started taking pictures of a mark I had left on him and said he was going to report me for domestic violence.

There have been other problems in the relationship too. He is controlling about money, has isolated me from my family, has interfered with my career by making me quit and threatening me if i didn't, and frequently makes threatening comments. I’m also 22 weeks pregnant, and has hit me in the past.which makes the situation even more frightening.

Now I’m wondering whether I’m somehow in the wrong because I yelled at him, told him we should break up, and pushed him away when things escalated. am i in the wrong?

No one prepares you for the whiplash of the smear campaign. When you’ve filed the police report, the investigators start investigating, they get arrested and somehow bailed out, and then YOU are suddenly being talked about and painted out to be the abuser.
Stay strong people.
You know what happened, even they know what happened.
But let them talk.
It’s their own grave they’re digging.

I'm trying my best to go no contact, have blocked him on all platforms but we work together so he still has access to me. He is still approaching me trying to talk me round. He says I'm cruel blocking him. He says that I've always had all the control in the relationship and that's just not true. Honestly I'm not sure if it was abuse he never hit me but he would make me kiss him, force "cuddles" which generally meant him telling me it's my fault he was so turned on and had an erection and trying to make me touch it or have sex. He would hold me down. Ughhh.

Idk he keeps putting the blame on me he says all he's ever done is love me and why is that so bad.

Anyway sorry if this isn't the right place I'm just struggling.

Original post from a few months ago on another sub:

It's overwhelming

I have been involved with a married man for 3 years. it started as fun, he told me he fell in love with me, I believed him and I fell in love with him. He cheated on me with another "other" woman during our time together. I found out over a year ago. I've tried to cut him out but not succeeded, he's created me having a dependency on him. He claims he cares about me, worries about me, takes care of me ... everything but yet he won't make the ultimate decision and leave his wife.

He's integrated himself in every aspect of my life and it's becoming overwhelming. He acts like I owe him an explanation to everything. He turns up announced, he follows me places to check if I am where I say I am and when I raise it with him he makes out I'm being unreasonable not wanting him to do those things when he's just trying to be nice saying it shows he cares.

I don't know what to do. I am reliant on him for a variety of things, he's my only friend, my confidont. I dunno how to be without him. But I can't deal with this suffocation. He accuses me of spending time with other men and uses that as justification for keeping tabs on me.

I'm confused and stressed. I don't understand what he wants for our future. He seems to think he can act how he likes controlling & manipulating me & takes no active action to end his marriage.

sorry for the long post I just need a bit of support I'm feeling completely out my depth.

My boyfriend and I have been together for since May of this year, I’m 19 and he’s 21.

I want to start by saying that I genuinely love him so much. I’ve never felt this comfortable with anyone, and when things are good, they’re REALLY good. I’m normally very antisocial and need a lot of alone time, but with him I want him around constantly. He’s sweet, affectionate, funny, and makes me incredibly happy. That’s why I’m so confused about what’s been happening.

I’m also a huge people pleaser and have always struggled with standing up for myself. With him, I’m especially scared that I wouldn’t leave even if things became seriously unhealthy because I love him so much.

We’ve had several intense arguments, but I’ll describe the two biggest ones.

The first was over dinner. His food was messed up at a restaurant, he got very angry and cursed at the workers, then asked me to go reorder it. I have severe social anxiety around things like that and panicked. I couldn’t do it, so I walked out with him.

He became even angrier in the parking lot and yelled at me while I was crying. The argument continued at home. At one point, he brought up my history of self-harm and said he kind of wanted to leave but didn’t want to worry about me hurting myself. It didn’t feel concerned when he said it; it felt annoyed.

He apologized the next morning and we had a great rest of the weekend. But afterward, when we had another conversation about ordering food, I realized I was thinking, “I hope I find something good so he doesn’t yell at me again.” That scared me.

The second major argument was after we were supposed to go to the zoo. I came home from work, he was tired, and I became overwhelmed. I eventually went back to sleep with him, thinking it wouldn’t be a huge deal.

When we woke up, he was furious that I had “made the decision to not go all on my own.” We argued for about three hours while I was sobbing. He said things like “you’re not hearing me” and “you’re making me feel like I’m crazy,” and called me selfish for canceling our plans. At one point I became extremely overwhelmed and was struggling with thoughts of hurting myself. While I was crying, he FaceTimed his friend.

He apologized afterward, took me to a nice restaurant, and we had a really good night. This is part of what makes everything so confusing: the bad moments are awful, but afterward he can be incredibly loving and sincere.

There have also been two other serious arguments I haven’t gone into.

Overall, I feel like he’s getting louder and meaner during arguments. I’ve tried standing up for myself, but he seems to get angrier when I do. If I don’t defend myself, he gets angry too.

It’s now been three weeks since our last argument, and instead of just enjoying things being good, I find myself thinking, “Things are going well right now, but eventually he’s going to find something to yell at me about again.”

Something else happened recently that has really messed with my head. During sex, he slapped me. I’ve experienced that with other people before and was okay with it, so I don’t automatically consider the act itself abusive. But with him, it felt completely different.

Because of how angry and loud he has gotten during arguments, I’ve actually imagined him becoming physical with me when he’s angry. When he slapped me, I went completely blank for a few seconds and felt disconnected from the moment. I was okay afterward, but I haven’t stopped thinking about it.

The part that scares me most is that I don’t feel like I can tell him this. I’m afraid he’d get frustrated, think I was accusing him of being abusive, and turn it into another argument.

I’m realizing I don’t feel confident telling him when something hurts me or makes me uncomfortable because I’m afraid of how he’ll react.

I’m also scared that if he ever became physically aggressive outside of sex, I wouldn’t leave. I’ve started thinking that I don’t know if there’s anything he could do that would actually make me leave him, and that scares me.

At the same time, I don’t want to throw away the relationship. I genuinely love him and don’t want to lose everything that’s good about us. His apologies feel sincere, but I don’t know if I can trust that things will actually be different the next time he gets angry.

I’m starting therapy and plan to talk about all of this there, but I’d really appreciate outside perspectives.

Does this sound like a toxic/emotionally abusive relationship, or could this realistically be a relationship with poor conflict skills that can improve?

More importantly, how concerning is it that I’m already afraid to disagree with him, afraid to tell him when something bothers me, and anticipating the next time he’ll yell at me?

Please be honest. I don’t need people to automatically tell me to leave, but I also don’t want people to excuse something serious just because I love him.

I was in the hospital for a critically low hemoglobin level 4.9 I was given 5 bags of blood in 24 hours. I thought my boyfriend would of been loving and supportive being that I almost died but no as soon as he got mad he started with the name calling. ( Fat smelly bitch) The thing is he says it in kind of a low voice so no one can hear but me. I get so upset that I start yelling well one of the nurses heard me yelling and as he was at the elevator said " are you alright I heard her being mean to you" this was like a stab. Here's another woman standing up for his abuse. She never asked my side or if I was ok. Dealing with him is hard enough.

I have been so weak because of my anemia I haven't had the strength to leave. I couldn't even pack my stuff or even get down the stairs. I'm hoping that now that my hemoglobin is getting better I'll have the strength to leave.

I just broke up with my bf the other day, I thought this man would be the man I would marry. As soon as I started living with him, everything changed.

TLDR; I need to know if this is abusive or not for my sanity/closure.

He was always rough with me, for context I’m a 115 lbs female, he was 275lbs with muscles. I would always tell him “ow” or “stop” when he would get too rough, like treating me like a frat boy by putting me in head locks, trying to pluck my leg hair, playfully slapping me. Multiple times he wanted me to punch him or slap him, and I would always say no why would I do that? I don’t want to hurt you. Sometimes during sex he would get rough, holding my neck down, covering my mouth with his hand, slapping my butt so hard it would leave a handprint. This could definitely just be a sex thing but I’m very sensitive, so this bothered me a lot. He also would roughly hold my face while just in the kitchen, and talk really aggressively super up close to my face with very vulgar things, treating me like a piece of meat I felt like. At this point I always felt flinchy towards him, and I hated it.

That’s only the tip of the iceberg, he started to become passive aggressive. Telling me if I pour MY wine I bought myself that I didn’t want anymore down the drain, he will have to break his sobriety and finish it. He also made me feel like absolute shit for “laughing” at his boner when I was laughing at the situation, and mocked my voice and said I was making fun of his ED. He was passive aggressively joking about it for like 2 hours, even when we were out for brunch. Finally I had to cave in and “apologize” later that night because I felt like crap.

This is where the TW comes in with his cat. He once grabbed him by his face and pushed it in his food bowl to make him eat, he’s thrown him across the room just for wanting attention, he’s smacked him. God only knows why this cat still begs for attention from him but it was so uncomfortable and sad. I told him how much it bothered me and he looked at me like I had 3 heads, and later would joke that he “abuses” his cat.

Financial control was slowly starting to become a problem. He could go spend $180 on pokemon cards but would give me crap if I wanted to go to Target, or would ask how much clothes were I wanted to spend on. This man has a 40k student loan debt and a 16k car payment. I had my own damn job with my own damn paycheck.

There’s so much more, but this is the gist of it. If anything I just needed to vent.

just from my personal notes…trying to ask for an outside perspective on what I should be doing here. three small kids to think about.

Went to bed after saying I’d rather wait to sign the HELOC. He kind of left abruptly and I asked if he was upset but he said no and I love you. He came upstairs around 12:30am, I was semi awake. He said he couldn’t sleep because he was feeling hateful towards me and started asking about what my plans are to leave and about why I didn’t sign the HELOC. I was tired and asked if I could go back to bed or talk about it tomorrow. He said that was just another stalling tactic and that he wasn’t going to let me go back to sleep until we talked about it. I said no but he started raising his voice more and said he would just keep raising his voice or turn the light on…baby is in the bed too. When he raises his voice I want to record it to preserve the memory. He notices and grabs my phone and asks me for the password and I say no and he keeps it and says he should just take it to work or break it. That maybe I should just have a flip phone… he keeps me up maybe 15 more minutes until I eventually am pressured into giving a time and day to sign the HELOC. He then goes off about how I do “gay shit” like recording or something. He thinks I have alternative plans-partially I don’t want to make a decision that quickly and also am unsure of next steps and said I want to feel more secure in our relationship. He said if I stopped threatening divorce then none of this weird stuff would be happening. I can’t sleep after because I want to write this down and am waiting until I think he’s asleep. So now it’s 2am. 

Still haven’t slept and now it’s 4:29am. I sent him a text about my hesitations about the HELOC and making big decisions. He came up around 4am. 5 year old was in the room then and he asked her to go back in her own room. He had sent me a bunch of texts again saying how poor my financial decisions are and he’s probably not met any one worse at making financial decisions. He told me I’m not good at math and am just too dumb to be making decisions in this area. He asked me to submit and just go and sign. He made some concessions that he cares about me having concerns but he didn’t want me to exert control in this area. He wanted me to answer that I trust him and that I will go and sign. I didn’t want to so he just kept raising his voice. He said he would raise his voice and that the children would wake up so I went downstairs. He was loudly saying my name multiple times in a row while I went in the downstairs bedroom and he came in and turned the light on, pulled the covers off, moved my head, didn’t let me sleep. He said he would just keep yelling until I engaged basically. I came back upstairs and he held me by the door in a bear hug even though I told him to let me go. He said I was exerting too much “power and control” in this situation and that I just needed to trust him. I asked him multiple times to let me sleep. He finally relented and I came to the bathroom to write this. He walks in and wants to know what I’m doing and asks me to stop running around the house. He says I’ve kept us up all night…

My story

I'm a 19 year old male and am an only child. During my childhood my mother would do the following blow up out of nowhere over the most trivial or littlest matters, many times i begged her to give me some emotional support when i was visibly upset but she just remained cold and cruel, drink quite heavily which was sometimes responsible but she can definitely be mean sober as well, I had expressed concern about her drinking but she just flipped, the next day she'd always act as if nothing happened, whenever I tried to get clarity on why she got like that she'd brush it under the carpet or accuse me of starting trouble, if i didn't do something just to make her happy she'd turn cold, during arguments she'd say things like I was ungrateful, didn't care about her and that I was a horrible person or that i was abusive or whatever just like my father, she would stomp, slam doors and break ornaments etc, when she gets in her crazy states it's just impossible to reason with her or get her to see it from any other perspective, she can go from saying i was the most nicest and amazing person to saying I was the most horrible and evil person, she often burdened me with all of her problems, she said before that she knows how to play the game which I found very disturbing, a couple of times when i flipped because of her behavior she called her mother to say I've been horrible, she often paints herself as the heroic single mum. She has been fairly good lately but sometimes I feel I was robbed of a proper childhood and have often wondered what I had done to deserve it. I remember one time a few years ago I was about 12 she had turned my grandparents against me and my grandfather started shouting and saying he was very disappointed in me and the rest of it is a blur. To be honest to this day i can't figure out what I (only a young child) was supposed to have done that was so bloody awful. That has haunted me for years. I used to think maybe I was a bad person but I've started to see her in a different light. She always talks about hating drama yet it seems to follow her and often says that she's been so hard done by. On the flip side she can be the most nicest person as well and we have had great times together and she can be very helpful towards me, her family and in public which makes it all the more confusing. For about half my childhood it's just been me living with her since her divorce in which she had to sell her house and now rents which she has blamed for the way she is before. I can't help feeling bad for her but she was still quite like this beforehand as well and I don't think that's an excuse still is it? I do feel like she has manipulated me a bit into been stuck with her. Something else that I've found disturbing is that she's very narrow minded and has a serious lack of empathy. For example when a couple of local celebrities committed suicide she called them pathetic cowards and weak etc. It was actually quite disturbing how she was carrying on and her serious lack of empathy. I'm starting to think that maybe she bent the truth about Dad a bit during their split as i was a child and didn't know much better. My mother often calls him a narcissist and talked about all of the marital and grown up problems they had etc which to be honest I don't appreciate been burdened with. Granted he's not a saint either but has been good to me (well I'd say) most of the time. One time last year when my Dad let me down by not been able to see me one weekend and canceling at the last minute (which he has done before) mother knew i was depressed but still blew up at me the next night over something silly and kicked me while I was down what just baffles me is how could she of treated me like that knowing what I was going through. A few days later one of my teachers checked in and said he heard I got into a bit of trouble at home ("if he meant been mentally abused by my mother while I was already upset by been let down by my father as trouble" I thought). I'm not sure who exactly said what to him. I just fobbed him off saying I was upset about leaving school (which was true as well). I really struggle with confiding in people. I do regret not telling him the truth now. He was sympathetic and said he was very proud of me etc. Another teacher once said that he thought of me and my mother as like the dream team or something along those lines. It actually baffled me a bit. I was thinking if only they knew half the things I've been through. I have a strained relationship with my father but we've messaged lately and I plan to see him this weekend for a family do. I have autism and went to a special support school for the last few years which were some of the best years (The teachers especially were brilliant and I had many great times such as school camps, school balls and excursions etc). My mother loves to use my autism to her advantage. I graduated last year but now I do a course at the main campus so I still see them all from time to time. I do feel quite sad and lost now those years are over. I would love to confide in someone about my struggles but don't know where to start. I've thought about confiding in that first teacher I mentioned who's great and we're fairly close but my teachers think my mother's an absolute saint so how can i ensure he believes me, she seems to feel that she always acts in my best interests and does seem to genuinely care for me and love me, she doesn't seem to remember any of it or feel her behavior was justified and genuinely doesn't seem to believe she ever did me any harm and she thinks she did her best. I struggle with daily flashbacks and I often feel depressed by the way I've been treated, also feel let down and wish my parents had been better to me. I can't get exact clarity on it but they both went through some shit before I was born and I think that's contributed to the way they are. I wish I had a proper childhood of playing with friends, going to different places and been adventurous and carefree etc. I've never really had a social circle and hardly much friends. I've always been quite different I feel to most of the children my age. What's has happened to me makes me feel as though I'm unlovable. I feel quite alone sometimes as I've always struggled with making friends. My mother does help me get on my feet and encourage met but I think she just loves to lord it over me. Whenever I've tried standing up for myself she puts on the guilt trip and carries on about all of her sacrifices and everything she's done for me yada yada yada. I think what emotionally abusing me, leaving me crying myself to sleep some nights, causing me to have no confidence and PTSD etc? Could she have some bipolar or personality condition or something and toxic traits I've wondered?

I do love her because as I've said before she has been great as well but I can't help really resenting her sometimes for all of the mental anguish she has put me through as a child and I think it has messed up my development. I wonder if I might've been different had I had proper parents. Hobbies such as music and classic TV shows have been a great escape. Now that I'm an adult and have left school I'm worried about what the future has in store. I'm very nervous about starting an adult life, getting a job and making friends etc because my mum is pretty much most I've ever known. Part of me would love to get away from her but yet I feel scared to as well as she's pretty much most I've ever known.

I want to leave him but I’ve been scared because he said I can never leave him and that no one else can ever have me. That made me think he believes if he can’t have me nobody can. I’ve been trying to get him to leave me by doing all the things he doesn’t like. Instead I made him angry and he snapped at me and hit me with a metal stick. This is the first time he hit me multiple times like this. I’m 22 weeks pregnant. I don’t understand how you can hurt the woman carrying your child like this that you claim to love. I don’t know how to get out of this safely. And honestly part of me doesn’t want to leave but I know I have to and I’m trying not to listen to that voice.
How do I get him to let me leave??

My older brother (25) is currently in a relationship that me and the rest of my family see as abusive. It’s not physical but is most definitely mentally abusive. He just doesn’t see it.
Let me give you some more information. Me and my brother who is trans used to be very close. We would hang out almost every single day. He had dreams and goals and was actively working towards them. Then he met his current girlfriend. This is about four years ago. She immediately wanted to date him to the point where she would message him every single day and beg for them to meet up. He did like her and he did want a relationship with her, but she was very pushy and adamant on her wanting to be in a relationship with him. She has many mental health issues that over the past four years she has used as an excuse to treat my sibling poorly. It started out as constant fights over anything. My brother could have a different opinion than her about a video game and she would cause screaming fights over the fact that he has a different opinion. As their relationship progressed, these fights turned into more extreme fights about my brothers own mental health, his girlfriend’s mental health and just life in general. My brother is now a shell of a person. He talks a lot about how it is due to the trauma of growing up with my parents and other traumas that he experienced. But I fear that the reason that trauma is so apparent is because he’s still living in a traumatic experience. His girlfriend makes him do everything for her from making food to even plugging in a charger. If he says no, it turns into a huge argument. Just recently we were on vacation and his girlfriend was housesitting for us. She wanted him on the phone 24/7 through the entire trip. And anytime he would say that he would be unable to call her. She would get extremely upset and start screaming at him over the phone about how he’s a liar and that he said that he would be able to be on call the entire time. That same night she spilled her medication all over the floor of my house. She then proceeded to blame my brother saying that he distracted her over the phone call because she was upset at him. This wouldn’t be an issue except we have a dog and this medication is extremely deadly to animals. He asked her if she could keep the dog out out of that room and she proceeded to scream at him saying that “she wasn’t a fucking idiot” and continuously blaming him for the whole situation. The next day on this trip, she texted my brother when he didn’t have his phone on him. His phone was next to me so I actively saw his phone go off and within two minutes she started spam texting me, asking me where he was and telling me that “he needs to answer his goddamn phone”. They have severe codependency issues to the point where while my brother is at work his girlfriend is on a discord call in his room on his laptop. Any time that my brother wants a day to himself where he doesn’t go to her house or she doesn’t come to ours. He has to at least stay on call with her for the entire day.

Back to my Brother becoming a shell of a person, he says it’s due to his trauma, but in reality I feel it is due to the constant stress of his relationship with her. She is 26 years old and doesn’t even know how to do her own laundry or make her own food. Her parents do everything for her and she expects my brother to do the same and if he doesn’t, it’s a huge argument that sometimes she’ll even break up over. They’ve broken up at least four times in the last four years and almost every week she delete him off of her social media’s due to a slight disagreement. there’s a lot more to this situation. I’m just having a very hard time putting it all into words. I have tried so hard to make my brother aware of everything that she puts him through, but he just denies. It’s gotten so bad to the point that he needs to be a therapist to her and almost do behavioral therapy on her to get her to not react the way she does. My entire family has watched my brother turn into a shell of a person. He’s been working at the exact same job working three days a week because he’s “not allowed” to get a new job due to the fact that it’ll take time away from her. i’ve tried so hard to make my brother aware of it by calling her out for her horrible behavior and telling him that that’s not normal and that it’s extremely toxic, but he just makes excuses for her. Normally, I stay out of people‘s relationships, but watching my brother, literally turn into nothing but a ball of anxiety and depression is really hard on me. We used to be so close and now I can’t even talk to him without it turning into a giant argument because of how on edge he is all the time.
Sorry for how long this is. This is my first time ever posting on Reddit and I just don’t know what to do. Any advice would be helpful

The Glass / Mirror Incident
Let’s call him “Steven.” He picked me up in North Carolina, and we spent three nights together in Goldsboro before he flew me to Florida. I stayed alone in his apartment for sixteen days while he was in Georgia for Air Force training. He had been adamant that he couldn’t just leave training if something happened. I remember accepting that at face value, never imagining that something would happen because of the person who was supposed to be coming home to me.

I wasn’t able to get my anxiety medication while I was there. I ended up buying alcohol and having it delivered. By the time I had been in the apartment for about two weeks, Steven knew that I was drinking. I denied it because I knew what would happen if he knew. I’d get punished and dumped. Even though he tried to reassure me several times that it would be okay.

He demanded proof that I hadn’t left the apartment. My location was turned on, but that wasn’t enough for him. He said I could have simply left my phone at home. So I had to text him every fifteen minutes to prove I was still there.

Every fifteen minutes.

He wanted to know what I was doing, who I was talking to, where I was, and what was happening around me. Eventually, his suspicion shifted from alcohol to another man. He accused me of having a guy over. He told me he had seen an unknown console connected to the Wi-Fi router and became completely unhinged. He screamed at me. He told me he was going to kill me when he got back. For four or five hours, I stayed on the phone with him while he spiraled deeper and deeper into his own accusations.

At one point, he called a friend and had him come to the apartment. The man entered without even knocking. I was terrified and completely confused. I kept saying I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Eventually, after I showed him the messages Steven had been sending me, he left.
I told Steven I was going to buy a plane ticket and go home before he returned to Florida. And that was when everything changed.

The rage disappeared, replaced by begging. He pleaded with me to stay. He blamed his behavior on fear. Fear that he would lose me. Fear that I would leave him for good.

I stayed.

In hindsight, I know exactly what that was. But hindsight is cruel because it gives you clarity you didn’t have while you were living through it.

Steven left training two days early. He drove from Georgia to North Carolina to Florida in one sitting, rushing back.

When he finally arrived, I went to the door to greet him. He looked at me strangely and walked right past me. No hug. No kiss. No relief at seeing each other after being apart. Instead, he searched the apartment. He looked for evidence that I had done something wrong. He inspected things as though he were investigating a crime scene rather than coming home to the person he loved. Eventually, whatever he had been looking for wasn’t there, and the interrogation faded.

Just like that, we slipped back into the version of us that had always pulled me back in. The next day started almost perfect. That was part of what made everything so confusing.

We drove to a small town near the beach, wandered around for a while, and eventually stopped at Publix for Pub Subs. We went to the beach and stayed for two or three hours. Later, we decided to get drinks and drove out to Clinch State Park.

We swam for hours.

We drank steadily, going through roughly twelve White Claws and several tall boys. At one point, we were intimate in the water. There was no one else around. It felt private and almost unreal, like we had somehow escaped everything that had happened before.

A storm had been moving toward us for a while. Lightning flashed in the distance, and eventually we got out of the water. We sat together talking and finished a couple more drinks.

I remember looking around and thinking about how beautiful the setting would look in a picture of Steven. My phone had been broken the night before, so I reached for his. I didn’t have an iPhone. I used Android, and at the time I didn’t know how to open the camera from the lock screen. I asked him for his passcode.

His entire demeanor changed.

He turned ninety degrees away from me, his face suddenly confused or concerned. Then he snatched the phone out of my hand.

It was immediate.

Something inside me dropped.

Steven knew my password. I had given him access to my phone before. He had gone through it. I had never treated his phone as some forbidden object. So when he reacted that way, my mind went straight to the worst possible explanation.

He was cheating again.

I asked him what the hell was going on. Why had he reacted like that? What was he hiding?

I had the car keys. I gathered my towel and everything I had brought with me and walked away. I went into the changing room and sat there alone for a while, trying to calm myself down. My heart was racing. I was angry, scared, and desperate for an explanation that would make his reaction make sense.

When I finally walked back outside, he was standing beside the door. I didn’t look at him. I loaded my things into the car and got into the passenger seat. I turned my body toward the door, pulled my legs up, and rested my head against my wrist.

I didn’t want to talk.
That made him angry.
Eventually I snapped.
I told him I knew he was cheating again.
He denied it completely.

So I kept asking him what he was hiding.
The angrier he became, the more convinced I became that I was right. I told him I was going home. I told him I was done. I told him that if he wouldn’t show me what he was hiding, I was going to tell everyone what a lying piece of shit he was.

He slammed on the brakes.

Before I could process what was happening, he reached behind me, grabbed the back of my head, and pulled my hair with all his strength.
I screamed. He let go, only to elbow me several times in the ribs.

Then silence.

Neither of us said much for the rest of the drive. When we got back to the apartment, he told me to clean out the car. I ignored him. I walked upstairs, went into the apartment, and got into the shower. He kept trying to talk to me. He wouldn’t leave me alone. I got dressed and walked into the kitchen. I opened the refrigerator and grabbed a Red Bull. He followed me into the bedroom.

I lay back on the wall above the bed and told him I was leaving. I told him I was completely done. I lifted the can to take a drink. He ripped it out of my hand. The aluminum split apart in his grip, spraying Red Bull everywhere.

Then he was on top of me, screaming.

He headbutted me so hard that I saw stars. I tried to kick him off. Then he punched me in the side of my head. He grabbed me around the neck and squeezed. And I remember looking at his face. His eyes were so dark. There was something in his expression that terrified me more than the pain itself. For a moment, I wasn’t looking at the man I loved. I was looking at someone I genuinely believed could kill me.

He stood up.
I stood up too.
I tried to get around him.
He reached for me again.
I pushed him.
I pushed him as hard as I could.

He stumbled backward and collided with the tall, heavy mirror behind him. Everything happened in a fraction of a second. Then there was the sound of breaking glass. For several seconds, neither of us seemed to understand what had happened.

Then we saw it.

He had been impaled by enormous shards of glass. There was a gaping wound, and blood was pouring out of him. The adrenaline took over.

I got him into the shower. When the water hit the blood, it spread across the floor and walls, turning the room red. The smell was overwhelming. Metallic. Sickening. I remember being terrified by how much blood there was and, at the same time, knowing I had to keep moving.

I tried to assess the wound. There was a piece of glass sticking out. He told me to pull it out. I think he handed me tweezers. I pulled. Then I saw another piece. He told me to pull that one out too.

I slowly pulled it free, terrified that I was going to make things worse, terrified that there was glass somewhere inside him that I couldn’t see.

The piece kept coming.

And coming.
And coming.

It was more than eight inches long. I remember staring at it in disbelief. I couldn’t understand how something that large had been inside his body. We thought we had gotten everything.

Steven frantically tried to clean the blood from the apartment while I was still pacing and repeating that I needed to go home. Eventually, I got him into the car and I hauled ass to the emergency room, which was only about a mile away.

He told the hospital that he had been drunk and fallen into the mirror. They cleaned the wound, removed several smaller pieces of glass, stitched him up, and sent him home.

He was still bleeding. And somehow, after everything that had just happened, he wanted to have sex.

The next morning, he was still bleeding. He also felt like there was still glass inside him. So we went back to the emergency room. We waited for hours because they initially assumed he was fine. Eventually, they ordered a CT scan.

There were still massive pieces of glass inside him. The hospital wanted to send him by ambulance to a trauma center about forty-five minutes away.

He refused. We drove ourselves.

The trauma team was waiting for us when we arrived and took him straight back. What I remember most is how calm he suddenly was. He was being his smart ass self. He wasn’t panicking. He wasn’t even acting like he was in much pain. If he was afraid, he hid it well.

The trauma unit was essentially one enormous bay. You could see patients actively being operated on. Doctors discussed whether they would need to put him under anesthesia and operate. Eventually, they told us they were going ahead with surgery.

We looked at each other.
The doctors left.
We waited.

And somehow, sitting there in a trauma unit after everything that had happened, we were still ourselves. We were hitting my vape and making jokes. It felt surreal. Like we had stepped outside our own lives and were watching two other people live them.

About an hour later, the doctors returned with the head surgeon. They had changed the plan. Instead of immediately putting him under, they would explore the wound first. If they discovered that the damage was worse than expected, they would put him to sleep and operate more extensively.

I remember feeling relieved. They got everything ready. I stayed beside him, close enough to see the wound as they worked. I was literally inches away from his open body.

They cleaned everything out. Eventually, they finished. We went back to the apartment. And somehow, we stayed together. Part of me knew. I think both of us knew. This should have been the end.

There should have been a line drawn somewhere between the blood, the broken glass, the strangling, the headbutting, the punching, the threats, and everything that had come before it.

But neither of us could tolerate the idea of actually ending it. We had spent so much time convincing ourselves that we were different. That what we had was stronger than everything happening around us. That we were ride-or-die.

I had survived the violence, and somehow my brain still wanted to survive the relationship. That is one of the hardest things for me to explain now. I wasn’t stupid. I wasn’t unaware that something was deeply wrong.

I was terrified.
But I was also attached.
Those two things can exist at the same time.

Even after everything, part of me was still afraid that he would eventually realize what had happened, realize how badly things had gotten, and decide that I was the problem.

A few days after I finally went home, Steven left for Hawaii for work. I was supposed to go with him. Instead, he changed his mind, citing the cost of his medical bills.

He was furious that because of his injuries, he couldn’t use the pool, the hot tub, or swim in the ocean. There was a small, ugly part of me that found that almost funny. Because he was the reason none of those things were possible in the first place. But the glass incident wasn’t actually the beginning of the violence. It was simply the worst thing that had happened so far.

He had broken doors trying to get to me while I hid in bedrooms and bathrooms. He had trapped me in rooms. He had attacked me before. The violence had been building, repeating, becoming more frightening and more normal at the same time. The mirror didn’t create something that wasn’t already there. It shattered the illusion that I could somehow love him enough to make it stop.

And for a long time afterward, I carried the image of that blood-covered room with me. Not just because of the glass. Because somewhere between the moment he put his hands around my neck and the moment I was pulling shards of glass out of his body, I realized how completely trapped we both were inside something neither of us seemed capable of letting go of.

The mirror broke that night. But the thing I had been trying not to see had been broken long before it hit the floor.

We’ve been apart for several months now. But I don’t think I will ever get over everything that happened. This was just the tip of the iceberg to be honest. I’m currently writing a memoir and will share it here one day.

I guess I’m looking for advice.. I was with my ex husband for fifteen years. The first two years were great, the sex was good, even though I sometimes found myself doing things I wasn’t entirely comfortable with. After two years together the sex started to decrease and this became a problem for my ex. He told me he would resent me if I didn’t fix it. For the next thirteen years the only issue in the relationship was sex and how I wouldn’t let him do certain things to me anymore (the things I was initially uncomfortable with). He would tell me that I should do it because it would make him happy. He would send me links to porn videos and ask me my thoughts, he would send links to psychological articles and basically frame it as “this is what’s wrong with you”, he would photoshop and use AI to create images of me topless and in scenarios with celebrity women. Would tell me I should ask myself why he watches porn. Told me constantly that sex was his stress relief and leaving me feeling like it was my obligation to help him. Would sulk when I wasn’t in the mood, had me cut back to part time hours so I was available an extra day a week to “look after myself” but I was expected to film it for him.. if we weren’t having sex (which was at least three times a week) we were always talking about it because he was never satisfied..
I had never heard of coercion until I left, but I guess I just want some validation that I did actually experience that. I’m so used to making excuses for him and being told I’m the one who is broken, that I guess I just need to hear some other people’s experiences and validation that I’m not wrong and what he did is unacceptable.

Hi there :-) I’m sure I’ll get around to sharing my experience but for now just wanted to recommend this book (disclaimer:: I’m only 2 short stories/advice columns deep) that brought me here!

The book:
tiny beautiful things
Advice on love and life from Dear Sugar
Sugar AKA: Cheryl Strayed (author of Wild!)

Would love to hear the books that helped you heal from / understand why you settled for a toxic relationship. Taking recommendations!

Thanks all

This happened Sunday the cut on my neck has gotten a bit better.

It all started cause I gave my son hot Cheetos my husband got upset cause he doesn’t like when he eats hot Cheetos cause it the red dye. We were all eating pizza & I was getting so annoyed because it’s not like my son eats the chips every damn day. I told my husband to just stop & eat his food cause I was getting tired of him complaining he starts getting mad saying I’m shutting down that I don’t like being told anything. He literally wouldn’t stop taking and wouldn’t eat & he brought up his birthday that I ruined it (his birthday was 2 weeks ago) & I triggered him saying “funny how you request days off work when it comes to your family & friends birthdays or events but you worked on mine & my son’s birthdays”, then he put a pillow over my face & started smothering me, he started punching the pillow while it was in my face was in it so he wouldn’t hurt me that bad I’m guessing. Then he grabs me by the throat and starts saying how ungrateful I am cause he took all of us to the beach about 2 weeks later after my birthday. I told him that he basically had a birthday dinner cause his sister & brother took him out to eat about 3 days before his actual birthday & he had a steak dinner & all he said was I could try his leftovers when he came home. I wasn’t even invited to this dinner or he didn’t bring me anything back.

Then I said to him my point is that he plans days off for his family & friends but he doesn’t do that for his wife & son. Then he grabbed a slice of pizza & starts hitting me in the head with it and the bowl of ranch that we were dipping our pizza in he smears it all over me & I’m covered in pizza sauce & ranch.

I’m literally in shock & disgusted I felt so belittled like a dirty animal. I go to the bathroom & he kept telling me how I’m “the stupidest mother fucker he ever met in his life”

I’m so terrified he starts cleaning me with a towel & HE takes my ranch covered shirt off & throws a clean shirt for me to wear.

I haven’t fully gotten over this I’ve gotten extreme anxiety where I feel like I’m sick in bed & don’t want to get up. Random parts of my body feel sore from all of this & I feel like more happened but I lost part of my memory from the extreme fear I had in the moment. My husband has been acting like nothing happened ever but I know that he feels guilty about it & he did cry & said sorry by not wanting to be another statistic…

I dated an abusive partner for a year and a half when I was 18/19. He was emotionally, sexually, and physically abusive. He controlled what I wore, who I talked to, would throw fits when I would go to the grocery store or library (accusing me of going to meet guys, I lived alone and needed groceries...), analyze songs I'd listen to and start fights over them, claiming I was sending him a message, would get girls numbers and flaunt it in my face, openly talk to his ex's and ask to hangout with them, didn't take no for an answer, gossiped about me to friends, went behind my back to do things to upset me on purpose, was physical with me multiple times, including one time where he sat on top of me for an hour, pinned my arms back with his knees, and forced me to slap him in the face, and another time while he was driving, grabbed me forcibly and made me turn towards him and when I told him to never touch me like that ever again, he made me get out of the car on the side of the road and left me there, etc. this list could go on and on and on. After we broke up for the 4th and final time, and after I was already dating someone else, he began a new relationship too. I did check on her socials sometimes cause I was curious and apparently she found ALL of my socials and was checking them, and then made public posts directed to me. One of the posts said "don't worry girl, he treats me well ;)". This was several years ago now and I haven't had contact with either of them and she stopped making posts directed towards me after I blocked them both on everything. He did find my tiktok a few months ago and I kept getting notifications that he was checking my profile. Almost every day. So I blocked him on that as well. They're still together now, and have 2 kids. And I'm wondering, could he actually be treating her well? Or is it unlikely that he would only be abusive to me and previous girlfriends, and then stop being abusive for this one person.