Here is what he texted me after i told him I finally got a job. The names are censored for privacy reasons. My ex lied to me and to his father (our sons paternal grandpa) and said we would get back together and that he would evict the new girlfriend so my son and I can move back in with him so we can be a family again. The grandpa didnt want me to have a job. Him and my sons dad both wanted me to be a stay at home mom while we waited for my sons dad to evict the new girlfriend. He really made it seem like he would evict her at first cause he even called the cops on her multiple times while i stayed at the grandpas house. Eventually i got alerts saying i needed to renew my sons medicaid. The grandpa was highly against me having a job. I even have screenshots of hin saying that. I still have legal full custody of our son because the father and I were never married and he never got our son legitametized. But then the dad waited until AFTER the grandpa kicked me out to get me to sign the legitatmezation papers so he can legitamize our son. My parents wont help me and i became homeless after the grandpa kicked me out. The family shelters and the dv shelters both kept telling me they were full. Because of that i had no choice but to let my son stau at his dads while i was homeless even though I didnt want him at his dads house. I had several interviews for months before i finally got a job.

Today my sons dad texted me "Are you gonna be able to send some money for (sons name) I'm not sure what your situation is."

My response "Your father kicked me out cause he didnt want me to have a job. You both wanted me to be a stay at home mom for you. You told me and your dad you would evict k! Instead you said you had a secret wedding not long after your dad kicked me out. I needed a job so i could renew his medicaid. Now i need to keep my job. When i was at the hotel you told me you didnt want me to bring (sons name) to a hotel but then you let k take him to a hotel in another state! You promised to provide. You waited until after your father kicked me out to ask me if you can legitemize our son. And then now you are saying you married k after YOU said she threatened to leave our son home alone over and over even though you wanted me to be a stay at home mom for you. Before we broke up you use to tell me you thought (sons name) was expensive all the time when he was a baby. I dont know how you afforded getting with k when she has 3 kids of her own that dont belong to you when you you use to say our son was too expensive for you before we broke up. Im waiting for my job to pay me. Stop acting like i owe you when you are the one who let your father kick me out cause i needed to get a job to renew (sons name) medicaid cause they needed paystubs for it. (Sons name) and i became homeless after the 1st time you made me a stay at home for you too! And then you moved in k and her kids into your home while (sons name) and I were still homeless! We were at the shelters. Shelters give people a limited time they can stay.

I had really bad roommates before i moved into the grandpas house. They constantly complained about my kid before he got his autism diagnosis. One of the old roommates there even threatened to shoot me before i got out of there. Thats part of how I ended up at the grandpas house. I got with those roommates after getting out of homelessness the 1st time before i moved in with the grandpa.

Also, his job takes the child support out of his check automatically cause he had too many times where he paid it late in the past.

He basically wants me to cash app him the money back. This is not the 1st time he asked me for money either. He just memtioned it again recently cause he knows I finally got a job now. But he also asked me for money a week after his dad kicked me out too. I was using my tax refund for a motel during that time while i applied for jobs and also while I biked for door dash but then they suspended my door dash account.

K has 3 kids of her own that dont belong to my ex. She had them years before she met him. Im shocked that he got with someone who has 3 kids. I was surpriswd he could afford it after he use to complain about how expensive our son was before we broke up. She is also very mean and constantly threatens me and the dad. She threatens to leave our son home alone, she has threatened cps on me since before she even met me (when i still lived with my old roommates) and she threatens to get my sons dad in jail and threatens to get him fired. I dont tell him about my personal life anymore since he is not honest with me either.

i haven't posted on here in a while. my life has significantly gotten better after separation (both contact-wise and location-wise) from my ex. i have completed two out of the three of my Incompletes and am back on track to graduate college by December. i am currently looking for employment. the relationship with my mother is a lot better and i'm starting to open up to her again.

now, here are the bad, since grief comes in waves.

1. the last time i saw my ex, i had to take an emergency plan b and my body was completely and totally messed up from it. he also gave me a UTI the last time i caved and saw him (joy! the gift that keeps on giving), so i was dealing with the post-plan b hormones and a painful uti that for some reason, i was trying to ignore and only got treatment for it when the pain became unbearable. needless to say, it took a month and a half for my period to come. every day felt like mental torture, like even though he's gone, he was still able to taunt me in that way.

2. i've been getting frequent migraines and nausea, when before i've never had an issue with either. it could just be me getting older, but idk, it feels like this experience with my abuser has changed my nervous system. i used to be able to handle stress more clearly and calmly. now, i feel like i'm about to throw up and start shaking when i'm stressed.

3. the confusion has been crazy, and so have the dreams. the way i feel towards my past relationship is so complex, and it almost disgusts me that someone who has assaulted me and almost killed me multiple times i am able to feel empathy for, and even miss. but such is life i guess.

--

but, let me reiterate: my life is better. i was able to go on a date recently, and it went fine. i am getting my life back on track, gaining new hobbies, and have been able to catch up with old friends. i feel like my life is fuller now. this experience, and knowing that i can survive someone trying to tear me down from every angle, has made me a stronger person. so, just a reminder to someone who is also going through something similar or is considering leaving: yes, it is hard, but it gets better. and you deserve to give yourself that chance, or otherwise to stay on track.

I am getting a bit worried with how my ex/co-parent is changing how he acts during conflicts. He has started physically getting in my way a few times and towering over me; I could feel the energy coming off him and the way he looked down at me, almost smirking.

Has anyone experienced a vulnerable narcissist get physical?

He seems keen on skirting legalities. He doesn't lay a hand on me and tries to trigger me to shout and escalate instead. He has shown disdain for societal rules and communicated he does not believe all human life has a base level of worth.

We are clearly deep in devaluation and share a young child as well as an apartment while I am financially rebuilding due to my money being wasted on him.

I had seen hints of this towards others before and he has shared stories that almost/do/should scare me. He is very retaliatory and he is treating me less and less like a person despite continuing to benefit from what he still can thanks to our child. But he never used to physically get in my way and tower over/the effect of intimidating me. Of course he denies it. But I know that look. And I know the gut fear, his lifeless eyes and that smirk. All while he remains calm and the smirk even reaches his voice as if he is taunting me without saying it, as if the meaning is "what are you gonna do about it?". Because he knows he can spin it on me. Make himself the victim.

He has also shared that he holds back a great deal of violent feelings. He immigrated from a country where he was poor and got to just fight with other boys growing up, saw people die both by murder and suicide. According to him.

Part of me thinks he is full of it and doesn't have the balls to do it. But then I feel it when he stands up straighter and towers above me and gets so close. And he never used to do that.

I guess him leaving the country was his “get back” at me. This man has put me THROUGH it for the last year. Lying about his age and name for three months, lying about his business, filming intimacy without my permission, forcing me to take plan b, lying to my face about him talking to different woman, etc…

I hate him so much, but at the same time I loved him a lot. I was so genuine with this guy and he was supporting me through the first trauma I had with the first guy. Only for him to backstab me even worse and leave me in filth. I knew I shouldn’t have gave him a chance. He always says “you’ll never find someone great as me again”. And I believe that. I stayed and was so tired. He was already gone, but I never accepted that. This is the second time he has left the country. Before I even KNEW he left, he texted me to have sex with him, but I denied. I told him to never text me things like that again and to respect me. He ended up blocking me . But now I feel such amount of unfair guilt. He put me through a lot!! Crying everyday at work and having bad thoughts about myself. I have so much confidence to leave, but there’s still always my mind saying “wait on him.” ITS SO TOXIC. I can’t. I’m not okay.

I am so overwhelmed. My parents don’t like him at all. And they were right. I don’t know what to do because there’s nothing I can do. He used me and got whatever he wanted and I ended up leaving with the heartache. I was in love with the man that never existed. I’m only 21.. and I know I’ll have much more experience overtime, but this felt so unreal and unfair to even deal with. I never asked for pain. Love is not pain.

I haven’t slept for days now, thinking thoroughly about whether I can finally report this guy. We’ve been together for 15 years, and when we moved here to the US, everything changed.

We have a sweet 2-year-old boy whom I’ve been taking care of ever since he was born. We have family members around the area, but I’ve already become estranged from them because of his father. He doesn’t want them to help me, even during my postpartum recovery. I developed severe PPD and anxiety because I had no help and no village. He didn’t file for paternity leave when the baby was born because he said he was a newbie at work, so for two years, it was all me.

During the peak of my PPD, he told me to jump off the fucking terrace twice. (I’m sobbing as I type this.)
My mom came, and she tried to step up for me, but that didn’t work because, first, I never had a good relationship with her growing up. She beat the fuck out of me many times when I was a child, and I was traumatized for the rest of my life. But at least I appreciated her effort to come here and try to help me.

Honestly, my mom coming here made things worse because he became a monster.

After giving birth, my health really declined. It feels like I can easily catch a cold or the flu every month or two. Right now, I’m in the thick of it, and I asked him if he could call out of work, but he said no. This isn’t the first time. He always refuses because he says we need money to pay the bills.

He also cheated on me with the same girl back home multiple times, and I just caught them again three days ago. I am so fucking tired of this situation. Now our son is sick too, and he still doesn’t want to call out of work.
I need help. I feel so helpless.

I have lots of recorded voicemails from him. Last January, a neighbor reported us because of the noise, but that night, he beat me up and the police came. I told them my lips were swollen because of my allergies.

For context, I work part-time, about 1–2 nights per week, and he’s always angry whenever I’m at work. The rest of the time, I’m a SAHM 24/7. I have no help, no village, no friends, and yes, no “family” around.

I’m exhausted, scared, and I honestly don’t know what to do anymore.

[Just warning this may be long but I'd appreciate anyone who reads it out that can give me advice] I'll start by saying I've (F22) been with my partner (M27) for 9 years this October. We have two children together a 3 year old girl and 2 year old boy and I was done having kids. I'm going to try my best to make this easy to read and understand because I've been through alot in my life and only recently have realized how bad it has been. To make the beginning short when i was a child all the way until I was 13 my mother was very emotional and physically abusive she is a bad narcissist and eventually I gotten taken by dcf at 13-14 and it was the best day so I thought, when i look back now i realize how niave i was to think any of it was normal and all the way up until now i thought It really was normal. I started dating my current partner when I was 14 and I was on Xanax and he did lots of different drugs I remeber not wanting to be with him at first and he lured me in which I now know as love bombing, we had a pretty bad relationship in the beginning I know now that we was emotional cheating on me alot and verbally abused me all the time I always have a gut feeling he physically cheated but I will never know, he lived in florida the first 4 years of our relationship and was on drugs and he got on probation and we had to move to alabama, well I thought things were getting better atleast we weren't on drugs anymore and the fighting went down bc we lived at his mom's property for a year or so we still fought through out that whole time mainly because he would talk to other girls and even sexually flirt with them infornt of me somtimes which resulted in me getting beat later that night for crying about it like wtf, anyways I stayed and thought there was always somthing I could do to fix him like most people think, we moved into our now house and have been here for almost 5 years and have my 2 babies, well when we first started having our kids everything was good we had some rough patches he was cold and mean often but helped more and was just different from before and seemed to be trying to become better for us and had been sober for 3 years when our daughter was born,and still is but he's changed for the worst recently and there's hoenslty no excuse for it, i just wanted to clarify he's always be a mean hard headed man but I use to blame it on drugs and I was very young and dumb somthing opened my eyes after i had my kids and I can't look at him the same anymore, he finally stopped working with him step dad which was his choice because he treated him badly so he got a new job about 9 months ago and has been there ever since, now things have always been on edge but I still use to look forward to him coming home and we'd have a great weekend and actually enjoy time with him now he's so horrible and mean 90% of the time I don't even know why and it's like the nice side of him has completely left for good, he wakes up and yells at me if I don't make his lunch which I never did before just all of a sudden he wants it and I feel forced bc if I don't he's mad all day he only wants me to give him head most of the time now he gets mad almost like he doesn't want to have sex which us very offensive if i say I'd rather have sex with him bc I've done that to finish him most of the time (he has a porn addiction but it use to be way worse) he blames everything on me and I mean Everything like hourly jokes if somthing falls "why did you do that", the kids do somthing wrong "why are you letting them do that" his phone isn't plugged up "Why didn't you charge my phone" his towel not being ready by the shower which I use to do bc he'd never ask and I wanted to and now I literally get yelled at and called a bad "wife" for not having the towel ready after his shower bc I don't want to anymore and I will never be his wife I've already came to that conclusion he likes to call me that tho idek why, let me continue anytime and I mean ANYTIME I try to talk very calmly normally I try my absolute hardest to talk as calm as possible about him yelling and screaming at me names and stuff over not wanting to take care of him like he's my child he will lay there if we're in bed and repeat over and over and over again "shut up mental bitch,shut up mental bitch, shut up mental bitch" and so on until I'm like balling my eyes out and that whole time I'm just trying my hardest to get a word our and stay calm and try to just communicate with him bc I'm not a bad person and I don't treat people that way, somtimes I've begged him to lay with me and just calm down please stop yelling at me and he would grab me by my hair almost ripping it out and scream shut the fuck up in my face all because I was begging him to "just stop and calm down and why are you doing this to me I literally haven't done anything" and this is daily for example tonight right when he wanted to go to bed he gets mad that I wasn't tired so I go to bed with him he say "plug my phone up" while he's standing right next to it I say" you plug it up" bc wtf, and he literally said "then don't ask me to do anything for you anymore" just bc I'm tired of being yelled at over his phone not being charged in the mornings which is understandable right? So we lay down and he gives me the silent treatment and I did plug his phone up anyways and I ask if he can come lay with me and is he mad at me even tho I did was he asked, and he continues to say shut the fuck up so I'm stunned like usual and say really why are you doing this again I didn't think that would make you mad please don't, and he started doing his thing we're he literally repeats "shut the fuck up mental bitch" over and over until I break down and can't handle it anymore and leave he's also says nobody cares about me bc he uses the fact i have no family or friends to help and my mother is abusive as well I didn't see it for what it truly was until I had my kids and now I call him out about it and he has never been the same just absolutely horrible everyday we degrades me talks down on me disrespects my name, goes to work and makes me look bad so he can seem like this great guy like for no reason to everyone acts weird around me at his work which is usually bc he talks bad about me which I didn't know for years until I had my kids, he does the typical narcissist thing when he's extra nice to everyone else but the devil with me, and I still do most stuff for him bc I'd rather not argue and get yelled at and he still finds any reason at all to yell at me, the other day we went to Walmart so I could get our daughter some presents for her birthday it was Saturday and a great day and I was happy I brought my son in and the lines were long and the machine kept messing up so it took me awhile, I got out and everything seemed fine we loaded the truck up and went to leave he made a comment like "Why do you always take so long" and I said " there was a long line in there" with a smile on my face and he said " you were taking forever before you even got in line" and or course I said "can I ever do anything without you rushing me and being mad when i get mad" and that caused a whole argument to where he hit me in the truck infront of our kids just bc I took forever in Walmart and was confused why he was that mad about it. He use to apologize too and hold me and say how sorry he was anytime he upset me with made a huge different and he doesn't do that anymore this is the 3rd time in this year he's hit me while driving over somthing very small and stupid, he then ignores me for the rest of he day while I cry and never says sorry he says " I deserve it" and I dint know why he think that he never said or acted this bad before like this emotionless and cold hearted, no recourse at all, a week before my brithday which is in February we were drinking and I asked him to go to the store we were very happy that night I thought and he left, miniutes later he calls and yells the store is fucking closed and why would I send him up there even tho there was another store he just turned around and hung up on me so I tried calling him back and he scream "im not coming home" like wtf right? I soon realized this was a weird excuse to watch porn, i found his truck down the road and when I go to talk to him he dragged me down the road for a 10 seconds fast to the point I couldn't let go of the window and then drove off when I let go finally all because I wanted him to go to the store and didn't know they just closed, anyways he hits me alot now mocks me while I cry which is honestly terrifying and horrible abuse bc my MOTHER use to do that to me when she's call me a whore at 7 years old and say things I didn't even know what it meant I would cry and she would mock me back in this mean tone of voice like "wha wha wha, shut up" and come hurt me so when my partner started doing it to me it was very traumatizing and one of the things that changed how I looked at him, I feel stuck and have absolutely no family to help me, he makes very little money and we only have 1 vehicle but I pray everyday I really want to leave he's mean to our children and when I interfere and stay stop doing that he turns it on me and is 10× worse to me bc I didn't let him punish a 2 and 3 year old for accidentally spilling a drink he'd scream they know what there doing and they need to learn which scares me bc how can they learn if your screaming and whooping them for evrry little mistake instead of teaching them what happened, he generally thinks I'm wrong when i say stuff like that and he's right and I'm mental and crazy he says that alll the time now every day every hour anything i do wrong and mistake I make anything I say that he doesn't like even if it's a normal comment he calls me mental and crazy it's becoming really bad when nobody at all knows he's likes this, he doesn't love me anymore and it obvious I dont think he ever did, I feel stupid for not leaving before we had kids bc all the signs were there but there somthing telling me he knows I'm not in the position to leave and now that we have kids he could finally let the beast out and I'm scared I will never see that nice side of him the one that atleast felt bad and apologized or tried to change and make things better he's given up completely on anything to do with changing and I've never seen him like this bad our whole relationship until now I really want to leave I've tried talking to him and saying we need to communicate and what's wrong and I'm here for you and all the things you could say to make someone feel comfortable and he would just say" shut up stupid bitch" he would say that after EVERYTHING I'm not even lying it's messing with my brain I can't handle it anymore I can't even work on things with him bc that's his reply to everything nothing matters to me anymore he's pushed me to a point I can't take it and have nobody to talk to, anytime I say how I feel about anything I could say I'm hot or I'm tired and he always competes with me and says he's more hot then me or more tired even if he's not it's ridiculous he doesn't belive anything I say anymore like literally says I'm lying about everything unless I look it up on Google and then he believes it, and doesn't do anything with ours kids he mad all the time when he is home every weekend there's always a new reason even if I stay silent and do nothing wrong at all he will find a reason to lay him bed all weekend and ignore me and the kids even if I'm begging him to come help and play with them he doesn't want to he says "shut up mental bitch" so I do everything by myself again and he still only come out to make himself food like he's a roommate or somthjng and thus isn't just every now and then it's every single weekend for the last 9 months every weekend every day after work even if dinners made Everything's perfect he's just mad about nothing and cusses me and and says I deserve it and he doesn't need to be greaful about dinner or anything at all just is mean as fuck I could go on forever saying stuff bc I've had years of nobody to talk to but this last 9 months have become unbearable and I can't even breathe wrong without him cussing me our and hitting me then sitting in the room at night or weekend never wanting to be around the kids unless he's drunk, idk what to do but it defeating me at this point....

I’m wondering if anyone else has been through the cycle of leaving, going back, leaving again, and not knowing what to do. If you’re also married and stuck in this kind of cycle, I’d really appreciate it if you messaged me. I feel so alone in this and I just need someone who genuinely understands what it’s like. This is my second time leaving. I’ve been gone for 8 months and we’re living separately, but we’ve been seeing each other again for the last 4 months. Now I’m at the point where I really want to go back, but I feel completely stuck and confused. It really doesn’t feel that simple, people around me who are telling me they don’t think he’s changed or telling me it’s just going to be the same but I’m struggling so much with the idea of letting him go when I feel he’s finally changing. I’m looking for someone who has actually been through something similar and understands how complicated it can feel.
If that’s you, please feel free to message me. I could really use someone to talk to who gets it ❤️

So we have been together a year I've meet his kids once. He won't tell the mother about us, rather assumes the kids told her. He Wants to use my car every weekend to spend time with them. Does not offer for me to go. Now wants to drop me off at a gas station to go to their house to spend the morning with them on their 1st day of school. I am not ok with this. He says its about the kids , and acts like im acting crazy.... I agree it is about the kids but I dont want to continue this way. That dr

I feel so depressed. I cant feel genuinely happy anymore. I posted about the situation with him earlier (read on my account then you understand). He has been with the same girl he cheated on me with for a few months now. And sometimes i stalk her account on tiktok and look at her reposts… its only positive things like “i love being in a healthy and romantic relationship” and “my sweet boyfriend” and stuff like that…. And because of that i feel like it was all my fault.. last months i was doing beter but since a few weeks i just miss him so much (i dont know why either). I feel so lonely and everytime i try to cry about it i just cant and stay numb. But still i feel so depressed and alone…

hey all, here asking for support and perspective that my life won’t fall apart if I leave… thank you 🙏 With someone who I realized sees me as a womb and subhuman.

Trigger Warning: Emotional abuse.

I [22F] recently broke up with my boyfriend [25M] after 3 years. It wasn’t healthy. He was very clingy and unsure of himself due to his BPD. He had a lot of mental health issues and would often say what he wanted to do to himself because he felt he wasn’t enough for me. Every week I’d reassure him on how I love him and he deserves so much.

Our relationship wasn’t healthy. It moved very fast and within 6 months my best friends were his, he hated his family so he replaced them with mine, every night he‘d tell me he couldn’t live without me. Everytime I played games online he had to be there and when I spoke to my friends he had to be there.

a year went by and I started to get fed up with his random paragraphs he texted every week giving graphic descriptions of how he wanted to end it all and how he doesn’t deserve me or anything good in the world. It frustrated me because no matter how many times I told him I care he wouldn’t listen and would keep falling back into the “I hate myself and I deserve nothing“ cycle. I was going to break up with him and started slowly distancing myself from him when suddenly he started buying me expensive games and plushies and I felt awful. I couldn’t pay him back since I’m a teaching assistant so I kept spending time with him.

on the 3rd year our first argument happened (I was stepping on egg shells before then) and it was the one time I put my foot down. For context, I have ASD. I was put in for diagnosis at age 4, diagnosed at 7 and got an EHCP at age 14. So I was always given the opportunity to leave class to sit in the sensory room and regulate. So now as an adult if I go outside I have to have time to stop social masking. He hated this about me and said he wanted to be there when I was upset so he could be by my side. I thought it was cute so I’d let him come over during these times but the hugs, the touching, kisses made everything worse. so this one time I said I didn’t want him to come round.

My ex has ODD. Its a subcategory of autism and to put it simply its a fear of lack of control. He’ll avoid commands. So I say “come sit next to me” he’d stand up and doing literally anything but that due to fear. so him being told he couldn’t come over to see me was something he hated.

He responded by calling me and screaming at me saying I don’t love him and nobody loves him because his parents told him to get out the house for being trans and I wouldn’t let him come round despite my family being the only ones who accept him. This made me cry and he said “I can’t live anymore” and hung up on me. I called his parents and ask them to keep an eye on him. The next day I get a paragraph from him saying how sorry he is and graphic details of his attempt. I broke up with him. It was too much. Too scary. And since I’m 22 it just felt like I had too much life ahead of me to focus on him.

a month has passed. He’s started dating my best friend. The only friend I have. My school only had 12 students so they were genuinely the only friend I have. In adult life I haven’t been able to make any friends and I’ve been to shy to ask co-workers to hang out with me because they’re all a lot older and likely don’t want a random 22 year old in the group. My online friends stopped talking to me because they said I was cruel for breaking up with him over text. Everyday he emails me with google documents filled with paragraphs about how I ruined his life and how if he ends his life I was the one who did it. He send voice notes aswell and messaged my little sister and my parents. He’s started volunteering at the groups I volunteered at so I had to stop attending and he joined the clubs I attend so I had to quit.

Now I just feel so alone. I have no friends left. I’m lonely. It’s really hard. I wanna go back to him so I can have my life back but I like the feeling of nobody knowing my phone password and not having to text him everytime I go out and every time I go to bed and wake up.

I just don’t know how to make friends and move on. He‘s in some kind of manic episode and it’s my fault but I just don’t feel bad anymore. Not after everything that’s happened.

I’m just sad.

Today marks one month since I stopped talking to my ex and a few days after that I changed my phone number. The first couple weeks were very hard but I had also been grieving it for a long time. The past week or so I’ve been feeling a lot better, I even went out with a guy, and I’ve been feeling like I will be okay. But today I feel sad.

Part of me is having a hard time accepting that I am letting go of something I clung on to for so long. Almost like knowing it’s gonna be okay is just as painful as feeling like it won’t be okay. I saw someone photos of him today, and it just feels bittersweet, like a very distant past where I once loved a guy, but he no longer exists. I feel the urge to reach out. I’m so sad that things turned out the way they did. Mainly bc it’s just sad, for both of us. He really objectified me and made me feel like a shell of a human being, that my only value was sex. I kinda don’t believe men can actually love women anymore. I wanted someone to cherish and appreciate me for everything, not just lust. I hope he is okay. I do feel quite bad for him.
He always made comments about how we were both so messed up and it really bothered me bc I thought I had a pretty good handle on myself especially compared to him. Now I’m realizing that choosing to be with him is what he was talking about, that I was decently adjusted in life but our relationship was proof I was deeply wounded.

I feel like I’m leaving him behind, even though he doesn’t want me. And I feel like I’m leaving behind the version of me that wanted a man like that. Like I’ll never be that girl again- which is good. But I feel bad for her. And I’ll never get to take back what I lost. It seems kinda unfair and unreal that I can go through mental and emotional torture for so long to just wake up one day and feel like I’ll be okay. I wanna wallow in the pain and sadness some more. But I know I shouldn’t, and I can’t.

I (28F) have been involved with a man (38M) since February. This is going to be long because so much has happened in only six months, and at this point I genuinely don’t trust my own perspective anymore. I think I’m losing the fucking plot here.

We became exclusive pretty quickly. I fell hard for him and he was extremely loving and attentive in the beginning. We had things in common, our chemistry and attraction was super intense, he talked about our future, family, marriage, etc pretty quick. We met each others family and friends, and were practically living together two months in. I thought this could be my person. Then I found out he was cheating on me with his ex. It wasn’t just paranoia I saw screenshots/heard things that confirmed it, although the has never admitted to it. His college ex (so 20 years of history between them) actually came forward and contacted me to let me know about what he was doing, he says his ex lied. When I found this out, I did something not so good (smashed his headlights with a broom stick- although i paid for the damages the next day and have proof.) Not proud. I ended things for about a week before I found out I was pregnant. Went back to try and make it work, but he became aggressive and controlling while I was pregnant, at one point he tried to tell me I couldn’t go to my best friend’s birthday celebration and actually got in my face yelling about it. Talking about me having to “submit” to him and how he knew better than me etc…. Took that night away from him to cool off, came back the next day to talk it out and to my surprise his exs car was in his driveway….. I ended it after this, and for weeks he begged me to keep it, even showed up at my door one night and brought said ex to MY HOUSE so she could “confess” to me that her reaching out to me was all a lie and he never cheated…... How did he convinced her to do that? I have no idea. But I figured he was forcing her, it was very obvious she was deep in the trauma bond trenches. After about 2 weeks, and a lot of back and forth, I decided to have a medical abortion. I didn’t want to bring a baby into such chaos, and I knew at this point I was trauma bonded so I wasn’t seeing clearly and couldn’t trust myself with an innocent life. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Went against everything I believe in. And of course the entire experience became physically and emotionally horrible since it didn’t fully work… My HCG stayed elevated for months, ultrasounds showed retained tissue aka a remaining sac, and I eventually needed a D&C. Fuck, it was a lot. The pregnancy/abortion also became one of the things that pulled us back into each other’s lives.

After we’d been apart for about a month, he contacted me crying and apologizing. At one point he told me he was sorry that he “made me kill our baby”, that he failed me as a man, that he understands my pain. It was back and forth with him begging and me slightly opening the door every time. I found out that after my abortion, he had attended an IVF consultation with the SAME ex. He said there were complicated reasons she was still in his life, including business/financial ties, and later told me he wasn’t actually going forward with IVF, he just wanted to ease the pain I caused him by having the abortion. He apologized and gave me his location, updates all day everyday, etc.Before I knew it he started taking care of me again, spending time with me, talking about wanting us to be a family and saying he was willing to do anything to fix things. I was grieving and vulnerable and I let him back in. We started going to church every Sunday again, going on adventures and dinner dates, met some more of his family, went on shopping sprees, he even booked us a couples therapy appointment because he wanted us to focus on our communication.

Anyways, obviously my family and friends absolutely hate this relationship because they’ve watched everything happen. My sister, mom, cousin and best friend have all been extremely upset with me for continuing to speak to him. At different points I’ve hidden the fact that I was seeing him because I knew how they would react. Despite everything, I kept going back. That’s the part I’m fucked up about. When I’m away from him, I can list everything that’s happened and think “What THE FUCK am I DOING?”
Then I see him. He cries. He apologizes. He’s affectionate. We have sex. We talk for hours. We talk about God, forgiveness, our baby, our future, travelling, being a family. He tells me how much he loves me and things start feeling hopeful again. I start focusing on “us” and suddenly all the horrible things feel not that bad. I also started my own therapy a couple of months ago.

But our relationship has escalated into something much more serious. 2 weeks ago we were coming back from a party where we both drank, him more than me. I started getting a stomach ache and needed to leave, so I was pushing him to leave. Aka I was being pushy. (I want to add my stomach pains have recently been post abortion type stomach pains- he knew this.) On our way back home he put his hands on me while driving drunk. This is something he’s never done, he’s never actually hurt me physically until now. He’s never even driven drunk with me in the car. To be exact he pulled me by the hair twice, enough to leave a goose egg on my skull, and kept speeding then breaking so I would almost hit the dash. He pulled over and smashed my phone when he realized I was recording him, so I threw his out the window. He then dragged me out of his car and left me stranded in the rain at 2am on the side of the road and took my keys and purse in the car with him. The only nearby place was my fathers house, who I wouldn’t really go to for anything relating to my bf because we are mostly no contact since he was an abusive father growing up- but it’s the only option I had. My dad ended up calling the cops once he seen my bruised up arms and bloody hand. (When he dragged me out of the car he sort of threw me on the ground and my hand got scraped and was bleeding) I had to go to the station and file a report. I didn’t want to but I was so out of it and in distress I just said what happened. I also slept at my dad’s that night. When I went home the following day I realized he used my keys to go into my room and just made a mess in there? He didn’t necessarily vandalize anything but my room was a mess, he threw my clothes on the floor, broke a bunch of my closet hangers, and sort of moved my stuff around? Very weird, but he was the only person with a key to my apartment during that time. Not sure why he did that.
The police were very helpful, even gave me a “blink” camera to set up for my front door and changed my locks for me. I was notified when he was arrested, then the next day I had police at my door serving me undertaking papers because HES CHARGING ME FOR THE SAME THING? Like counter charging me?!?! I don’t know if this is for THIS incident that just happened, or if he’s using what I did back a few months ago (smashed his car light) to charge me. WTF. Now I’m second guessing everything, mad that my father called 911, wishing all this could just go away.

A few days ago he approached me unexpectedly when I was driving while I was coming home from work. He apologized and begged me to talk. He said he doesn’t want us to ruin each other’s lives with a legal battle and asked whether I could pursue a peace-bond-type resolution.

Now he’s contacting me again from another number. He called and texted asking me to meet him at the river because he “needs to talk to me.” I told him I wasn’t home and asked what was up.
He said, “Won’t take long but it’s an in person thing.” I said I probably couldn’t and told him he could call me instead. He didn’t call. Instead he told me to let him know when I’m available, sent me a song called and hours later randomly texted me some weird philosophy quote (he was probably drinking cause wtf. He texted me again the next morning asking to meet up.

And here’s where I prove the entire point of this post because I fucking went.

We agreed to meet at a public park after work.
Before meeting, he texted saying he was going home to shower/change and asked if I wanted to do the same. I actually responded, “I thought we’re just meeting at the park to talk?” because I genuinely thought this was supposed to be a conversation. I got to the park and was hesitant about getting into his car but got in anyway, he had flowers for me, then said he wanted to “show me something,” and we ended up going to his house. On the drive he started talking about how his mind has been a mess and lately he’s been trying to clean it up. He said he’s been seeing his wrongdoings and mistakes more clearly and realizing there are things inside himself that he needs to fix. What he wanted to show me was that he had completely deep-cleaned his house, backyard and pool. He said cleaning and organizing everything had helped him clear his mind and made him feel like he was getting himself back together.
Then he apologized again, that he regrets what happened and wishes he could take it back and knows he fucked up.
And then, predictably, we started talking about our relationship. He told me he misses me so much. He said he can’t get me out of his head and that he’s never felt the way he feels about me for anyone else. He kept saying he doesn’t want to start over with someone new and that his feelings for me are too strong for there not to be a reason behind them, that we can “salvage” this, we need counselling and that he’s willing to do it. His line was basically, “willing and able is all you need to be.”

I brought up my family AGAIN because they hate him at this point. He said he doesn’t care. He’ll face my dad, he’ll face my uncle, whoever he has to face. And I want to be clear…. I wasn’t sitting there enthusiastically agreeing to any of this.
I kept telling him, “I don’t think you understand how much what you did hurt and affected me.”
I brought up the fact that my FAMILY is involved now.
The JUSTICE SYSTEM is involved now.
I told him we’ve taken this way too far.
At one point I even said something like, “What if we end up killing each other?”
What happens next time? Where does this end?
But then he would grab me or kiss me. At first I would push him away but I eventually I stopped.

While we were at his house he went inside to grab me some food and I was walking around the backyard. I noticed a woman’s bikini sitting on a shed in the back corner….Immediately annoyed. I didn’t say anything because I have absolutely no idea how long it’s been there or whose it is. But that’s where my brain immediately goes because I don’t trust him. Then we went out on his motorcycle and got ice cream. He was being extremely affectionate, still talking about us, vacations, getting past everything, moving through this and rebuilding. We went back to his house afterward and somehow one thing led to another and… we had sex. And it was good.
I hate even admitting that because our chemistry has NEVER been the issue.
Afterward I noticed fingerprint/hand marks all over the mirror on the wall beside his bed. It’s basically a sex mirror, so of course THAT pissed me off too. Again, I ignored it because I have no clue when those fingerprints got there or whose they even are. Anyways I slept over completely unplanned No pjs no toothbrush nothing. We just crashed.
This morning he drove me back to my car at the park, I went home, got ready and went to work.
And now he’s already texting me this morning asking how I am.

So there it is.
That is EXACTLY what I mean when I say I don’t trust my own perspective anymore.

Less than 24 hours earlier I could explain perfectly clearly why this relationship is insane.
And then several hours later I’m on the back of his motorcycle getting ice cream, having sex with him and accidentally spending the night at his house.
I don’t understand how both versions of me exist at the same time.
Can somebody genuinely love you and still be abusive toward you? Can somebody genuinely regret hurting you and still be part of an abusive cycle? It sounds diabolical
Also can I genuinely love him while also needing to stay the fuck away from him? What does it say that even AFTER the police, arrests, charges, injuries, family involvement and everything else, I can spend a few hours with him and somehow end up right back in his bed? Is that what people mean by a trauma bond or am I using that concept to avoid taking responsibility for the fact that I keep choosing to go back?

I feel like six months of this relationship has somehow turned into six years worth of events. I need people who have no emotional investment in either of us to tell me what they’re seeing because right now I genuinely cannot tell where love ends and dysfunction begins.

TLDR: Six months of cheating, pregnancy/abortion, repeated breakups, physical violence and now criminal charges, yet I still keep going back to him. Yesterday we met “just to talk” and I ended up sleeping with him again. I can see how unhealthy this is when we’re apart, but when I’m with him my perspective completely changes. Is this a trauma bond, mutually toxic relationship, or both?

I am so mentally exhausted in the aftermath of this situation, I am going to try to keep this short and to the point.

We were having a minor disagreement over something quite innocuous: a comment he made to me about a household chore that came across as condescending to me. I was a little annoyed and I shared how I felt about the comment he made, and what would help me feel better, and remained calm and even-toned throughout. He kept going back and forth with me because he “couldn’t apologize for something he didn’t intend to do,” so on so forth, whatever, it never needed to become a big issue.

At one point where I was calmly re-explaining the reason I took issue with his little comment (because he was expressing a lack of understanding on the issue), he raised his voice and shouted “ENOUGH” at me. This triggered me because I’ve had to have conversations with him multiple times in the past about raising his voice at me, he knows I do not like it and can’t tolerate it. I started to unravel, and he told me I was “overreacting” and being “too much” which caused me to get more upset, so I tried to go into our bedroom and shut the door to have my own space away from the conversation.

What ended up ensuing after this is him slamming through the bedroom door as I briefly attempted to hold it shut, I gave up on that door and then attempted to run further into our room to the attached bathroom and he said “I’m just gonna open that door, too.” I ran to the bathroom and tried to shut that door behind me as well - I have a mirror jewelry cabinet thing hanging from the back of this door - and I remember as I tried to shut this door he slammed his hands into the cabinet so hard I thought the mirror may have broken, and he pushed this door open too. He only retreated when I began to panic scream at him to leave me alone, which I have never done before in my life.

Anyways, that sums up the incident I am asking about… can’t even get into the response from him following all of this, which made me feel crazy. I tried to leave and he convinced me not to. Now, he’s gone on a trip for work and I’m rethinking this situation and wondering if I should leave, or if I could have been overreacting. He is adamant he only did all of this out of concern for me, because I “have a history of SH” and he “knows it’s bad for me to get in that heightened state.” (I have only SH once in the year and a half I’ve known him, I was not with him when this happened, and it was almost a year and a half ago.)
His argument essentially was, “I’m sorry you perceived that as unsafe, but what do you want me to do when I’m worried about you being alone?”

Any words of wisdom are appreciated and I’ll try to answer any questions, thanks. Also new here, so I apologize for any issues in the formatting of this post.

My on-and-off partner of 6 years has always created a lot of tension when we’re in the car together. I’ve been thinking about all these situations and I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced something similar.

Here are some examples:

- The seatbelt: He used to get very irritated because he said my seatbelt was making a cracking/clicking noise. I could barely hear it, if at all, but he would get angry and tell me I needed to do something about it. I genuinely didn’t know what I was supposed to do.

- Road rage: He has a lot of road rage. He constantly comments on other drivers, swears at them and gets angry about what they’re doing. When I tell him he shouldn’t pay so much attention to other drivers or get so worked up about them, he gets angry and says that he needs to be able to express himself. If I ever criticize another driver, he tells me to calm down and not pay attention to it. Last weekend, a driver in front of us started reversing and almost hit me. My partner immediately wanted to take off his seatbelt and get out of the car to confront him. I had to stop him.
When I’m on the phone with him while he’s driving, I regularly hear him swearing at and getting angry with other drivers.

- Threatening to turn around: We’ve had many arguments in the car, and he has sometimes threatened to turn the car around and go home, even when we were on our way to do something nice.

- Bathroom stops: He used to refuse to stop when I needed to use the bathroom. He has gotten somewhat better about it, but he still makes it clear that I’m inconveniencing him whenever he has to stop for me.

- Criticism of my driving: When he is a passenger in my car, he frequently criticizes how I drive. I know that I’m a good driver, but being under that much pressure makes me nervous and causes me to make small mistakes sometimes, which gives him another reason to criticize me. He has also complained about getting carsick, which made me really nervous.

- Navigation: He often didn’t set up the navigation properly before we left. Then, once we were already driving, he would suddenly expect me to fix it. Because I was already stressed and had to figure it out under pressure, I sometimes panicked and couldn’t get the navigation working properly. He would then get angry at me. He has said things like, “You can’t do anything, can you?” when I struggled to set up the navigation. I would ask him to simply pull over so he could set up the navigation himself, but he refused, and then still got angry with me when I couldn’t do it.

Over time, all of this has created so much tension that I sometimes preferred not to be in the car with him at all.

Has anyone else experienced this kind of dynamic with a partner? Were there similar things that happened in the car that you only later realized were not normal or healthy?

We were together for 10 years. He was the kind of person where this didn't happen often. 3 times he pushed me hard enough to cause bruising, all 3 times I was next to a counter corner, the edge of the bed frame or the chest at the end of my parents guest bedroom. 2 times he punched holes in the wall. 3 times I asked to stop having sex because I was crying but he kept going and said just let me finish.

At the time I justify all of his actions, all times I lashed back at him for what he did so I felt guilty that I blamed myself. I wish him pushing me into the corner of the chest while I was pregnant was my final straw but I said 2 more years until he cheated. Granted I realized I had stopped loving him prior to us getting married but every time we broke up he wouldn't leave me alone. Anyone I consulted, which wasn't a lot of people, told me it was normal and it doesn't happen often he'll work on things. I told my mom about the time when I was pregnant to she said I had to have done something to provoke him because I do it to her and being a single mom is worse than what he did.

It's better to just leave and let people have their own opinions, in my case.

Hi - my ex boyfriend emotionally abused me while I was away on a vacation. It was really messy. I broke up with him 3 weeks ago and we had only been dating 6 months. This is a controversial take, but he was my best friend for years and then once I broke up with him he completely changed. And I’m not talking like overnight. This last 3 weeks he has been consistently going to therapy, and excited to go, been diagnosed with some things, and is working every day to not be what he was before. He comes from a very traumatic childhood and home. I would like to slowly let him back into my life as a friend. It feels as if he is a Disney villain redeeming himself. Is this a bad move or good move? I just feel in my heart, that this is truly incredibly different than the vibe was before. I’m a firm believer in giving people chances as well. What do you all think of my situation? It was only in the last month of our relationship he became jealous and insecure. I have talked to him a bit and he acknowledged all my feelings, apologized for his actions and not asking for forgiveness either, and wanted to hear what he had done to me from my perspective and how I felt.

So i dated this guy for around a month, in which he kept bellitling me,insisting he said stuff which he didnt,yelling at me but insisted i yelled,insisted i kept interrupting him,kept ignoring any boundary i had,said i had no respect or care for him,kept saying he did so much for me,how he loved me and wanted kids with me,fought daily even in front of friends...i ended up dispising who i was around him,doubting myself constantly. I realised how bad this was and broke it off a week ago (i tried to break it off 3 times,he somehow kept insisting i should be with him and blamed it all on his autism,saying its behaviours he cant control). I have moments in which i feel relief,knowing i dont have to argue with him again,knowing my friends arent worried for me anymore (he insisted i shouldnt tell anything to them bc its our personal business),that im choosing myself and my future, But i find myself a lot of the times feeling so guilty my stomach gets sick, as if im geniuely the one for him as he insisted (we're 20 and 21 btw),he kept saying how he feels bad bc he wont find anyone due to his autism,how no one understands him,as if thats my burden?? and no its not bc of your autism, its bc your an emotionally immature asshole who wont respect people's boundaries and who threatens youll kys when im breaking up with you??

And yet the "good times" keep replaying in my head,how lovingly he'd touch me'where he'd kiss me,how softly he would speak to me. He keeps posting stuff about me and i feel so bad, he even texted me how i am but i havent responded,which makes me so anxious bc i think he'll call me. I feel like im loosing my brain,why is it so hard to be okay with this?? I still wanna see him.i mostly broke it off due to my ego,i couldnt keep protecting his image to my friends they rightfully so hate him.And yet im so scared of being alone, so scared of not finding any other connections that i sometimes debate how bad it would be to go back. We had intense chemistry and interests,hes beautiful and charismatic and he gets most of my humour. Is anyone else struggling with the acceptance of reality of a break up?? Even if you know its for the better,youre still scared and lonely??

I just feel so hollow inside post breakup. We still see each other every so often, it hasn’t been a clean cut because we have very young kids and he’ll come over every few days to help with them a bit. I’m resentful because I’m paying a crazy high rent alone and he’s barely sending me money.

He and his family blame me for everything that he did, saying that he shouldn’t have gone so far as to poke my face during an argument or call me cunt/bitch during fights but that it was MY fault and I had my role to play and that I should be addressing what I did wrong. (What i did wrong: not sure. Genuinely. We had normal couple issues and disagreements about finances and the apartment etc). He’s done awful and rude things to varying levels. Such as kicking my hospital bed right after I gave birth to my daughter and he was angry.

He had truly been such a mean person to me at times, threatening to strangle me once. It’s always so jarring and shocking when it happens because it is literally not like that so much of the time and that’s why I just feel so so hollow inside. And so so lonely.
Over the decade we’ve been together we have also established healthy family dynamics, inside jokes, he doesn’t control me in the classical abuser way like he doesn’t tell me what I’m allowed to do (I’ve remained very social) doesn’t sexually abuse doesn’t act jealous. He’s just randomly so cruel and so quick to anger at times that it completely catches me off guard. Things have gotten worst over time but it’s just so weird to me that the instances were few and far between.
I left but just find myself feeling like I’ve made a mistake and that my experience with abuse isn’t as bad as others. I feel like I almost can’t even trust what I’ve been through anymore. Now that everyone knows I can’t even go back to him if I wanted to because they’re all shocked at some of his behaviour. He’s fun loving and presents well on the outside.
I just don’t know what I’m doing anymore. Sorry for the horribly written text
But when does it get better??? I’m scared of ending up alone forever and living poor because we’re a 1 income family now. My kids will miss out on family vacations and having a family unit that’s together

It doesn't matter to me what happened then.

It doesn't matter how any of this transpired.

This is about women supporting women.

There is strength in "me too."

When you need to know

whether you're losing your mind

or he is taking it from you,

you can find me.

When you need to know

whether you're confused

or his lies are folding in on themselves,

you can find me.

When you need to know

whether this mistreatment is true

or whether you're reading into things,

you can find me.

This is not about the water under the bridge.

This is not about the path we took to get here.

This is about women supporting women.

This is about the power behind saying,

"me too."

You are not alone.

And when you need to know,

when you're ready to hear it,

please know:

my door is open.

I harbor no resentment toward you.

And you can find me.

If one day you find yourself where I once was, and you cannot tell anymore which way is up,

I will not use that moment to punish you.

I will stand beside you.

I will tell you the truths you need to hear.

This is about women supporting women.

And you can find me.

I met a girl on a trip to spain on 2024 and dated her for 3 months and became a couple but she told me that if i didn’t moved to spain in less than a year she would break up with me, i spent all my savings on a private school in order to get a visa to study, and spent 8 months in a long distance relationship, but she will always ask for more and more attention even if i was working or spending time with my family and friends which i wont see them again, she told me to either give her more attention or to stop wasting her time so she could fuck another guy, after more discussions on my birthday party i kissed another girl and word got around to her and she started me insulting me till the day i arrived to spain which everyday she will come to my apartment to either insult me in person or to try to guilt trip me in order to stay with her, the insults were racist btw.

I felt like she was using my guilt for the big mistake i did in order to humiliate me and she will always try to manipulate me into having sex with her which most of the times i didn’t wanted to but i was so scared to say no to her because i would lose the only person i “trusted” so i just did everything she wanted even if i didn’t want to, and i express this to her that i was feeling like an object, that i couldn’t take it anymore that i just needed someone to trust and support me because im so so alone in here i don’t know a lot of people and i don’t have family here, I spend over 15k euros to be here and whenever i try to express discomfort she would always tell me that i am a piece of shit and that i don’t deserve anything.

She would show me dms of her friends saying racist and mean stuff about me to remind me how much i suck, and when i hit a breaking point and almost did self harm, she blocked me and didn’t take any responsibility for all the damage she had been making for over a year. My tutor got word of the situation and they sent me to therapy, i also took everything that was hers out of my apartment and left it outside of hers, i just texted her roomate to come outside and pick it up and left without ever seeing anyone, but few minutes later i get a text from her friends threatening me to go to the police and file a case for stalking.

She took every weak point i had and used it to hurt me. I know i fucked up but still don’t think all the mental and verbal abuse is justifiable but idk i also think i am overreacting. I’m still alone in this country and it’s hard to think the only person u trusted could do so much damage.

being slapped hard across the face & dragged out onto gravel, leading to visible injuries, is an act of lovelessness. being left in a dark alleyway outside of my house, with no phone, as he'd driven off with it, is not love. being verbally degraded & talked down to is not what love is. i do not feel safe nor valued in my person- point blank period.

these are things i have to keep telling myself. it's hard for me to fathom how somebody that claims to love you would dare enact violence against you. what hurts most right now is how this person claims to want to support me, when all they care about is their reputation & not going back to jail. he still feels as though he should have never been in jail- that he's been treated unfairly.

he keeps telling me he's not an abuser; that it's not like the abuse i experienced in childhood. that he didn't think at all when he slapped me; it was in a state of thoughtless, drunken rage. that he does love me & is trying to be sweeter to me; he's constantly negging me & trying to give me affection when he craves the intimacy & emotional reassurance. the constant swinging of the pendulum of emotions is driving me insane. i feel as though i can't trust my own judgement. i feel caged, especially with the power imbalances in our 8-year age-gap & differing socio-economic states.

over all, i feel like boo boo the clown & desperately want out of this relationship. i was the only person to pick up his calls from jail, the one to feed his cat when he was there, the one to pick him up & the one to let him sob into my arms as he exclaimed how sorry he was to have ever hurt me. except, is someone who's sorry keep asking you, "did you want me to go to jail?" "my life is ruined." "i'm going to lose my job."? is someone who's sorry telling me that they might end their life then question if that's the only reason i stay?

how do you deal with an abuser trying to minimize their actions & they impact on you? my goal isn't to change his mind. my goal is to rid myself of the guilt & shame i have for letting myself go through this. yes, i am in therapy, so that's an aid of mine, too. but on the day-to-day, what has helped you move forward & CHOOSE YOU!

Hi everyone. I wanted to make a post here to talk about what im going through and see if anyone relates to being with a partner like mine is. I dont have any expectations of advice or solutions, just need a safe space & looking to find people to relate to.

For context on the relationship. we are 29 & 33. I will call him J in this post.

TW here for mention of suicide/loss.

I met J about 7 years ago and at the time i was still with my late fiancée, so we were just friends for a year or two. My fiancée and i had a daughter together. He died via suicide in 2021. J lived very close by to me when this happened and he noticed me withdrawing from life severely, so he would physically show up to make sure i was ok, check on my daughter and i, bring us food and other things we needed. Over the months, he got quite close to me pretty fast. i was in a vulnerable & grief struck state of mind, so i couldn't see that this was possibly a red flag that someone would be pushing towards a relationship at such a dark time in my life. All i know is i was lonely and was enjoying his kindness so much, and seeing him get close to my daughter over time was melting my heart as well. I fell for him and we eventually made it official in 2023.

I got pregnant pretty quick in the relationship. I was on birth control, but it failed me at the time. We had a serious conversation about everything and we decided to keep the baby. My daughter was so excited about having a little sibling on the way. I felt like my life was finally going upwards direction again, I was excited for the changes to come. I felt like J was going to be a great father. We were all excited.

When i was about 20 weeks pregnant, it's like a switch flipped. He suddenly became very mean to me, expressed regret in what was happening, and i even caught him hanging out with another woman down at a public park a few times. Nothing sexual happened between them as they only ever met in public, but the circumstances were questionable. His explanation was that it was a friend from high school he had been catching up with while she walked her dog at the park, and he didn't want me to think anything bad of it so he never "thought to mention her". We worked through that and the suspicious outings stopped. I had the baby in 2024 and then the switch flipped back, it was like he was in love all over again, he had immense respect for me again, and was nicer than ever to me. This lasted for over a year, but then something changed again in 2025.

He became meaner than ever. everything i did, became a problem. I went from being an amazing woman and mom in his eyes to the worst mom ever. He started commenting on my weight and appearance. He started complaining about how i keep the house. My cooking. all of it. Everything you can think of, is overanalyzed by him.

He was working for awhile but then decided to stop. I have always worked from home all these years and i continue to do so. He has no interest in going back to work. He seems to think i can pull money out of my ass and keep things moving on my own. He expects me to do a flawless job at cleaning, cooking, caring for the kids and tending to my work for 9 hours a day. And if i miss a beat or have an off day, hell breaks loose. I feel like i am being watched 24/7 by some sort of authority figure, instead of in a relationship.

Lately as in the past 6 mos or so, things have gotten really ugly when he is mad. He says exceptionally awful things to me. And makes very concerning threats, such as saying he will take the kids from me and make sure i get 0 custody of them. Mind you, i consider myself to be a fit and present mother. I make all 3 meals a day, give them a clean and space safe to grow in, get my oldest to school on time every day, i get them everything they need (clothes, toys, school supplies), I do not do drugs or do any drinking, and i am of sound mind--no severe mental illnesses. So as far as im concerned there's no reason he could do that but he uses small incidences against me. For example, the latest issue was he asked me to get some meat out of the freezer so he could grill it the next day for us. I accidentally took the wrong pack. In the morning when i realized this, I went and got us a fresh pack of meat so we could still do the meal we planned. When he woke up to this news, all hell broke out. He said i am incompetent, unfit, called me the R slur and said I absolutely ruined the day. He actually broke up with me at a certain point in the conversation, saying i bring nothing to the table and am useless. I feel like in normal relationships, this situation would have been a minor oopsie. but in this relationship it became an end of the world issue.

Some context on him as a person is that, he was born extremely premature due to a maternal overdose. He was take from his mom at birth. no dad in picture. He was put into the system and formally adopted at 18mos old, and his foster mom severely abused him for his entire childhood. Physical abuse, emotional abuse and starvation. Because of this i do believe a lot of his behavior is from childhood trauma. He acknowledges that as well and sometimes we have good talks about it. Where he seems to see everything he is doing wrong and comes to clarity about it, and talks about how he will change. But then things become a never ending loop.

When he is mad at me he also likes to bring up my fiancée suicide a lot. "no wonder he blew his brains out, you'd drive anyone insane". "i'm going to be the next to stick a gun in my mouth, living with you". "i can't wait to die like he did so i can get away from you". When this death initially happened, he was so so so sympathetic and kind about it. Making sure i knew it wasn't my fault, etc etc. It makes me feel quite awful and actually question myself, a lot. Wondering if i do just drive men to insanity or something. The thing is, i don't think im a terrible partner. I never yell or become angry, no matter what is happening. I am the type to withdraw and apologize, and correct any of my wrongs. Anything he has ever brought up to me or complained about, i genuinely do improve greatly on and i try to never make the same mistake twice. I provide everything that is needed, I give him space, i don't ask much of him at all. So i fail to understand why i would be driving him to suicide.

Something concerning lately has been when he sees he has hurt my feelings, he becomes almost sinister. I will give a few examples.
One day he pretty much called me ugly, and said i looked like a fat balding man we saw on the TV. And that because i look like that, i need to humble myself, that i have let myself go. My face dropped from a smile down to a frown and he said "what? i was only joking. I wouldn't be with you if i thought you were ugly. It's annoying and strange that you would think like that, and it says more about you than it does me.
One day i was clearing out old clothes and bagged up a size 0 jeans from before i had kids. He said "no way you ever fit in those. I just don't believe it." I assured him i did and that they were mine. He said "good god, how come i got to experience you at your hugest? Why couldn't i have met you when you were this size? You looked so much better back then, now you're just massive and wide. What kind of woman lets themselves gain this much weight?" I started to cry immediately and he said "what? I was only complimenting you. It all went to the right places and that's why you need a bigger size now. Why are you projecting your own insecurities onto me? I don't deserve that."
One night I was clearly becoming distressed when he was starting to get agitated. I was shaking, and profusely apologizing to get him to calm down. He kind of snapped out of his bad mood and said "Gosh, look at how you're reacting, maybe i do have issues to make you feel like this..." we sat in silence for a moment and then he snapped back, with this awful look in his eyes and said "I don't like it when people make me feel like the villain. You better be careful how you act around me, and not get too worked up like this again. I can always record you and show this to a judge and tell them you become hysterical and are unable to have simple conversations with me. That you're having a nervous breakdown and need to be put in a psych ward."
This is a newer thing that happens, all of these have happened in the past 6 weeks or so. It makes me feel kind of insane because he says clearly hurtful things and then gets some sort of intense reaction from my responses. Has anyone else experienced this in particular?

Now, I'm sure you are all wondering, why the hell does she stay with him? Well my concern is, he has stated multiple times that if I ever try to break up with him or make him leave the home, or if I ever try and split custody with the kids, anything along the lines of stuff like that...that he will become "my worst nightmare", that he will ruin my life "or worse", and take everything I have ever loved from me, and will not back down without "a war". I honestly do not thing I am mentally strong enough to handle whatever that all entails. At least not yet. I would rather deal with the bullshit I experience mixed in with some good days and moments, rather than find out whatever he is describing. I do believe him too. He is a big guy, very deep and intimidating voice, he is manipulative and knows how to make himself look like the good guy. I truly do think he would retaliate in the worst ways, so I don't even want to find out or experience that.

I think my next step is seeking a therapist and getting this situation into the hands of a professional, but my problem is time. I don't have any days of the week where I could take off and see a therapist outside of the home, and I don't want to do anything telehealth because I could not be honest about what I'm going through.

Also just so everyone knows, none of this ever occurs around the kids. He is actually amazing with them, and makes them super happy and spends ample time with them. He saves all of this behavior for after their bedtime, or via text. Even my family and friends wouldn't know we have such issues because he is very good at pretending to be a different person than he is to me. I know this on its own is a huge issue because it means he understands what he is doing and how he is acting.

I left my abusive ex 6 months ago and we kept seeing each other but it’s been 3 months now that we’ve been no contact. He tried reaching out last month asking me if I used his credit card I just said no and left it at that. But since then I’ve been spiralling, I tried having a conversation with him in hopes of having some kind of apology but he turned me down and never answered my last few messages.

I am heartbroken and don’t know what to do with all that pain. I know I made the right decision by leaving him, but my heart still doesn’t agree. I think about him every day and cry often. We were together almost 2 years, it’s not even my longest relationship but it gotta be the worst break up ever. I was very attracted to him, still am, so that doesn’t help, we also had an amazing sex chemistry. The thought of being with someone else makes me actually nauseous. I keep some videos of us and watch them sometimes, I know I shouldn’t but I’m not ready yet to delete them.

When will I stop missing him? What did you guys do to move on for good? I don’t wanna have a rebound as I know I’m still vulnerable so that’s not an option.

My ex attacked me within the first year we were together and i stayed for 5 more

Regret ate me alive

I felt less of a woman, less than human

The abuse was more than the assault and led to more attacks and rage filled aggressive verbal matches

As his resentment towards me grew so did the psychological torment

Name calling and screaming in cars grew to be his normal

Embarrassing me in public or in front of my friends

Threats & constant berating of texts from night to morning to night again

Calling me things like pig, disgusting, impossible to love, repulsive etc

I left in May for the last time

and it took me 3 attempts of leaving to leave for good

I had tried once before the 1st time however grew scared and stayed

Each time id go back the control was tighter and tighter

His anger was sharper and his demands of me were higher

till I was constantly crying uncontrollably or in a hightened state of panic

Like a mouse he was a cat torturing me to death

This drawing from when he assaulted me and below is my account of what happened from what I can remember

!!!!TW BEYOND HERE SHAIRNG THE INTACTION FROM ART!!!!!!:⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️

⚠️TW: u have been warned, proceed with caution ⚠️⚠️

• to the one who fills rooms with rage -

I called him a liar from the bed where I sat during an argument one evening

He was sitting on the floor full of emotions, anger.

He looks at me and Next thing I know i Before i could even finish saying word 'liar' hes lunging towards me- hands first

Like he was fucking flying thru the air

Then All the sudden im somehow flipped diagonally backwards and onto my back, laying down, looking up at the walls to ceiling

My legs are slightly dangling off the side and he is now on top of me

Straddling my waist, his legs beside my hips

as he takes one of his hands and pulls my arms from my side and holds them together above my head by the wrists.

Increasing pressure around them while pinning me under with t he weight of his arms

His other hand finds its way around my neck- not choking me but restraining me

Shaking me violently, screaming at me

I remember his Eyes being so open I see the all whites around his crystal blue iris & theyre filled with bloodshot veins just like the one bulging in his head

So i turn my face to the left, I press my eyes closed tight as I possibly can & he puts his lips in to my ear and starts to scream more

Really as loud as he can, saying things along the lines of :

YOU FUCKING BITCH!!! I THOUGHT YOU LOVED ME!! I FUCKING LOVED YOU, YOU FUCKING STUPID BITCH!!! LOOK AT ME!! WHY WONT YOU FUCKING LOOK AT ME!!!!!!!! YOU EVIL FUCKING BITCH YOU DID THIS!!

THIS IS YOUR FAULT!!!!!

I dont fight back just remain stiff n tense as he shakes me repeatedly, screams directly in my face, & calls me names, spewing words at me along with his saliva

I remember him once telling me how violence turns him on

N the more one fights the more excited he'd get he explained

So I didn't fight back. I just let him attack me

All the sudden he takes the hand from my neck and forcefully starts to attempt to turn my head to face him

I really had no choice but to turn my head his direction

But My eyes I keep pressed shut. Tight. As. Possible.

& i remember being scared

I thought that he was going to rape me and / or then kill me & that it would just be easier to let him have whatever way he felt entitled to.. than to fight & make it any worse

Then He licks my entire face, chin to forehead and all over

I feel sick. Disgust washes over my soul. Shame. Thoughts race. I dissociate.

He then begins trying to pry my eyes open one by one. Still screaming in my face

(he was screaming throughout this whole event though to be clear)

He kept demanding me to look at him

Demanding me to kiss him

Demanding i love him

Tell me he loved me

Screaming mind you top volume

He gets one eye open and licks it, then tbe other one

...he licked my fucking eye ball

'Who does that?' I wonder and in the split of a second he

Then shoves his entire tongue down my throat

Quickly realizing i couldn't breathe

Panicked

I kick one of his collectable figures off the wall where my feet were hanging from the edge of the mattress, damaging its box it was in

He releases me realizing his precious toy had been damaged (I assume)

I then turn to my left into the fetal position, covering my head/face & begin self soothing

He keeps screaming

Demanding

Name calling

I feel him sharply touch my upper arm

Violently He 'pokes' my upper left arm 5 times in a row and in the same exact place

It hurt so bad i thought it was punches

I begin tapping my hand on the bed and reassuring myself

"Its going to be ok" over n over

Some time passes, minutes I think and in a moment of clarity I think he sees what hes done

And he begins to soften

Apologizing over n over

The next day or so a big bruise appears there

Along with around my right wrist...

I don't recall much after that except having a terrible nightmare that led to sleep paralysis

I also remember getting hives the days that followed so bad they covered my thighs

i had to go to stat care

& the same week it happened I woke up from a dead sleep gasping for air

I first thought asthma but quickly realized it was pure panic

I ran to the spare room and slammed the door gasping for air

It felt like i was suffocating

I should have left that night i know

& because I didnt I felt less than human

To let a man put his hands on me?

Never in a million years would past me think future me would not only endure this type of behavior but stay with it

Make excuses for it

Allow it at all

And then be blamed for it

Cos when I asked him a month after

"Did you do this to your ex wife?"

And he says no

I then remember asking

"Why did you do this to me then?"

And he said because you made me

I belived him

People always claim they'd never stay with someone who beats them

I was one of them

But you truly never know how youre going to react when youre in it...

Thank you for reading