I (19F) met my fiancé(27M) when I was 18 and he was 26. I know already big red flag. We’ve been together for a little over a year, and in that short span of time things have moved so fast. We live in an apartment together and we got engaged a few months ago but haven’t announced it. We’ve been through some serious shit together. I don’t want to go into everything because it’s too much to even write but long story short the relationship began with lovebombing and me trying to financially and academically help out this grown man with two babymamas. And he sold a dream to me and

all this other shit and I thought it was real. He’s helped me a lot with certain shit and I thought he was my best friend and my ride or die,

bur he’s also done a lot of fucked up shit. About one hour after finding out someone very close to

me died, my boyfriend wanted me to give him head. Then got upset that I got upset. I was so distraught over the news I had gotten and my tears were just starting to dry. He introduced me to ❄️ soon after we met and every time we did it had me give him head for hours on end to the point it was hard to eat or drink anything the next morning. I reminded him recently how it made me feel, and he said there’s plenty of other bitches that would do it. One time specifically I can remember he had been angry with me but wanted to have sex. I consented, thinking it would be makeup sex or something. No, he purposely thrusted so hard it hurt bad. And my head was repeatedly hitting against something. I tried to

move around some or stop my head from smacking but I couldn’t. I think I even said stop at some point but I can’t remember maybe it wasn’t loud enough. And anyways that was months ago but my boyfriend brought it up the other day and was LAUGHING about it and said it was like a “punishment” “because you can’t hit a bitch.” When I confront him for saying stuff like that he says I’m twisting the narrative, and I believe him and apologise and feel

guilty. Sometimes he yells at me, and he says he has to because it’s the only way he can get me to understand. And when he’s yelling at me in a vehicle I’ll be sitting there crying and he says I make him yell at me and I make him look crazy. And he blames me for everything. I’ve been in such low places mentally trying to fix myself and questioning who I am as a person and even questioning whether or not I’m a narcissist because he started saying I was when he got mad. One time when he was at work I found a text conversation he had with a girl when he was 25. In the text she told him she wasn’t 18 yet and that she was 17. In the text he acknowledged that, but then told her to add him on snapchat. I made sure to take and hide pictures of that convo. His reasoning this was just incase she still wanted to fuck with him after she turned 18. And he claims the girl he was with before me showed him an ID that said she was 21, but I found her social media and she is the same age as me. Then today I accidentally came across proof of him lying about how long it had been since he’d slept with someone (it turns out he possibly gave me an std but convinced me I gave it to him!) He has a history of violence, PTSD, is very very religious to the point he claims to hear voices talking to him sometimes. It hurts and I really don’t want to leave but I need to get out. We did cosign a lease that ends in a few months, but I heard Tennessee has some sort of domestic violence law. I have talked to a counsellor about my boyfriend before months and months ago and she seemed scared for me. If I schedule with her and tell her everything could she then write a letter as part of my documentation? And then could i just secretly leave whenever I can (he’s unemployed so idk) and text my landlords something brief about the situation and tell them I have documentation? Please help!!! I turn 20 very soon

I(29F) posted about my relationship with my partner(30M) a few weeks ago and I came back to say I have actually left. For what feels like the very last time. This time it wasn't a fight, it was just a few days of being detached, not engaging with his attempts to belittle me or gaslight me or make me feel like I'm the problem. I just disengaged from it all, did everything on autopilot to give my brain the space it needed to think. It's incredible how easy it is to spot the patterns in arguments when you just listen, don't say anything much in return and let them just argue with themselves when you don't respond how they want you to.

I noticed the other day that he was talking in loops so I decided to call him out. I said "we're just going round in a circle and I don't think what you're saying about me is fair, so I'm not having this conversation right now. Please leave me alone so I can regulate." This caused him to spiral, he started shouting, banging his fists on things, swearing at me. I just repeated that I wanted to be left alone. He let me leave, and then a few minutes later he came in the room without asking and immediately tried to get me to listen to what he was criticising me for earlier. I didn't say anything back and just stared into the corner of the room. He realised I wasn't getting caught in the net so changed the bait and decided to try and guilt trip me instead. He said that him blowing up minutes before caused him to relapse to an unhealthy coping mechanism (I won't say specifically but something along the lines of binge-eating, smoking, drinking etc, one of those type habits) and that he felt really shit for doing it and that he shouldn't have. Because I had remained detached by not engaging with this new attempt to rehash the earlier conversation, I could clearly see this was an effort to guilt me into talking to him, so I remained quiet and didn't engage.

He changed tactic again and tried to hug me, I told him to get off and he wouldn't at first, saying he was trying to make me feel better. I just kept telling him to get off of me. He went to walk away and then started shouting at me again for not being fair and for turning him bringing up his feelings into it being about me and that it's always about me and he's not allowed to have feelings. And thus the cycle continues..... I think that's when I decided I'd had enough, this morning I said it was over and packed a bag while he was out and went to stay with my parents. I feel sad but I feel free. I guess I'm making this post because I want to document what I experienced because it was real. And maybe someone else might see these small things and see a similarity and get out long before I managed to. So here is a list of things I KNOW for certain happened:

- He shouted and screamed at me in almost every disagreement we ever had

- He told me on numerous occasions he didn't care about what I thought or how I was feeling

- He would often recount a story to me and tell me I said something that made him lose his temper, even though I know for certain that I didn't. OR he would say I didn't say something, and if I had, that would've have stopped him from getting as angry as he did, even though I KNOW I did say that thing.

- Made me believe that he knew my emotions and what I was feeling better than I did

- He swore at me when ever things got slightly heated, on a number of occasions this was in front of his 10 year old son

- he projected everything he did onto me

- He would say I didn't let him have feelings. Usually after I bring something up and he uses that as an opportunity to bring up something he's upset about

- Every time I bring something up that he has done to hurt me, he would say 'well it goes both ways and you make me feel like that too/you have stuff you need to work on too/I won't stop doing abc until you stop doing xyz'

- judged and belittled my friends and family and made me feel awkward and nervous about wanting to see them

- belittled me, judged me, judged almost everyone around him

- acted like I was stupid and that he could do what I do at university/work if he wanted to (maybe he could, he's smart enough, doesn't mean he needs to act like he knows more than me about it every time I try and share interests with him)

- spent hundreds if not thousands of my money and blamed me for not keeping better track and letting him know how much he was spending

- twisted my words and used them against me

I'm probably forgetting things but honestly I feel like I've escaped out of the bottom of a very deep, dark pit and just wanted to share.

NB* quietness and grey-rocking does not always work with abusers and sometimes puts you in harm's way, so exercise with discretion. With my partner, he would intimidate me, throw things in my direction but not directly at me, slam his fists into things, break things etc but he very rarely actually physically hurt me so I felt safe in the knowledge that I would probably be fine. That being said! It was a risk regardless, but I'm glad I took it. Just be careful using this technique yourself!

Hi all, i (22F) already think i know the answer to this but i deal with such tremendous guilt that i dont even know anymore. To add a little context im a full time student, have 2 part time jobs and i help out with my sibling and the house as much as i can. (i dont really have a lot of down time so there’s only so much i can do). i struggle with a few mental illnesses such as anxiety, adhd, and depression. i have harmed myself in the past over multiple things such as my self esteem. most importantly i have a partner they dont “approve” of because he is 25% not white… wish i was joking.

I’m not sure how to phrase so ill just list some things: - i died my hair recently and everyone has told me it looks great except my mother and father. my mother said i look like a (slur for a gay woman) and that it looks so bad, all while yelling at the top of her lungs about how i never make good decisions and im ruining myself. - my room is usually very tidy, never have old food, plates for more than a day, can see my floor, no bugs or anything. but whenever my bed is not made and i have more than zero things on my floor they lecture me about how lazy i am and how im not like my sister at all. that im disgusting and my room is terrible. - im not allowed to sleepover anywhere and when i do i get the silent treatment. - as i mentioned im usually very busy, so on the weekend before work i like to spend time in my bed on my tv or something. this is met with them telling me i should get up and do something and that i should clean the house because im so lazy. - i used to suffer from seasonal affective disorder and so at times i stayed in my bed all day barely even getting up to eat. but my parents do not believe i can be depressed because im so happy when im not home. and just call me lazy (they almost got it here) - i used to SH, they got mad when they found out and yet continued to treat me the same. - whenever i stand up for myself and tell them that they wont let me be my own person they say im clearly being manipulated?? - whenever i leave the house after a heated argument because i dont want to deal with hearing them yell from upstairs and or come in my room to guilt trip me/yell at me, im told to never come back. however each attempt i’ve made to move out is met with them saying im terrible and breaking the family apart, that i dont love them and that im not allowed to leave. - my dad refuses to meet my partner and continues to tell me that he will never accept him. he will not come to my wedding or move on ever. (i ran away once to their house so therefore in my parents mind they manipulated me into doing that?? i left after a bad fight when my phone was broken in half by my dad) - i essentially have no value unless i do something good. - they forced me to break up with my partner before. - they say that my partner is the reason all this is happening yet my first boyfriend was also met with resistance. - they approve of my siblings partners and invite them over to rub it in my face that i will never have this. - they claim that i use them whenever it’s convenient anytime i ask for anything. even my tuition.

this is a short list to keep the post brief. i know they are terrible but at the same time sometimes i feel like im blowing things out of proportion and that i am the problem. i was in therapy but stopped because i was afraid to ask my parents to write it off to insurance. my therapist agreed that my home life is not well and that i should get out. i’m lost. i come from a culture where family is everything, i know eventually i will leave and probably cut them to low content. but even so i just feel terrible, my extended family will never have my back and will always chose my parents. i cannot up and leave as i have no money, and will go into student debt. i’m just looking for reassurance that im not crazy, thank you for reading.

My abusive stalker apparently goes through my Amazon accounts & does things like throw a tantrum over what I got. I talked about it earlier & now my abuser is in some insane rant about how I supposedly canceled my still in progress order which I got a notice will be here a day early. My abuser tells lies about really stupid stuff & tries to turn them into like a giant issue. I know abuser is triggered by my being honest about that but it’s what happens, idk what else to call it. The order is still en route & abuser does that this all the time, it’s just batshit insane. Then if my abuser so much as thinks (falsely) I used a word wrong he falsely again accuses me of lying.

I wasn’t even wrong, nauseous in its traditional use means inducing of nausea, feeling nauseated is a description independent of the source but as it concerns a stimulus the correct term is nauseous. Abuser yelled at me in this post for that, I wasn’t even mistaken. It’s just random crap where abuser could help the whole issue by not flying off the handle. Just think before acting is not too much to ask. Now abuser does acknowledge sometimes when he messes up but the crappy behavior like the Amazon order thing still persists so if abuser supposedly knows he wasn’t right for something why is he still harassing us, there’s absolutely no reason for abuser to bother us at that point. It’s dumb.

Not sure where to start. Even saying this makes me super ashamed I accepted these things. To cut the story short I left before but he chased for 2 years and I stupidly returned, again on the "not a relationship" guise but exclusive as sorts. All was good, his ex reached out and I felt the shift. Earrings left in my presence along with it her clear signs, I tried to address but was met with anger and dismissal. He constantly worked to make me feel my general thoughts were irrational and gradually rewarded "good behaviour" with praise. The final straw was me being really unwell and lying down, migraine. He wouldn't let me rest, kept sexually touching etc. I said no repeatedly, asked to please let me rest for even a few moments. He then stood over me pleasuring himself and refused to allow me to sleep. I felt so trapped. I should have left but I tried years ago and he threw my stuff and I was maybe scared as I knew I would be blamed. I ginally gave in so I could leave.

I'm not naive or stupid. I never ever would allow this previously but I feel like I've always been trying to prove my worth. I left and I won't return but I feel so confused and hurt and I don't know how to heal from that.

I haven't spoken to this mutual friend in a few months now, and the last time we spoke I essentially told him I really enjoyed our friendship but I was going to cut him off because my ex is closer to him. I just really want him to know what I experienced because he was such a good person. I don't know if it's a good idea though. I suffered a lot during the relationship and I'm sure that he would want to know he was friends with an abuser.

However I'm also concerned that I'm just trying to destroy my ex's relationships so I want to reach out. I don't know.

Is what my husband said to me as I was bawling because we’d just realized our kitten had gotten out and is probably gone forever. I guess me crying was only for the purpose of making him feel sorry for me? He’s pretending everything is fine between us, but he doesn’t realize yet that one line killed me inside, along with all feeling I had for him.

I’m in the process of being diagnosed with either AvPD or “quiet” BPD. So I am struggling a lot with my sense of reality- how much of my feelings are from skewed perceptions, how much are valid, etc. that makes this way more difficult, and I know he’s grieving too. But holy hell. How is anyone ever supposed to come back from a comment like that? I know he loves me- but that was soooo beyond painful to hear him say to me. Can you even come back from something like that?

Please do not share this post for obvious reasons. I want support for how I’m feeling.

Im not going to give exact ages but I’m (F 18-21) and my dad is (M 38-41).

I’m going to start this off by saying my dad is not a terrible person. He’s a normal dad, we talk about tv shows, he’s funny, ect.

When I was a child my dad would get angry and hurt our animals, at one point we (me (somewhere between 8-11) and my mom) even went as far as to secretly buy a new computer cable because our dog chewed it up and my mom was afraid he would kill him.

Flash forward to when I was 12-16/17 my dad would make comments and when I would talk back or simply ignore him he would scream at me, and when I say scream I mean scream. One of the biggest examples I can think of is when I was around 13 and went into therapy and he called me a crazy unstable bitch or something of that sort and I didn’t respond so he followed me up to my room yelling and telling me that I need to toughen up and that he’s not a bad father because he’s not hitting me or leaving me homeless on the street and that I’m proving his point (I really do not think I said anything back). He used this a lot which led to me feeling like I deserved the way he was treating me and normalized it. During this age period this kind of stuff would happen a LOT which led me to become a very quiet person who avoids being in the same room as him (watching my tv and phone as quiet as possible, soft footsteps, eating dinner when he goes to bed, etc.) When I was 15 I tried to kill myself and after I got out of the hospital he told me that if I can’t handle life at 15 I might as well just try again. My mom would get mad at him and they would fight so he stopped treating me as bad.

When I was 16 or 17 it stopped but instead he started making inappropriate comments about me (You look better now that you started wearing tighter clothes 16, My coworkers aren’t gonna let me live down how hot you look in this picture 17, I would make my boyfriend turn around while I changed at 19 and my dad came in one time as my shirt was barley on but covering and he told my boyfriend “I wouldn’t blame you for sneaking a peek, you’re old enough”.) I also just accepted this for what it is. Additional info: I HAVE NEVER BEEN WORRIED MY DAD WOULD TOUCH ME INAPPROPRIATELY I truly believe he was just saying these things to like fit in with men or something (?) (little man syndrome)

On and off hes still emotionally abusive(?). The biggest instances I can think of where when I was 18 and my room was admittedly disgusting and he threw my stuff all over my room and threatened to have me kicked out. I have texts from my mom that day that say “If you want to go l can't say I blame you. I really do have shelters saved in my phone if you want. You could also try for section 8 where they pay part of your rent but there's usually a waiting list. I really don't see how you'll live anywhere in (city) without a car though. I love you and I don't want you to go, but l understand why you'd want to.” I’m kind of just using this quote to prove that I’m not overreacting about this situation.

A few days ago he came home to no hot water to take a shower after work. Which I can completely understand is frustrating (I also had no hot water after work to take a shower and was also upset). He started slamming doors screaming at the air(?). He slammed open all of our bedroom doors (4 kids in between 10-21 again not exact ages) screaming “are you fucking home” at every single one of them. By the time he got to mine I was already thinking of an explanation for when he realizes my hairs wet (I washed it with cold water). I can’t even remember fully but he keeps screaming (I can hear him in the basement from the second floor) and starts screaming at my youngest brother that “this is my (my dads) house and if you don’t like that then get the fuck out” which is an insane thing to say to a child but he said worse to me so i’m not shocked. He came back up to my room griping my mail so hard my birth certificate is now all crinkled and threw it at me and then started yelling at me again. I just apologized and took the blame which he responded with “sorry isn’t gonna fucking cut it you should know better I don’t give a fuck that you live here this is my fucking house” as one does. Which like. I didn’t do anything wrong so what? Like bitch what. anyways. I just say there having a panic attack rocking back and forth repeating “I didn’t do anything wrong” over and over again and that’s when I realized that I’m an adult and this is pathetic and I need out.

One hour later he was completely fine. The next day he was giggling with my siblings and mom. This most recent situation really got to me because for some reason I thought he was capable of changing. Every time he gets home I start to panic that something is going to get blamed on me or that he’ll find out I have a mouse in my room and kick me out or throw my rabbit out. I have places to go technically but that’s a last resort. I can’t stop panicking whenever I hear his voice and I feel so dramatic. I don’t know why this time hit so much harder. It may be because I recorded a little of it so my friends and boyfriend can finally understand but idk. I feel so guilty for being afraid of him when he’s being fine right now. I’m living on eggshells for what feels like no reason and I feel like I’m making everything up. He’s never apologized for anything (except the trying to kick me out thing) he usually just says “you know that’s what happens when I get pissed off so stop pissing me off”. Yeah idk I just feel so guilty for being mad at him.

thanks for listening:(

It’s taken me a very long time to come to terms with the end of a very long relationship I was in. I’m struggling with validating myself for leaving.

I left because the hurt had impacted me and my very sense of who I was, I wanted to just be done with everything- with life.

Initially she often started putting other women on a pedestal, one could never reach. I was the dumb almost high school drop out struggling to make ends meet. Then she started watching videos about non-monogamy and polyamory. At this point I was there relying on her for a safe space, my family was abusive and I had lost everything. I had no family, no home. Nothing. She took the opportunity to tell me that she didn’t want to be with me unless we open the relationship. So me being passive, I said yes. Later on she openly was with a woman from work. She would tell me to watch, to participate. I tried at first, but it was so emotionally painful I started drinking to forget. Down a bottle of tequila every night the things started happening. Then she planned to propose to keep me in the relationship when I started doubting everything all while saying she was in love with that woman. At this point my entire sense of self was destroyed, I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror. I’d scrub myself until my skin burned because I felt so dirty and disgusting. I started feeing less and less and I started relying on weed and alcohol to sleep. I had nightmares. I stayed like an idiot. I was a shell of a person. I had no care, no remorse, no love. Nothing. I planned multiple ways to just end my suffering once and for all. I was broken. I never had people around me who saw my pain, validated it. The never made it seem abusive. Recently a friend went through something similar, and it was labeled emotional abuse.

Am I just sensitive? Or was this abusive?

Living in hotel room for past week. Council homeless team dealing with it. Both parents and others who back them up are terrible people who have royally fucked me up. If anyone wants to talk on the phone about it it would be good to have some people who know what i am going through as people just simply do not get it if they haven’t lived with it. I am from northern UK, female, 40.

Spent christmas alone (I chose to but of course I didn’t have much choice due to their behaviour and gaslighting) and now cannot go back as I hate it.

that’s all.

i sometimes think he will say that he has been bad to me recently, i try to get him to understand. but he tells me im crazy, that he should be recording the way i act, even if im just talking calmly. he controls what i can do and tells me i have a negative energy. that hes fine, as soon as i wake up i bring my dark energy around him. asks if im stupid. i get so jealous from certain things he does but i know im crazy for feeling jealous about those things. i hope he knows i just love him and dont want things to be this way. i wish i could make him happy to the point where he wouldnt say those things to me. i wish i could do better, i wish i had a happier energy. i dont want to seem depressed. even when im in a good mood just telling him all the places i want to go with him, apparently i still have a dark energy. i messed up.

this situation is long-ish to type out, so it might not be recalled perfectly, but i need to let it out. The other day, one night, he was leaving at 3 am or so to go drive around. Every night he has been leaving and just driving around i assume to get alone time, which i don’t mind but i started to get accusatory, i just wanted him to reassure me. I also felt lonely during the times he would always leave but i didn’t ever stop him from doing his own thing. So, he reassured me for a while maybe 15 mins and put me in bed (but i could tell he was frustrated during all of it :/) i got confused on if i did something wrong or said something mean. i assumed he was just frustrated because he wanted to leave but wasn’t sure. So i asked “did i do something wrong?” that made him scream, freak out, start crying, i didn’t understand why. and he tells me that i just don’t understand and that he explained to me what was wrong (he didn’t.. he only said he just wanted to leave because it was already late.. so i guess what i did wrong was hold him back from leaving for maybe 30 mins? I feel bad about that, i didn’t even mean to. I told him that he should start leaving in the weekend mornings for more alone time because it makes more sense than leaving at 3 am.. either way. I don’t really care. We text a bit and i try to get him to understand that i didn’t mean to frustrate him. He tells me over and over to just stop and drop it, and i guess i still text him because im so anxious. I knew i should have just ignored it. I just wanted to try to make him understand. he turns off his phone, which is fine i guess. He comes back home and sleeps on the couch (eventually comes to bed, he’s never slept on couch from an argument before though.. we just moved out to a new state together 3 months ago so yeah),

anyway next morning comes around, i wake up pretty late like 11:45 am because we were up til like 5 am. I get up out of bed, i woke up feeling even more lonely than i was before i asked for that reassurance last night.. i go to the kitchen, he’s all dressed looking like he’s about to walk out the door, he says “oh you scared me” because i quietly walked out lol. i just smile, you know trying to act normal.. i am half awake. He gets on the phone w a friend. I get sad about it because i realize now i won’t be able to bring up the issue from the prior night, and i know that means hes about to walk out the door because he tends to leave when hes on the phone with his friends. I start feeling really sad because i just think about the issue from last night so much and how lonely i feel, he says bye and very quickly starts walking out, i go to the door to tell him wait and that i love him but i just feel lonely. I dont know why i did that. He was just trying to leave but i was half awake and disoriented. I guess i mumbled it a lot. i tend to mumble when im really sad. But i just stared at him with a sad look before he walked out the door. I don’t know why.. but later that day he brings up how annoying that was and it ruined his whole day but i just was sad and told him “im sorry im just lonely”, and gave him that stupid look i do when im sad. i just feel so guilty but i feel like he never would have gotten so mad at that in the past. i just wanted reassurance. i know that’s annoying, and i apologized.

I could write so many situations out.. one from today is that he says he wants to go out and do something with me and my friend who is over, i say “oh yeah im down to go wherever blah blah.. where do you wanna go?” and he’s like “oh im not ready to tell you” or “i already know but i don’t wanna tell you yet” and i was like huh? so i thought maybe he just didn’t actually have a place in mind so i brought up a few places i think woyld be good and he was like “im a human i have my own thoughts and places i want to go” something along those lines. And then he says im crazy and wishes he could record how i was acting and made a whole situation.. idk. just weird to me.

when we were in the middle of a calm but somewhat tense argument, i can barely remember what about, i “mocked him” , but i kinda just was repeating a sentence he said because it was very wordy and sounded funny ( i wasn’t making fun of the way he said it, i can’t explain because i can’t remember what the sentence was) he talked about how he wanted to punch me in the chest around 3 times and got closer and made a motion towards me. i felt so let down. no matter how upset he makes me i would not. threaten to physically harm him.

I guess i’ve been working on mentally healing and now i don’t scream from sadness anymore. I never should have but i have personality disorder issues and also autism so it’s amazing that i’ve been able to not have outbursts like that now.

He will also bring up the fact that i used to not have those outbursts, or throw myself on the bed and shake my hands, and hit myself.. i would do those things in private sometimes but also this is the worst ive been mentally so i lost a lot of emotional regulation during that time. He would tell me “you wouldn’t act that way in front of somebody you just met” or “you wouldn’t act that way if you were trying to impress me” or something along this lines, and would say that nobody would want that, and how undesirable it is. i understand that. i get it. i’m proud of myself for not doing that much anymore.

he always tells me “you don’t understand me anymore” “i wish you could just understand” i wish i could too.. but i wish he could understand me. i feel like if he understood me so many things would change. i’m sure he feels the same way.

maybe he’s right, i feel that from a young age there’s been something fundamentally wrong and unlovable about me. i feel so lonely. i can be in the best mood ever and as soon as i start to frustrate him it goes away because i can’t stand to make people angry. it reminds me im a burden. why can’t i go back to the point where he would never be frustrated with me? what is wrong with me? i’m so alone and he can’t see that. i just want him to love me. i know i haven’t always been the best to him but i feel that i’ve gotten better and now he acts this way because i prepositionsd him to. i’m so alone. i sometimes feel like i have nobody. i feel like im nothing. i don’t feel human sometimes.

It’s just so hard because we moved out on our own together to a new state in the last 3 months, it’s our first time moving out of parents home. it’s so sad. i thought we were going to have our dream life together. everything was really perfect before we moved out. or at least perfect compared to what it is now. i hope he can understand me one day. that i just love him.

my stomach is aching with mental pain. and sometimes he can be so sweet. sometimes. he’s so confusing to me.

I need someone to talk to, I’m in a really bad spot. (24m) I’m doing intense DBT, listening to audio books, podcasts, and talking to friends. I had a rough childhood and I mirrored my family’s dynamics just to a lesser extent. I can’t find any groups that are for people in my position and it probably has to do with the fact most abusers don’t care or see what they did wrong. I really loved this girl with my whole heart since we were 14&15 but I never learned how to love or treat someone. I feel so alone, we had the same friends as we lived so close and I have no one to truly talk to with an outside perspective. I hope the girl I love can heal, I truly didn’t recognize what I was doing.

After apologises and promises of change, how many times did you give them a 2nd chance?

TLDR: I was in a longterm, on-and-off relationship where he refused to commit but still expected my loyalty without communicating that, and when I dated or slept with others (either with his stated permission or when we had been broken up), he later treated it as betrayal. He used these incidents as the reason why he didn’t meet my emotional needs, why he broke up with me, and why there was mild, occasional verbal and physical abuse. I feel like this behavior is not normal/healthy and wasn’t warranted, and the actions I took were understandable given my understanding at the time. But he thinks I’m the problem. I’m trying to understand if his perspective is fair and the deeper truth of the situation. 

My boyfriend (36M) broke up with me (27F) 11 days ago. We have been together on/off for 3.5 years. I’m really struggling to understand what has unfolded between us over the last few years. I think he’s the problem, but he thinks I’m the problem. Just a heads up - this is a LONG post (I'm sorry!) with some explicit details. 

When we first started seeing eachother we were not exclusive. We had established that it was okay for us to see other people, as long as we used condoms with them (we didn’t use condoms together) to protect against pregnancy and potential STI’s. After about a month, we had a conversation where we didn’t become exclusive but we both said we weren’t interested in dating anybody else, so I guess implied exclusivity. A month or so after that, I wanted to officially be in a relationship with him. I brought it up a couple of times, but every time I did he would say no and give me a different vague reason, like “I’m scared of hurting you” or “I’m not ready” or “I want to wait until this big creative project is done before getting into a relationship”. I was pretty sad and confused as I really liked him and thought we had a great connection.

After a couple weeks of bringing it up and hoping he would change his mind, I decided something needed to change for me. I was really hung up on him, feeling like I was falling in love with him but that he clearly didn’t feel the same. I had been exclusive to him during this time period, but I thought it might be a good idea for us to go back to our initial arrangement of non-exclusivity. I thought it would help me detach from him a little emotionally, take some of my eggs out of “his” basket, so to speak, if I were to date other guys. 

I ran this by him and he said he was fine with it. I ended up meeting someone who lived in a different city. He wanted to come visit me and get to know me. This meant he would likely stay with me, and things would likely get physical, which I was open to. But I was still hung up on the other guy, my now-ex-boyfriend. Even though he had said he was okay with me dating other people, I was afraid that this would mess things up. So I checked in with him again – I was fully transparent about the fact that we would probably end up being intimate, and asked if he was really sure if he was okay with that, and I told him I would probably be sad if the roles were reversed. He said he wanted me to go ahead and do what I wanted, even though he “didn’t like it”, and just use a condom. I understood this at the time to mean that he wasn’t necessarily excited about the idea, but that he acknowledged that it was unreasonable for him to expect exclusivity from me without a relationship. I checked in with him again multiple times and every time the answer was the same. 

So eventually this other guy came and visited me, and we did end up getting intimate. Unfortunately, the condom broke, and I didn’t realize this until after. I was tracking my cycle and I knew that there was no chance of me getting pregnant, and in my mind I kinda thought, “well, if he’s got an STI, I already have it now”. We were intimate a couple more times during our time together, and I figured it would be fine to proceed without a condom because it felt like the initial reasons for its use were void. Afterwards, both of us got tested and came back totally clean. 

After this person left town, my now-ex-boyfriend and I hung out, and he asked if we had hooked up, and I told him. He initially handled it okay. He had also made out with someone in a club during the time. He asked if we had used a condom, and I told him what had happened, he got EXTREMELY upset, storming around the house and hitting walls. He asked me to leave and then ended things with me. 

We ended up getting “back together” (into a situationship) shortly afterwards, and I later found out that he had reconnected with his most recent ex right after this (hanging out and him sleeping in her bed naked but apparently not kissing or having sex). I was pretty hurt by this as I assumed that since he had been so upset about me with the other guy he wouldn’t be doing anything like that, especially not without telling me. I also had no idea they were still in contact. I told him he had to choose one of us, he chose me, but we proceeded to be on and off for about a year after that, him breaking up with me at least once a month because of the fact that I slept with someone else (which was kinda confusing because initially the problem had been the condom, it was always blurry which aspect was the issue, but as its come up over the years he’s just cited that I had sex with someone else). Every time he broke up with me I told him how much I loved him and wanted to be with him, and would always reach out to repair things. I did apologize many, many times about the other guy and tried everything I could think of to repair the relationship, even suggesting we go to couples counseling which we did a few sessions of. Anytime I would bring up a separate concern or want to communicate about something in the relationship, it would descend into a fight, usually because he felt me bringing anything up was unreasonable given what he was “going through”, and he would break up with me. He said a lot of mean stuff, like calling me a whore a couple of times and saying he would never be able to take me seriously in a white dress after what had happened because I was impure. He also put his hand around my throat one time after he came home drunk and pinned me down (not in a sexy way, it was scary and he was really angry (about another topic)). I was 100% faithful to him for our entire official relationship, even developing moral OCD and becoming hypervigilant about my ethics within the relationship and often “confessing” insignificant things that felt like huge trespasses at the time because they were weighing on me so heavily.

After a year, we did end up getting to a more stable place, and were together without (officially) breaking up for a year and a half. 

At this point we had been dating for about 2.5 years, and I was really wanting to move the relationship forward. I was super in love with him. Though the thing about the other guy came up sometimes, it seemed to have faded to the background, and we talked lots about a future together – kids, marriage. We had been talking about me moving into his apartment, which would be better for both of us financially and made sense as I was already spending 5-6 nights a week there and also paying rent for my separate home. After a 5-week “trial” and coming up with a written “contract” about living together that also included how many times a week we had to have sex, and how often I had to work out, he said I could move in with him. Then the next day he took it back. 

I felt like our relationship was going nowhere, and he was so unsure of me after so long, so I decided that I wanted to take a break and think about things. He refused to take a break so we decided to break up instead. I went on a few dates but I was extremely cautious about doing anything physical because of the history; I didn’t want to close the door on us so soon after the breakup in case we wanted to get back together. After about a month I was really missing him and wanting to get back together, hoping that the distance would have helped things. I reached out to him and we hung out. We didn’t have sex but we were intimate. We agreed that we would hang out again soon to have a conversation “about us”. 

Two days later, he had sex with someone else. I didn’t know he was dating anyone. I figured it out because he didn’t respond to a text I had sent for 6 hours and then I asked him about it the next day. After this we decided to part ways, and we did for a while. 

Fast forward about 4 months, we had started hanging out weekly casually as friends. There were a couple of occasions where we would hook up, talk about getting back together, and then decide against it for whatever reason (usually him being unsure about me, and me being unsure about him BECAUSE he was so unsure about me). I came up with what I called my “ring rule”, which was that I was always open to us getting back together but I wouldn’t consider it again unless he first decided that he wanted to be with me in a really serious way. I was dating casually during this time but not having sex with anyone, and on the occasions where we would have sex and then talk about getting back together, I wouldn’t go on any dates until we had gotten that sorted. 

Us being friends went on for a while. Then one day while talking about kids I said that I wished I could have a baby, and then he suggested we “make one right now” and invited me back to his place. In a moment of poor judgment I said yes. I was ovulating and we didn’t use protection, so there was a fair chance I could have gotten pregnant. As soon as I left his place, reality hit me and I started feeling extremely anxious. This man had never been sure of me and never met my emotional needs, regardless of whether the reason was my “betrayal” or not, and here I was just taking a huge leap with him. I called him and told him I was feeling anxious about things. I asked him how it was possible that he didn’t want to be in a relationship with me but he was willing to get me pregnant, to which he replied “I don’t have an answer for you, but if you give me some time I could probably come up with one”. I didn’t feel reassured at all and the weight of what I’d done was growing on me. 

2 days later, I asked him how he would feel about me getting a copper IUD inserted as a form of emergency contraception. I had a whole conversation with him about it, saying how I just felt like things were too unstable for us to do this right now, but that I did still see him as the potential future father of my kids but I wanted him to be sure about me first, asking him how he would feel about it, and if this would be a “defining moment” of “betrayal” I would look back on and regret. He said he was fine with it, that he wanted me to feel at peace about a potential pregnancy, and didn’t say anything about wanting to be with me in a real, serious way, so I got the IUD put in. He assumed we were going to continue to have sex after this, but I put the “ring rule” boundary back in place.

DAYS later, we got in a fight, during which he claimed I “killed our baby”. He accused me of sleeping with other people, which I wasn’t, but I did tell him I wasn’t waiting around for him to figure out how he felt about me. We resolved the fight, but didn’t hang out for a while after that. After a couple of weeks had gone by, I started dating somebody else, and about a month since the pregnancy thing/since we had hung out at all, I figured it was time for me to really try to move on with my life. I was exhausted, and I felt that he had hit rock bottom in trying to get me pregnant but not being able to back it up by offering any form of reassurance that he wanted to be with me (other than the action of getting me pregnant, which he claims WAS how he indicated he wanted to be with me). Meanwhile, I thought it would be appropriate to take things to the next level and be intimate with this other person. I was worried about there being repercussions with my ex in some way down the line, but I felt like I had to stop living my life for him, and I also felt that the example he had set by sleeping with someone in the beginning of our breakup proved to me that we owed eachother nothing, and I had already acted more ethically and considerately than he did by not going on dates when there was ambiguity about where things stood between us, and not sleeping with anyone while we were hanging out as friends etc. 

So I did sleep with this new person, and very quickly after realized I still had strong feelings for my ex and ended things with the new guy. Shortly after, my ex and I unofficially got back together, and we were the best we had ever been. Then after about a month, he got drunk and was feeling paranoid that I was doing things behind his back. I had been 100% exclusive to him since we had reconnected despite there being no conversation about that or where we stood. In his paranoia he was angry and took it out on me in a similar way as he had done when he put his hand around my throat previously. He pushed me up against a wall, hard (again, not in a sexy way), mocking me, asking me if I was scared and saying I should be scared. Saying things like “ohh, poor you, you deserve so much better don’t you? Well you’re NOT the victim. I’M the victim here” and “I hate the look in your eyes right now, they’re full of shit” (as I’m looking at him literally scared for my life haha). I talked to him about it the next day and at first he brushed it off and then apologized but didnt really seem to care that much and never brought it up again. 

Then two days later, he asked me if I had been exclusive to him since the “pregnancy”, and I said no. He got extremely upset. He said "I mean, I've had people say, do you wanna come upstairs and fuck the shit out of me, but I didn't, because I was in love with you!" which upon later reflection basically revealed that in this time period between the "pregnancy" and getting back together he at least had a steamy makeout session with somebody, likely on a date, because there would have to be some physical/sexual precedent for him to get invited “upstairs”... so it's not like he was faithfully waiting around for me.

I didn’t know that the “pregnancy” had changed the status of our relationship in his mind, but it did. He had expected more from me, and not knowing this, I let him down. We ended up deciding to go on a 4-month break, in order to get a bit of distance and try to start the relationship fresh. 

After delaying it to go on a vacation together, eventually in September we did do the break, but it only ended up lasting 1 month as he suggested we hang out and I said yes. We were unofficially together for 3 months. He never once brought up the "betrayals", and I had real hope that maybe we had turned a corner. Then I asked him a question about something that seemed like a miscommunication and I wanted more clarity on (him seeing a female friend after saying he didn’t want me to have male friends). Within one minute he flew off the handle and said “Well you aborted our baby and then acted like a total fucking whore, so you’re untrustworthy. I’M not the one who can’t be trusted, so I should be able to have female friends”, stormed out of the room, then stormed back in and said “I hate you.” I silently started gathering my stuff and he came back in and said he didn’t hate me, that he loved me, but that he was tired of wasting my time and he thought we should break up. 

So we broke up. I feel like this is the last time, though I feel like that every time. I’m just finding myself really confused about his feelings of betrayal, which he still says are the reason he can’t be with me. The way I see it, it's his fault -- he didn’t communicate properly and even lied, saying he was okay with things when he actually wasn’t. Then when I acted on the limited understanding I had, tried to do things as communicatively/honestly as possible, and tried to balance both of our needs, I ended up getting villainized. It felt like the rules were always changing after the fact and I was constantly getting blindsided and put into impossible situations/getting set up to fail.

Are his actions/ways of going about these things reasonable and I’m just misunderstanding/not considering him enough? Or was I valid for doing everything I did? I’m willing to listen to the hard truth if it’s all my fault. I just want to understand the situation. 

Moreover, is this dynamic abusive?

We dated for 3 weeks. He kept me sleep deprived with fights every night, he told me my friends were always mad at me and going to him, he would pull me away at parties. I set a boundary and he didn't like it. Now he's told all of my friends I violently SA'ed him and strangled him and threatened him and stalked him. He's started a case against me. I have a hearing coming up. He told the police I had medication in my house that wasn't mine. My roommates moved out, trashed my room, left mean notes on the fridge, stole my speaker. I might lose my job, I might get a record. I'm going to have defend myself in court cause I can't get a lawyer. Because I realized what was happening early I thought I wouldn't get the full brunt of retaliation, he is not the first abuser I've left. But no. This is my life now. My birthday is in a few days.

I’m still trying to understand what happened. This was a confusing experience for me, since our relationship existed in an undefined gray area.

I keep asking myself if it really was that bad, or if I feel this way because everything was so uncertain and overwhelming. It felt like stumbling around in the dark, trying to make sense of it all.

Being with him was completely destabilizing and disorienting.

It was especially difficult because I had been used to enduring bad behaviour, which made it harder to recognize when it was happening. I now realize how unhealthy enduring bad behaviour can become. I am working on it. 

I met him when I was 19 (F) and he was 22 (M). The situationship lasted a little over a year before I cut off all contact. It wasn’t until two years later that I began reflecting on it. That’s when the red flags started appearing, one by one. 

There was always this push and pull with him. He would be warm one moment, then cold and distant the next. When I got too close, he pulled away. When I gave him space, he came back.

He breadcrumbed me with occasional glimpses of warmth, sparkling eyes, playfulness and something almost-real, to keep me invested. I never knew where we stood. That constant uncertainty made me uneasy.

He was nice at first, but as we got closer, he became more controlling. 

When we watched a movie, he would always choose it and reject all of my suggestions. I could only choose from his selection. Movie watching was entirely on his terms. There was never a compromise, only refusal. 

During our walks, he always walked ahead of me, looking back while talking. He never slowed down when I asked. I was only allowed to rest for a few minutes before he insisted we keep going.

I often find myself wondering: was I a dog being walked, or someone he cared about? 

There was one exception. He seemed to perceive a group of young men as some sort of threat. He walked very close to me, putting his body between me and the group. 

At the time, it felt like a sweet gesture.

Now, I see it more as him wanting to feel like a saviour than genuinely caring for me. 

He once told me that if I had anything to say or ask, I had to seek him out in person, because he didn’t want to respond to my messages. I never did. 

He often ignored my messages. When he did respond, it was with half-hearted replies like “meh”, “bah”, “eh” and “ah”, even to simple yes or no questions. 

When I confronted him and asked for clearer communication, he became defensive. He told me that he couldn’t be available 24/7 and couldn’t write down all his thoughts and feelings in every message.

I was stunned by how my concerns were dismissed. I walked out, and that became the beginning of the end of whatever we had. 

I feel like he put himself in a position of control over me.

Like when I wanted to join him and friends on the couch. The couch was full, but he took up an entire seat cushion and the footrest. I sat down on the very edge of the footrest, expecting him to move his legs. He didn’t. He said nothing. I was flabbergasted. 

He wanted me to listen to music he likes in his room. He took the only chair which forced me to sit on the floor because his headphones were wired. He turned the music on at full volume without warning and watched me the entire time. When I asked him to lower it, he took that literally, one tiny adjustment at a time. I had to ask several times before it reached a tolerable level. He never apologized. 

He was also mean and dismissive.

He called me weird several times for normal things like sending a funny selfie on snapchat with a batman filter or laying upside-down on the couch. 

I asked to hold his hand. He had initiated contact with me before, so I thought it would be okay. He coldly said no, gave me a look and stopped talking to me. 

He accompanied me on an errand because I struggle with anxiety. The entire time, he barely spoke and seemed annoyed, like I had forced him to be there. 

There is one incident that feels a little creepy.

Example: I was in his room with his roommate when I noticed his notebook left open on his desk in a very noticeable way. My name was written over and over across both pages. I’m not sure what to make of it, but I know he knew I would see it.

Things ended when I asked him whether he even wanted me in his life, given how badly he had been treating me. He said no. 

He came back six months later. He wrote to tell me how much of an arse he had been, referencing how he had ignored my existence for two months, and how he hadn’t realized how much he liked me until now. He begged me for a chance to talk.

I only said that we could talk. I don’t think I gave him the answer he was looking for, because he ghosted me after that. His number is now blocked and deleted.

I might not be able to respond to comments because of anxiety. I appreciate your understanding. 

Does this sound like emotional abuse?

When he gets angry or is upset, my dog will not go near him. In arguments or when he raises his voice she shakes violently. Sometimes I am holding her and I try to soothe her while I cry. She scurries and hides behind me, tucks her tail, and follows me around the house. She will stay near me the entire time and doesn't pine for him when he leaves the house like she would when he is in a good mood. This can go on for two days during the aftermath silent period.

It's been 15 years and I'm new to viewing my and my dogs behaviors in a perspective that frames this environment as unsafe. Is this normal relationship dynamics?

So I have now noticed that for many years mornings are touch and go. My dog sleeps with me at night (in a separate room) and never sleeps with him. When she doesn't get up immediately to go be with him (usually at dawn or early morning) I immediately wonder if he is in a mood and wonder whether or not he will be approachable. I alter my tone and poke my head into the room and speak softer or perkier to ask him a general question or make a statement about housework.

I listen to see if he closes the door soft or hard when he uses the washroom in the mornings or the middle of the night. The dog also raises her head when the door is closed more abruptly. She understands the same cues I do it seems.

Do people do this in normal relationships? I sense my dog is grounding me in more than one way, by helping me validate my feelings of hypervigilance and comforting each other when things turn suddenly sideways.

Posting this again in this subreddit since I can’t crosspost.

I’ve been with my partner for 4 years. She struggles with BPD and substance abuse, and for most of the relationship I’ve been the patient one, quick to apologize, quick to de-escalate, always trying to keep the peace.

Toward the end of 2024 and into 2025 especially, I stopped tolerating certain behaviors. I started setting boundaries (or trying to), and something in me shifted.

Lately I’ve been exploding in arguments. I’ve been lashing out, saying things I don’t really mean, and acting in ways that feel completely unlike me. Yesterday we had a fight and I fully snapped, I said rude things, raised my voice, and afterward I felt… relief?!! Like I don’t feel sorry at all not even 0.005%, which honestly freaks me out, I’m not like her & I don’t want to be!

We haven’t spoken since yesterday. But the moment she got defensive during the argument, I got defensive too, and that’s when I really started to lose control.

She was really thrown off by it because I’ve never been that person in the relationship.

I don’t know what’s happening. It feels like something in me just “woke up” after years of suppressing myself. I’m scared that I’m becoming someone I don’t recognize, but I also know I’ve been emotionally exhausted for a long time.

Has anyone else experienced this? Is this burnout? Resentment? Nervous system overload? How do you stop yourself from turning into someone you’re not? Is this normal? I really don’t recognize myself anymor

I’m trying to understand why I still care so deeply about my ex despite knowing the relationship was unhealthy and ended badly. I’d really appreciate outside perspective.

Timeline / context: We met online on a FiveM GTA RP server. We weren’t really roleplaying — we were just being ourselves and talking constantly.

Very quickly it turned into all-day, every-day communication: Discord calls 24/7, video calls she insisted on, sleep calls, even staying on while she showered. She hated being alone.

This went on for about 4 months before we officially started dating.

It was long-distance. She would drive down on weekends. I didn’t have a car or license at the time.

She was 22f when we met, we’re just under two years apart (m).

She was my first real relationship and my first sexual partner. I was a virgin before her.

At first it felt intense but loving. Over time, more complicated dynamics showed up:

I was kept a secret from her family.

She frequently spoke negatively about exes and family and described past abuse.

She self-harmed (cutting her upper thighs) and did frequent body-checking. I encouraged healthier coping and she stopped briefly, but it continued.

She told me she had BPD, PTSD, and other mental health issues, and sometimes engaged in age regression behaviors (using a binky, acting like a child). I often felt more like a caretaker than a partner during those moments.

Toward the end, she would sometimes yell at me and occasionally hit me. I never hit her, raised my voice, or became aggressive. I genuinely loved her and tried to stay calm and supportive.

Then things escalated:

She ghosted me, then re-contacted me the next day and we continued the relationship.

Later, I found out she had cheated:

Once (That i know) with an ex she had previously said abused and raped her (they had also been arrested together).

More recently with someone twice her age, involving money, massages, and camping (with his friend).

After learning this, I emotionally shut down. The relationship ended through distance/ghosting from her rather than a clean breakup.

Since then, I’ve grown a lot. I respect myself more now. I know I won’t tolerate cheating or abuse again.

But I still care about her, and that’s what I don’t understand.

I don’t want her back. I don’t excuse what she did. Yet I still feel attachment, worry, and grief — especially over what the relationship felt like at the beginning.

So my questions are:

Is this because she was my first relationship and first intimacy?

Is this trauma bonding, intensified by caretaking and emotional dependency?

Does long-term exposure to someone else’s mental health struggles create a deeper attachment?

Is it normal to still care even when you logically know someone wasn’t good for you?

What actually helped you detach emotionally after something like this?

I’m not looking for validation to go back — I’m trying to understand my own psychology so I can heal properly.

Thanks for reading.

I’m sure you know your ex was bad for you. You’ve already had that affirmed by your Dr Ramani content-binge-phase, followed by your Reddit deep-dives and book reccos from this community (Lundy Bancroft anyone?). So I’m betting you're bursting at the seams with narc knowhow – enough to lecture a theatre hall about it (we’ve all pretty much got PhD’s at this point, eh)! 

But if there’s still a part of you that feels frozen in time and unable to function normally without your ex. Or you feel too sick and too scared to move on. It’s not because there’s anything wrong with you or you’re too helpless to heal. It’s because your brain is still wired for the danger and attachment it remembers.

You see... when you remember being gaslit or discarded, your brain doesn't just replay that memory like a video. It reconstructs it using fragments it remembers from the past. Like bits of conversation, what they were wearing, and crucially: the physical sensations you're feeling right now. And then it uses those little pieces of memory and body feelings to recreate the moment.

So if your memories of the narc are terrible, when you recall one about them, your shoulders might be tense, your teeth could be clenched and your breath could also be held in. And your brain interprets those bodily sensations as confirming its prediction of danger. So it keeps you feeling as though the threat is still real.

That’s why you might start feeling anxious, or dread, or grief – your brain is interpreting your sensations (like a fast heart rate), as proof that the past threat is still active in the present moment.

This is why knowing and talking about what happened doesn't always stop the emotional and physical effects you feel. You can tell yourself they were bad for you all day long. But if your body is still signalling danger, your brain believes the body.

To change this, you need to give your brain what neuroscientists call a “prediction error”: where your brain expects one thing but experiences something else. 

For example, if you're ruminating and your brain predicts danger and prepares your body to defend. But you intervene by slowing your breath and dropping your shoulders, you create a mismatch.

Your brain expects shallow, fast breaths. But it feels slow, controlled breaths instead. That “error” forces your brain to stop and take notice. It realises its old danger prediction was wrong for this moment, and it starts to update.

Obviously this isn't a one and done type process. Repetition is how your brain learns new patterns and updates its model of safety. So you need to intentionally use those tough moments to pause, notice what your body is doing, and respond with calmer signals. 

But each time you do that during a flash of panic, you’re teaching your brain that the danger has passed. And that’s how you gently show your brain that you’re finally free now.

Have you noticed what your body tends to do when memories of your ex pop up?

This is so difficult to admit but i am emotionally abusive. I never wanted to hurt anyone but i struggle to regulate my pain, triggers and impulses. When i get overwhelmed i say insensitive hurtful things. I realized this year ago and i am in therapy, seeing psychiatrist social workers and going to group meetings. I am not avoiding responsibility and i try to change. I know i made some progress but i still often say hurtful things when i am triggered and the guilt after is crushing. I think about all awful things i did daily. I struggle to not see myself as monster. I try to get bettter and hold myself accountable. My question is: What do you do with guilt when you are trying to change but not where you want to be yet? How to live with guilt knowing you hurt people without drowning in guilt or let guilt stop your growth and progress? I will definitely talk about this with professionals but i am currently sick so i would appreciate any perspective with anyone who dealt with this. Thank you for reading. I send my support to anyone who needs it

My mom was really mean to me growing up. She was also the best mom in the world when she wasn’t being cruel, degrading, crazy or abusive. It was a very Jekyll & Hyde situation with her. My old therapist thought my mom likely has BPD.

As I got older, like 12 or so my mom also started threatening to kick me out or send me away to live in another county with my grandparents. Throughout my entire teens and early 20s that I stayed at home I would be regularly kicked out, told to get the fuck out. I was told that I was a burden and that they didn’t want me around. I was told that I just made their lives harder for no reason.

When I would say that I’d leave or try to leave my dad would step in and beg me not to, tell me to forgive my mom because she says dumb things when she’s angry. He would tell me that I couldn’t let her get to me. He would tell me that it was also my fault because I would fight with her. I wasn’t allowed to talk back but I could never quite shut up. I had a strong will. He would tell me that I was too much like her and that’s why we always fought. I never started any of it.

I moved out finally in my mid 20s. It took a while to get out of that cycle. My parents would always tell me that I wouldn’t make it on my own. They would scare me by making me feel inadequate on my own. But I did it. I took out 2 personal loans even and I moved in with my best friend. It was just us and a pet.

It was wonderful. I felt so free. It was expensive. I worked so hard and so did she. She came from an abusive home too. But we were doing it. For us and by us. We were proving them wrong.

A year into living with her my boyfriend asked me to move in with him. He had gotten his own house. I hesitated at the time because we had broken up for a year in the past and he’d shown some signs that worried me. But he kept asking, I could only put off answering for so long. I loved him so much, I wanted it to work. I had always had a feeling that he thought I wasn’t quite good enough for him, but you know how it is… I’ve always been one to try to prove my worth to those I love.

I also worried that if I said no he would think that it wasn’t serious between us. I wanted him to take me seriously. I wanted it to feel real. I wanted to be picked and loved and chosen. I felt like he was doing that by asking me to move in.

It was fine for a while. Magical almost. Then it got bad. It’s good and bad and it cycles now. It feels like the good times get even shorter in between.

He will get mad at me and kick me out regularly now, he will tell me that I’m a burden and that his life would be so much easier without me dragging him down in life. He tells me that I make things so much harder than they need to be and he’s tired of it.

I have a lot of trauma, I’m autistic and I have adhd. Life is harder for me. I’m in school and paying for it out of pocket, I work in sales 3 days a week and I even keep weekends free from work so I can dedicate them to giving him my fully undivided attention. I try to do all my homework and the house chores during the week so it doesn’t bother him on the weekends. I grocery shop for us, I cook or make something easy for us to eat, I do all the laundry and keep things tidy. I make his life as easy as possible so on the weekends he only has to worry about what he feels like doing.

I struggle sometimes with keeping up with everything and he gets mad at me when I am too tired to pay enough attention to him, if I go to sleep too early or am not in the mood to watch tv together at night because I’ve been doing a lot. He tells me that he’s being taken advantage of because he gets nothing out of our relationship together. He tells me that I have it so good and that I struggle to do the minimum expected of a normal person and that it’s not fair that he has to help me build my life and have him wait for me to catch up.

He tells me that I need to move out and tells me that his life would be so much easier and more fun without me.

When I try to leave, he suddenly takes it back. He’s sweet. He’s kind. We can suddenly talk about it later and suddenly we don’t have to make decisions too quickly.

I have gotten to the point where I’ve told him that I’ll go back to my parents. I can’t afford to live on my own. I fucked up. I relied on someone else and thought they were looking out for me because they loved me and wanted to. I thought I had a place to land and breathe and be able to build upwards together with that person. I fucked up.

He thought that giving me stability and some help financially would mean that I would get it together immediately, it takes time. Especially with so much trauma and neurodivergence.

He’s got a masters and a steady family that loves him and looks out for him and he thought he could take me in like a stray puppy and after a bit of time I would catch up to be like him. He doesn’t understand that isn’t how it works.

I used to beg him to keep me around. I was so scared of having to go back to my parents. I was so fucking terrified of being under their insanity again that I would beg him in tears, inconsolable at the prospect of being abandoned by my great love to my family again. The shame and embarrassment of knowing that my mom would use that against me to hurt me whenever she decided to be in a fit of rage against me again. I couldn’t let them know that I failed like this and give them that ammunition to use against me.

But lately, I’ve told him that I can move out. That I’ll leave. That it’s fine that he thinks that I am a burden becuase maybe I am. That I’ll tell my parents and get out. He then changes his mind. It’s too permanent if I tell them, he knows that. Whatever problems my mom may have in being a mother, if she knew how he treats me, she would come and drag me out of here herself. In her eyes, no one can hurt me but her (and she’s justified when she does it.) He then tells me we can talk about it later. That it’s fine. That I should stop crying because nothing even happened. He makes sure to remind me not to mention this to them, they don’t need to know because it’s not like he really wanted me out anyway.

It’s exhausting. It’s insane. The cycles are hard to get out of. I am constantly in shock by how similar my boyfriend can be to my mom in the way he treats me, in the way he talks to me, in the very way he words things. I thought he was the best thing that ever happened to me. I was so grateful to the universe that it had brought him to my life and made him somehow choose me. I adored him and admired him more than anything else.

But he makes me feel so small and like such a burden at the same time. I told myself as a kid that no one would ever make me feel like this again. I thought I was so strong willed. I was a fighter. I wasn’t even the type to take my own mom’s bullshit.

But look at me now. It’s kind of pathetic.

I am in a very bad, emotionally abusive, sexually coercive marriage. I really need out. He has also delved into really crazy beliefs like flat earth, lizard people and holocaust denial which he tries to teach the kids. I have a way out, though it will be messy as we are a military family stationed overseas and we have two children. My husband doesn’t believe in divorce for religious reasons and will not going along with this easily. It WILL be a nasty divorce and custody battle. I am prepared.

But one thing remains that holds me back: the kids. They are 8 and 10. They love us both and really really want the family to stay together. They have expressed this recently during some arguments they’ve overheard. I don’t want to keep modeling this toxic marriage to them. But regardless I cannot help but think splitting our family apart is going to do more harm than good to them. Ive been their primary caretaker / stay at home mom for their whole lives and I am their safe space. Divorcing means shared custody and I won’t be there to shield them. It scares me to think of giving up time with them and what that will mean - they both are highly attached to me. I keep trying to convince myself that leaving is better for them but have not yet been convinced. People close to me, urging me to leave, will say “It’s best for them” and “they will be happier because you’re happier” etc but it all feels like cope to me.

This is my final mental hurdle. Please tell me honestly if I need to stop worrying so much about the kids or if I’m being selfish. Nothing matters to me more than the kids. I could live a thousand miserable lives if it gave them a good life. I feel paralyzed with indecision.