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    • #43828
      Sad sunflower
      Participant

      I broke up with my fiancé a few weeks ago. I am not sure I still love him or just miss having someone to talk to. I was able to leave him thanks to a good friend of mine who happens to be a DV counsellor. Thanks to my friend, I started to realize that my fiancé was being emotionally abusive. One night after we had a fight he told me he did not love me anymore and that he was sorry to treat me so badly but that it was my fault. He said I had failed to make him stay in love with him and that I deserved to be yelled at because I was stupid. He went right to sleep after saying that. Then he woke up and started yelling again, saying I was a s**t and violently pushed me off the bed. This has happened before but something was different this time. I didn’t cry, I didn’t feel anything. I sat on the floor and waited for him to go back to sleep. As soon as he was out, I started putting all my belongings in plastic bags and was determined to leave. He woke up and asked what I was doing. I could barely speak, I was petrified but managed to whisper “I’m leaving you”. He laughed at me and said “Are you stupid? I know you are never leaving”. I left my engagement ring on the table so he will see I was serious this time and managed to get out of his flat. The first few days after I got out I felt fine, was excited and happy about being able to reconnect with old friends I wasn’t even able to talk to because he didn’t like them, felt like I was finally in control of my own life. I was also happy that I wasn’t forced to spend all my money on him. However, a few weeks have passed and now I feel awful. I cannot stop crying thinking maybe it was not that bad and that he probably was right and everything was my fault. I feel that I probably wasted the only chance I had to get married and start a family. He has not tried to contact me, which only makes me feel worse. Was I really in an abusive relationship? Maybe IT WAS my fault that he treated me the way he treated me, forced me to eat things I didn’t like and even things I was allergic to, pushed me and slapped me every time he got angry at me. Help, I am so confused 

    • #43830
      Tiffany
      Participant

      Some of what you wrote sounded so familiar that I almost questioned if I had written it myself. It was unquestionably abuse, not only emotional but physical. Pushing you out of bed, slapping you, forcing you to eat things you are allergic to? That’s physical abuse.

      As an ex-fiance I know the what ifs are bad. I keep reminding myself that never being married, or having children is better than spending my life with someone who can make me feel so low. I know that probably this isn’t my last chance. But I find it helpful to remember that even if it was the choice to be alone is the better one. I hope you might find that idea helpful too. Sending you love. Tiffany

    • #43833
      SunshineRainflower
      Participant

      Hi there Sad sunflower,

      Your name is so descriptive I just want to give you a big hug, I’m so sorry that you are going through this!

      Forcing you to eat things you didn’t like, forcing you to eat things you are allergic to, swearing at you, pushing you off the bed, calling you stupid, stopping you from seeing friends and forcing you to spend money on him are all forms of abuse. You were definitely in an abusive relationship, and what you are feeling is totally normal.

      Abuse is so confusing, I too sometimes get confused thinking ‘maybe he wasn’t abusive’ but then I remember everything he did and said and it helps me think clearly again.

      I recommend writing it all down so you can read back over each incident in times of confusion, it really helps me having a list of all of the abuse and was also extremely useful when I later had to report him to the police for harassment.

      It is extremely painful. But, you dodged a bullet. You now have the chance to heal, live in peace and one day meet a good man who will treat with you love, kindness and respect. As many of the ladies here who married their abusers will tell you, you had a lucky escape as the sooner you leave one of these men the easier it is to break free of them. Once you are tied to them legally, financially and through children they can continue to cause problems for years.

      It’s great that you have a good friend who understands abuse and have found the forum. I recommend a book called Why does he do that by Lundy Bancroft and Pat Craven’s resources which will come up in a google search.

      P.S I too am not married nor have children and was devastated to realise that my ex was abusive because like you I thought that perhaps it was my last chance for marriage and children. But like Tiffany said, it is so much better that we are alone than with these dangerous, evil men who would cause us untold harm. And now we have a chance to meet good men and hopefully bring children into the world in an abuse-free environment which wouldn’t have been the case had we stayed.

    • #43835
      SunshineRainflower
      Participant

      I also forgot to say, it is definitely not your fault. These men choose to be abusive, there is nothing we could do to stop them from behaving this way, but they trick us into believing it’s all our fault so that we stay and work harder at the relationship rather than realising that they are abusive. xx

    • #43879
      Serenity
      Participant

      There is a pattern after you’ve left your abuser.

      Initially, you feel great freedom and euphoria. Then you hit a low, begin to question yourself and whether things were that bad, and so on.

      It’s a process. When you are with an abuser, you are desperately unhappy but you don’t have time to reflect objectively on it all, as your energies are just going into surviving. When you get out, you feel a huge release. But then, in a sense, the painful bit begins: you have the time and space to reflect and what happened hits you like a ton of bricks. Your brain begins to try to work through the experience, you get flashbacks, you relive it all and there is huge pain, anxiety and self-questioning; with me, even self-hatred.

      It’s all part of the trauma – PTSD?- and a necessary but painful part of the recovery process.

      I was exactly like you. A couple of years on, counselling, support groups, sharing my experiences with ladies here and others who have been through it and understand, I can see now it wasn’t me at all. I can see him for what he is.

      You will get through this, with help. Keep on plugging away, with support. Eventually, it will all be so crystal clear, and you will regain your peace and your strength, I promise. Just keep reaching out for help x

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