Hi everyone,
I've been reading mumsnet for a while but never posted before. I wasn't sure whether I should jump right in with this post or start with some light-hearted stuff first, but then I figured I'd just go for it.
I broke up with my ex of nine years almost a year ago, and it's taken me this long to realise what an emotionally abusive relationship it was. I'm not sure why I'm posting here except that I feel like I need somewhere to talk about it, and it's been hard to even admit some things to my friends and family. Reading posts here have really helped me, and I decided it might help to open up about it on here at last.
Before I met him I was always a very independent person and never really felt like I had anyone looking out for me (I realise now that this is rubbish and I actually have some amazing friends and family, but at the time it didn't feel that way). He came along and seemed so determined to 'look after' me, and at the time - in my very early twenties - I found that so appealing. However, that gradually morphed into controlling behaviours which isolated me from all my friends and loved ones. Any time I ever had a rant or a moan about a friend or family member, he would really seize on it and use it as an opportunity to tell me how terrible all my friends were, and how I deserved better, and that he was the only person out there 'looking after' me. Needless to say, when I eventually left him all those years later, those 'terrible' friends and relatives were the first to come through with love, support and practical help with moving out and finding a new place.
He first lost his temper with me about six months into the relationship. I can't even remember the specifics of what it was about, but I do remember him telling me in no uncertain terms that I treated him like shit and took him for granted. He was drunk, storming around our flat, yelling and getting right in my face. Looking back, I should have left there and then. But at the time I was so distraught that he could be so angry with me, and convinced that I must have been a really awful girlfriend to make him react that way. I resolved to do better and hoped it would never happen again. Of course it only got worse. In the final years of our relationship I was being shouted at almost every day. I got used to being called a c**t so often that the word stopped even being offensive to me any more. I was expected to take his abuse and never talk back, and if I did I could look forward to days and days of the 'silent treatment', something at which he was a master. Every time this happened, I would convince myself that it was my fault, that I just needed to modify my behaviour and stop provoking him, and then he'd go back to being my lovely, caring boyfriend again. Occasionally, he would... but it would never last more than a few days before something I did would set him off again.
I don't really have a point to all this except to say that, for me, it never got better. Those nagging doubts I had early in the relationship never went away, and I can't help beating myself up for not listening to them. The fact that I stayed in such a clearly terrible situation for so long both astounds and, frankly, embarrasses me. I've tried to speak to people a few times, but the reaction I get is usually '... so why did you stay with him?' and I honestly don't have an answer. But I'm so, so grateful that I'm out of there now.
Thank you for reading, if you made it this far!