I’m a 39 year old male and for the past 3 years I have been in an extremely emotional abusive relationship. For the first 6 months I felt everything was quite good but looking back I can see there were red flags that I obviously choose to ignore. I am still in the relationship but the turmoil has left me depressed, no confidence, fearful, feeling unworthy, no motivation, fear of loneliness, loss of friends, loss of hobbies, less productive at work and generally confused on how on earth I let this happen. I have been asked many times – why did you put up with this and why are you still there? I really don’t know why and that’s scares me that I don’t!
Throughout all the abuse I never once retaliated with the same immature, disgusting and disrespectful behaviour. Some people had advised me to give her the same treatment to see how she likes it, but I couldn’t do that, its just not in me. I will summarise some of the events of the past 3 years that I have had to endure:
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From the 6th month of the relationship to this very day (In fact just 20 minutes ago) I have been constantly accused of cheating and lying. The disgusting names I am called are not repeatable and not only does she say it to me, she tells people outside the house as if it were fact. I have never cheated, never in my life, and I have never gave her nor anyone any reason to even think such a thing. Even when I am at work, I will get calls from her calling me a cheating tramp for no reason at all. She’s got in rows with these “other women” as they have heard about the disgusting lies she’s spreading. She apologies to them for “the mistake” but never once apologises to me. About 80% of the time in the relationship, this particular accusation has been going on. My friends and family are disgusted with her and cant understand why I am still with her.
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Bizarre accusations. I get really bizarre accusations all the time for example – Accused of putting spy cameras and listening devices in the house and in the car, Accused of having multiple phones so I can contact these so called “other women”, Accused of coming on her to her daughter – its just all so sick. She tells people outside the house this nonsense as well.
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Accused of not going to work so I can cheat! This has been going on over the past year. I have proven her wrong so many times but showing her CCTV footage at work, my phone, talking to my work colleagues – its just ridiculous. There’s nothing I have said or done for her to even think this way, it just seems she plucks something from the sky and tortures me for it. Again, she tells others this same nonsense story to run me down with downright lies.
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This by far is the most disturbing, sickest and most hurtful accusation. She accused me, on many occasions, of being a paedophile around her young children. Her older children in the house were disgusted at her accusation and quickly let her know that they will not tolerate her stooping to this level. As for me, I was completed stunned and obviously extremely annoyed. I did inform her other family members, including her mum, about this dangerous accusation and something had to be done to stop this nonsense. I recall one moment she was shouting out the window “Paedophile” as I was getting into my car so other people could hear. I was torn between Should I go to the police or should I let her family speak to her. A few times she did apologise for this and her reason for it was because she is so insecure and untrusting of men. I have an excellent bond with her kids and its so obvious how much they love me as I do them. This accusation and abuse went on for about 1 year.
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Constantly accusing me of lying. If I call up to my mums, then when I come back I’ll go through hell as she will go into a rage saying I wasn’t at my mums. My mum will then get on the phone and tell her I was at hers. The same goes if I was at the shop, work or anywhere. My mum is actually very ill in hospital at the moment and just the other day when I visited mum, once again she accuses me of not going to the hospital and that I’m away cheating. My mum has been in hospital past 6 months and I am ashamed to say I call into see her a lot less now so I can avoid the torture my partner will put me through.
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Last year I took a break down from all the abuse. I just felt I wanted to end my life. I was with my partner at the time but she didn’t seem to care. I contacted the out of hours emergency and they took me in straight away. I told my partner Ive had enough, I couldn’t take it anymore, so I went home to my parents house. I stupidly answered her phone calls, and as much as I tried “no contact” I did contact her looking for “WHY?” – the abuse increased and to add more injury, she went telling people I left her cause I was cheating with someone else. We ended up getting back but I never got any apology. This past year, the same abuse continues, the same accusations, the same hurt. There is rarely a day I am not in tears.
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My doctor/therapist jointly put me on antidepressants and obviously gave me the advice to stay out of this toxic relationship. When my partner seen my medication, she took some of it and started showing people saying “Look what he’s taking, I knew he was a nutcracker”. I ended up binning the medication and never took it.
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Completely out of the blue abuse. We could be talking normally about anything, then next thing from out of nowhere, the abuse will start. The disgusting name calling, run downs, always making me feel as if I am dirt on the end of her shoe.
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Constantly kicking me out of the house and then accusing me of walking out on her to go and cheat! Its crazy. She will kick me out for no reason or a reason that she will not share with me.
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If anyone in the relationship should be insecure, it should be me. While I was hurting from the abuse, she was advertised online dating sites as single looking to meet men. Her daughter told me about it and when I confronted her she said her daughter was a liar. Turned out her daughter was telling the truth. She stayed on the dating site for over months while everyday calling me disgusting names. She said she would never cheat but I can tell you now it hurt me everyday. She never actually took her dating profile off, she just deleted the app of her phone. She also advertised on a dating site a year before that with 3 different profiles. She also contacted males from her phone and the content of the conversation were very sexual in nature. I’ve never been able to get over the pain of this. Meanwhile, she was the one making these nasty lies about me but behind my back was doing things that would destroy any relationship.
There is much more I could write but to be honest its getting to me a little the more I type. I just needed to vent this out and hopefully get help from others that may have been through similar. I was brought up in a loving, respectful home and have a great family. I’ve always chose my friends carefully and I cant say a bad word about any of them. They have tried to help me but like everyone else they can’t understand why I am still there. I don’t understand myself!! When I try to stay away and try “No contact”, I get this overwhelming feeling of loneliness, sadness, anger about what I’ve been through, and I end up going back into the relationship to be free of this feeling even though I know I’m going to get abused when I do.
I’m not looking sympathy or anything like that, I guess I want to feel reassured that I will be at sometime free of this, free of the hurt, that I will be ok and be happy again. I dont have any kids with her but I do have a strong bond with them all. I’ve read many blogs online and I don’t know whether she has Narcisstic personality disorder, bipolar or whatever – the label doesn’t really matter to me as all I know its painful. Its now Friday and work is nearly over – the first thing I feel now is fear as I know that this weekend will be full of more abuse and hurt – its madness I stay in it, and Im fully aware of that, but my emotional side seems to override what my rational side says. Rationally, I know I should be long gone from this toxic relationship but theres something emotionally/mentally keeping me there – maybe its fear of being alone, maybe its something the abuse has caused – I really genuinely do not know and that frightens me.
Thank you for taking the time to read my story. For anyone else going through similar, I sincerely sympathise with you and hope that you can free yourself and live life like how its supposed to be lived. I really wish I could leave and feel free and happy, I wish it was just as easy as that.