My situation is extremely identifying so I'm going to give as little information as possible to ask my question. i would very much like to know if what happened to me could be called domestic abuse. It means a lot to me to be able to name what happened to me, and at the moment I don't know if "domestic abuse" applies - I feel like a fraud considering it, but perhaps it's the right label.
My ex of 6 years, from almost the very moment of our getting together, secretly filmed and photographed every intimate, naked and semi-clothed moment of my private life and shared it online and in person with men to masturbate over. Every anxious moment of pregnancy, every time I changed my clothes or got out of the shower, every 2am wake up to feed the baby (we have 2) in my underwear, all porn. We're talking several hundreds of images. Yes, I went to the police.
The thing is the whole time I was in a perfect relationship. PERFECT. He was kind, generous, supportive, involved, arguably a more adept parent than me, a feminist (that sticks in the throat), I thought I had it all.
Was I abused? I feel like I was, so much has been taken from me, but I didn't suffer in the moment. Does that make me a fraud? If instead of hitting his wife a man secretly poisons her food, is it domestic violence? I feel like it is. It's really tearing me up.
He did so much more actually, it's the stuff of movie scripts or nightmares, you wouldn't believe it. And all along he had me believing we were everything. But this is the bit I'm struggling to name. I'm struggling to call it abuse because all along I thought I was the happiest I'd ever been. Perhaps it wasn't abuse, but what can I call it? What can I say happened to me?
Opinions gratefully received.