This has probably been the most uncomfortable Christmas Day I’ve ever had.
My boyfriend with whom I live asked me to spend Christmas Eve till the new year with his family.
His family and particularly his mother have always treated me poorly but as it was important to him, and he assured me they really wanted to see me, I accepted.
They live about three hours away.
Within a couple of hours of our arrival I was treated poorly again and completely dismissed, not only by his family but also by him. I felt so stupid and unwanted and that night I told him I wanted to leave earlier and told him I’d go spend Christmas at home (my family lives very far away and I would have been unable to see them so it wasn’t an excuse for me to go to them or anything but at that point I preferred to be on my own rather than being treated badly).
He asked me if I could stay and I said no.
He left me in the bedroom and went to spent the rest of the night and early morning with his cousins.
In the morning he woke me up yelling at me, I was confused as I hadn’t even opened my eyes yet but he kept telling me off and repeatedly yelling that I was rude as f and that we would have a conversation later on and that I owed him respect, he didn’t stop when I asked him to leave me alone until I started crying. It was embarrassing because people had actually heard him.
He later told me that it was rude of me to say no to him and that as I was on holidays for him i should suck it up and support him.
he didn’t consider that I was also on holidays and that I was alone without my family with strangers that were ostracising me and didn’t want me there. He had his entire family there.
We didn’t talk to each other for the rest of the day, he kept hanging around his mother and they were both acting odd. I later found them both alone in the kitchen, they were dragging me in mud. They were talking behind my back, talking about how rude I was to have been visibly upset and not acted like nothing had happened, he was revealing my deepest secrets I had only told him and that were hard for me to share. I am 5 month pregnant and have antenatal depression, he also revealed that to her and they started badmouthing me about it saying that I was a grown ass adult and should take responsibility for my decisions. I never denied responsibility for my baby, I never even considered abortion and I can’t control these feelings.
I confessed to him that I was having issues with my faith and that I was trying really hard to overcome them and I was ashamed and it was supposed to stay between me and him but he also told her everything about that and my praying habits as an argument that I was a bad wife and that my thoughts were influenced by the devil.
I was in disbelief and later asked him if we could talk and so he told me to go for a walk with him.
I told him what I had thought I had heard and he admitted to everything.
I started crying and he then started bullying me, he lashed out at me, got closer to me, pointed his finger at my face and started yelling, he told me to stop crying that I was pathetic, and then he got all my insecurities about my pregnancy and turned them against me. I told him I didn’t want to listen to his abuse. He told me that it was my turn to listen and that he had the right to express himself and he kept intimidating me.
I was starting to have a mental breakdown by then and told him to leave me alone. He didn’t want to so I walked out. He kept following me, blocking my route physically and and kept calling me a grown child and pointing his fingers at my face. He then told me that if I walked away we were over. To which I said okay.
He kept repeating it again and again, that if I kept walking we would break up immediately and I just kept saying okay then and he just looked stunned.
I then asked him to give me my things back so I could leave.
He told me to get them myself so I could say bye to his family.
I knew what he was planning (act like the victim and turn them against me when theyd find out I was going to leave. It was his whole family including parents, siblings, cousins, uncles, aunts, etc… and i was alone and didn’t trust them) and I said I would wait outside and to please give me my things back.
He refused so I told him all I wanted was my passport and my phone. He refused to give them back to me.
And that point all hell broke loose in my head and I started crying hysterically and asked him again and again. He would say yes and then he would say no, repeat again and again. It drove me nuts. He kept intimidating me and shouting at me and at that point I just begged him and felt so hopeless and betrayed and upset. I am so ashamed of admitting it but I lost all control over my emotions and I just kept shaking and crying and begging.
He wouldn’t bulge until a woman passed by, she turned out to be a lawyer and stepped in. We explained the situation to her and he freaked out and said he would bring my passport back to me, she said I would be at her house and gave him the house number if we werent on the street. He didn’t show up when we were outside (it was dark and raining) so we went inside hers. He still didn’t show up so we went to look around the house. I knew what was coming.
What he did instead is he went inside the house and started crying and sent his whole family on a search party. It was so humiliating.
Whole family was trying to interfere.
He then came but still didn’t give me my things and promised me that if I went with him in his car, I wouldn’t have to go inside, that he would pick me stuff up and hand them back to me while I was waiting in his car.
My stupid self believed him.
Lo and behold, when he goes back to the house, he doesn’t come back but sends his family to the car instead.
That was probably the most chaotic Christmas I’ve ever had.
I told him I wanted a break while I figured out what I wanted to do so here I am seeking advice.
What do I do?