Hi everyone, I have name changed for this and just looking for some opinions / advice on what to do.
To keep it as short as possible, I was in a long term abusive relationship with my now ex. I split up with him what is now a few years ago and I am in a new happy relationship.
I know people say this but I never thought I would end up in relationship with someone abusive, it was mostly emotional torture which included:
- screaming at me for little things such as forgetting to transfer £20 for a bill he paid
- the above example escalating to a situation where he would shout at me to say I had no friends
- telling me no one cared about me on a regular basis, “not even my family” (for context I have lots of friends and a very close and loving family)
- telling me I was worthless, laughing about how “pathetic I was”
- general name calling, but the one that always hurt the most was that “I was a joke” before he would laugh
- i am not confrontational so I would walk away from an argument, on a couple of occasions he would grab me and scream in my face that no one else would ever want me, to the extent that I could feel his spit on my face. He was being so loud that I looked out of our spy hole on the door as I was worried the neighbour had heard and was outside, he proceeded to tell me that no one would “ever come looking for me” because people don’t care enough and feel sorry for me and think “he’s better”
- Telling me I am a piece of shit on his shoe
- generally getting very angry with things such as work and taking it out on me, shouting and when I wouldn’t retaliate he would pretend to head but me so that I got scared, other examples include throwing a plate of food over me that I cooked and accusing me of speaking to other men (I wasn’t) before pouring a glass of wine over me
- being the guy everyone “liked”, forewarning me on the way to social events not to discuss certain things otherwise “I would be in trouble later”
- humiliating me in front of friends
- telling me women do not make great leaders and that I would never truly be successful (I’m a lawyer and he had told me he was envious, god knows why)
- having an extremely bad gambling habit that kept cropping up and meaning he would empty his savings on a regular basis, taking cash from my purse (but never from my card, so I had no evidence)
- hiding gifts and cards my family had sent me for birthdays so that he could say they never cared about me
- after we split and he was moving out he came into the bedroom when he got back one evening and pushed me so hard I flew back onto the radiator and cut my leg, a couple of weeks later he was trying to fix his watch and threw a knife at the blind in the bedroom when he was shouting at me after I asked when he would be leaving
I know this might be difficult to believe, but I was never goady, in fact I’m now certain he targeted me for being trustworthy and someone who is so open and generally kind and foregiving as a person. It all came to a head when I had been told so much I was worthless that I decided we had to split, I had some therapy and really processed everything. I have my confidence back. I was told at the time to lodge a witness statement with the police so that it comes up when a future partner makes a Clare’s Law request, I’m not sure if this is something I should even do or whether I could because I only have my diary of events that took place, he was never arrested for example and I am now over it all but you never really forget how it made you feel, sometimes I wish I had acted sooner. On the other hand, no future partner of his should go through what I did.
The above are just some examples of his behaviour but would be grateful for your thoughts, took a lot for me to post this so please be kind 💐