I was in a 3 year relationship, which started amazing - everything was perfect and I thought I met my soulmate, the love of my life. I’d never felt chemistry like it, we spent every possible moment either together or on the phone. But within a few weeks of our relationship cracks started to show - he would randomly give me the silent treatment, accuse me of cheating, shout, call me names and I ended up in that situation for years.
I kept looking back to how things were at the start and trying to overlook all the awful things which he did to me. He was incredibly controlling - needed to know where I was and who I was with at all times. I wasn’t allowed any male friends - it wasn’t worth the hassle I got from him, I met up with a close male childhood friend (who was happily married) who was going through a serious MH crisis, and I was accused of sleeping with him when I was trying to offer him support at his lowest point.
Inbetween the dreadful, controlling, abusive things which he did, there were really caring and lovely times too. Beautiful dates, big declarations of love and saying it was only because he loved me so much that he cared about things so much. I was also constantly accused of everything which he was guilty of - told I was selfish on a near daily basis for just wanting to be treated with respect, told that no man would ever want to deal with me, and that I’m a very problematic person.
I was constantly tripping over myself trying to follow all of the rules which he set on how I should act and behave - even though he was allowed to do what he wanted, when he wanted. If I ever tried to express myself or reason with him, I was told that I was ‘causing trouble’ and ‘starting arguments’ and belittled as much as possible. But of course, whenever he had emotions to offload, I had to be the emotional punchbag for them.
I’m so relieved to be out of this relationship. I left very recently, and after the first few anxiety ridden days, I feel the weight has been lifted. I can wake up every day and not be worried about what mood he will be in, or which version of him I will get. I can eat normal meals - I had no appetite a lot of the time when he was horrible to me, so I had no energy. I have already started sleeping properly - with him most of the time I had about 5 broken hours, with hours in the middle of the night I’d wake up wide awake feeling stressed unable to sleep. Now I go to sleep at a reasonable time and wake up well rested, no waking up at random. My nightmares have stopped to.
It took me months to be able to leave, I worked on my self esteem and mental health and general health so much to manage it. I thought I’d never get out, but now he’s gone for good and I’m so so relieved.
I know this post is quite pointless - I just wanted to share somewhere how much happier and at peace I am. I never shared the extent of how bad the relationship was to friends or family so they wouldn’t understand any of it, but I feel like I got my life back.