I think my BF of 2 years is emotionally abusing me

[ThePeachWasp]

I think I’ve royally screwed up. I’ve been with this guy for just over two years and during that time I have been through a lot of trauma; some personal to me and some caused by him. I know deep down I need to leave him but I am struggling. I’ve developed PTSD (that makes me feel so ashamed in itself) and I have gone from being independent, loving travelling, having a job and friends, to being isolated, struggling to go outside, no friends or job and having severe anxiety with crippling panic attacks.

I’m told he is being abusive towards me but he’s never been physically violent. I miss the person I was before. I really do want to get better and I have repeatedly sought help but my local NHS mental health service have not been very supportive up to this point. I am still battling with them so please don’t think I’m sitting at home waiting for things to magically fix themselves.

I guess I was hoping I would find something on here to prove I wasn’t losing my marbles and that I am not the problem.

Can you give any examples of what he's doing?

Sorry, but you'll need to give us a bit more OP

Have you family to go to?
If you have pack your bags and go.

It doesn't have to leave a bruise for it to be abuse op.

Take care x

If he is abusing you (I don’t doubt you, just not much info to go on) I would bet a substantial amount of money that your mental health will improve if you leave him.

Have you got family who can support you in that? I bet your old friends would love to help you.

Sorry! It’s become such a habit to keep everything hidden so I look ok on the outside. Please don’t judge me for what I am about to share. Nobody is as ashamed as I am already.

I met him just as I found out I was pregnant. She was my miracle baby as I shouldn’t have been able to conceive due to contraception and medication I was taking at th

If people outside the relationship are telling you that he is abusing you, then actually we the internet randomers do not need any more evidence.

Do whatever it takes to get away from him, now, today. ASAP.

Sorry! It’s become such a habit to keep everything hidden so I look ok on the outside.

Examples of his behaviour include moving in and proposing on Valentines Day. Then less than two weeks later, while I’m at hospital with my sick Mum, I have to watch him leave on the ring doorbell. I rushed home to find a note he’d left. I was devastated. After a couple of days of silence he started messaging me, apologising and saying he’d had a breakdown. I ended up letting him back into my life. Since then he’s supposed to have moved back home twice more but something always happens to prevent it. Everytime an event gets near such as his birthday, my birthday etc he talks about all these plans he’s made but then on the actual day he disappears and then gets in contact afterwards or late on with some reason such as one of his adult children needed help as there was an issue with their pregnancy. Or I found out quite accidentally three months after I started seeing him that he was actually married with five adult children. I ended things immediately but he wouldn’t stop contact, told me he’d left her and moved into a friends house. He even threw his wedding ring into a river.

I’ve never been able to meet any of his family or children. He tells me his Mother and Step-Father were abusive to him as a child and he doesn’t have a proper relationships with any of his family.

Snaller things include no longer being able to call him directly from my mobile. I can call him via WhatsApp but that’s all. He told me his phone isn’t working due to an issue with his SIM card, and asked me to order him a couple of SIM cards but he’s never activated them. The more I look back the more instances I can think of. I’m so confused and feel like I’m standing on a floor that’s constantly shifting.

Sorry. Typing on a phone and it loaded before I’d finished.

Speak to Women's Aid. Your partner doesn't have to be physical to abuse you. There are four main types of abuse - physical, emotional, sexual and financial.

Is he the one that has isolated you? Read "Why Does He Do That?" by Lundy Bancroft. It will help you understand what he's doing.

You really need to get help and leave, now if possible. Don't tell him, just go. You will survive this and recover, the first step is hardest, but you can do it.

This sounds like a nightmare situation OP, your feelings are valid. You need to get away from this man. Please contact Women’s Aid.

What is happening with the NHS mental health team?

The Community Mental Health team have declined to treat me as they deemed my case too complicated. My GP service refer for support but they have a pathway they have to use. I’m sure I’ll get there. I just need to keep pushing.

That’s strange as the CMHT usually see the most ‘complex’ cases. Hopefully you will be referred to a more specific service for specialist help. I hope you are seen soon. Try contacting Womens Aid too.

You don’t need us to affirm this is abuse to leave op. There’s more than enough here to say that abusive or not, he’s a liar and you’re unhappy in the relationship. You don’t live together, don’t have kids, there’s never been a better time to leave than right now.

Right, he isn't the man for you. It is far too messy and complicated, he either has significant MH issues himself if he is having a breakdown, abusive or just a twat. Either way not someone you need to have complicating up your life.

What is the living situation. That is pivotal in next steps, if he doesn't live with you then you send a message telling him it's over, you aren't interested in being in a relationship anymore, that you want to focus on yourself and for him not to contact you any more. Then you block him on all media avenues.

If he has ever had a key you get the locks changed. If he rocks up to your front door you talk through it or even better the ring doorbell so he doesn't know you are actually in and tell him to leave and that you aren't interested in a relationship any more.

Was your baby his? I'm assuming not from your phrasing in which case a clean break is easy enough and just needs courage.

Do reach out to your friends if they were good ones before, they'll be glad to hear from you.

Do I go to his work and get his key? That way there will be other people around. Or do I just let him keep ghosting me and wait for him to show up as I’m sure he will eventually?

For your own peace of mind change the locks, there's no guarantee he hasn't made a copy. It's easier enough to change the barrel with a YouTube video.

Just block him on everything and forget he exists.
if he turns up then tell him he’s dead to you and to fuck off. If he has adult children then he is old enough to have sorted his problems out, rather than shift them onto you.

Thank you everyone. I’m definitely going to end it. He’s just been such a huge part of the last couple of years, the death of my baby and my Mum etc. I know he hasn’t been supportive, I know he isn’t good for me but there’s still a small part of me that is so scared to take this step. I am aware how pathetic that sounds.

I will do this. I will.

I went to his work, got his key and handed the few items he had at mine back to him. I expected a bit of emotion but he just said ok, here it is and I understand why you are doing this. Apparently he wasn’t ghosting me or ignoring me. He was having a bad day at work yesterday so he switched his phone off completely. When I said that you don’t behave like that with people you love or that love you, and that you talk to them so they can help you he then started saying about how he’s a mess and has a lot going on, how his Mum messaged him last night to ask him to go over for Christmas and his brother had the day before but he’d turned them down because he was spending it with me. He said that his stuff was all packed ready to move in tomorrow so I asked why he hadn’t just brought it round today. He said he’s not had time in the morning before work. He told me he was intending to come round tonight when he finished work to see me, but when I’d asked why he hadn’t messaged when it only takes 30 seconds to say a quick good morning etc he went straight back to how he hadn’t had time. He’s adamant that he loves me.

I end up so twisted round that I lose track of the conversation with him almost. There was no real fight to fix things, he never once asked me not to do this. No tears or anything. I got more emotion from him when I said his messages had changed, and that he’d stopped saying he love me. Then it was how dare I when I was the one who a few days ago stopped putting kisses at the end of my texts. He seems to forget that I’d been trying to contact him once again and returned home to find his house key hanging up so I rightly or wrongly assumed he’d walked out on us again.

Im exhausted, an emotional mess and I can’t think straight. All I can think is maybe I should have waited to see if he kept his word about Christmas and moving in, and that I should have waited until after so he wouldn’t be on his own. All I have ever wanted throughout this is to have a home with him, to love him and be loved in return.

All lies on his behalf! Any old shit to set you up as having made a mistake ditching him.

Happy Christmas OP, you have given yourself the best present ever. A fabulous new life awaits you. You deserve it.

Well done for getting out.
You can't heal wounds with the knife still in them. Now he's out, you can prioritise recovering.

Worth remembering:

• you don't have to prove abuse to leave someone.
• you can leave someone for any reason you want. Surely the fact that you are being driven mad by a relationship is a bloody good reason to leave.
• you don't owe abusers second chances.
• you don't actually owe anyone a second chance.
• you don't need the other party's permission to leave them.
• if someone general pattern of behaviour is to treat you badly, err on the side of caution and assume this will never change. Aka: when people show you who they are, believe them.

It would have been awful if he had moved in with you. You'd be stuck feeling like you'd made a huge mistake and desperate to get him to move out. He'd guilt you into giving him a chance etc...
He probably abuses his wife the same too. It's her I feel most for. Normally I'd advise you to tell her but I think in this case I'd just keep far away from him as if she chucks him out, he may show up at your door and I don't know if you're strong enough to tell him to fuck off if he does. Block him on everything.

He has screwed your head around for so long with his lies and utter madness, you actually don't know if you are standing upright or upside down!

You have been drowning without water...
We were taught, learning to swim, that if you couldn't find your feet and didnt know which way is up to the surface....
Release a breath, watch the bubbles and follow them to safety to breathe

You don't even have the security of air bubbles!
You have lost the yardstick that tells you what is normal and what is contrived from madness!

This guy did a real job of work on you and you need to get free of him.
He has nothing to give that you need.
Get away.
So many women are ruled by the phallus. It drives them to stand for treatment that an amoeba would reject!
Run now, or look back down the years in your old age with even greater regret than you feel right now.

Life is for living with joy and Its not a dress rehearsal. Once the moon comes up, that's another day wasted.

Move on.