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I had trust issues because of his past, but I still gave him a chance because I genuinely loved him and wanted a future with him. I wanted to marry him someday and thought he was serious about me.

I decided to test his loyalty, and he failed. 💔 I don't want to share personal details, but what happened was enough for me to lose my trust in him.

He'll probably text me tomorrow like nothing happened, but I've already decided to end this relationship. I don't want advice on whether I should leave him because my decision is made.

I just need to know how to move on from someone I genuinely thought I'd marry.

I got choked, dragged, and slapped so hard it took me minutes to try to recollect myself. My boyfriend got mad at me for not wanting to speak and closing the bedroom door on him. I’ve had a temporary restraining order on him the last month. However I’m just an idiot who allowed myself to be manipulated and never extended the restraining order.
I’ve called 911 twice today. They did not show up. I escaped the house with my dog and my emergency stash bag if things did get worse. It’s been 4 hours since my last two calls to 911 asking for help. I live in a high crime rate area but this is disheartening and it’s really driving me to the edge.
I’m really sorry but I’m just posting to vent. I’m now hitting hour 5 and no cop has showed up to meet me where I’ve escaped too for now so I suppose I will be sleeping in the car with my dog.
I contemplated giving up. I don’t have the fight in my anymore when there’s no hope left for me to get help.

hi! i have never actually posted on reddit before but something weird happened between me and boyfriend last night. he’s never hit me or beaten me. we have play fought before but it’s never gone far but, im also not the biggest fan of it. but last night he was just giving me small k!sses all over my face for a couple of minutes and then out of nowhere he lightly starts ch0k!ng me. i don’t exactly remember what i felt in the moment i just remember feeling weird, uncomfortable and a bit scared. i told him to chill and he didn’t stop until i asked him again. he then looked at me and asked me if i was alright. the combination of the feelings i was feeling and the situation and the look in his eyes made me start to cry and i explained to him i didn’t like “playing” like that. i just automatically assumed he was playing but i became anxious and scared of the idea that he wasn’t. we later took a car ride and it was silent. and when we got home and took a shower, he then apologized for always “making me upset” and doing things that “made me upset.” i accepted his apology and moved on but deep down, i wish we talked about what happened because it was weird and it felt serious but i took it as a joke because it was light and I don’t have any bru!s3s.

One of the most painful things is having to carry all your pain alone while the person who contributed to it seems to be living their life as if nothing happened. I spend my days feeling angry, sad, disappointed, and anxious about my future, while he can comfortably sit at home, play video games, and enjoy his own world. It makes me realize how one-sided all this pain feels. I once dreamed of building a happy life together, supporting each other, and achieving our dreams. Now, I have to calculate my debts, savings, and the cost of moving out just to find some peace of my own. What exhausts me the most is not only what has happened, but the feeling that I am the only one carrying the consequences. While he continues living his life, I am grieving the life I thought I would have and trying to rebuild a future for myself.

Context: my boyfriend and I went out for drinks and he was so angry and trying to get into fights the whole time. We got back and he wouldn’t tell me what’s wrong and kept hiding under a blanket. I tried pulling it off of him and he hit me in the face, and then pushed me into a wall. I thought it was an accident so I kept trying and then he pushed me head first off of his bed and I have a goose egg and bruise. He’s drunk and swears he would never mean to hurt me and that it’s nothing but I feel sick.

I just wanted to do some cathartic journaling. I understand that this is absolutely crazypants, but you are welcome to point out specifically how in the comments.

Background: After the 2016 presidential election results were announced, I felt a profound, crushing personal guilt for not giving up my job to campaign, agitate and organize. I deeply believed that I 1. could have affected the outcome if I'd dedicated myself to it and therefore 2. had failed future generations with my moral obligation to do so. I suspect this may be out of proportion, but I *knew* this, with certainty. It took me weeks to recover from the debilitating self-disgust I felt for failing... to personally alter the course of a US national election.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I'm having the same issue with my partner's emotional abuse.

I believe that if I'm simply a more effective manipulator, I could set up a system of interlocking imperatives and constraints where he has no option but to stop berrating and terrorizing me and become the partner I want. A former (abusive) partner described it as me trying to put my hand up his butt to work him like a puppet. Genuinely, I feel an overwhelming desire to control every aspect of his recovery.

Failing to install such a solution feels like it is indeed simply a negative review of my own intelligence and efficacy.

I both feel that I can prevent my partner from being abusive and also that I have a moral obligation to do so, since I clearly can't turn him lose out into the world when he's very, very obviously going to abuse again.

I get that you can't do someone else's recovery for them. I don't give a shit. He needs to fix this NOW and it is not fucking optional.

I think part of my challenge here is this: my mom is a lovely woman who is also a narcissist. I have to intentionally do some manipulative things to manage my relationship with her and to make it the relationship I want. I carefully currate our boundaries and the information she gets so that she does not have the power over my life that she is constantly trying to get her hands on.

My best friend is an ex who was abusive when we dated (dated for 3 years, overall friends for 10 including before and after). We now have boundaries that have created the relationship I want with him. To his credit, he's *not* a narcissist and has helped to maintain those boundaries.

To me, love has always been primarily about leaveraging power and circumstances so that a difficult, harmful person gives you what you want for the least pain. So it's not like this situation is new to me and should therefore *be easier*.

This to say, I know it can be done and it's really pissing me off that I haven't managed to get my current partner to stop being intentionally cruel to me, then defensive and reactive when I confront him about something he did that's clearly bullshit. This feels like an embarrassing failure on my part.

I want him to stop abusing me and all I can think about is how I can set up processes and controls to prevent it from happening. I'm kind of obsessed with it? And with cataloging and presenting examples of his disgusting behavior as illustrations of what he needs to change. Telling him in a calm tone about how childish a batshit unreasonable thing he said to me was is, weirdly, one of the most compelling parts of the relationship at this point. I think it's humiliating for him. Good. It better be. You should feel bad for mistreating me during sex, keeping me from my friends, and making fun of me for a developmental disability. I hope he feels like shit for the ways he's mistreated me so that he'll FUCKING STOP DOING IT.

My current goal is to prevent him from ever having a moment of peace. We are not in a happy relationship and I refuse to pretend anymore. I am constantly being tortured by the memories of things he's said/done and I don't know why he shouldn't be in that with me. He did this. I'm no longer interested in engaging in the honeymoon part of the cycle. It requires me to abandon myself and pretend to forget the abuse happened and I've lost the energy to pretend. He's complaining that I'm "ruining a good time" - it isn't. It isn't a good time for me because just yesterday you left the house in the middle of an argument and were gone for hours with no communication and ruined our evening plans. And now I'm supposed to be all lovey? Fucking pass.

The end of my rope happened when there was a really bad abusive incident back on 9/5 and since then I've had to start 2 new anxiety drugs, we've completely stopped having sex and I've unintentionally lost over 10lbs (I'm 5'8" and was 145). I'm sick every single day. I can't sleep, I can't eat. I got a blood test for something unrelated and it showed that I was chronically hperventilating, like all day every day because I am flat out panicked. All I want, all I can think about every waking moment, is to force him to stop abusing me. It's just *so stupid*. He could live his whole life exactly the same, minus his cruel childish outburts. It's ridiculous. It's insane.

I've been working to make his abuse so unpleasant for both of us that I don't see he could possibly keep doing this. It's in no ones best interest. If you say some piece of shit thing to me, we're going to end up talking about it for 3 hours until you apologize, which you will hate, so whyyyyyyyyy. Why do this. Why drastically inconvenience both of us. I catalogue every event and then remind him about them later. If you don't want to hear about it, then great, you can simply stop doing it.

I suspect that he knows he's losing the verbal argument and is soon going to escalate to physical abuse because there's nothing left he can say to me. I'm smarter than he is and we both know it. He's admitted it. I've won the argument and my reward is probably that he's going to physically hurt me because he's being an unreasonable, childish, self-defeating moron. Honestly, my failure to control him makes me worry that I would be a bad parent, because somehow he's still getting away with doing whatever he wants and the incentive structures I've tried to set up haven't solved it.

Anyway, rant over. Idk why I'm like this but I'm so convinced I should be able to fix it and I'm frankly offended it's even this hard for me.

Hi everyone,
Healing from domestic violence is rarely a straight line. Often, just getting to "Day 1" of choosing yourself and your mental health takes an immense amount of strength. It can feel completely overwhelming to figure out what comes next when you are trying to rebuild your life, your boundaries, and your sense of self from the ground up.
Because of this, I wanted to create a dedicated space for survivors to process, heal, and slowly start to grow again at their own pace.
I’ve just released **Reclaim Your Path**, a supportive domestic violence workbook designed to guide you through that exact transition—from those heavy early days to a place of genuine, long-term healing.
**What’s inside the workbook:**
Guided prompts to help you unpack and process your experiences safely.
Actionable mental health exercises to rebuild self-esteem and rediscover who you are.
Strategic tools to help you establish firm boundaries and map out a safe, empowered future.
A gentle, non-judgmental approach that reminds you it's okay to "bloom right where you start."
It is currently available in both **Paperback** and **Ebook** formats so you can choose whichever format feels most private and comfortable for your personal healing journey.
If you or someone you care about is currently walking this path, I truly hope this resource can serve as a gentle watering can for your mental health. You don't have to have it all figured out today—just starting is enough.

The link to check it out is available.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HP387PBL?dplnkId=a495e177-93dc-4472-9dc0-46521b8b10e6&nodl=1

Thank you all for being such an incredibly supportive community.

I'm looking for honest opinions. My 18 month old son came home from his grandparents house on Thursday, where my mil was looking after him while my husband smoked shisha. The next morning, I noticed red marks on his back and inner arm (photos attached). I've never seen marks like these on him before.

My husband says he was playing a lot, but I tried squeezing my own skin with my fingernails and got similar-looking marks. My son was behaving normally.

I'm especially worried because my MIL was very toxic towards me during my first pregnancy and caused a major argument between my husband and me after our son was born.

I'm pregnant again, this time with a girl. My MIL has three sons and has always wanted a daughter, which makes me feel even more uneasy about the situation.

I don't want to accuse anyone without proof, but I can't stop wondering what happened.

Do these marks look like they could be from fingernails? Am I overthinking this, or would you be concerned too?

I'm planning to have a doctor examine him. I'd appreciate honest opinions.

Hello, this is my first post here. Sometimes i (20f) wonder if i’m overreacting or if my relationship was abusive, because i tend to talk myself into saying it wasn’t.

my experience was very short, around seven months but in those seven months my ex put me through a lot more than what i could manage. i think a lot of times when i hear about abuse in relationships it’s always years that it’s gone on for. he never did anything physical towards me until the end where he’d pull my hair, bite me, and hit me. but there were multiple time he’d get upset i was with my friends or stand over my shoulder while i spoke to them on the phone urging me to hang up. or how he’d call me out of my name almost every day, or tell me how i deserved to be slapped. sometimes he’d even keep me awake knowing i had class or lab in the morning because i refused to have sex with him. and he wouldn’t let me sleep until i gave in. one time i told him no and he left my apartment angrily while calling me out of my name and calling me slurs, while flipping me off before he came back 30 minutes later and proceeded to ask until i gave in again.

i will say, things started out good with him and then it was like one day a switch randomly flipped. when things were good they were really good and then it got bad and i felt like i was too invested by then to leave.

i wish i could recount ever thing i experienced in those seven months. it’s been a lot with him and i feel bad that i can’t recount most of it but my brain tends to block traumatic things out , which probably adds to why i question if it was even abuse. but overall a lot of what i went through was emotional and verbal.

also, when our relationship ended it was because he stole my things. my friends had gotten involved and after that i just knew i couldn’t keep seeing him. i found out after going no contact that he lied to me about his age. when we met he said he was 24, but i learned at the end he was really 34. maybe it’s my fault for not noticing that he looked older, but he was a heavy smoker and i just assumed that was what aged him. but if i had known his real age i would have never gone through a relationship with him. i genuinely feel disgusting with myself at times because of it. all of this could have been avoided too if i had known his real age.

I was born to parents who...

Ever since I was a kid, I would get hit and beaten up, especially by my mother, using various objects or even her bare hands. I always knew something was wrong, but whenever I complained to my grandma or uncles, they would blame me and say I was small-minded for hating that my mom hit me.

I was always hit for getting bad marks, or because teachers complained that I was shy and didn't speak much in class.

I remember once, when I was a kid, I was at the barber with my older brother and uncle. I finished getting my hair cut before my brother, and I asked my uncle if he would get me a Kinder Joy egg. I don't remember if he asked me first or if I asked him, but I went home happy. Once we got home and my mom found out what had happened, she threatened to beat the shit out of me after I finished showering. I remember shaking heavily and hugging my nanny begging her to take longer in the shower. My mom proceeded to beat me severely. I don't remember much after that, except apologizing to my uncle for asking him to get me the candy.

Ever since then, I've never asked anyone for food. Even as a kid, when I wanted candy or crisps or food in general, I would get my younger sister to ask my father for them instead. Looking back now, it explains a lot about me.

I was also repeatedly beaten by my mom for getting bad marks, being shy, or dozing off in class. The thing is, she only made everything worse. I became even quieter and started dozing off even more in class. If I hadn't memorized whatever she wanted me to memorize within the time frame she gave me, she would beat the shit out of me.

It got even worse when other people, like my grandma, were around. Once, when I was a kid, I couldn't memorize something properly and kept forgetting it. My mom beat the hell out of me. Coincidentally, my grandma came over to our house for something, and my mom continued hitting me in front of her, scolding me to kingdom come. After I finished studying, she told me we were going to apologize to my grandma for her having to "see this sight."

None of those things really clicked for me back then.

Now, as a 20-year-old, whenever I express even the slightest discomfort or criticism of my mom, or sometimes show a preference for my dad, who also used to hit me, just nowhere near as much as my mom did, they ridicule me. They tell me that everyone gets hit, that my mom sacrificed everything for me, and that I don't deserve her.

It actually makes me feel guilty. I hate that I'm unable to love my mom. I see all these people who say they're willing to die for their moms, and I want to love mine too. But something inside me just can't. My older brother is out of the country, and my sister studies in a different city, but I am the only one still living with my parents, I can't bear sharing the house with her anymore.

I don't see her as a mother. As cliché as it sounds, I don't see her as a source of comfort or safety. She's a monster. That's all I see. I am still in her shackles, I can't seem to leave her and her abusive family behind. I hate her and resent her with all my heart.

I was just a kid.

Mine used to do this always. I’d try to de escalate, solve it, or just tell him for us to stop and talk about the issue later.

He’d just keep pushing and pushing until I explode. Even after I’d ask again and again for him to stop because I couldn’t handle it.

This one time I got so overwhelmed I started screaming and hitting myself. Then he shook me violently claiming he wanted to “get me back to my senses”.

Another time I had the same reaction, he pinned me to the bed and hit my head with his knee, then claimed it was an “accident”.

Edit: Wow I am shocked by the responses. Used to think of him as this mentally ill person but it seems they all do this deliberately to torture us!

Hey guys! I'm moving out of my abusive partner's house tomorrow. He's only giving me one day even though I'm literally on short-term disability because my health is so bad. ANYWAYS. I've gotten people set up to help and I'm so thankful for my community. It took a lot of bravery to reach out to others, a lot of them I haven't talked to in months. But unlike the narrative he wove, people other than him do care about me!

Long story short, he insists on being there all day and I know it's going to be living hell. If you have any music recs for me to add to my playlist for moving out please comment on this thread!! I love pretty much any kind of music so I'm open to whatever genre etc. Thank you in advance!

So I'm making plans to leave my husband and I've never been more terrified but excited at once. I'm a SAHM mom currently or a one yr old so I have a ton of crap ahead of me to deal with I'm sure (knowing my STBX) but I'll finally have freedom!

So tell me if you've left what does life look like for you now? I want to hear everything. OR if you're planning on leaving like me; telll me your plans? What are you most excited about? Most scared about?

Me, I'm most excited not only to be able to worry about me and my daughter ONLY, but I can decorate my OWN place how I want, spend my money how I want (responsibly ofc),
WEAR HEELS!!! (He's short he hates that I'm taller than him which is crazy cause he knew this when he asked me out 13 yrs ago).
GO OUT with my girls and wear what I want; not rush home, not check my phone every second bc he decides he wants to "dirty talk" ( really it's just a control tactic).
Bring myself to therapy bc he doesn't believe in therapy..
I'm excited to go on dates (one day after some healing ofc) and actually have ROMANCE,gasp!! So many things to be excited about.

For context the abuse is MOSTLY emotional, and financial. There has been some threats and shoving, but luckily nothing insane.

This isn’t my first abusive relationship and last time it got to the point where our break up was him being arrested.

In this case it is much less violent but I am not treated with love and care at all.

So why am I having such a hard time leaving? I have been wanting to for almost a year, looking for a way out, and now that I have a possible solution I’m having panic attacks every day thinking about leaving.

I cry thinking how he might feel if he comes home to me gone. I panic thinking about what I will be like without him. I’m already lonely and I haven’t left. I know what’s best the right choice is for myself and my life but I can’t help feeling this insanely deep hurt at the thought of not seeing him or talking to him or being around him.

There are so many good things about him that my brain is trying to focus on even when I have proof of terrible behavior as well.

I know what’s best the logical answer is. Like I said I have been through this before and I’m not naive. I’m also not immune to trauma bonds and human emotion…

Any tips are appreciated to help make the right choice, feel better, leave with courage, worrying less, literally anything helps.

TIA

I’m genuinely asking because I feel like nobody talks enough about how much a psychologically abusive relationship can change you as a person.

I’ve been through what feels like three separate ego deaths, struggled with eating disorders and depression, gained weight, and completely lost my ability to imagine being intimate with someone again.

One of the worst parts is that my ex constantly body-shamed me throughout our relationship. And here’s the thing: I was literally underweight when we were together. I wasn’t fat. Not even remotely. Yet somehow, this person managed to convince me that there was something fundamentally wrong with my body, to the point where I developed serious issues with eating and my appearance.

Now, whenever I look at pictures of myself from that period, I quite literally want to die. Not because of how I looked, but because I can see someone who was already so thin and yet genuinely believed they weren’t small enough. It makes me sick to realize just how much power I gave this person over me, how deeply I internalized their words, and how much of myself I lost in the process.

I look at those pictures and wonder how someone could make me hate myself so much when there was absolutely nothing wrong with me to begin with.

And the worst part is that I’m still living with the consequences. My relationship with my body is completely different now. I’ve gained weight, my self-esteem has taken a massive hit, and I struggle to imagine ever feeling comfortable being vulnerable with another person again.

And I don’t just mean physically. I mean emotionally, too. The thought of letting someone know me that intimately, giving them access to my insecurities, trusting them enough to be completely myself around them, feels almost impossible.

Meanwhile, the person who hurt me is apparently out there living their best life and getting into new relationships, while I’m still trying to put myself back together.

And before anyone suggests that I stop checking up on them, I don’t. I genuinely don’t want to know anything about this person anymore. I’ve deliberately avoided updates, and I’ve explicitly told my friends that I don’t want to hear about them. Unfortunately, a friend told me about their new relationship anyway, so now I have information I never wanted in the first place.

The frustrating part is that I don’t even want this person back. I don’t want to reconnect, I don’t want to know what they’re doing, and I don’t want them in my life. Everything related to them is triggering, and I just want to exist without being reminded of that chapter of my life.

But hearing that they’ve moved on while I’ve been dealing with the psychological consequences of what happened really messed with my head.

It feels incredibly unfair that someone can have such a devastating impact on another person’s mental health and seemingly continue living their life without consequences.

And I know that what someone shows on the outside doesn’t necessarily reflect how they’re actually doing. I know healing isn’t a competition. Intellectually, I understand all of that.

But emotionally? It’s exhausting.

I feel like the relationship didn’t just hurt me. It fundamentally changed my relationship with myself, my body, and other people. Sometimes I genuinely wonder whether I’ll ever be able to see myself without hearing the things this person used to say about me.

I miss being able to imagine falling in love without feeling terrified of what that might cost me. I miss feeling comfortable in my own skin. I miss the version of myself who hadn’t yet learned to hate things about herself because someone else repeatedly pointed them out.

How do you stop hearing the horrible things someone said about your body, even after they’re no longer around? How do you become comfortable with intimacy again? How do you stop comparing your recovery to someone else’s apparent happiness?

For those of you who have been through something similar, did you ever genuinely feel like yourself again?

I’d really appreciate hearing from people who’ve actually experienced this, because right now I just want to feel like a normal person again.

Please don’t speculate about my ex’s current relationship or whether they’ll ever face consequences. I really don’t want to know anything else about this person. I’m looking for advice about healing, not about them.

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I dated a guy on and off for a year and half and it ended two years ago. Before this I was more comfortable in expressing vivaciousness, going out, the works. I live in a country where even though I made reports of him hurting me they took his side. It got to the point where I thought I was gonna die so I uploaded videos everyday building a fan base, so that if I disappeared, someone would start asking questions. I was so afraid of him at the time I didn't even directly address what was going on behind the scenes. Last year, after finally finding the courage I started releasing videos, talking about it. He found my number and threatened me to take them down. He has goons and even the police on his side still. I took them down. Now I struggle to go out genuinely. I am slowly coming back out of my shell but it's so easy to go back in. Has anyone else ever gone through something similar? How do. You did you heal? Especially on the harder days? How did /do you cope?

Hey. So I had a long distance relationship with my boyfriend. We've been together for almost 2 years. I didn't know but now I realize that I started self harming because my boundaries were crossed and he made me question my own reality. He was using DARVO a lot. At the beginning he was apologizing a lot reassuring me but then he started saying that reassurance is pointless since it doesn't help anyways when I am anxious. He went from reassuring and understanding to blaming me and saying that everything is my fault and that my self harm is manipulative. He started being frustrated with me and hanging up or leaving me alone in the argument or blocking my way and calling me abusive when I was trying to push him away. In an argument he literally told me to make it right and kill him the next time. Recently he wanted to take a break and then he flew to my country to break up while still being affectionate. I was really in a bad state and I was self harming a lot. He used to pin me to bed when I wanted to self harm when I felt like I couldn't escape and call me manipulative saying that if I wanted to stop then I would. He refused to hug me after that or talk to me. Then he wanted to take a break that he didn't know how long it would last and then he came to my country to break up while being affectionate. I begged him not to and after a while he agreed. Two weeks after that I started having stronger boundaries he adjusted for a week and then he threatened a breakup again. After a while of begging I woke up and said okay bye then he called me 4 times asking if we are together. I said no I'm not playing your games don't call me again. The day after he sent me a paragraph saying that we need to heal separately and that he will write a letter if and when he heals. I didn't respond and 4 days after that I got a new follower on Instagram (I hardly ever get any new followers) I'm glad that I woke up but it's still hard to believe in everything that happened. I blamed myself for a very long time and I can't believe how someone could be like this. He was paying for my therapy for a while because it was his idea and he promised but then he stopped because of a break and all of that.

My ex completely broke something inside me, and I honestly don’t know how to begin healing from it.
The impact this relationship has had on my mental health feels indescribable. Even thinking about what I went through makes me feel stressed, anxious, angry and deeply upset. Sometimes, the emotions become so overwhelming that I start having suicidal thoughts. I just want it all to stop. I want to feel like myself again.
Before I met him, I was genuinely happy. I was positive, energetic, outgoing and full of life. I enjoyed things, I had a different outlook on life, and I felt like myself. Now, I barely recognise the person I’ve become. It’s heartbreaking to look back at who I used to be and realise how much this relationship has changed me.
I want to make one thing clear: I am over him. I don’t want him back, I don’t wish to be with him, and I’m not struggling to let go of the relationship itself. What I’m struggling with is the trauma he left behind. It’s as though the relationship is over, but the damage it caused is still very much a part of my everyday life. I can move on from a person, but how do I move on from what they did to me?
I’ve had relationships before where I thought my exes were toxic, but nothing compares to what I experienced with him. Looking back, there were so many things I tolerated that I would never have imagined accepting before I met him. He seemed to want me to distance myself from my family and friends, and there were times when it felt as though he couldn’t stand seeing me happy. Even on my birthday, instead of letting me enjoy my day, he kept finding reasons to argue with me.
One of the most painful parts of all of this is something I’ve never told anyone in my personal life. He got me pregnant, and I suffered a miscarriage during a period when I was dealing with an enormous amount of stress, alongside many other difficult circumstances. I was young, scared and going through something incredibly painful, and I’ve carried that experience privately ever since. Nobody knows about it, and sometimes I don’t even know what to do with all the emotions surrounding it.
I think what hurts the most is realising how much of myself I lost while trying to make that relationship work. I hate that I tolerated so much. I hate that I allowed someone to treat me in ways that hurt me so deeply. And I hate that, even though he is no longer in my life, I’m still the one left dealing with the consequences.
I know I can’t change the past, and I know blaming myself won’t undo anything. But I still get so angry and sad when I think about everything that happened. I feel like I’m grieving the person I used to be, the experiences I went through in silence, and the version of my life I might have had if I had never met him.
I don’t want to spend the rest of my life feeling this way. I want to be happy again. I want to feel safe in my own mind and body. I want to stop feeling anxious whenever something reminds me of him. Most of all, I want to reach a point where my past no longer has this much power over my present.
For anyone who has experienced an emotionally abusive or deeply traumatic relationship: How did you heal from the trauma after the relationship ended? How did you learn to feel like yourself again? Did you ever get back the happiness, confidence and peace you had before?
I’m not looking for advice on how to get over him. I’ve already done that. I’m looking for advice on how to get over what he put me through, because I genuinely don’t know where to start.

Has anyone tried EMDR? Has it helped? Does anyone have a good tele one they recommend?

That guy I was with put me through so much. He would put me in danger as in speeding driving recklessly and swerving on highways, breaking my phone and property, breaking into my house if I tried to reschedule our dates, had my neighbors calling the cops multiple times because he didn’t care to start yelling and screaming until he got his way just embarrassing me, I couldn’t wear what I wanted, locking me in his restroom and room, pinning me down if i wanted to leave and attempting to commit multiple times in front of my house when i wanted to break up with him and when I made friends he would scare them away and drag me out of conversations with them by my arm. So yes abuse.

It took me a long time to get here though, to be at the stage of not caring. I went through the missing him stage, the guilt stage, the blaming myself stage, the “what could’ve been“ stage, and all the stages in between. Now i genuinely don’t care. I cut off contact with him and he tried reaching out to me earlier this month and I cut that last string of contact off. I wasn’t leaving a little door open where he can still talk to me, I genuinely cut off all contact and I don’t feel a thing about it. I don’t feel bad, I don’t miss him, i dont care. I look back at the girl I was when I was with him and never thinking it was possible, but I’m here now and I’m actually disgusted by him. But it’s also like he never existed to me, i don’t know that guy 🤣 but yeah f*** that dumbahh abuser. it’s kinda crazy how detaching works when someone abused you, but when you’re in that situation it’s so blinding. The first paragraph I wrote, I didn’t even realize I was being abused until i detached from that guy. These abusers are literal demons. I literally was thinking “f*** you b****” when I cut off that last string !!!! b

So if you’re thinking about leaving or scared what the future holds without that person, this is your sign!!! Don’t go back into that cycle, you will start seeing things for what they truly are. it’s not love, it’s attachment and don’t let attachment cost you. They won’t change, if will only get worse. PLEASE LEAVEEEEE and don’t go back you will thank yourself in the future

This is the first time something like this happens to me so I am unsure if im overreacting or not.

The other night me and my boyfriend we're hanging out watching stuff on his phone, but I was so sleepy I layed down the opposite side from him. At first we're joking about how he didn't want me to go to sleep so we could still hangout. But then, he said "come over here" in a jokingly tone and pulled my hair.

I told him to stop, I didn’t liked that and he said that he did it softly, which is true. It didn't hurt, it wasn't intense but I've never experienced that in a relationship. He apologized after I told him to do so.

I am confused if this is a sign of abuse because he has always been a kind, soft and patient man. So that behavior caught me off guard. Am I overthinking everything?

Bonjour,

Je poste ce message aujourd'hui car j'ai besoin de vider mon sac face à ce qui reste un véritable traumatisme pour moi.

Il y a quelques mois, j'ai découvert que mon ex m'avait trompée du début à la fin de notre relation. Il utilisait une seconde carte SIM ( chinoise ) sur son téléphone pour utiliser des applis comme télégram wechat et j’en passe.. et bien sûr ses maîtresses avaient son second numéro et donc il pouvait orchestrer tranquillement ses tromperies. Pire encore : son frère et sa sœur étaient parfaitement au courant et ont joué le jeu.
Pendant toute notre relation, il m'a fait passer pour la « jalouse maladive» et la paranoïaque de service, alors qu'il me manipulait sciemment.
J’ai même fini par comprendre qu’il couchait parfois avec elle(s) sous mon toit dans mon propre lit.
Même pendant que j’enterrais mon papa il a osé ..
Aujourd'hui, je n'éprouve plus aucun sentiment bienveillant pour lui. Mais la blessure psychologique, elle, est bien là et je dirais même physique car maintenant je suis capable de dire que j’ai mal au cœur en le pensant vraiment.
Il ne voulait pas d’enfant ni acheter pour différentes raisons ( je les ai comprises aujourd’hui évidement ) il savait que c’est ce que je souhaitais et m’a fait perdre 4 ans et demi de ma vie à un âge crucial car j’étais prête à faire des concessions par amour pour lui.
Parmis les femmes que j’ai identifié il y en plusieurs qui travaillent ou ont travaillé au même endroit que moi car oui, malheureusement lui aussi. Je me sens donc absolument humiliée et c’est un sentiment que je ne souhaite à personne car il m’a donné envie de mourir.

J'ai du mal à sortir ces pensées de ma tête et à accepter d'avoir été victime d'une telle imposture. Ça me dépasse et me détruit de réaliser à quel point je n’étais qu’un pion dans le jeu de sa double vie.

-Oui j’aurai pu m’en apercevoir car de nombreuses captures d’écran qu’il m’a envoyé prouvait bien qu’il avait deux cartes SIM ( dont 1 chinoise ) mais je n’ai rien vu car j’avais confiance en lui et je n’ai donc pas examiné ces captures à l’époque et je suis même persuadée que ça l’a amusé de m’envoyer des preuves que je ne voyais même pas ( un sociopathe )
-Oui il y a eu des red flag au début surtout pour des mensonges mais j’ai fini par croire que je l’empêchais d’avoir des copines et donc il en venait à me mentir pour des bêtises alors que ces mensonges révèlent aujourd’hui bien plus d’atrocités.
-Oui il avait beaucoup moins envie de coucher avec moi et j’en souffrais énormément car je n’ai jamais cessé de le désirer
-Oui, avec le recul, il a parfois été très méchant dans ses propos et sa façon d’être avec moi mais … l’amour rend aveugle ..
-Oui je me suis fait dépister
-Oui je suis suivi psychologiquement
-Oui je suis entourée de proches sans qui je n’aurai pas survécu

Mais malgré tout je continue de souffrir et j’ai peur que cela reste beaucoup trop long à guérir et je ne sais pas si j’ai la force de vivre en ne sachant pas quand je vais de nouveau avoir la vie que je mérite et vivre paisiblement et aussi faire confiance à qui que ce soit ..

Certaines / certains d'entre vous ont déjà vécu cette forme de trahison orchestrée ? Comment avez-vous réussi à tourner la page émotionnellement et à stopper les ruminations ? Car je ne dors plus tellement je me sens profondément trahis, humiliée, utilisée, salie, méprisée et bien sûr traumatisée.

Merci pour votre aide.

​(27F) I dated a guy (30M) for four years. After two years, it was clear he was just killing time—he never supported me.

To give you an idea of what he’s like: if I fell ill, he wouldn’t even check on me the next day to see how I was doing. If I faced a difficult situation, he wouldn’t stand by me or even offer a word of comfort. He wanted to talk about shitty things all the time or talk about himself. When I would explain a tough situation to him, he’d offer only the briefest of responses; I’d end up feeling like I was a burden, so I’d change the subject and he would immediately pivot to the new topic, as if my feelings didn’t matter at all.

​We broke up. After four months, he begged for a second chance (during those months, he took zero accountability He was waiting for me to return so he could evade responsibility and apologize. He even panicked when he saw me by chance and realized I hadn't noticed him). I took him back because I felt lonely, but he hadn't changed at all.

​When I suggested keeping our relationship strictly surface-level with zero expectations, he completely refused. That’s when I realized he's a selfish narcissist who only wanted me around for his own convenience. So, I walked away for good.