Reply To: Is it abuse or is it me?

[shouldhaveknownbetter]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share my story, as I’m kind of trying to recover from a relationship and the scars. And I thought that maybe telling it here could ease my pain a bit. Like earlier has been mentioned I don’t think that my case is the worst or unique in any way, just my story.

So, I met this girl about 5 years ago. After meeting she said really quickly that she loved me, and at the time I thought that it was quite sudden. We had a long-distance relationship for a while and at times she got really jealous of me going out with my friends, and I understood that because of course it might be difficult to trust. After a while we moved into same country and were able to see each other a lot more and later we moved together. We were really in love but moving together caused some problems as I had a dog from my previous relationship and she really hated my dog. So, it started quite quickly that she was saying how horrible my dog, how she hated her, and how I should put the dog to sleep. There were times that she put some cleaning products in the dog’s water cup and stuff. Obviously, I couldn’t trust her with my dog. And the problem wasn’t dogs in general, she likes them. She just didn’t like mine. Later one we bought a dog together and that one means everything to her.

When the time went on, she started to have these mood swings, she was constantly irritated and annoyed and blamed it on me or my dog, even tho it could have been a morning and I just woke up. When she was mad, she said the meanest things I have ever heard; she said that I should go and kill myself, that I was nothing without her, that I’m stupid etc. These became kind of my truth and now I feel like I’m worth absolutely nothing. I don’t trust myself and I have a low self-esteem. She said to me that I was being too sensitive, that she was only honest and I’m crazy and need to grow up. After she calmed down, she usually said that she needs to vent, she needs to get the anger out of her system, but she didn’t mean any of the stuff she said. But for me it was difficult as it was a cycle that kept on repeating. And usually I blamed myself of her anger. Like maybe I did something to deserve it. She also thought that she is really mature person and handles her behavior in that way too, and I’m the difficult one with my depression. I tried to tell her many times that her way of communicating with me is hurtful, but she always twisted it in a way that it was only in my head, and I was being too sensitive.

The mood swings weren’t the only thing that caused problems; she also had this habit of controlling me. She said how I should have my hair, how can I cut it, which clothes I can wear, what looks good on me. She was also controlling my time with my friends, she wanted to know what we were doing and everything. She was also annoyed if I helped my sister too much. She said that my sister was using me as a babysitter and stuff like that. She was controlling my time with the phone; if we were watching a movie, I couldn’t have my phone with me, but it was okay for her to be on her phone at the same time. She usually didn’t see anything wrong with her behavior, and the problems had more to do with me. We also had a brief break from the relationship, and on that time she was posting a lot flirting pictures on social media, and when I said that I thought that was hurtful, she said that she didn’t even think my feelings at all.

I still struggle to see this as an abusive relationship even tho people close to me say it is. I also struggle with the fact that from something that I considered so beautiful became so toxic; and I have so much guilt and shame because of it. I also struggle with the fact that I let anyone treat me this way and I still love the person. Now we are kind of broken up, but the situation is also up in the air at the same time. She also has our dog, which she now considers to be hers.