Really sorry this happened to you. It sounds like a very common abuse pattern. I see you've joined the abuse forum - they have helped me SO much!!! Please keep posting on there and venting about whatever you need to.

There are lots of articles on there that really helped me get through the aftermath. I printed them out and read them over and over. If you browse the posts, there are some that are in all caps. Also any posts by "Vonniedisley" are really really helpful.

Please give yourself credit. Realizing he is abusive is a HUGE step. Try to remind yourself: the negative things he did and said are NOT about you in any way - they are ALL about HIM only! There is nothing wrong with you and you did nothing wrong for him to be how he was - those were totally his problems.

The real question for all of us is "How do I feel about myself REGARDLESS of what anyone else may think?" That is what we all need to work on - caring about ourselves. The reason it hurts to be in abusive relationships is that we take our own love and care away from ourselves and give it to people who are incapable of loving themselves or anyone else. But it is DEFINITELY NOT our fault that they are like that! We just imagined them to be loving, but what we really need to see is that we ourselves are actually loving - we may have misdirected our love at an abusive person, but we can redirect it back at ourselves and heal.

The feelings and experiences you're having are very normal and real. Please read and post on the abuse forum - it will really help.
Hugs to you and hang in there!
If you get feeling suicidal, don't be afraid to call a free hotline or reach out. I have also been there and hit bottom, so I know what it's like. But there IS hope and light at the end of the tunnel! You can make it - please believe me even if it sometimes seems impossible. Lots of us have been there and understand. Hugs.

I do not see why you do not accept the situation as being your own fault?

Taking blame and accepting fault is the way to self empowerment.

Denying blame and you "did nothing wrong" is seeing your self as powerless and that Man had full control over you and he had full control over your events.

So you are giving away all your own power to the Man and it CAN NOT be true.

And instead of you accepting your own fault, you see your self as bad and ugly and unsexual and worthless which is ridiculous.

If nothing else it was a mistake to get with that guy. Surely you could accept that much fault and blame without dying.

And you say; "the only male I thought to be good, stand-up, honest, with integrity", so you are mis-judging him as you misjudge yourself as either "good or bad" and that is a BIG codependency problem.

You see him as a "good" man and you as a good girl so he is not to act like an idiot and you can not make any mistakes otherwise you or he becomes a "bad" person, and all of that is nonsense.

President Bush was one that never could admit to making any mistakes as he was hard and rigid and he made a mess of everything, but President Obama admits that he is not perfect and he does make mistakes and now we have some one we can trust as our President.

Rich people make mistakes, beautiful people screw up, smart intelligent people still get stuff wrong.

The BIGGEST mistake of them all is to judge things or people as being "good" or as "bad" because it is NEVER ever truly correct.

I suggest that you accept full blame and accept everything as your own fault, and only the things that he specifically does is his fault, and stop giving away your personal power. When it is our own fault THEN we can do some thing to correct the problem.

Making BIG mistakes does not make you or anyone "bad" or good, and it might have even been HIS mistake with you. He is not some perfect man that changed from good over to bad - no.

People commit suicide when they can not accept mistakes, and we all screw up at some times.

I don't mean to pry but this sounds like unresolved childhood sexual abuse and I say this from experience.
I think that anytime we are seeing one person as the only good one it is a red flag.In reality,there are plenty of "good' people men and women.It's just that when we are in our codependancy or dysfunction,we choose unhealthy people and keep "somehow" ending up in wrong situations.In reality,you are not a big piece of crap,that's just the lies of the disease speaking to you.I really don't even see the relationship as being the issue here,but rather what is going on inside of you.With honesty and work there is freedom from that.I wish you the best-Jen

I am in the process of reading a book called The Journey for Abandonment to Healing, by Susan Anderson, CSW. In a weird way I am preparing myself, not that I can ever be fully prepared to disconnect from a mentally abusive relationship.

What I can tell you from what you have written about how you feel is a natural process that we go through... it is called "Shattering" and it is stage one of the whole process of abandonment or loss of a loved one. As I read the chapter in the book I could relate to all the emotions that we go through from past break ups and the fear I am faced with in my current situation. When we leave a relationship, regardless of what kind it is, we can regress back to other memories without even knowing it. So sometimes we experience other feelings from the past that might trigger in our mind and then create more issues and make the experience of the break up worse. Such as you feeling shame, worthless, etc. If you think back in time, you might also be able to relate it another situation in your life. Maybe as a child, where something happened to you that made you feel that way... such as "yelling" at you. It seems to me that you just may have a lot going on emotionally and it is probably not all related to this man, it is probably bits and pieces of your past too. Recovery from this starts inside, not outside and it is important to look in and see what actually makes you feel the way you do about yourself, in truth, it is not this man in your life. Just because he rejected you does not make you a bad person, it probably is really his issue and how he feels about himself inside.

I do agree with Booky that at times we all need to accept our faults and come to grips that it takes two in a relationship and that we have to own our own "stuff".

Good luck and I know you can pull through... it is tough but it happens everyday to people... plus keep this in mind, is he truly worth taking your own life over? This will pass and the dark of night will be over before you know it, we have to hit the bottom sometimes to climb back to the top.

May I? One way to stop beating youeself up is to forgive yourself. You made a mistake, you're actually in the process of learning how NOT to make mistakes in the future. It's a difficult process for us co-dependents. It would seem that if you can forgive him his 'mistake' you'd be able to forgive yourself, for any real or imagined mistake.

I've found that one of the key conflicts in life is when your expectations meet reality. These expectations are often "willful disbelief" or "fantasizing". I'm not talking about delusional fantasizing, it's more like dreaming while ignoring painful potentialities. Very few humans enjoy re-living painful events, so we repress them, this is 'normal'; instead we tend to remember the 'good' times. They're both actually there, we just prefer to avoid the more painful thoughts, so we fantasize a little. I still do it myself, so you're not alone, and it's equally painful for me when reality hits.

Perhaps your thought that this man was a good man, you thought wrong? I don't think so...there is little protection from being lied to. Being lied to is not your fault, unless there were clear indications that you were conscious of. You may have been justified in you beliefs. He might have just changed his mind for whatever reasons he has. The only error you may have made is, as Booky and the others say, in that you gave your power to care for yourself to someone else. That's all. You'll have to learn how not to do that, and it takes time, it will not happen overnight, and there are not pills that will cure it. Forgive yourself for your part in this if you believe you did something 'wrong' and try again. Go back and find out what you've learned, and apply it to the next situation.

I want to thank you for starting this thread, it has suddenly become very important to me in a completely different area. You may want to read the thread on the "Grief Stages" that was discussed recently, since that's what you're probably going through. Good Luck and God Bless.

God your story is my story. How you feel articulates my own experience so well that it is uncanny. I know this sounds negative but I wish I did not need to be on this DS site or have to attend all the fellowships simply to get over someone who is plain scum. The fact that I can only think of him with pain really pisses me off. It is unfortunate that there are people who do not respect the right of others and that sometimes we as women do put our heads in the sand so we can keep some illusion of love going. I realise that you have put it out there as a cry for help and now I am dumping. So I will just say please keep me posted to your progress. I hope you manage to see the light at the end of the tunnel.