I have been through it yes, but in a different country, so I can't speak for what the legal system will do. All I can say is speak the truth. Yes, it's possible he will be let off lightly, but it's still worth doing. My ex got a good behaviour bond. Twice. The third time he got a week in jail. Pretty light punishments really - but it was enough. I got a restraining order and got him gone. And he learned not to mess with me. He tried again later, started threatening me. He backed right off when I told him I had contacted the police to tell them of his threats, because he knew I'd follow through.

As for the other ... well, it's hard. But here's the reality check. He's abusive. That's a big part of who and what he is. Which means he almost certainly was abusive in his previous relationships, and will be in his future relationships. In fact, just from what you have said in this post, he was abusive towards his ex - "he never had any real feelings for her (I believe that more than ever now for obvious reasons), but he used her to feel better about himself because she worshipped him". That is abusive. And he no doubt treated her like crap, because he could. So that's who he is, that's who he always will be unless he makes some massive changes in his life, which aren't coming any time soon (you say he still doesn't accept the gravity of what he's done, so he's not about to make any changes).

An unfortunate fact is that, no matter what happens in his future, you will look crazy to everyone in it. Because he will say you are and he will make sure that's the only information they have about you. You have to accept that he is NOT going to be pleased with you for this, he will blame it on you, whether he gets off lightly or not. Because he won't take responsibility himself. So forget trying to look ok to any future firend or partner of his - just not gonna happen.

Finally, and most importantly, even though I say he was and always will be abusive to his partners, truth is it doesn't matter. Even if you are the only person he shows that side to in his entire life (chances of which are about 10 million to 1), that doesn't make YOU crazy. It still makes HIM wrong and abusive. He had no right to do that to you, he had no right to treat you the way he did, and that's all on HIM, not on you. He wasn't abusive to you because you're crazy, or because of anything at all - he was abusive to you because he chose to be.

My goodness, Hon -----

I one short entry, I hear
you worrying about
everything and everybody
bu YOU.

His job, his other ex. . . .

What have you been
doing for your own
well-being?

Sorry if you've said,
and I'm forgetting
but are you working
in counseling, with
a therapist?

You will think of him
and dream of him
until you thoroughly
process what happened.
It's hard to do that all
on your own.

I hope you're practicing
self-care, and part of
that would be working
with a qualified therapist.

Yes/no?

Both of you have helped me SO much through this process. Every time I have posted I feel like I have been given amazing advice and feel better for having done so.

Livndadrem, I am lucky because I don't think he will try to contact me again. Even if he gets off lightly, I will be getting a permanent protective order and I don't think he will break it. I guess that's one step.

You're right, he was emotionally abusive to at least one ex in that way. I never thought of it until you wrote it. The way he emotionally abused me makes it fairly clear that he has done it in some capacity before. Maybe I'm the first person he physically abused (and I think I am), but the more I'm told that I may not be the last, the more I am beginning to believe it. Even if he DID stop being physically abusive he would still be emotionally abusive in future relationships. I can't see that changing now that I think about it.

I have plenty of people on my side, so I'm going to try to remember that it doesn't matter what "his side" thinks.

IleneW, you're right that I really have been worrying about everyone but myself. I am feeling sorry for myself but I'm not really concerned with myself, if that makes sense. I am not in counseling or seeing anyone; maybe I should be. It is nice to have someone tell me to worry about myself and remind me that I need to process it and that in itself is a process. The last therapist I went to as a teenager was awful and I'm still carrying that with me. I am also sort of afraid to tell all of the bad things about me and to revisit the relationship, which I am trying to block out.

The problem with just sweeping stuff under the rug is that eventually you start to trip over the lumps.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience with therapy before, not all therapists are good and even among the good ones not all will be a good fit. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try again with someone else. You do need to take care of you, and that means dealing with the injuries you have received. If you broke your leg, you wouldn't just put a bandaid on it and move on. He has damaged your psyche, which needs treatment to heal.

Livndadrem, thank you. I know you are right. It's just so hard for me to accept that I'm this broken. Even now I'm at work, door locked and sobbing. I'm drinking more than I want to and I just don't know how to cope. I had a good week and now this is a bad one... I am just so afraid that nothing can fix the way I feel. I know I need professional help but I'm on my parents' insurance and don't want them to know, I don't want to pay the co-pay, etc.

You are NOT broken, you've been hurt-there is a difference.

I am so sorry for your pain and confusion. I wish I could make it go away.

PLEASE explore counseling with an experienced, qualified trauma counselor. There are certain things that are just too hard to go at alone, no one gets through life all alone, everyone who's ever accomplished anything got helping hands along the way.

Counselors spend 4-8 years at LEAST just in education learning how to provide people tools to deal with things NO HUMAN BEING SHOULD HAVE TO DEAL WITH, and so are not prepared for. Then they work with different people, over and over and guide them through healing from the toughest of things, and they continue to train in their field. These professional are experts in helping people with the unspeakable, with the unbearable.

Please hon, WHY do you not want to tell your parents you want this kind of help? Is it because your parents would make you feel bad about something that you feel would benefit you? Because that is not very supportive, but at the same time doesn't really matter, since the traumas happened to YOU and you are the one who has to deal with the fallout. Is it because you don't want them to think you aren't handling things on your own? Because there is NOTHING weak about getting help when you need it. Reaching out for help is brave, and strong, and SMART. That was one of my BIG life lessons I've learned. Please re-examine the reasons you don't want therapy, please revisit the reasons why you should consider it.

Thank you so much for your response, cant74deal. I feel broken but I am trying to remember this is temporary and I have always been a stronger person until now.

At the very least, I think I am going to go to a local center or clinic to talk and see how I feel from there. You're right in that no one gets through life alone; I have had a major trauma in my life before (hence the past therapy experience), and it was the help of others that really got me through.

I don't want to tell my parents because they have spent my whole life making life decisions for me. They usually steer me in the right path, and they do love me A LOT, but their judgement is steep and I know my mother will hold this wrong relationship over my head forever. They were disappointed I was in this relationship before they even met him. Even worse, they would probably hurt from this worse than I would. The way they judged me the first time for wanting therapy (before the first trauma) was absolutely awful. "You want someone to cry to so they can tell you how your evil parents excuse everything you have done?"-my mom's exact words when I was 16.

I'm sort of thinking out loud now, but I guess the main reason I don't want therapy or help is because I'm consumed with how other people think of me. I have always been a perfectionist, a high achiever, and because of that I think people will question how I even let it happen and why I didn't walk away. Really I'm starting to realize that's why I was such an easy target: I am a people pleaser, I want to be that perfect girl. Even when he and I would have awful fights where I would get verbally brutal, I turned around and apologized and made it up for him so he wouldn't think badly of me. I even made excuses about his behavior for myself so I wouldn't have to accept I was a victim.

It's frustrating that I can have these moments of clarity and reason when I post on here but that it all goes out the window when I think of him later. Maybe that is the biggest sign that talking to someone will benefit me greatly.

I just can't spend another day sobbing all day at work at my desk, wishing I could take a pill or a drink in the morning so I could escape reality, and suppressing irrational thoughts about self-harm. The trauma I dealt with as a teen was far worse than this on paper, but I never felt so helpless and self-destructive. (I would NEVER harm myself, by the way. I love my family and pets too much for that.)

You need to learn also to love yourSELF too much to harm yourself. You are still concerned only about others. Time to turn some of that love and concern and compassion onto yourself.

I don't know how to :'( I feel like I'm such a selfish person for being in this relationship in the first place (I'm not proud to admit it, but I separated with my husband before it, which I mentioned in a previous post.) It just feels like every time I make a decision that I think will benefit myself it just ends up being wrong or selfish or more painful. It's hard to love myself when I have so many things to hate myself for, when someone as shitty as my abuser couldn't even love me for more than five months without hitting me.

It's a hard night :/ I blocked him on our last possible outlet of communication. Not because I don't want him to talk to me - all I want is for him to beg for forgiveness and love me like I loved him, even if I wouldn't forgive him! - but because I am afraid of him blocking me first and what it will do to me. I feel so out of control and I just want to feel worth it and in control for once. Not even him at the wrong end of the law has done the latter for me.

Whether someone else loves you or not is not a measure of your worth. I loved my ex, he never loved me. Does that make him the better, more worthy, more lovable person? Or does it make me the better, more worthy, more loving person. The way someone else treats you or sees you is on them. The way you treat and see yourself is on you.

I get it, I really do. I have been there. Some days, I drop back down there, when I remember that nobody has ever loved me in my nearly 47 years on this earth - in spite of a family and 3 long term relationships. But the truth is that's on them, not me. Their choices don't define me, mine do.

Also, if you think being in a relationship with an abuser is selfish, you have a skewed version of selfish. It's about one of the least selfish things you can do, because you are not even allowed to BE you, much less take care of you. You are not selfish, not even a little bit. And I know this for absolute fact, because you were in an abusive relationship. They choose givers, not takers; pleasers, not selfish people.

You make me feel so much better, Livndadrem. When you tell your story the answers seem so clear to me: of course you are worthy, good, lovable, and all the things your abuser was and is not. I don't know why I can't make that translate to me. I read your post and think "screw her family and past partners, what is their problem?," but I can't approach my own situation with that clarity, that compassion.

I'm sorry if this sounds overdramatic, but reading the last paragraph of your post... that's the first time in memory that I have felt like I have any deep redeeming qualities. My ex only told me he loved me for superficial reasons, or because I was funny or smart or shared his interests. It was NEVER because of anything that made me a truly good person, even though it felt as though I lived and breathed for him and everyone but myself. I have spent 14 hours doing nothing but crying.. the first time I smiled was reading your post and realizing that someone out I have never met knows me better in at least one way than the most important people in my life do. Thank you for always responding to my long and ridiculous posts!

Stop putting yourself down! Your posts are absolutely NOT ridiculous. We have all felt the way you are feeling now, or something similar. And if I were a betting woman, I'd put big money on the fact there are a few lurkers who can relate to everything you say, but who just don't feel strong enough to put themselves out there and say it the way you have.

Like me, you've obviously not had a particularly supportive upbringing, and an abusive relationship is sure not going to help you find your good points. But they are there, and they are worth YOU finding.

I don't even know you, but I know that you are loving and loyal (why else would you have tried so hard for someone so unworthy of you?); you are caring and selfless. You are also articulate, intelligent and incredibly strong and courageous to put yourself on the line here - even anonymously. I remember when I first started posting here, I was closer to where you are. I didn't believe in myself at all, I didn't think I had any worth, and I thought that I was blowing everything out of proportion, just being ridiculous and weak and pathetic. And it was scary to put that part of me on show, to tell people how pathetic and stupid I was, because even though nobody here knew me or even my name, if they had all come back and agreed with my own inner critic, it still would have been devastating.

But I wasn't being ridiculous, any more than you are. I wasn't a lost cause, useless, weak and broken. I just needed help to believe in myself. And with the help of this board, a few IRL friends and a very good counsellor, I have come a very long way - still a work in progress, but very definitely progressing. And you can too. You already are. You are already seeing things, just in the short time I've been reading your posts, that you wouldn't be able to take on board if you weren't also capable of self-reflection (another wonderful trait).

So you see, if you go looking for it, there is plenty worth loving about you. But right now, it's hard to go looking for it, because you have been trained to focus only on the bad things about you - real or imagined. And yes, I'm quite sure there are some genuine flaws in your personality and character - nobody but nobody is perfect in every way. But you don't need to focus on them, you've done enough of that. The time for fixing your flaws can come when you've truly found your virtues. Because then you will be working on yourself from a position of strength, rather than self-punishment.

As always, I am SO grateful for your response. It is so amazing to be on here and to find people who understand me when no one does in real life. I am reading all of these stories from people who are so clearly caring, kind, and inherently good (like you!) who are going through or have gone through similar. That alone has made me think that maybe I am not so different and I just cant see it. And being told Im not ridiculous or crazy or completely wrong about everything really helps. I get so worried that my posts are self-serving and Im being needy by continuing to post. Im trying to remember that I wouldnt feel that way about anyone else posting like I do, and no one has told me that Im being selfish, so maybe I shouldnt feel that way.

My parents were supportive in so many ways but never emotionally. From a young age I always dreamed of having someone fill that hole. When I found that with my husband I wasnt comfortable with it. I wish it didnt take an abusive relationship to realize that I just have to fill that hole within myself. That I need to LIKE myself. What you said about an abusive relationship making it hard to find my good points struck a chord. I realize that the abusive relationship was a double-edged sword: my flaws were more exposed and stuck out more to me, all while he was also pointing them out to me instead of the good points.

Thank you for pointing out positive things about me, even (and perhaps especially) those that being in that relationship displayed. It has been a long time since anyone has given me those kind of compliments without me having to beg for them or without wanting something in return. I read your posts and think of how much I used to be like you (empathetic, empowering, positive) before all of this. I really appreciate you sharing what it was like when you first posted here because it is VERY similar to what I feel. I have always been afraid of posting on the internet in general because I am so afraid of people agreeing with my own inner critic, as you put it. Knowing that this is the first place I posted and reading your words from closer to the other side of this battle actually makes me think I might be stronger and more courageous that I think for coming here and sharing. I hope I can have the same success, insight, and clarity as you do at some point. That is really what I am working toward.

Im trying to remember that it is a process. It feels like I come so far only to come crashing down, crying, wondering how I could be strong in the first place. Reading that you see me making some progress makes me feel like Im not regressing when I break down. It makes me feel like I am going down the right road, in the right direction, even if it does have peaks and valleys.

It feels so strange to focus on the good things about me. It is hard to explain, but I know what they are objectively; I have always considered myself to be a good person. I have always proceeded as if I was born with the good traits and chose the bad. As someone who worked in genetics, I know objectively that thats not how it works! I either need to believe that I was born with all of these traits or that I developed them all. And if I developed them all, I should celebrate the good as much as I fixate on the bad, right? And I know I need to take your advice and start celebrating the good right away.

I just want to say thank you again for always being there to respond to my posts. Last night was such a tough one and seeing your responses when I needed to read them most really meant the world to me. I am so happy that you are making progress, that you have people in real life to go to, and that counseling has worked for you. I am going to try to model my recovery off of what has worked for you and what you have said, because the place you seem to be at right now is a place I really want to get to.

"I get so worried that my posts are self-serving and Im being needy by continuing to post".

Your posts ARE self-serving and you are in need. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that tho - that's what this board is here for. At the same time as they are self-serving though, they are helping others who are feeling as you are. Allow yourself to be a bit self-serving sometimes - you deserve it.

As for feeling like you keep falling back ... when I was there, I remember describing it as like climbing out of a volcano. I could still feel the heat burning the soles of my feet, and smell the painful sulphur in my nose. And those steep sides and loose stones meant sometimes I slid backwards - maybe just a tiny bit, sometimes rather a lot. But I kept my eyes on the blue skies above, and eventually I could smell the fresh air. And one day, I managed to climb right out and lie on the soft green grass. (And yes, I also know that's not QUITE how volcanoes work, but the analogy stlll worked for me :D ) You will fall backwards sometimes, but each time you do, you will learn something - even if it's just not to put your foot on that particular rock. And if you've learned something, you have still made progress, even if it feels like you've gone backwards. And often the things I learned or the feelings I managed to let go of by falling backwards helped me to leap way ahead of where I'd been when I fell.

It's a long, slow proceess. And it's not linear. There will be times you feel like you are back at square one - but you never will be, because you will never be without all you have learned along the way, even if your feelings take you back there sometimes.