Physical & Emotional Abuse Support Group
Abuse is a general term for the treatment of someone that causes some kind of harm (to the abused person, to the abusers themselves, or to someone else) that is unlawful or wrongful. No one deserves abuse, period. Abuse can be emotional, physical, or sexual.
Dear Daily Strengthers,
I contributed to this forum several years ago, but then stopped because I started going to therapy. I was in a relationship with a man that I thought was the love of my life. After a year of dating, we broke up. I was devastated but tried to move on with my life. He did not want to get back together.
I have moved on from the relationship in many ways, but in other ways I have not. Things were going okay in my life, but then I found out he was engaged to another woman. All of the pain and emotions that I thought I had moved on from suddenly resurfaced in my life. I realized that I was stupid for letting this man come into my life, but I was hoping I could post about our relationship online to see if anyone else has had a similar experience. I also want to get clarity on whether or not it was an emotionally abusive relationship. My friends have told me that I have problems standing up for myself, and don't have good radar when it comes to men.
I have outlined what I believed to have been emotionally abusive aspects of my past relationship.
Relationship history:
I met this man, Greg, on an online dating site. We met in 2010. We dated for a couple of months. Greg took things very, very slowly during our courtship. Greg was the first "nice guy" I dated. He did not kiss me for over a month, which I found to be odd. He took things so slow that I was about to dump him because I was used to dating jerks in the past. After about our fifth date (which was boring and had not gone well), he texted me and I broke the bad news to him. He insisted that I give him another chance. He came over and picked me up after work, and we had our first kiss that night. Honestly, he wasn't the greatest kisser, but because he was nice, I felt I should give him a chance.
The next several months of dating him were magical. He would show up with flowers every time he picked me up (so many that they were overflowing my vase), and surprised me with little presents of things that I liked. He showed me that he listened and that he cared about me. He was always on time and he texted me every day. He introduced me to his friends, wanted to meet my family, took me to church (all of this was initiated by him by the way). He asked me to come with him to meet his family over the December holidays. He did everything possible to move the relationship forward. I was thrilled.
However, there were signs of emotional abuse early on in the relationship. He didn't like it when I talked about other guys in front of him. My friends thought it was weird that he was buying me so many flowers (which is a huge red flag as many people have told me). He started saying things to me that he didn't celebrate holidays (including his birthday) and he was allergic to nice places. I ignored all these signs because I was so in love with him. He took me somewhere special on Halloween, and we also spent a low key Thanksgiving together. So I didn't really believe him when he said he didn't celebrate holidays.
Then, we hit a rough patch in December. He was having problems at work and I was having problems with my family. I became depressed. One night I cried and told him that I was depressed and I had been miserable since we started dating. I apologized for what I said because I didn't really mean it. But things were never the same after that night.
I saw him a few days later and he tried to get out of taking me to meet his family over the Christmas holidays. I told him that I was really looking forward to meeting them the following week, and he dropped the subject.
We drove up north to meet his family on Christmas. We didn't talk that much on the way up, and he played the music in his car really loud. Anyway, I met his older sister and her family (which went great) on Christmas and then we spent the night at his father's house.
When we got to his father's house, he started acting differently. He had reservations about kissing me goodnight when we were in his childhood room. The next morning, when I woke up, there was an Itunes gift card by cell phone. I was thrilled and thought it was a Christmas present for me. He was out getting coffee, and when he came back in, I thanked him for the gift card. He snapped, "That's not for you." I was taken aback by his behavior.
I went to go take a shower and said hello to his father. His father told me the shower was a little funny, and asked Greg to show me how to use it properly. Greg demonstrated the funny handle, and then he left so I could shower. I was shocked when I turned the handle on (both directions) that the shower was either extremely hot or extremely cold. Greg had failed to mention the temperature change to me. I ended up taking a towel bath using a little water because I couldn't use the shower.
I went back to his room and changed, and his father and girlfriend asked me how my shower was. I told him it would have been nice if Greg had told me about the drastic change in temperature. Greg gave me a sick smile, like he thought it was funny. I was pissed.
I didn't say anything because I wanted to make a good impression with his family. My Christmas present was a trip to a nearby town that I'd always wanted to go to. He had made a reservation at a hotel and got the romance package.
We checked into the hotel. Unfortunately, it was my time of the month, so nothing too physical happened but there were some bad things that happened at the hotel. He was texting his friend the entire time we were waiting for our table (and even texted him a little while we were at the table). When we got back to our room, he wasn't feeling well (he had a high fever). We fooled around a little. The next day, I was ready to work out and go for a swim in the jacuzzi down stairs. He didn't want to go with me because he said he wasn't feeling well. I felt so lonely going to the jacuzzi and exercising by myself. I was pretty upset when I came back to the room.
Anyway, we drove back to the city. He dropped me off at my place. At the time, I was working in a restaurant and it was possible that I would be scheduled to work on NYE. He made some plans with friends and was planning on driving south to spend NYE with some friends then drive back up to see me after the ball dropped. I was hurt that he didn't want to include
me on his road trip. Anyway, the party ended up being moved closer to where he and I lived. I wasn't scheduled on NYE, so we went to the party together.
After Christmas, I had made the mistake of telling him that I loved him over the phone. I was the one that said it first. He said "I know." I was so hurt that he didn't say it back (plus the way he treated me at his father's house) that I ended up drinking too much on NYE. I blacked out and he took me to one of his friend's rooms. I said through my non sober mouth that he didn't love me and I was hurt that he hadn't said it back yet. He told me that he did love me but was waiting for the right time to say it.
The next month was our anniversary and my birthday. On our anniversary, I surprised him by taking him to a nice restaurant. That was the night that we slept together for the first time.
The next night, we went to a special place in LA. He told me he loved me on the way back home. Afterwards, he refused to kiss me for a few minutes because he wanted to go out with his friends. I was confused and hurt. After he left, I was angry and I texted him "You slept with me last night, the least you could do is kiss me for 10 minutes." He called me and asked me if I wanted him to come back over. But I said "No it's fine, go out with your friends. I just wanted to kiss you for a few minutes because you said you loved me in the car."
The relationship went over further south after that. On my birthday, he didn't want to stay out too late with me and my friends and he didn't want to stay long when we went to one of my best friends birthday parties. He didn't do anything special for me on Valentine's Day. The day before Vday (Valentine's Day was on a Monday) he took me to the same restaurant and bought me carnations. I got him a present; he didn't get me anything other than the carnations.
On Valentine's Day, he told me he would be busy helping his friend with a FAFSA application. I was hurt that he didn't want to spend midnight with me. At around 10 o'clock at night, he called me and said he didn't want me spending Vday alone. So he drives over to my place and we danced and kissed. He didn't stay over even though I wanted him to.
Over the next several months, things continued to get worse. We spent less time together and we would have occasional fights. It was often over things he did that made me feel hurt and he was trying to passive aggressively get me to get so mad I would end the relationship. He didn't spend his birthday with me. There was one incident where I choked at work, and he didn't call me because his phone charger broke and he wasn't able to charge his phone.
The last time I saw him, he and I went out to the same restaurant we went to. This time he ordered something different (I am on a special diet and he got something I was allergic to). We had a huge fight on the way back. He told me that he felt I didn't listen to him and was self centered, and I needed to date a guy who was rich and could support my extravagant tastes. I was very hurt by that. We had only gone to a few nice places (and they were only on special occasions). I had been respectful of his wishes "not to go to nice places" most of the time. I told him that I was starting to feel desperate and that I felt like I was throwing myself at him all the time and he was rejecting me sexually. We had only had sex once the entire time in our relationship. That night, we slept together again.
The next day, I called him and told him that I thought we should take a break from each other. He agreed that we should break up and take time to figure ourselves out.
I started dating again, and really missed him. I wrote him a heart felt E-mail that told him how i really felt. He told me that he really did love me but he knew he was treating me badly and needed time to himself.
After two weeks, I called him and said I missed him. He wrote me an e-mail the next day that said he couldn't be in a relationship right now, and to respect his decision and that he needed to be away from me for a while. I was devastated. I stopped contacting him initially but I was madly in love with him and couldn't live without him. Over several months, I repeatedly tried to reconnect with him. He refused to see me, talk to me, or reason with me. He was so cold and heartless, and seemed so different from the kind man who relentlessly pursued me in the beginning, had to have me, bought me flowers and told me all he wanted for Christmas was me. I couldn't believe that he could just remove me from his life like that.
Anyway, fast forward to present day. We have been broken up for several years and I haven't seen him since the day before we broke up. I haven't talked to him since 2012.
I found out that he recently became engaged to a girl that wasn't me. This was very stupid (and yes I am aware that I need to still be in therapy over this) but I looked him up on Facebook to see who he chose to spend his life with over me. She seems like a nice girl, but I was shocked to see that he had taken her on several nice vacations and bought her a huge ring. He told me on the last day he saw me that the only ring he could get me was one of those rings in the Cracker jack box. He also didn't see the point of buying an expensive ring because they get lost. Clearly, that wasn't the case since the opposite was reflected on his Facebok.
Seeing that he was so mean and played such cruel tricks on me didn't make me feel good about myself. Why did he tell me that he was allergic to expensive places, vacations and rings when he is giving those things to his fiancee? Why did he work so hard to pursue me, chase me, tell me he wasn't going anywhere if he didn't want to spend his life with me? Does this classify also emotional abuse? Has anyone here been in a similar situation?
Thanks for reading/skimming this. I really needed to get this off my chest. I don't want to get involved with a man like him again, and need some help from fellow Daily Strengthers...
I contributed to this forum several years ago, but then stopped because I started going to therapy. I was in a relationship with a man that I thought was the love of my life. After a year of dating, we broke up. I was devastated but tried to move on with my life. He did not want to get back together.
I have moved on from the relationship in many ways, but in other ways I have not. Things were going okay in my life, but then I found out he was engaged to another woman. All of the pain and emotions that I thought I had moved on from suddenly resurfaced in my life. I realized that I was stupid for letting this man come into my life, but I was hoping I could post about our relationship online to see if anyone else has had a similar experience. I also want to get clarity on whether or not it was an emotionally abusive relationship. My friends have told me that I have problems standing up for myself, and don't have good radar when it comes to men.
I have outlined what I believed to have been emotionally abusive aspects of my past relationship.
Relationship history:
I met this man, Greg, on an online dating site. We met in 2010. We dated for a couple of months. Greg took things very, very slowly during our courtship. Greg was the first "nice guy" I dated. He did not kiss me for over a month, which I found to be odd. He took things so slow that I was about to dump him because I was used to dating jerks in the past. After about our fifth date (which was boring and had not gone well), he texted me and I broke the bad news to him. He insisted that I give him another chance. He came over and picked me up after work, and we had our first kiss that night. Honestly, he wasn't the greatest kisser, but because he was nice, I felt I should give him a chance.
The next several months of dating him were magical. He would show up with flowers every time he picked me up (so many that they were overflowing my vase), and surprised me with little presents of things that I liked. He showed me that he listened and that he cared about me. He was always on time and he texted me every day. He introduced me to his friends, wanted to meet my family, took me to church (all of this was initiated by him by the way). He asked me to come with him to meet his family over the December holidays. He did everything possible to move the relationship forward. I was thrilled.
However, there were signs of emotional abuse early on in the relationship. He didn't like it when I talked about other guys in front of him. My friends thought it was weird that he was buying me so many flowers (which is a huge red flag as many people have told me). He started saying things to me that he didn't celebrate holidays (including his birthday) and he was allergic to nice places. I ignored all these signs because I was so in love with him. He took me somewhere special on Halloween, and we also spent a low key Thanksgiving together. So I didn't really believe him when he said he didn't celebrate holidays.
Then, we hit a rough patch in December. He was having problems at work and I was having problems with my family. I became depressed. One night I cried and told him that I was depressed and I had been miserable since we started dating. I apologized for what I said because I didn't really mean it. But things were never the same after that night.
I saw him a few days later and he tried to get out of taking me to meet his family over the Christmas holidays. I told him that I was really looking forward to meeting them the following week, and he dropped the subject.
We drove up north to meet his family on Christmas. We didn't talk that much on the way up, and he played the music in his car really loud. Anyway, I met his older sister and her family (which went great) on Christmas and then we spent the night at his father's house.
When we got to his father's house, he started acting differently. He had reservations about kissing me goodnight when we were in his childhood room. The next morning, when I woke up, there was an Itunes gift card by cell phone. I was thrilled and thought it was a Christmas present for me. He was out getting coffee, and when he came back in, I thanked him for the gift card. He snapped, "That's not for you." I was taken aback by his behavior.
I went to go take a shower and said hello to his father. His father told me the shower was a little funny, and asked Greg to show me how to use it properly. Greg demonstrated the funny handle, and then he left so I could shower. I was shocked when I turned the handle on (both directions) that the shower was either extremely hot or extremely cold. Greg had failed to mention the temperature change to me. I ended up taking a towel bath using a little water because I couldn't use the shower.
I went back to his room and changed, and his father and girlfriend asked me how my shower was. I told him it would have been nice if Greg had told me about the drastic change in temperature. Greg gave me a sick smile, like he thought it was funny. I was pissed.
I didn't say anything because I wanted to make a good impression with his family. My Christmas present was a trip to a nearby town that I'd always wanted to go to. He had made a reservation at a hotel and got the romance package.
We checked into the hotel. Unfortunately, it was my time of the month, so nothing too physical happened but there were some bad things that happened at the hotel. He was texting his friend the entire time we were waiting for our table (and even texted him a little while we were at the table). When we got back to our room, he wasn't feeling well (he had a high fever). We fooled around a little. The next day, I was ready to work out and go for a swim in the jacuzzi down stairs. He didn't want to go with me because he said he wasn't feeling well. I felt so lonely going to the jacuzzi and exercising by myself. I was pretty upset when I came back to the room.
Anyway, we drove back to the city. He dropped me off at my place. At the time, I was working in a restaurant and it was possible that I would be scheduled to work on NYE. He made some plans with friends and was planning on driving south to spend NYE with some friends then drive back up to see me after the ball dropped. I was hurt that he didn't want to include
me on his road trip. Anyway, the party ended up being moved closer to where he and I lived. I wasn't scheduled on NYE, so we went to the party together.
After Christmas, I had made the mistake of telling him that I loved him over the phone. I was the one that said it first. He said "I know." I was so hurt that he didn't say it back (plus the way he treated me at his father's house) that I ended up drinking too much on NYE. I blacked out and he took me to one of his friend's rooms. I said through my non sober mouth that he didn't love me and I was hurt that he hadn't said it back yet. He told me that he did love me but was waiting for the right time to say it.
The next month was our anniversary and my birthday. On our anniversary, I surprised him by taking him to a nice restaurant. That was the night that we slept together for the first time.
The next night, we went to a special place in LA. He told me he loved me on the way back home. Afterwards, he refused to kiss me for a few minutes because he wanted to go out with his friends. I was confused and hurt. After he left, I was angry and I texted him "You slept with me last night, the least you could do is kiss me for 10 minutes." He called me and asked me if I wanted him to come back over. But I said "No it's fine, go out with your friends. I just wanted to kiss you for a few minutes because you said you loved me in the car."
The relationship went over further south after that. On my birthday, he didn't want to stay out too late with me and my friends and he didn't want to stay long when we went to one of my best friends birthday parties. He didn't do anything special for me on Valentine's Day. The day before Vday (Valentine's Day was on a Monday) he took me to the same restaurant and bought me carnations. I got him a present; he didn't get me anything other than the carnations.
On Valentine's Day, he told me he would be busy helping his friend with a FAFSA application. I was hurt that he didn't want to spend midnight with me. At around 10 o'clock at night, he called me and said he didn't want me spending Vday alone. So he drives over to my place and we danced and kissed. He didn't stay over even though I wanted him to.
Over the next several months, things continued to get worse. We spent less time together and we would have occasional fights. It was often over things he did that made me feel hurt and he was trying to passive aggressively get me to get so mad I would end the relationship. He didn't spend his birthday with me. There was one incident where I choked at work, and he didn't call me because his phone charger broke and he wasn't able to charge his phone.
The last time I saw him, he and I went out to the same restaurant we went to. This time he ordered something different (I am on a special diet and he got something I was allergic to). We had a huge fight on the way back. He told me that he felt I didn't listen to him and was self centered, and I needed to date a guy who was rich and could support my extravagant tastes. I was very hurt by that. We had only gone to a few nice places (and they were only on special occasions). I had been respectful of his wishes "not to go to nice places" most of the time. I told him that I was starting to feel desperate and that I felt like I was throwing myself at him all the time and he was rejecting me sexually. We had only had sex once the entire time in our relationship. That night, we slept together again.
The next day, I called him and told him that I thought we should take a break from each other. He agreed that we should break up and take time to figure ourselves out.
I started dating again, and really missed him. I wrote him a heart felt E-mail that told him how i really felt. He told me that he really did love me but he knew he was treating me badly and needed time to himself.
After two weeks, I called him and said I missed him. He wrote me an e-mail the next day that said he couldn't be in a relationship right now, and to respect his decision and that he needed to be away from me for a while. I was devastated. I stopped contacting him initially but I was madly in love with him and couldn't live without him. Over several months, I repeatedly tried to reconnect with him. He refused to see me, talk to me, or reason with me. He was so cold and heartless, and seemed so different from the kind man who relentlessly pursued me in the beginning, had to have me, bought me flowers and told me all he wanted for Christmas was me. I couldn't believe that he could just remove me from his life like that.
Anyway, fast forward to present day. We have been broken up for several years and I haven't seen him since the day before we broke up. I haven't talked to him since 2012.
I found out that he recently became engaged to a girl that wasn't me. This was very stupid (and yes I am aware that I need to still be in therapy over this) but I looked him up on Facebook to see who he chose to spend his life with over me. She seems like a nice girl, but I was shocked to see that he had taken her on several nice vacations and bought her a huge ring. He told me on the last day he saw me that the only ring he could get me was one of those rings in the Cracker jack box. He also didn't see the point of buying an expensive ring because they get lost. Clearly, that wasn't the case since the opposite was reflected on his Facebok.
Seeing that he was so mean and played such cruel tricks on me didn't make me feel good about myself. Why did he tell me that he was allergic to expensive places, vacations and rings when he is giving those things to his fiancee? Why did he work so hard to pursue me, chase me, tell me he wasn't going anywhere if he didn't want to spend his life with me? Does this classify also emotional abuse? Has anyone here been in a similar situation?
Thanks for reading/skimming this. I really needed to get this off my chest. I don't want to get involved with a man like him again, and need some help from fellow Daily Strengthers...
However, I feel that it is unwise to examine only a single element of a problem and ignore all other factors. Since everyone else was covering the abuse parts of this issue I started pointing out other factors so as to help explain possible contributing factors.
I don't understand why you are reacting so defensively to a comment (which you even acknowledged wasn't directed at you) mentioning concern over some sexist remarks and addressing the questions at the end of her posted discussion where she asked about why he may have behaved the way that he did.
I started reading Codependent No More. It is a fantastic book, and is helping me a lot with my healing process. I am meeting with a therapist later this week.
There is a history of emotional abuse in my family which has attracted some bad men into my life. It has also made it hard for me to have a normal relationship with a man.
The bottom line was that he and I were not compatible. We had different values in life. We were raised differently and we both had a lot of growing up to do.
In my essay, there were a few significant things I did not mention just because I was so overwhelmed by different emotions that I was feeling after hearing about his engagement.
We first met in our mid-twenties. We had a very immature start to our relationship. I have always been a free spirit (I am an artist) and did not want to settle down or have children. I was reluctant to get into a relationship for a long time. Being young, immature and a virgin, I would tease him a lot sexually. He had no problems achieving an erection but he may not have wanted to participate with me sexually later on due to the teasing in the beginning of the relationship. Men can get frustrated and become bored or angry with women that test them.
My ex referred to me as being selfish because, although I have experienced significant hardship in my life for years, I initially came from a life of privilege. He grew up poor and had to make something of himself. I didn't but lost mostly everything the past few years and have had to build myself back up.
I don't think my ex is a terrible person, but I do think he was abused as a child. I believe the source of abuse was his father, but like I said, he never came clean to me about what happened.
Another poster mentioned that he may have an adult attachment disorder. I do believe he has some kind of condition.
In terms of him being a homosexual, I do have a feeling that he is closeted. I was a perfect "beard". I was a virgin at the time (so a gay man would be relieved that he wouldn't be under pressure to have sex with me). We did do other physical things many times in our relationship, but only slept together twice. I thought that our intimacy would increase after we slept together, but he started making excuses not to after it happened.
He also claimed he had a chronic insomnia problem. He told me he was diagnosed with a sleeping disorder as a child. So when he did stay the night, he would spend hours in the living room watching TV while I would be in the bedroom. It was far from a normal or healthy relationship.
Other people I talked to have told me that they suspected he was on steroids and/or possibly hiding a substance abuse problem from me.
Either way, I am lucky that I escaped. I will focus now on becoming a better, more complete person. I am not seeking a man right now. I am devoting time to becoming whole and loving myself again.