It can be very difficult and embarrassing to admit that you were in an abusive relationship. It was hard for me to feel like the things that happened to me were “bad enough” to be considered abusive.
Things with my boyfriend went downhill quickly this fall. He starting answering my questions in a bored or aggressive voice. One night I got wasted at a party and he publicly yelled at me and then didn’t talk to me for two days. I don’t remember the last time he asked me how my day was. It was like I wasn’t there, except when he wanted to have sex. And when I felt like I was being ignored I started to initiate sex, because it seemed like the only thing that would get his attention. But when I didn’t, he would touch me until I gave in from the sheer discomfort of being repeatedly touched. The last time we ever had sex, I was silently crying.
We had kinky sex sometimes. I verbally specified if I wanted it like that beforehand. But this fall he began grabbing my hair and being dominant when I told him not to. One night the rope on my forearms was painfully tight. I asked him to just loosen the rope and he said that clearly I wasn’t into this and we should just stop, and then refused to talk or do any aftercare. Another night, he consensually hit me in the face. I didn’t ask for it again, but a week later, while we were just cuddling in bed, he hit me in the face to “get me in the mood.” I felt like he owned me.
I developed severe anxiety. My boyfriend was a gentleman one day, and a monster the next. Sex was consensual only sometimes. I started crying several days a week and having panic attacks. I went to therapy. One day, I told him how proud he would be of me for calming myself down. He said that I shouldn’t be proud of that and that I wasn’t normal.
On our six month anniversary, I was giving him head and I realized he was shoving my head down with his hand. I moved his hand several times but he put it right back on my head, shoving harder. I verbally said, “stop.” He pushed harder on my head, making me gag. I finally screamed at him to stop, and he did. He was furious at me for making him lose his erection. I cried.
A week later, we lay down to take a nap but the lights were on. I told him to turn them off and we wrestled playfully. Then, he suddenly screamed, SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP FOR ONE MINUTE. I finally lost it. I screamed, “Go fuck yourself” and became hysterical. Finally, I told him that he didn’t respect me because of the violent way he treated me in bed and the way he took his anger out on me. He looked at me and said: “Its not that I don’t respect you. It’s just that I feel really distant from you.” And broke up with ME.
It drives me crazy that he broke up with me, and I didn’t get to feel like I took charge of my life. I realize now that he broke up with me because I called him out on being an abusive piece of shit, and he couldn’t live with that.
Today, I feel a lot better. I don’t owe anyone sex. I can honestly say that I am extremely happy alone. One day I’ll find someone who actually cares about me. It happens here. But it shouldn’t. Because I, and everyone in this room, deserves nothing but the best.