My(21F) ex(21M) genuinely scares me… Is restraining order too far?
This is an old post I never shared… but it’s been two years and I’m still not 100% okay. I think I just want to know what other people think. My family tells me it’s my fault and that I’m being dramatic, and my best friend tells me I’m not… I don’t know how I feel. I’m sorry it’s so long.
I’ll try and cut this short.. I (21F) was in a relationship with my ex (20M) for about 2 years. He moved across the country in with my family and I when we were 18. Things were good for a while - I liked his attention towards me and we were very good at communicating and helping each other as young adults (healthy sexual relationship as well). The older we got though, the less I liked about him. He was an asshole to everyone except me. He has no issue with confrontation even if I didn’t think it was the best course of action. He said whatever he wanted around whoever with no regard to their feelings. He was rude to everyone and didn’t like eye contact. He did whatever he wanted, even if no one liked it. But, he had a very traumatic upbringing so I didn’t think too much of it; he treated me like a queen.
Eventually… his behavior became too much for me my family. He had convinced me that my family didn’t support me as much as I thought they did and that I needed to rely on him because he was never wrong (sounds bad, but, he really was almost never wrong lol). I expressed my desire for individuality after he mentioned moving out together. I told him I wasn’t ready and I wasn’t ready for a relationship as serious as this one. We were going so fast; I wasn’t ready for any of it as a 20 year old full time college student with 2 jobs. I wanted more time to figure out myself. He said that was fine - and we broke up. I set physical boundaries, meaning I didn’t want any sexual relationship with him.
At this point, I had just turned 21 and he was about to turn 21. He still lived with us because my parents told him that he was welcome to stay until he could save enough to move back home. He started to make more and more physical advances towards me, even after saying no. In the beginning he always respected when I said no and let it go. A month goes by and he is watching my every move on Life360… (we had it for safety reasons, and I have nothing to hide about my location) if I went somewhere he didn’t recognize, or took a different route to work, he would get mad and accuse me of buying drugs (I don’t even do drugs) or meeting with someone else. He started to come into my room at night in attempt to have sex; once I woke up to him *yk* and had to kick him back to his room. he got aggravated when he discovered I started locking the door at night. Multiple occasions like this - there was even a night where I was drunk and let him do it anyways because I was tired of saying no all the time. I cried the second it was over and no shower made it feel better. I never told him no that night, so I feel that one’s on me.
I felt like I couldn’t tell him anything without making him mad, and though he has never laid a hand on me, he was a kind of violent mad. He knows I don’t like being yelled at and i struggle responding when I’m being yelled at.
Lastly, after we were apart for a few months, I reconnected with my high school sweetheart at my best friend and her fiancé’s house (we were all best friends in hs). I had been spending a lot of time at her house, since I didn’t like staying at my own. My ex decided to show up at her house unannounced (it was Friday night and we were hanging out late), and had a physical temper tantrum when he saw who was there. He called me and demanded do go outside - to which he screamed at me and beat the crap out of his car; inside and out. He violently sped off after cursing at me without letting me speak. I later learned that he came back hours later just to see if my hs sweetheart spent the night with me. I called my mother, since we live with her, and gave her the heads up that he was on his way because he was behaving so drastically. She told me not to come home.
He called his mother that night and had her come get him and move him out. Just like that. He was living with us for almost two months while we weren’t together because he wanted to save money when he went back home, so my family let him stay. But overnight - he went home.
Since then I’ve told him I’m done and there’s no coming back and even that I don’t love him anymore. He has reached out to me, saying that he loves me unconditionally and he wants to come back to Florida to support me - and that I wouldn’t see him or even know he was there. I told him that his presence, even knowing he’s in my state, scares me. I still can’t sleep without my door locked and he’s the kind of guy to slash tires, key cars, or break into something (as he has done so before). I don’t want to be anywhere near him but I don’t want to be drastic. Is a restraining order, if he comes back, an exaggeration?