u/Pitiful-Type-8668

I am a 25 year old woman who escaped an abusive relationship last year. I was emotionally, financially, and sexually abused from the ages of 19 to 24 by a man who was older than me. I guess I just need a place to talk about what happened and how I feel. I want to know someone hears me, I guess.

The abuse started very early in the relationship.

Within a few weeks he was punching walls.

A few months in he was giving me LSD, then taking advantage of me while I was tripping.

A year in he proposed, then two weeks later he demanded I let him fuck other women or he wouldn’t marry me. He couldn’t pull women on his own, so by year two my job was to pick up women for him. If I failed on bringing women home, he berated me. If I succeeded in finding someone to bring home, I was accused of cheating (especially if I was attracted to the other woman). If I was alone with a man, I was cheating. He got me pregnant, and I miscarried alone in the bathroom. He told me if I ever got pregnant again and I didn’t abort he would kill himself. Not long after he traded me for weed at a party while I was drunk.

By year two I was being told I am annoying, can’t communicate, and that he’s not attracted to me because I gained weight and that I owed him because I “fucked him over” by getting into a car accident in his car. He made remarks about my body all the time. He wishes my ass was rounder, my boobs bigger, that I was skinnier, that my vagina should be tighter, etc. This is when he took my debit card so I could no longer make transactions on my own. He stopped letting me carry cash. He got the password for my Cash App account and monitored all the accounts I had access to. He started telling me if I ever cheated on him he would murder the other man, and beat me within an inch of my life.

By year three he claimed he was into BDSM, but his fetish was just rape. It would start out consensual, then he would start to abuse me anally and ignore me when I asked him to stop. He told me, “You know it turns me on when you say it hurts and tell me no, so if you wanted me to stop you should have said it differently.” He started biting me to draw blood and he wouldn’t stop. He did it constantly, everywhere, even in public. I fought back once, I told him if he bit me again I’d hurt him back. He didn’t listen and I kneed him. He proceeded to full force punch me in front of guests in our home. Punishments started around this time. If I lost a phone charger, I wasn’t allowed to use his or buy a new one. If rolled the car window down when he didn’t want me to, the window lock would be kept on and I would have to ask for permission to roll the window down. If I left the house before he did, I was rushing him and I would have to sit on the couch until he was ready to leave.

By year four I was a complete slave. I cooked three meals a day. I spent 3-4 hours cleaning every day. I tied his shoes. I didn’t talk back. I always made sure his plate had more food than mine, and that he always had the last bite of my meal so he couldn’t accuse me of being “unfair” by eating more than him. I no longer fought back when he did things to my body without permission, and I started drinking heavily instead. Anything he wanted I gave it to him. I just accepted the biting and the rape because I thought I would never get away. He wore me down so badly that I had no confidence, no self esteem, and I figured the only way things would get better is if I fully submitted to him. I thought things were good from this point on, we fought less, he started telling me he loved me more, he stopped sexually abusing me as much.

Last year, I hit my final straw and finally broke away. I had just had dental surgery, and for the first time in years I asked him to help me. I was on a lot of pain killers and very drowsy, so I asked him to heat up soup for me. He heated up a small cup of soup for six minutes, then handed it to me. It spilled on me, I threw the cup down and the cup bounced back up and splattered my body with hot soup and I felt like I had been lit on fire. The right side of my body had been scalded severely. I was burned down my face, neck, chest, into my armpit, down my forearm, and my lower thigh. I was on antibiotics for weeks, burn creams, all of my largest burns got infected and I got sick. When I finally got better he made the whole endeavor about him. He felt only partially responsible so he got me a stuffed animal. That I couldn’t blame him because I’m the one that spilled the soup. That my screams traumatized him and he couldn’t look at me the same. That he couldn’t have sex with me anymore because the burns disgusted him.

I gave up. I told him to go do whatever he wants and that I’ll go do whatever I want. He was free of any sexual or romantic obligations from me and he didn’t have to force himself to be around me either. We stayed together but I was essentially just his live in maid, and he started seeing other people. I met a man that I liked and he liked me back. My ex proceeded to demand to meet this other guy, so I threw a dinner party and invited our friends and my guy. After the party, everyone went home and my ex proceeded to threaten me with physical violence because I sat too close to the other man (we were a couch cushion apart), I didn’t make my ex’s plate, and that he heard the other man make a comment to me alone in the kitchen that he could fall in love with a woman who can cook.

Something in me snapped and I told him we were done the next morning. He agreed but started second guessing when he saw me actually packing my bags. That night I didn’t come back to our home. Though I’m not proud of it, I went to the other man’s house. We kissed for the first time. He held me and we made out. He went to touch me and when I said I’m not ready, he actually stopped and wasn’t even upset. We just went back to kissing and we fell asleep watching a movie on his couch.

When he actually listened to me when I asked him to stop was the moment I knew I could never go back. I had been repeatedly sexually assaulted and raped for years and I realized that not every man is like my ex. That normal people don’t do what he does. That none of what he did to me was normal or okay.

What followed was months of untangling my life from his, lots of threats of violence, him coming into my home without permission, tearing things down, leaking a porn video of me, stealing my mail, telling people I raped him. But it was over. And I’m free of him.

But I feel so much shame. I am ashamed of what I let him do to me. I ashamed that I was so easily manipulated. That I let someone kill my spirit, and that I had to completely rebuild myself up. Sometimes, I can still feel him on my skin. My current boyfriend will move too quick and I’ll flinch because I’m anticipating punishment. I know I was a victim, but I just feel so dumb for ever being brainwashed into thinking any of it was normal.

I am getting assistance from doctors and a behavior specialist, so I do have professional support.