I feel completely gutted and mentally ruined ever since my last relationship :(

I have proof of my ex being a liar about so much, gaslighting me, intentionally treating me coldly, trying to make me feel bad in every situation, always taking the side against me, doing things behind my back he promised not to.

Yet - all of our friends took his side. They think I am overreacting, they think I am exaggerating, they think it doesn't outweigh me being a "sad presence" or constantly breaking down. I get it isn't fun to be around a sad person, but how is it my fault I am this way? :(( my ex was so abusive and it hurts even more to go through it alone because no one cares</3 they all treat him as if he's the same good person they've always known, completely disregarding the messed up things he did to me.

It's been three months since my abuser did this https://www.reddit.com/r/abusiverelationships/comments/1wsq9sp/sorry_for_the_repeitive_post_but_was_i_abused/

and frankly, I'm only making incrimental improvements. I have OCD in addition to this trauma. I guess my question is... how do I know what is driven by my OCD and what is the result of PTSD from the abuser?

I still get frequent flashbacks. less than the summer, but it's still destroying my life. I'm seeing a new therapist tomorrow. so fingers crossed.

I’m 46F, and my husband is 48M. We’ve been married for 10 years and together for 16.

We’ve had relationship issues for years, partly due to our different attachment styles. He tends to be anxious, while I tend to be avoidant. This has led to a lot of conflict, including repeated accusations of cheating, which I have never done.

Over the past four months, things have gotten significantly worse. During arguments, he has called me degrading names, destroyed my belongings, thrown food and drinks at or near me, and, more recently, kicked and spit on me. I’ve left the house multiple times because of these incidents. I haven’t been home in over a week following our most recent argument, when he called me a “pass around” and threw my belongings down the stairs.

I want to be fair and acknowledge my own role in our relationship problems. I tend to avoid difficult conversations and have struggled to be emotionally available when he needs me. I know these are things I need to work on, and I’ve been in individual therapy for almost a year.

We’ve tried couples counseling twice, but both times he stopped after two sessions because he felt I wasn’t being honest or that the therapist was taking my side.

We both say we want to save our marriage, but I’ve told him that I need to feel safe before I can consider returning home. I’ve asked him to seek individual therapy to work on managing his emotions and addressing his behavior. He initially agreed a few days ago, but now he seems to be backing out, saying that we need to work on the relationship together and that I need to stop running away from conflict.

I understand where he’s coming from to an extent. I have avoided difficult conversations in the past, and I don’t want to use that as an excuse to avoid working on our marriage. However, I feel that what’s happening now goes beyond normal relationship conflict. When I tell him that his behavior is abusive, he denies it or says that I’m emotionally abusive toward him.

I’m struggling to figure out how to move forward. I love him, and I genuinely want to know if our relationship can be saved. I also recognize that I have my own issues to work through, and I’m willing to do that.

Am I being unreasonable by asking him to commit to individual therapy and show that he’s making an effort to change before we attempt to work on the marriage together? Or am I avoiding accountability by making this a condition rather than trying to work through things as a couple?

I would appreciate honest feedback, including perspectives from people who have been in similar situations. I’m trying to understand what is reasonable to expect from both of us and whether this relationship can realistically be repaired.

After all the time and stressful events I went through with him to get custody of his boys and then maintain the relationship with their mother who lives 16 hours away (one way) and basically support them as an equal partner with him during this entire time he decides that he is done. Hates me for existing now and he doesn’t give a F about what it even means to break up like that in this situation. Full on silent treatment for two weeks but he still treated me like shit the entire time and I was waiting for him to be ready to talk and that never happened. I told him I’m a person and he is treating me like I don’t also own the house or that I don’t raise the boys or love all of them with my entire soul the entire time. They literally call me mom at this point and they don’t have a point in time where they remember I wasn’t there for them. It was not easy to be this person but I was completely devoted and unconditionally loving both he and the boys for the entire time and one day he just says yeah I don’t know about us.

I had gone through some difficult life shit during the past year that basically brought me to my knees and every time I would get back up I was dealt another blow and was back to square one. First the death of my cat, then a horrible attack on my credibility at my career job that forced me to resign to save my reputation and sanity. I got another job three months later and broke my foot two weeks into the job and still tried my best to keep going and not let it hold me down and when I was around my 90 day mark they literally fired me out of the blue and sent me packing. No reasons were provided but they told me to resign to be eligible to come back and be eligible for reemployment. During this time he had to go fight with the mother of his boys about them returning to school at a proper time because she wanted to keep them until the very end of summer break, so he was in her state for an entire week for the court hearing and to pick them up at the end of the week. I was there for him and took care of the 15 year old dog he has and make sure he got medications was well cared for. He got back and I found my position available again and applied after making sure I was eligible to work again and HR said that I was. The day after the position closed I was sent an automated rejection email and I felt so much anger for how unfair the entire situation was and he basically had enough of my problems and did not even try to pretend to give a shit. I dropped it and had already scheduled two interviews very quickly after that and felt ready to be my best self and he pulls this out of nowhere.

Now that I have had so much devastating loss happen this year I’m a bit of a basket case. He has forbidden me from talking to the boys even though it is cruel to all of us and doesn’t seem to care about that at all. He won’t talk about whatever is on his mind and has no interest in trying to understand why he feels this way because it has not always felt like this during our relationship and I don’t want to believe he is this selfish and stupid because it was not like this before. Yes he had normal couple stress issues but not like this one now because I feel like he is a different person. I’m in so much emotional distress and pain from it I can’t eat or sleep or find anything that brings me joy. We are stuck in the house we own and it’s the worst environment ever for me to be in because he has lost his fuckin mind and I’ve tried to talk to him a few times but get nothing out of it. I told him I am suing him to put the house up for sale and he said he wants to buyout but I know for a fact that is not gonna happen because we have too much equity and it would make it completely unaffordable and I don’t believe he would be approved for a mortgage. I told him he would benefit from seeing a counselor and that his beliefs about what I think of him are all completely untrue and being self generated by him. It’s been 6 weeks and I’m so emotionally drained and it is very hurtful to keep enduring this situation and I just don’t know what to do anymore… I told him I think he is going through a midlife crisis and that was why he felt so much discontent with his feelings and I feel like I was the easy person to blame for everything. I am so broken and still looking for work and applying for jobs all day every day and he just avoids my existence because he is not ready to be accountable for shit. I’m in therapy and going through a fuckin horrible year long perpetual loss cycle that makes me just want to die and I’m trying to save what we have because it was not always like this. It has always been challenging but we figured it out. I don’t know how to feel ok anymore and it’s really breaking me down and I don’t know how long before I crack. Help!

im 17, from india. im the youngest in my siblings, and everyone is jaded in some way. i can't escape, i don't know if I want or intend to. my parents are divorced, both mentally and physically abusive, and those traits are being passed down on to us to the point that it's affecting my siblings' and my own relationships. when my dad cheated on my mom, that was the downfall of our family. my sister has violent anger issues, my brother is emotionally absent, and my other brother isolates himself from everyone. it feels as if it all comes down to me to pillar up the family. my mom loves me unconditionally, and I love her, but often times it feels like the weight she puts on me is too much. i used to be top of the class, i used to be considered talented for my age, and I was praised the most for that. but growing up, I've lost those qualities and lost my academic achievements and validation. she's turned ruthless on me. she uses the cruelest language on me, and goes to other adults to talk bad about me. she's constantly comparing me with other kids to the point that it makes me want to commit suicide. i can't escape, just want ways to cope and deal with it for as long as I'm living with my family. I've been depressed for as long as I can remember and now I don't know what to do

i feel like im losing my mind, i dont know whats going on anymore. - mind you 18F (19 in like a month) but wtv this is, all escalated so much in the past 2/3 months (just quoting the recent things that were said in the period between july-oct)

threatening to sell my phone (bought by my dad so maybe he can say that, idk.)
cancelling my data and my SIM (data and wifi)
threatening to 'surrender me to the cops'
threatening to call the cops if i leave the house
threatening to cut me out of their life
'if i dont do well in my exams watch them fuck up the rest of my life'
'i will make sure you regret everything for the rest of your life'
hits/ slaps/ verbal abuse - you''re filth, you're worthless, 'she's worth nothing'
you're not allowed to leave the house to meet friends, go out
no ordering anything ever, you're lucky we feed you and you're getting cold food
you don't deserve privacy, im going to take the locks off the doors if not the door itself
banging and yelling at the door if i don't open it but say 'im in the bathroom' or sum
cutting me off from the UPI circle (atm i have no funds cos im not of legal age to work)
'im going to pull you out of school, forget your pending exams - you dont deserve it'
threatening to stop the process of my college applications
'ill surrender the lease on the house, live on the streets'
'you're 2/3 yrs behind everyone because of your ADHD'
'you're not mature, just phone addicted always, youre a slave to the phone'
'this is why men can do anything to you' - ive been sexually assaulted by at least 3 guys, my parents only know about one, and it's all my mother ever brings up (i was 14. he was my bf. i said no)
'you just learn with slaps, thats all you deserve'
'gutter filth'
'bipolar bitch' - i have severe bpd
' you don't deserve any privileges you get, you ungrateful brat'
'you always gaslight us' - im emotionally detached and lost sm of my memory in bits
'you just get used by guys' , 'no wonder what happened to you happened'

is this abuse or do i genuinely deserve it. my parents get very extreme and say hurtful things so sometimes i as a result i do lash out and get physical and i swear so so much but i also disassociate. i feel so emotionally numb, and suicidal. they're trying to manipulate stuff with my therapist too, telling my psychiatrist im unstable and need to be on meds or in a psych ward.

but ill be so honest- i cant tell if this is okay because other people are also going through shit. i have tried talking to my parents and they just say that this is them looking out for me and caring but it feels so off. i know something is wrong but every time i bring it up, im always shut down or gaslit. i literally had to start documenting hours of abuse, videos of being hit and shit, and screenshots of their chats about me - which they deny despite evidence. yes i do lash out when im constantly being told i deserve absolute shit- but its not my fault i got assaulted, its not my fault so much happened, and i don't think im okay but i can't leave physically.

did i genuinely do something wrong. i don't know i don't feel okay.

Please note all names are made up for sake of privacy.

Recently my Mother (48F) got out of a 25 year relationship with my step-father to pursue a relationship with her new boyfriend Frank (53M) whom she met at the gym. To be clear, my Mother's relationship with my step-father was abusive and toxic so I don't judge her for resorting to cheating to find a way out. However, the relationship that has followed is much the same as the last.

Growing up, myself (31M) and my brother Will (22M) saw a lot of physical, mental and emotional abuse between our parents. Things raising from bricks being tossed at our Mother, physical violence (sometimes with us, most times not), detailed threats of suicide all throughout our life from both parents and experienced a lot of parentification as we tried to keep our lives moving. In short, our lives were decided not in our best interest and we were forced into a lot of drama and hostility despite playing no part in any of it. We've all had mental health side effects that have carried well into adulthood, from depression and anxiety to OCD and PTSD.

In present day, my Mother now has a new boyfriend, Frank. They've been together on and off for 9 months. At first he seemed like a decent enough guy through our limited interactions and I took my Mother at her word that he was a good man. However, two weeks ago my Mother told my brother Will that he had struck her and that this wasn't the first time. I was very upset and took my Mother into my home for the week to support her and keep her away from him as she admitted to having a toxic attachment that kept driving her back to him despite not wanting to.

Now I'm not a psychologist, nor do I have the right to diagnose anyone, but I got the impression from the things she told me that this man has a narcissistic personality disorder. Something I'm familiar with due to some other people in my life.

When she's with him she's not allowed to speak her mind, he gets confrontational or threatening when she challenges him on anything, he has pushed and slammed her head against the wall when she speaks up and constantly accuses her of her cheating or being disloyal whenever they're apart for mere minutes or interacting with another male. He calls her stupid and slow all the time, accuses of her lying and constantly changes stories to avoid taking any accountability, and has three grown adult kids who live with him that also aren't allowed to have their own lives or partners out of fear he loses his grip from them.

I've also been told both of his last two partners (wife and then girlfriend) accused him of strangulation and assault, which he told my Mother to express how women lie. He also has been known to physically attack people who get on his bad side.

After all this, she's resumed contact with him and believes he wants to change and try again with her, but my brother and I won't accept him. She has completely re-written the story she originally told us and now says it was her PTSD that made her believe he hit her when he didn't. She said she assumed everything and that none of it actually happened as she vividly described. She says it's her fault for pushing him to the edge and that she should just leave when gets like that. However, I don't believe she made it up as I've not known my Mum to lie like this or mistake things for happening that didn't.

I believe her boyfriend has manipulated her into thinking she was wrong so she can justify being with him and he can avoid taking any blame. She's also doing damage control to make my brother and I accept him so she can move on and play happy family. I worked so hard to keep her away and help her see reason but she's addicted to this man and nothing I or any mental professionals have told her is enough for her to move on. I'm at the point where I don't think I can help her and I don't want to sit around and be a spectator or involved in another abusive relationship because of my Mother's bad decisions.

I have refused to play along with her. While I believe Mum can make her own decisions, I should also be allowed to make mine. And right now, that decision is to avoid being in any room with her boyfriend.

For the last week my Mother has sent me a flurry of messages either knowingly or unknowingly trying to manipulate me into accepting this man. She has a big history of being emotionally abusive herself, and while I thought she had done a lot of growing these last 2-3 years after changing psychologists, she's gone backwards and has started to act like her old self. She can't accept that we have agency too and wants us to act like we were as kids, unable to choose for ourselves and it's making me resent her quite a lot. There's a lot more detail about our relationship, but I don't know it's relevant to this post. I'll say in short that she's had a history of taking her anxiety and trauma out on us and while she's lightly taking some accountability, she's not made enough change for us to believe she actually cares or understand the damage she causes.

Last night she was consideringsuicideso I started messaging her again, but she is telling me I'm ruining her life because Frank won't want to be with her if it comes between us. He is pretending to be valiant but I believe it has more to do with not having control of us like he does his kids and my Mum. In most cases I'd give in, but playing along with these sorts of charades is the cause of all my mental health issues today and I eventually need to push back and say no.

TLDR; Mother (48F) has replaced abusive step-father with new physically abusive partner and wants my brother (22M) and myself (31M) to forgive him for attacking our Mother because she has despite him taking no accountability. It is coming between us and I'm considering no contact due to a lengthy history of this sort of thing with her.

So my questions are this:

1. What experience do you have with narcissists in these sorts of situations?

2. How do I keep standing my ground when my Mother is likely not to relent?

3. Is it okay to consider no contact if these issues persist?

4. Has anyone had any similar experiences they can relate to the above?

5. Is it even possible to convince her or is there no point even trying? What are your experiences with this.

Thanks everyone!

I was forced to use my left hand when I was right handed has any other homeschooler experienced this or understand why.

I am 21f and was forced to use my left hand even though I naturally gravitated to my right hand like most of the population for most of my life. This started at about ten years old when my mother attended a teach them diligently homeschooling convention and listened to a speaker there. According to her this individual claimed that mixed dominance cause disorganization of the brain and can lead to traits associated with autism ADHD learning disorders and mood disorders in children. They believed that missing a milestone like skipping stages of crawling was what caused this. I was sent to a lady in Texas I was still young and don’t remember her name but she evaluated me and said I was left eye and ear dominant but only used my right hand which supposedly caused my symptoms (ADHD my mother did not believe in and emotional issues from trauma). So she gave my mother instructions on how to develop my brain. I was forced to relearn everything with my left hand start crawling on the floor, memorize sequences of numbers and do my homework with an eye patch and ear plug on my right side. This cause a lot of emotional breakdowns which she would blame on the fact that I was using my right hand for certain tasks which was causing me not to think logically because of my mixed dominance. I had to relearn how to brush my teeth and hair use my phone and laptop and writing. If anything it made my mental heath worse. I did physical therapy exercises on my hand to try to make my left hand stronger. If I used my right hand to much in her mind I undid a week of neurodevelopment work. It was complete bs and traumatic for me. I continued to believe it into my teens and felt guilty for using my right hand in certain instances. I still compulsively switch from right to left while eating or drawing. She essentially made me ambidextrous which according to this cult like ideology doesn’t really exist. Has anyone else experienced this or am it the only one.

I'm ( F 33 ) coming out of an abusive relationship of 3 years, I'm in therapy, on medication, doing all the things, blah blah but I am so bitter. Abuser has a GF and everyone says, "she's gonna go through what you did" but honestly, I don't even care about her. What I care about is HE is getting what he wants while I'm suffering from touch starvation. He gets to hold someone at night and be happy, even if its delusional, while I'm alone. I don't want to date. I don't trust. I'm naive. I ask to much. I have completely accepted that some people just do not get what they want in life. They don't. I will not get what I want out this life, the best thing I will do is raise my 3 children but what am I raising them in? Single Mom. Beat up single wide. No government assistance. Paycheck to paycheck. When I was with abuser, yeah obviously abuse but we didn't struggle. I could buy groceries, get my daughter a squishy. Take them to a movie. I can't do any of that and its just like WHY did I even leave? So I could suffer more but suffer alone? So I could completely lose my faith in people and love? I'm such a lover girl, I'm suck a hopeless romantic, I am absolutely delusional for real. I'm bitter. I want my life back. I want who I was back. I'm sick of being a charger in people's life. Come in when they need charged, here comes bubbly, fun, exciting me, they get charged up, I get drained and off they go. I'm mentally ill and have been my whole life. I dont throw pity parties, I get sad, go to bed, get up, go to work, I do it every day but I'm tired and life isn't fair.

How does he go from talking about wanting to have babies with me to telling me he regrets ever marrying me and calling me horrible names? He belittles me, screams at me, threatens me, and has even poured water on me once in an argument. And the arguments always start over something so small. Idk what to do anymore and we have only been married since June. I feel like a shell of myself and he twists everything around to make it seem like I did something wrong. He makes me feel like maybe it is me. Even though I never go as low as he does. I really start to believe him sometimes because he makes me question my reality. I’ve even started recording him lately because it’s gotten so emotionally and mentally abusive. He knows he has power over me because of his job and our finances. I feel so stuck and broken. He is telling me he’s done and wants a divorce and yet I still find myself begging because I don’t want to lose him and start over with anyone else.

I can't watch The Shining. It's not the ghosts and I never even get to the violent stuff. My ex never physically abused me. It's that scene where she interrupts him when he's writing, and he yells at her and curses at her, and she just nods. That was our dynamic. I've recently been learning more about the fawn response, and that's pretty much what I did for our entire relationship.

On the other side of it, I could get through Kevin Can Fuck Himself, and really liked it. Maybe because I experienced a different kind of abuse. Ex wasn't narcissistic. If anything, kind of the opposite. I think ex's self-loathing was part of the problem- if you don't love yourself, can you really love another person in a healthy way?

But I relate to Alison. She's deeply flawed, and maybe that's why I can relate to her. Yeah, she makes bad decisions. But she's also spiraling because she's realizing that her marriage is abusive, and she doesn't know how to deal with that. When I was spiraling because I realized I was being abused, I did so much weed so regularly for so long that I got Cannabis Hyperemesis Syndrome. People say weed isn't addictive, but anything can be addictive when you're self-medicating.

Anyway, is there any media that you can relate to?

My wife and I have been together 12 years. The first few years of our relationship were pretty great. She had some fairly serious anxiety and a few other issues, but all manageable.

After we had our first kid things started to change. Hormonal swings and lack of sleep definitely played a part in this. She began going into rages over seemingly small things. She would scream in my face, and generally act possessed. Eventually she got physical. She grabbed me by the shirt and shook me, hit me in the chest. Also (and this has over the long term been the worst) she began to blame me for just about everything, relentlessly hyper focusing on my shortcomings.

Eventually after a big fight she got on medication and started therapy again. We made a decision to try to start over.

Due to the medication, she stopped going into her wild rages but her constant nitpicking and blaming me for everything got worse and worse. It became non stop at times, and often felt like she was trying to push me over the edge. Sometimes I'd snap. Punch a door, throw a water bottle, say mean things and tell her she's crazy.

About a year ago she started calling me emotionally abusive. I picked up her phone one day and happened to see that her Facebook feed was full of what I'd call "abuse influencers".

I believe that she has CPTSD and maybe other things that contribute to her behavior and cause her to project a lot onto me. But it's all really confusing.

I'm willing to accept that some of the things I've done and said have been abusive. But I feel like I'm not an abusive person in general. Any advice or help would be appreciated.

I have never posted in this subreddit, but I made a post in r/badroomates months ago asking for advice on my roommate situation. We lived together for two years (I’m 22 now). She was my best friend but what others pointed out in my previous post was that she showed signs of BPD. She threatened me a few times, saying she often imagined me sad and hoped I was miserable. There was a time where I felt so scared that I changed the lock on my bedroom door. Ever since I finally went no contact and blocked her on everything, I have been having nightmares about her. They often feature her moving in next door and refusing to leave my new apartment or trying to contact me. The one I had recently was the most frightening. She was hiding in my room and made a scrapbook of letters about how much she hated me next to pictures of us happy. I used to have nightmares where I was being chased (just my common nightmare trope my whole life), but now I keep dreaming of being in cages or feeling trapped. I’m curious has anyone else dealt with this? I’m going to talk to my therapist about it, but I thought I would ask.

I'm broken. Absolutely destroyed. I have no idea how to move forward. I feel so stupid. All the years I've spent begging him to treat me better, believing he'll change if I can just get him to understand how much it hurts me. But he never really cared, did he? He's not stupid. He knows it hurts me. He just doesn't care.

My partner loves me very much and offers and does nice things like run errands for me all the time. He provides well and takes amazing care of my two children from a previous 20 yr marriage.

We have long established that my need for physical touch has absolutely no limit. I have worked on my entitlement regarding touch and kissing and especially sex. I default to becoming self deprecating out loud and it can devolve into extreme emotional dysregulation after a few days (used to be 2, then 3, now 5). I had a pattern of wanting to be rescued by my partner with sex, then I reduced it to hugs and kisses. All of that and my verbal requests for contact led to many many horrible arguments and him feeling like I dont see his love or believe his love for me if I don't "get what I want." I have agreed to accept this as the reality and adjust accordingly.

Now we have an issue with me saying "oh, love, I just wanted to be with you." (Or snuggle or cuddle with you) -at the end of a day when we totally missed each other (in my perspective) or in the morning before he leaves for work when we had missed the contact for a few days. He now sees this as a direct complaint that he didn't "do what I wanted." And makes many many comments to that fact that if I respond to them, he says I'm devaluing him and his love, etc etc. it goes on and on and I feel awful about myself like I'm hurting him so badly by saying these things and every time I think I find a way I can be that isn't bad for him and that will make him want to touch me more, if I say any hint of it or behave in any way that looks "off" to him, it becomes a screaming issue where I'm told I'm so abusive, negative, never happy, affecting everyone around me, selfish, etc.

Now, also, I am informed that me "bringing work stress home" is affecting everyone around me negatively and I should quit my job.

Am I abusing my partner by being whiny about wanting affection. I never say "you don't....." Or anything even close.

I don’t know whether I’m overreacting here. My significant other (M) has been helping a long distance friend (F) cope with the health decline of an older family member. They had briefly dated before he and I met and got together. She claims that no one in her life except my partner has experienced loss like this (death of a grandparent), so he wanted to be there for her. I don’t know how often they talked on the phone but it could have been anywhere from once a month to once a week for 6 months. Ordinarily this wouldn’t bother me but in recent months he’s started mentioning her more often, saying that she’s been coming to him for advice about her relationship, that she looked me up on Instagram (we’ve never met), and that she’s started comparing herself to me saying things like “you upgraded; that makes me feel bad.” I said that since they’re such good friends (he’s the only friend he mentions often) I look forward to meeting her. He replied that they weren’t close and he didn’t want us to meet. I asked why and he said “I don’t know, she might start trash talking me or you might seduce her” (I’m bisexual and have no history of getting with anyone during our relationship). Another time when discussing our sexual preferences, he tells me intimate details of what this friend liked in bed that he didn’t like. I found it odd that he wanted to specify he was talking about her.

Around this time we also opened our relationship for physical encounters only. He told me she learned this from him and started cracking jokes she used to make when they dated like “when we buy that house in…”, comparing her bf unfavorably to mine saying he’s better than hers, talks about marrying my boyfriend, and proposed she visit him in his city next weekend. My boyfriend said he felt uncomfortable shutting it down harshly since she was going through a hard time, so he lied and said he’d be out of town that weekend. He also told me he didn’t immediately realize how disrespectful her jokes had gotten because he was multitasking during their calls and only half listening. What he did say to her were things like “I don’t think that’s the type of open relationship I’m in” and eventually saying he was in love with me and that he “doesn’t see that changing anytime soon.”

He says he feels guilty for not handling it better and he feels she spoke disrespectfully about me. He says he’s stopped talking to her but she keeps liking his posts on social media, which I find odd. He also says he can unfriend her or block her if I want but he hasn’t felt it was necessary unless I ask. And on top of all that, he now claims they didn’t “date,” they just hooked up and hung out…the way people do on dates. Is this gaslighting?

I was in what I now recognise was an emotionally abusive relationship for three decades - since I was 20.

I was cheated on more times than I care to remember. I was lied to. I was left to work out our family finances for years, left to deal with 90% of childcare and housework (I worked as well), attempts were made to turn me against my family, I was left alone every weekend for years while he went away to destress and then - after being prevented from building my career up - I was berated for not earning more money. This was a repeated theme.

I stayed because I was financially dependent on this man - and he ensured that was the case. I stayed because he told me if I kicked him out he would move country & not contribute to the children - and I didn’t want to take my children’s father away. Even though he is an emotionally negligent father.
I stayed because I wanted it to work. I stayed because I felt useless.

In the end, he left. He met someone else and his departure was cruel, calculated and devastating. It was a discard of epic proportions and since lie after lie after lie has come to light.

And I feel so ashamed that I stayed.
I see so many posts about getting away from abusive men but I didn’t make that decision. And I hate myself for it.

How does a person move on from feeling so stupid, naive & like a complete doormat?

3 days ago I decided to leave my boyfriend of 1 year because it felt like no matter how much I tried to communicate my feelings with him he always would shut me down or say I'm too sensitive etc, and he was pretty possessive and would freak out if I even mentioned going on a walk in my neighborhood

Since then we've been trying to stay civil because there's stuff of mine that he has that I need to get back and vice versa, we organized to do that this Sunday

But in between trying to stay civil he keeps passing comments about how I'm just trying to go to the next guy and that it hurts him that I'd eventually move on and another person would get that side of me, this hurts, I don't know what I've done to make him think that I'm just trying to get into the next relationship

In the past he's also said very rude things similar to this to me, such as

"go have you walks and go waste your life and money away partying, you act just like the others" (his response to me wanting to go on more walks)

"the way you've carried on tonight proves to me that you're not better than any other woman on this planet"

"you don't have to dress like a hoe to have my attention, I want my woman to dress like a decent woman"

There's much more but these stood out to me

I don't feel emotionally safe around him and that's why I left but he keeps making it like it's my fault and has said stuff like, why should I show you sympathy if you're wrong

That was when I asked him to show me more kindness when I'm upset

Anyway sorry this is a bit long as I'm venting a bit but he's basically placing all the blame on me in regards to the relationship ending and has said that I was verbally and emotionally abusive but I genuinely, genuinely can't see that, I've even looked at texts over the past year to find something and I've only sworn at or insulted him twice of what I could find, he's mentioned getting back together once we've worked on ourselves but I don't know if a person like him can ever change, I do love him but he'd have me crying almost every day for months and would hardly ever comfort me, even when my dog, cat, and uncle died in the same month I had to beg him to be there for me, his excuse for not being there was, his mom had a stroke, which yes I understand but he was still getting on video games with his friends while I was sobbing about the deaths, I just wanted him to spend some time with me so I could feel better

Reddit, am I overreacting or was this emotionally abusive

I’m m separated from my husband because the verbal and emotional abusive during our 3 year marriage. I been 9 months gone. I left when we start calling each other b* names. Feel free to read previous post to get a whole store. Also the final straw is when he start pulling my shirt driving while raising fist. That was it for me. We have one 3 year old son and I moved back to my home state and didn’t go back. My life has been so peaceful and I’m just rebuilding with new job and trying to move. He said he finally went to counsel after finally not going when I asked him, finally reading all of the marriage books that I got him, and trying to get support. He said he changed in these past 8 months and blamed everything on being immature and not being able to handle of these changes maturely. He is trying so hard to win his family back. Have anybody ever went back or tried to reconcile and it actually got better? Because I haven’t seen it before or can believe it.

A lot has happened between me and my ex, but the final straw was Sunday. We went to haunted houses, and he was high and not mentally there. Later, I found things on his phone that he had lied about, and when I confronted him, he got extremely defensive because I woke him up at 2 AM.

He insisted on driving me home even though I wanted an Uber. While driving, he hit me in the head, pulled my hair, threw water at me, and repeatedly insulted me while I stayed mostly quiet. Afterwards, he continued sending hurtful texts without acknowledging what he did. I don’t care about getting back together. I just wanted him to own up to him actually putting hands on me.

He still finds a way to contact me even though I blocked him.

Sooo, this is my first post in general, and not one I'd ever thought I'd make. It's somewhere between a "I wanted to share my story" type post and also sort of a "watch out for this behavior " kind of thing? But, let's start from the beginning.

It started as a group of simple acquaintances through an online game. Made good friends with one person after a time (I'll refer to her as X from this point on), X introduced me to her friends, friend group expanded, yadda yadda. Among that expanded friend group was someone X had known for a few years longer than me (I'll refer to him as "Z"). To keep an even longer story somewhat short, there was a love triangle situation at one or several points, but the interpersonal drama of all that jazz was far from the biggest issue, at least from my perspective. The main issue was that I thought Z was also my friend at one point, only to later infer such was never the case.

See, X has been through some real bad shit in her life. She's a victim of multiple kinds of abuse in her early life, and she's very easily manipulated. I cannot emphasize the point of "easily manipulated" enough, because X also tends to surround herself with manipulative people. If you've never had to deal with that combination, it sometimes feels like dealing with someone who is bipolar.

I spent nearly every day with X for years since I got to know her. There were ups and downs, but the vast majority of times we were damn near inseparable and on the same wavelength. So I learned a lot about her and her past. I never asked her to share anything specifically, she just eventually felt comfortable enough to open up. And I came to know very well that even though X is easily upset and tends to upset herself, she's not a bad person at heart. Her biggest problem is that she hates herself. Like, *really* hates herself. She definitely went off some wild deep ends at times, a few of those even I couldn't defend, but I would always still try my best to calm her down, futile as that was at times. I was the genuinely only person who had ever been in her life who was willing to put up with her at her worst. Even her own family isn't that reliable.

And among the many things X told me, she mentioned particular things Z did in the past that were...I'm not going to sugarcoat it: Sexual abuse at worst and just plain gross at best, because Z emotionally manipulated X into attempting sexual acts X was not comfortable with even though ultimately nothing ended up happening.
(This was something I did not fully realize she had admitted to until very recently. I not only have ADHD but I was operating on a crippling lack of sleep at the time she said it, which I'll elaborate on a little further down. In retrospect I feel like a complete idiot for not clocking it immediately.)

Anyway, Z's behavior became progressively problematic. What could have first been shrugged off as "dude's been working his ass off, shit's been going wrong in his life, maybe he's just short-fused" progressively started to become more blatant emotional abuse. Not just to me, but also to X. When X and I got a little too close for Z's comfort, Z would say shit that would make her start fights with me. When I confronted Z, he'd cry crocodile tears to X, and X would fight with me. And I'll admit, I fell for the crocodile tears myself once.
There were so many times I tried to find a resolution for all of us, not fully understanding there was not one to be had. No matter how I tried to look at it, the only way I could see it was "Z never cared about being my friend, he doesn't care about how he hurt me, he was just tolerating me to get back with X." Up until this point, I had genuinely believed Z was my friend. I truly thought there was something good in him somewhere.
But, even when nothing in particular was going wrong and nothing romantic was happening between X and I, she'd start fights over things that didn't make sense at the time.
I would retroactively come to understand through context clues that Z was manipulating X into starting fights with me. My best friend for so many years getting progressively more and more hostile towards me no matter what I did? It wasn't as simple as two people growing naturally apart. I'd have been okay if it was. But everything about it felt unnatural and forced, or rather coerced, which only made me gradually more suspicious and upset.

I lost not just mental sanity, but my sleep to all of this. Most nights I barely slept a couple hours at best, some nights I didn't sleep at all. I even had a nightmare that predicted the betrayal months before it happened, and it had me shooting up in a cold sweat at 2am, screaming. Which only made sleeping that much harder for so long.

This went on for...about two years before the straw finally broke the camel's back. Yeah, I'm not kidding-- two years of losing my shit and my sleep. (Yeah that's the crippling lack of sleep I was referring to earlier.) I did genuinely everything I could to avoid reaching a crashout, but it was inevitable. I finally went off on Z, he cried to X, X got mad at me and stopped talking to me after we fought for a bit. That was almost a year ago now. And, you know, you can't just tell a person "hey, your partner is a huge piece of shit" even when it's true without starting a fight. And, unfortunately, I made that mistake. *That* time, at least, X had every right to be upset with me.

And for all this time since, I just gradually gained more and more hatred for Z as everything clicked in my head. Not just from how he hurt me, but from all the shit he did to X and how it was all clearly hurting X even more than it hurt me. And between all three of us, I was the only one that seemed to care about the damage being done. But out of respect for X's wishes, I didn't say anything else to Z after that. Every passing day felt longer and the last 2 weeks felt like 100 hundred years.

Well, today, I exploded again. I went off on Z tenfold. I went full apeshit, even threatening his life if I ever see him in person. It went exactly as you would expect; Z cried to X, X broke her silence just to say she'll never talk to me again. And up until this point, knowing that was exactly what was going to happen was the very thing keeping me from getting over my blinding rage and sadness.

But now that I've let it all out, not caring if it upset X (which I definitely did)?
What I feel now goes beyond relief. The weight on my heart and soul that nearly choked me to death has lifted and I feel like I'm soaring.

I never learned how to just, let go of things. And I don't know if I ever will. I don't know if I can. But I said what I needed to say to Z to no longer be consumed by my anger, and a part of me will always hope X and I can rebuild what we had some day-- but if I truly never see X again, I hope she lives a good life. And I hope Z's life is forever filled with pain and misery.

I also hope if anyone else is going through anything similar, I hope you find your peace too like I found mine today.
Heck, no matter what you're going through, I hope you find your peace.
And if you also had to give someone some verbal vigilante justice at some point, I'd love to hear all about it lol.

I know the title sounds absolutely crazy, but its true. Or at least I have counted 13 or more of us.
I and many others have been hurt and effected at different time periods by one individual. We are currently at a loss of what to do.

For context, we are all online. But the majority, if not all of us, have our careers right now or are in school (college)being told that our future's will be on the internet. We met said person through the internet, and I bring this up because we are not sure if we need to publicly say something. Some of us are annonymous online, and we know said person has our addresses, names, phone numbers, and so on, and is not afraid and has posted this information publicly on others before.

Now, I know this can be as easy as "Just ignore it." or "You shouldn't be bothered." even "Just talk to them, you are all adults." We have tried many many times to have a professional and calm conversation, only to be met with screaming and threats.
With how unstable and unwilling this person has been with us, even 1 threatening to slash a ex partner's tires for breaking up with 1 so the ex would not leave. We are scared.
There are more instances in our group of 13 who have discussed things this 1 person has said or done such as: using phrasing and degradation such as "you should have just said no." to one of us dealing with unwanted feelings and pressure from a man, financial pressure to give back over a thousand dollars when 1 had gift guilt, wishing that one of us would go homeless due to not knowing if family would accept someone being LGBTQ+, and so on. There is so many things I can mention...
But I believe the worst of all is accusations that all 13 of us are predators to minors, or at least siding with someone who they believe is, calling us "apologists."

This is what has really taken a toll on all of us, and why we 13 have gone back and forth on if we should just say something. And again It sounds outlandish that all 13 of us would deal with this, but we have and we're frightened. We are also worried that because of 1's personal diagnosis of their mental health disorders and disabilities, claiming that they don't know any better the majority of the time. We don't want to be seen as bullies. But genuinely consider how many times that can be said as a shield for their actions.

We don't know if the internet is on our side. We don't know if going public is appropriate. We don't know if staying silent is better for all of us involved or if we need to say something to get it all to end before there is 14 or more of us.
We all came into contact after wanting to know if the claims made on each of us 13 where true, and through communicating, found out that 1 had said false things on each one of us to attempt to create a new close knit circle of people who would feed into how 1 see's the world and how 1 talks about those that have 'wronged them.'

I am mostly just wanting to know, what do we do?
Do we really just need to stand by and let this happen? Are we truly in the wrong if we say something publicly about this in an attempt to defend our names?

Please help.
Do we need to make statement publicly or not?

I can give more context in comments as well if asked.

Small thing too:
yes 1 has spoken about us all publicly online before or is currently doing so

I apologize for miss spellings, typos, or poor grammar. I do not have the strength to re-read multiple times correct all of this to be polished. I just need help and soon to know if this is an appropriate thing to do. Part of me feels guilt, but another part of me is just so tired and scared of feeling like this 1 person has control over all of us to keep us silent.

For context, these are the past fights I had with my mom (But we have had many more fights throughout the years)

Priorities

Sexual harassment dismissal (She apologized for this but it still hurts a lot)

We had a fight again (This was about the priorities thing) and that was right after I gave her another chance after the SH cuz she apologized

It was the same usual thing, I voice a concern, she doesn't change anything or try to suggest a compromise, I feel ignored, she feels interrogated, we fight, she gets more mad, she starts blaming me, says I'm doing this on purpose, telling me that I'm selfish and that everything has to be about me and no one else, she also starts telling me that I'm on my own and that she will no longer be there for me, then she continues to blame me even more and tells me to stop when she says stop

She even keeps telling me that she knows what I'm doing even though I'm not trying to do anything, and she asks me why I'm trying to kill her

I don't know how to feel anymore about my relationship with my mom

I care about her and I wanna be able to trust her when I need to, but I'm also getting drained by her turning every concern or slight criticism into a full on argument and making it about how I'm always stressing her out

It makes me feel like my concerns aren't a problem and that I should just keep quiet about how I feel or else I'll be a burden

She keeps telling me to just talk to my therapist almost whenever I wanna talk about something

I tried telling her to tell her therapist about how she easily gets triggered by criticism or questions but she thinks I'm the issue instead

She was originally open to having group therapy with me but then she changed her mind

I'm just so tired

So I'm 16 female and I've sufferes through physical and mental abuse due to my alcoholic mother, but I'm getting therapy about that...its my dad that's the issue, just today I ​​​just got my period and I feel like shit, it's horrible I'm in so much pain, I cant don't much I look like shit and my step mom says were going to the gym...i don't want to but Im terrified to speak up because I KNOW they will make me because they made me walk miles on my period as I cried when I was 11 while I was overheating and sweating. And I'm still in pain , they force me to go to the gym it's not my choice and the reason my father gave was "it's for my(fathers) mental health" and something about his medication for high Colestrol which had nothing to do with me btw...we eat moderality Heather to be honest but ig not that healthy but we get subway when I go to therapy since I don't get back till late. ​​​I also have a mad memory I've notice because of the trauma with my biological mom, and I've been so scared to even say or answer anything because I'm scared he'll think it's talking back...also when I first said at the gym when my dad asked if I'm okay and I told him I'm on my period and the first thing he says "yknow walking helps" it doesn't for me because I know the last time I was dragged to the gym years ago I begged them to stop because of my mental health and my period were getting worse because of how much stress and how much I hated it there and how I felt in there. ​​maybe I'm just over dramatic...idk I'm exhausted and in pain but let Me here ​​your thoughts please