Relationship Violence Story From SC

by SC
(Canada)

Young love and a baby: 
It was love at first sight when I first met his eyes. We worked together at the time after I quit my job I ended up getting his number and giving him a call. I was 19 when we started dating. Things were good those first few years young people socializing having a good time but I should have seen the warning signs. Friends were the most important to him and he was always the fun one to hang out with, the one to sit down and smoke weed and drink with, should have seen the substance abuse problems then but hey we were young right? I had to cut off all my guy friends because he didn't have girls that were friends hanging around and it wouldn't be right, no problem cut off the guy friends. Fights would happen, he would corner me in rooms for hours screaming in my face calling me whore, slut, bitch you name it. He would trap me for hours pin me if I tried to leave, grab me and fling me back in the room. Was I super passive no, an injustice would build up in me, a rage that I was being treated this way. After confining me for so long the pain of his words, and the pain of being grabbed and pinned I would strike out physically in any way I could just to get away from him and stop the pain. He would of course turn this on me calling me crazy, abusive it was all my fault and I would blame myself for it all. Then he slowly started insulting my good friend calling her a slut, whore trying to pit me against her, slowly my time with her started to dwindle. I was pregnant at 23 where for a while he was nicer promising to quit the drugs, quit the drinking that our child and family would come first. The whole pregnancy he hung out with friends, drank and smoked weed nothing changed. After the baby was born I discovered he was on online on dating sites, I couldn't believe after everything he was doing this. Trust was broken fighting again started over his neglect for his family his child. He would put our child on the back burner to socialize on a daily and do drugs and drink. He would encourage me to have time to myself to go out and then use it against me. It was all a mind game, that's all it ever was. I have left him now and I am fighting in family court with him. He of course tried to make me out to be a horrible mother, and all sorts of other lies. But I got smart near the end, I documented stuff, took pictures had people that knew the pain I was going through. I told everyone I could near the end it wasn't a secret anymore. Do I think he ever loved me? Maybe in his own sick way. It took me years to see that it was his own insecurities his own problems that I could love him and try to change him as much as I wanted but it would never mean anything. As soon as you leave them and then go back they have you in their grasp. They know then that you are weak that they can push past the limits and you won't leave. They are actors and con artists who put up a facade for all the right people and make you look like your the crazy one. Do I still love my ex yes and I always will he is the father of my child. I think the reason I stayed so long was I was thinking of the ideal, what he could be like not what he was. It hurts to leave because you have this dependancy, but it is liberating because you discover you are your own person, people will love you for you, they will treat you as a human being and grow with you. Abusive people will not change, they are stuck in their own negative way of thinking, they are always right and you are always wrong. I hope that my ex will change for the sake of our child, so she doesn't grow up to think this is how men should treat women. I hope I can raise her to be strong, to be intolerant of abuse and to see the signs and to take a stand and leave people that are abusive in the dust. I think years from now some of these abusers will sit there and really think about what they have done and maybe just maybe they will take accountability. In most cases they won't that's the sad part. I will not be sad for what could've, would've, Should've. I have value, I have respect for myself, and I will not waste any more time. I hold my head up high everyday and look forward. If I replay in my mind him trying to get back with me all I think to myself is "No because I am so much better than you"