anchor31
Ideal_Rock
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2005
- Messages
- 7,074
Thankfully, I was never beaten. My story is one of emotional abuse, however. I ended a relationship to avoid depression and ended up sinking into it anyway.
My first boyfriend had a severe depression, but nobody knew it. I was 16 and a High School senior, trying to figure out in what program I wanted to go in for CÉGEP (two years between High School and university in the province of Québec), and he was 18. He had had problems in elementary school, so he was a year behind me. He was very needy, dependant and easy to influence and after a few weeks he was already saying he would marry me when I would turn 18. He was extremely demanding. I had to call him everyday or he’d get upset and ask if I wanted to leave him.
For a time I was thinking about leaving home to take a technical course to become an air traffic controller in Cornwall, Ontario. At first he was asking weird questions like “Are you going to meet someone else over there?” and I thought it was weird because I wasn’t thinking about leaving him, but I let it go. And then this girl who I thought was my friend start planting in his head that it was selfish of me to think about leaving and he started harassing me about it. Apparently I could not leave because he should be my priority and I should be building my life around him. That started to freak me out. I was 16, for crying out loud, I couldn’t build my life around a boyfriend of two months! I didn’t even have a life to give yet! But I let it go again, thinking he would understand. *rolleyes* He never did, of course, and things got steadily worse. He started abusing me verbally and trying to make me feel guilty for a choice I hadn’t made yet. My “friend” would support him. I was lost and confused and started thinking that maybe they were right… I was getting very tired because I had to give so much to the relationship and nothing back, and I was slowly sinking into depression myself.
However, I was also getting bored. I had self-esteem issues, but I still valued my independence and had a strong character, and he was the complete opposite. He had nothing to offer to the relationship and I was getting bored with the lack of challenge. I wanted an equal, not a lapdog. So I started thinking about leaving him. I was tired and it was going nowhere. I told my “friend” about it and the emotional abusive doubled. So, I hesitated. My mom finally came up to me and asked me what was wrong. I told her. She said I could send them both to hell and what was most important was for me to do what I thought was right for myself. That gave me the courage I needed to leave him. I was soooo relieved it was over, even if it hadn’t lasted long. The pressure was just too much for me.
And then the bomb dropped. He made a suicide attempt two days later. I was devastated, overcome by guilt. It was MY fault. To the 16-year-old that I was, it was all my fault. If I hadn’t left him, he wouldn’t have done it. He contacted me while in the hospital and talked about it like it was nothing. I felt even more guilty. And then, my “friend” told me that if I had “let myself go” in the relationship, it would have worked out. Since I was convinced he had tried to kill himself because I left him, it just drove the nail deeper in. I sank into depression. I tried to get counseling, but I didn’t like the woman. It took me over two years to get over the guilt. Now I know it wasn''t my fault. He had problems and he would have done it anyway, sooner or later. And I would have been miserable if I had stayed; I probably would have ended up suicidal myself.
My current boyfriend helped me a lot. He is so understanding and generous and supportive, sometimes I still can’t believe it. It turns out I did my CÉGEP close to home in a regular science pre-university program, but I left last January 300 miles away for university. I knew that’s what I wanted before I met my boyfriend, but when I told him about it, I was very scared he wouldn’t let me go. But he never asked me to reconsider. NEVER. Never asked me to come back. He even insisted that I was not to come back because of him under any circumstances. He cares about what I want and what I need. I still felt very anxious about it up until the day I left. I still get blown away every time he gives something to me, whether it’s emotional or material. I still am in awe of how he loves me and respects me and never asks for anything from me but to love him and support him. Now I know what a real equal relationship is like, and my boyfriend and I are soon to be engaged. I’m ready for that now, because now I have my life in my own hands and I can share it with a man who respects me and loves me more than anything.
I haven’t seen my ex in a while. He hangs out with my brother sometimes, and I’ve heard in the last five years that he’s been having problems over problems. I’m glad to have him out of my life. How he’ll react when he hears about my engagement next year? I don’t know and honestly couldn’t care less. He made my life myserable for years and now I''m done. It''s over and I moved on.
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