Okay, this may be long so if you can stay with me I need to feel like i'm not alone. At least in the way i'm thinking. If i am i guess i'll go seek help.

I was in a relationship with someone for three years. From the time i was 15 until I was 18. It was extremly abusive. His name was Chris. I met him at a friends house. He was chubby had red hair and big bottle cap glasses. I thought he was geeky and kind of cute. I thought someone should love this guy. A few weeks after we met we began dating. He showerd me with attention. Called me all the time and we talked for hours. We'd email everyday. It was great for the first couple of months. We did everything together. After the three month mark it started to change. I couldnt see my friends because he'd get mad. He said it was because if i went out with my friends i'd look at other guys. That wasnt true i didnt have eyes for anyone but him.

Than he started to shove me around. We'd start fighting about something and i'd try to leave and he'd push me back onto the bed or the couch. We'd make up and things would be good for a day or sometimes a week. Then he started to control what i ate. He seemed obsessed with making sure i didnt eat heathy. I didnt know why. I liked being skinny. He was fat and so he wanted me fat. So i couldnt find someone else.

He started hitting me after the first year. It was always when we faught about soemthing stupid. Cloths or going out with friends and even family functions. If it didnt involve him than i couldnt do it. He was smart he only hit places that were not visable. It was after the hitting started that he began the slow process of tearing apprart the person i was. He beat me down until i was not myself. I didnt have fun, i didnt go out. I never saw my friends. I betrayed my family. Still i thought. I can change him. I just have to be good.

It became he was the master and i was the servent. Then one day 2 years later my older friend asked me to go to chruch with her. I told chris thinking that he wouldnt let me go but when i told chris that i was going with an older lady to chruch he didnt care much. To him that was really non thretning. Boy was he wrong. I got there and stood in the second row from the back. I saw this movent at the front of someone going to the micraphone to sing. I couldnt see very well at first. Than this guy around my age opened his mouth and sung. I was glued to the floor. To me he was like an angel. He was good looking to me. It starting forming in my mind that I could have someone like that. A good guy. A chruch going guy a guy who doesnt hurt me. But i can't have anyone if i have chris.

So like i'd done a thousand times befor the next day i broke up with chris. The fight was pretty brutal this time. I managed to run passed him and made it out the door. I walked as fast as i could.t I tought i'd made it but he was following me on the street. He was almost to me. Telling me he'll kill my nanny. He had no idea where i was headed but i knew. I walked right into the building that my older friend worked out hid in her office and wept.

This time i told someone everything he'd done to me. I picked up the phone and called my grandmother and told her what he had said. And you know what against all odds against all his begging pleading and yelling i didnt go back. I didnt relise why at the time i just didnt.

Now i'm with Adrianna. I'm happy truly. Yet Chris keeps coming back into my life. And when he starts its like an addiction. He'll email me or message me on msn with a new email or something. This time he messaged me on facebook. He started on the oh woe is me. And i fell for it. I started out wanting to see if he was misrable. I wanted him to be. Yet when he told me his problems i got sucked back into trying to be nice. I hate myself when i do that. I dont want to be nice to him. It just happends. Adrianna saw and was really mad and rightfully so. She made sure he was off my facebook and off everything. I'm glad for that because if it wasnt for that I'd be sucked into that world again. It stuns me on how hard it was to get to where i am now and how easy it is to fall back.

Am i the only person who gets sucked in. Who feels like they still want to save someone. Even when they dont deserve it. *sigh* I  know this is long winded but i didnt think anyone would understand unless i explained the back story. I left out  a lot only because its to graphic. IF you made it through cool let me know what you think or tell your storys. I hate feeling alone.

Codependency is not living. Try living and loving yourself first without any relationships. Then you will know after you love yourself what a real relationship is about.

Abuse is abuse regardless of the form, and seeing that he has hit you in the past it is physical.  There is no saving this person, he is a controlling abusive person and does not even deserve to be anywhere near you.  And he is now putting Adrianna in harms way.

I have three letters for you, especially if you feel threatened: TRO.  And do it quick.  You do not need or want him in your life.  He is only trying to keep you under his thumb, because he knows he can.

I hope the best for you and Adrianna, without him.

Janet

TRO? I'm sorry i'm not sure what that means. And i'm glad that Adrianna took control and deleted him. I never would have gone and saw him face to face. I'd like to think i'm smarter than that although you never know.

I wont ever speak to him again. i was doing so well. Not a word from him in almost 6 months and than bam. If i get anything i'll delete it. mabie i should come up with a plan on what to do if he does contact me. So that I do not fall into the trap. its easy to just say "delete the message" but for me id probobly stare at the email so curious. So i need some sort of plan...any advise?

Temporary Restraining Order.  Basically it is a court order that he can not come within 100 ft of you, nor contact you in any way, including by phone, email or any other means.  Not sure what it might be call in Canada, but I am sure they have one.

I dought i'll have to go that far. I live far away from him and only visit my home town sometimes. As long as Adrianna keeps checking on my accounts for me i think i should be alright. IF he tries to contact me again though i will get one.

I think its a good idea. thank you

A friend had one against her own son.  Not only did he keep her locked in her own home, away from people.  But at one time he raped her.  She finally was able to get away from him, when he got arrested for unrelated charges.  That was when she got the TRO.

Just keep it in mind.  And have Adrianna set up a filter on your email accounts to drop anything from him into the spam folder.


Janet

Oh my! Thats horrible. I don't know to much about computers and stuff just enough to surf the web. Adrianna knows alot and i'm sure she's going to be locking down the compute. Luckly though my ex is a very lazy and not to bright person so he wouldnt come all the way here. He also knows that Adrianna likes to keep her collection of swords by the bed 

I just wish that part of my life would stay gone. I'm way to soft hearted for my own good.

Forget a temp restraining order. They are only as helpful as three things allow them to be: 1) how seriously the abuser is going to treat them (usually not very -- I could name five clients who had them on abusers when they were murdered by the abusers.)
2) the desire of local law-enforcement to enforce said orders (usually also low, especially in a large urban area. Cops have better things to do and non-enforcement personnel who normally are assigned to warrants and orders are little help and don't usually feel much like risking their own lives to handle things like that in domestic situations. Hell, a lot of cops don't wanna do that.) 3) How willing will you be to report violations and try to harangue enforcement into enforcement which will, of course, cause untold problems with how they look at you and how willingly they'll respond.

Besides, as you point out you're far away and hopefully your perp hasn't any idea how to find you except through the means that Adrianna has already blocked.

Finally, what you need to do is to get real yourself about him and you. Not only is he not good, but he's positively lethal for you. And your own sense that you should "be nice" is also lethal to you. He will not change and there is nothing you can do to change him.

Bottom line, get real, stay away and try some assertiveness training and get involved in learning a new way to handle unwanted attention.

Nichole

assertivness training sounds like a great idea! And your right. I guess i should say Adrianna is right she told me people can't change. I just have to get it through my head. i can't help him. I'm going to look up some self defence training mabie that will help!! Wow thanks guys. I fell stupid for the way i acted. It wont be happening again.

Quote from: ~Erica~ on June 25, 2009, 01:46:07 PM
assertivness training sounds like a great idea! And your right. I guess i should say Adrianna is right she told me people can't change. I just have to get it through my head. i can't help him. I'm going to look up some self defence training mabie that will help!! Wow thanks guys. I fell stupid for the way i acted. It wont be happening again.

It's not that people CANNOT change; most of us can change. But your "helping" him is not going to change him. He has to know that he has this lil problem with beating hell out of the women in his life and he must have the deepest desire to stop doing that and start handling his own problems and demons without recourse to using someone else as his frustration punching-bag.

Like any other habitual behavior he needs some deep impetus to change his. You will not give him that.

So, it's not a matter of "he cannot change." It's a matter of he will not change for you: the parameters of your relationship with him will just cause him to mostly default to the way he got used to treating you. You'll prolly always be a trigger for him to use his old behavior patterns.

Good luck and please do stay totally away from him.

You might also want to try to find the roots of why you may equate love with being hit (just a thought;) and how your own sense of esteem and who you are has been played on by this perp.

The problem, as do most, takes at least two to make the problem. It's kinda like discovering why lions and zebras live in roughly the same locations and why the zebras don't just leave the area where their predators live. See how difficult that might be?

Nichole

My daughter married a guy she thought loved her deeply.  After they were married he began to control her.  He's 270# of muscle while my daughter is less than half that.  She's a tough cookie but he eventually broke her and she cut off all communications with her family and friends.

Thankfully, one day she got up the courage to call me and told me the horrors she'd been living through.  I flew her back home the next day and she stayed with me as we tried to figure out the best way of keeping him out of her life.  She got a restraining order that forbade him from entering Illinois.  He was in Florida but his rages could compel him to do almost anything.

At first she would answer his emails by telling him to leave her alone.  He hounded her on Facebook too.  I told her she had to cut off all communications and set up her online accounts so only those she approves can see her pages.  After a couple of months he finally quit harassing her because he got no response from her.

I had also contacted the police in his home town and told them what happened and they asked that I keep them informed if anything more happens.  They then paid him a visit and let him know they were aware of his actions.

Ignore this guy completely and eventually he'll get the message.  If he confronts you physically call the cops.  Let him know you mean business.  Once someone hits you, you have to hit them back with the law.  The first hit should be the last if you don't tolerate it.

I wish you the best in getting this jerk out of your life.

Julie

Thank you all!!! I don't feel so alone. I am going to moniter my facebook and also all my emails. I'm going to stop using emails he knows about. I'd like to think he's smart enough not to spare with Adrianna. Adrianna already punched him out once. I'm sure she'd love the chance to do it again. Except the woss called the cops on her when she punched him. Funny how that works. If i had have had a brain back then i would have charged him.

Its been a long time he shouldnt even be thinking about me. I hope he never EVER contacts me again. I am happily married and intend to stay that way. I'm going to go sign up for self defence. I need some comfednece.

Good for you, Hon.

I don't know if it is Canada or not but down here 911 is a girls best friend.

Janet

I hate cops, never had any good experiences with them.  Received death threats before, and had the cops do nothing about it, yet still when someone says I threatened them with death (which I never did) I nearly get arrested?  Then I DID get arrested after punching this guy out, because he ran crying to his Daddy (he was 22 at this time).  I got let off though was not convicted yay me.

Erica keeps doing this, she keeps going back to him.  Onetime before she actually took a day away from me to go be with him, until he tried to have sex with her that is.  That was back when we still lived in Orillia.  I wish this bastard would just drop of the face of the Earth, and I wish Erica would listen to me when I give her advice.  Since well... (when not related directly to me) I've ALWAYS been right.  I just hope she takes your advice, and well... I dunno I hope it helps her because I'm running out of options short of being as controlling as he was (though I would never do anything to hurt her, only to protect her)

This kind of fatal attraction is hard to understand, and till one has been in one it is hard to really understand.

Adrianna, just love her with all your heart, always be there for her, and always trust her with your heart.

Erica, you also must love Adrianna, put your faith and trust in her, and always turn to her for your strength.


Janet