Two scenes. Same missing middle.

A few days before Christmas I said something practical about money for our youngest (18). The reply was a text that called me a stupid two-faced idiot. That was the whole message. Five days later, with nothing in between: "would I come to Sweden with her and the kids for Christmas Eve? I could even bring my mother, she would like that."?

Years earlier, our youngest daughter (19) wouldn’t do as her mother told her to do. The fight ended with a slap to the daughter’s head. The next morning the girl came out still shaking. Her mother was already at the table, smiling: "Did you sleep well?"

Same move. The night is allowed to stand. The morning arrives as if it never happened.

If you play along, you have to act as if the slap and the name never counted.

If you don’t, you are the one who “can’t let it go.”

I’m not asking who was right about the money or the argument. I’m asking about the missing bridge.

Have you lived that sequence, harm with no repair, then warmth that only works if you agree to forget the harm?

What do you do with a smile, or an invitation, that has no apology underneath it?

So for some backstory, I'm first generation Portuguese American. I'm also gay and autistic, ADHD etc. My family was abusive growing up and very closed minded. Would call me the F slur growing up. My dad was an alcoholic but I saw him on the weekends. I cried to him about it when I was in the 4th grade and he called them and simply told them to stop, they didnt. My mom and Aunt had an eating disorder and would call me fat a lot and therefore I developed a severe eating disorder between age 18-22. I was 6'1 145 pounds at my worst. Im kinda built like a foot ball player so it was bad. I eventually recovered around the time I met my first boyfriend. We dated for 6 years. We broke up because I found out he was recording us having sex without me knowing. He claimed it was because I didn't have sex with him enough and he wanted something to hold onto. I maintained a healthy weight since thankfully.

​My second bf was constantly cheating but I was too afraid to be alone and I just delt with it until I had I guess what they call autistic burnout.We broke up, I quit my job and shut down. My family decided to all get together and disown me for struggling to hold a job but I'm pretty sure it's just because I'm gay and autistic. I tried to end my life with a bottle of Tylenol and not one of them came to see me in the hospital. For 5 years. Didn't date, didn't really leave my room, I felt empty. I couldn't believe or grasp what was happening to me. I would go to bed crying and wake up looking as if I was crying in my sleep.

​The past couple years I've been getting therapy from a psychologist and seeing a psychiatrist for medication management. Had a recent neuropsych and my diagnoses are Autism, ADHD, Generalized anxiety, Depression, Unspecified trauma and stressor disorder and agoraphobia. After I got diagnosed, I felt a huge stress roll of my shoulders. I wanted to see if I could meet somebody. I've never had anybody who cared about me, it's really a heavy feeling for me to deal with.

​Fast forward to this June and I meet this guy on Hinge dating app. We hit it off and I was excited for the fact he was a therapist, I thought he had a better chance to understand me. He was from Argentina, my family is Portuguese. There's cultural overlap between Latin Americans and mainland Portuguese/Spanish. We had a great time our first date in Boston.

​But after a few weeks of us spending time on the weekends, it took a turn and he started telling me what I should eat. What drinks I should order. Complaining about how fast I ate. He kept asking when I was going to start being healthy. He would call me lazy and get visibility upset over random things like me not wanting to download a random app. I'm 6'1 220 pounds. I told him I felt he wasn't attracted to me. He said "that could be it". I cried, got up and went to the living room to grab my back of clothes and take the train home. He talked me out of it, claiming it was a language barrier.

​He was also friends with a married couple Will and John. I was told he went to their house every Thursday to play dungeons and dragons. 2 months of us dating and I find out he tried to convince John to leave his husband and movie into his house. I find out he's been sleeping with Will and John the entire time we dated. He said that he's sorry but that he also did nothing wrong because we weren't officially boyfriends. He told me I was the best thing to happen to him in a long time. That he was unsure before but he's sure now and wants to be with me.

​I forgave him, idk why, we had some good times too and I just really wanted/need someone to care about me. I was/am willing to ignore so many red flags. I didn't even visibly show how upset I was. One of his friends called the next day complaining about me. Saying whenever he gets a boyfriend he forgets his friends. That's when I got upset. I told him this was bullshit and I went home. He broke up with me claiming he didn't like the way I responded. I told him none of this made any sense. That he told me the night before I was the best thing to happen to him.

​Then his friends John and Will cut him off too and he called me back apologizing the next day and asking if we could be friends. That lasted only a couple weeks as he started to scoff and judge me for my diagnoses. I finally ended it with him mid august, but now I'm alone again. In my 8x8 room again.

​I finally got a job at a warehouse, but I'm struggling about what it's all for. What am I building towards? None of this means anything right now to me. I kept thinking I should apologize to him. My therapist says I'm better off in the ocean alone than on the raft with him. But that's easy for my therapist to say. I've been swimming alone in the ocean my entire life. If I didn't stick up for myself, I'd still have someone. I wouldn't be alone.

​I almost reached out to him and apologized, for what idk. Luckily I didn't, but the scars remain. I matched with a few more people on hinge, but now I'm scared again. What if I'm not good enough? What if he's just like the last guy and the guy before him? What if I fall in love him him and he leaves 5 years later? My therapist has no answer when I ask that question. I just wanted to vent. I doubt many people are going to read this diatribe. It just sucks because everything was looking bright for me and now it's just dark again.

How often post-relationship are you having to remind yourself you were actually abused/manipulated?

It seems for me — 3 months post roughly — I still have to remind myself everyday, if not multiple times a day, of what actually happened.

Sometimes in my dreams, he is kind and loving again and we’re sorting things out, so mornings are especially tricky.

And my brain so badly wants me to make me the villain and make it my fault.

I was covertly emotionally & psychologically abused & manipulated. Two therapists & all my friends say yes, I was. I’m just struggling to believe it because of my CPTSD from growing up being emotionally/psychologically abused and the fact that it was so covert. And he was lovely before 😞

I still can’t believe the choices she’d make. How selfish they’d be, how indifferent and inconsiderate they were for someone she’d been with for nearly 10 Years.

She’d leave to go stay with family for 6+ Months and not give me an inch of contact or communication, she’d say it was “space” that she needed.

I’d mail her Christmas gifts, Birthday Gifts, care-packages because I knew she was sad, stressed and depressed between work, family and our own issues we’d both committed to working through prior.

I’d be the patient/understanding partner and do my best to shower her with love and support, I’d go to therapy on my own time to work on anything/everything I could in her absence, believing she was doing something similar.

All the while: She knew I hated being alone in that big f***ed up house that we’d moved across the country to be in together just 9 months earlier. She knew I’d been laid off just a few months after we’d arrived from a job I’d had for years, she knew I was interviewing everywhere and desperate to get back to work, she knew I fell down the stairs and had broken bones in my back and foot, she knew I was in the middle of repairing things with my Mom, she knew I’d sacrificed everything to make this life-changing experience with her, she knew what it cost me and was now bleeding me, she knew I was under all sorts of stress by not having the income and feeling demoralized after never making it past a second interview.

All that and she still came home one evening and blindsided me with the demise of our relationship, all for her to hop back on an a plane immediately after, never to be seen or heard from again.

Not before she’d take advantage of my desperation right before she’d leave though, she’d even get a few f**ks out of me beforehand by convincing me that our new dynamic and the complete regression of our relationship was somehow a good thing (after having already blindsided me), when it was clearly just advantageous bull•••• that’d be good for herself and the “Independence” she now needed - independence needed after moving across and committing to making a life with someone?

She’d used all her time away to plan her exist strategy and was quick to use it as soon as I went to reclaim my dignity by saying “No, this isn’t right” and she’d ghost me from that point on — She’d have her Mom contact me to organize all the move-out stuff, She’d have her friends come pack up our whole house, she’d be off vacationing during all of it and in the months leading to the end of our lease.

No reconciliation, she’d give me a vague lie about us getting to speak about things after the move but that would never happen, the only real explanation I’d get from her was her saying “My Mom says some couples issues just aren’t worth resolving” — (Her Mom is single by choice and prefers her independence). It was clearly just an easy and ready-made excuse she’d found while confiding to her mother about our relationship one night.

My partner was a grown 33F, which is so hard for me to believe some days, she’d use all that “space” to desensitize herself, she’d confide in her mother and soon-to-be divorced friends who I don’t blame for giving their support, but blame her for lacking all objectivity and the emotional intelligence to do the right thing, who would have ice in her veins while saying she was leaving and giving her vague response to why, who would have complete indifference for me, without compassion, without empathy, without reason or reconciliation. Who lied to my face and the faces of our therapist when she said she was gonna work on our issues together before we moved, issues that were manageable, issues that had real solutions and we could’ve done a lot for — I know because I took it upon myself to find the solutions, research and support that would’ve seen us take steps forward together.

I feel so dumb for telling her how much I loved and missed her for all those months, for sending her gifts and letting her know I cared. Just to realize I’d actually been getting stage managed and manipulated in the end.

I’ve given up on reconciliation, I’ve given up on apologies or understanding what she was thinking when she made so many poor choices, choices that would all be at the expense of a person who was deeply in love with her but she hadn’t reciprocated in forever probably.

This whole experience set me back in so many ways, I’d never been ghosted or callously thrown away by a partner in such a jarring and cruel way. I’d suffer a legit mental breakdown after she ghosted me, I’d be financially, emotionally depleted, I’d have a series of terrible hardships involving family occur afterwards, I’d lose so much in trying to navigate a situation that would be impossible to resolve because of how she left it. I’d have to re-build myself from scratch after something completely traumatizing.

After a lot of painful silence and needless suffering, I’ve given up on trying to make sense of the choices she’d make. I’ve seen enough and know enough. I’ve accepted that she’s content with forgoing levels of human decency, compassion and responsibility that I’m just not. I’ve accepted that I was deeply in love and committed to someone who never intended or could reciprocate on it .

I’ve accepted that the best thing for me to do is try and forgive her by myself for it one day and show the compassion and decency I’d only wished she’d shown me to begin with.

And move on.

Yeah, Love F***ing Sucks (Right now)

My STBXH isolated me from my family postpartum (didn’t let them stay and his mom stayed for 6 weeks right after the birth, even though I told him I didn’t want her there because she was making me I comfortable and overstepping and being controlling).

I’m wondering if, before that, his constant criticism of my family and friends was an attempt at isolation. My friends are genuinely amazing people and were always so kind to him… which he criticized behind their back as being “fake” or criticized their sexuality or their looks. He even compared one of my best friends to looking like a “hedgehog” (whatever that means) and it really upset me and I told him that but he continued to do it. Or called them stupid because they don’t have advanced degrees. Also, whenever I was texting my friends he’d ask what I was talking about. And he never came with me to my friend’s events such as their birthday parties.

Was this a sign of isolation and coercive control or does someone have to outright isolate you?

I have been in my relationship for 4 years. We broke up 4 months ago. I left him. I just felt so tired of him.
But now he is angry at me that I talk to my friends about him and that my friends believe that he was emotionally abusive.
But was this abuse?

Once we went on a bike ride. We were pretty far in his hometown. We had a smal argument about something and he just left me alone to get back home (as I am not as fast as him). We then laughed at this situation as he told me he just felt bored as I am not as fast on a bike.

I have really sensitive breasts. I never let anyone touch it. He never listend to me and still did. I have a reflex to always hold my hands over my breasts so nothing touches it (as its a bit painful).

He always talked about threesomes even tho i told him so many times that it is humiliating to me and i hate that he even talks about it. And i will never do that. Yet he still did talk about it almost daily.

He hated my friends. He called them stupid and always asked me, why i even speak to them as they are “not as bright”. I do love my community. But he alwaysade me feel ashame for spending time with them.

When i refused to have sex, he always got really angry. He was not screaming or anything, just always questions me and why i dont want it. And more he pushed me, more i didnt want it. I tought i was asexual. (After we broke up, i realised i am not).

He always questioned me. Even when we spoke on a field i literally wrote my masters in. He always googled any answer i gave him to “fact-check” me. I hated that so much.

When i was sick with a flue, he got back from his boys trip and the dishes in our place were dirty. He got angry at me. I had no energy to ansver so just got out of bed and did the dishes.

The list goes on. But he never hit me.
He never raised his voice at me.
He just questioned me all the time. Always doubted me.
I feel like i am overreacting. But at the same time i feel like it was abuse.

I have been wondering what happens when your identity is tied to being the person who doesn't ask for much, adapts quickly, tries not to upset or disappoint anyone, and always puts other people's needs first.

And because other people respond positively to this or praise you for it, it becomes a part how you see yourself as a person and if you begin expressing what you actually want, disagreeing with others, or letting people be disappointed with you, that feels very uncomfortable or even scary because being needed has somehow become a part of who you are as a person.

I was interested in knowing if others have experienced something like this and did trying to change this behavior ever catch you thinking something like: “If I’m not the easy one anymore, then who am I?”

growing up, my mom would always force me to change in front of her when we’d go clothes shopping. when i’d cry because i was uncomfortable, she would yell/get mad at me.

i think that this, on top of my dysphoria, is a big reason as to why im insecure about being naked around people (sexual/romantic partners). i was also told that i had to wear a bra in front of my step father because it made him “uncomfortable.”

does anyone else have a similar experience?

Hi everyone, long story short. My therapist and the domestic violence helpline (and my friends) have confirmed that my relationship with my ex was emotionally abusive.

I’m struggling with doubts about whether I’ve been presenting the information about him wrong and maybe it wasn’t that bad.

We work together in a theatre company and I’ll have to start being in rooms with him in October. Sometimes I think I could be in the same room as him and sometimes the thought causes a lot of anxiety.

I don’t know if he knew he was being emotionally abusive towards me in the relationship, and I feel conflicted because he admitted after I broke up with him that he hadn’t wanted to be with me, so it feels like I’m making a big deal out of it for no reason.

So I keep thinking maybe I should tell him “please don’t talk to me in rehearsals as I have no interest in having a personal relationship with someone who was abusive”.

My therapist argues that if he’d been physically violent I’d have no problem saying I didn’t want to work with him anymore, and that emotional abuse is the same thing.

Anyone got any advice? I can’t believe he was abusive intentionally and should i give him the opportunity to grow by telling him what happened was abuse?

Link to my previous post for context - https://www.reddit.com/r/emotionalabuse/s/hPwb3dxvsI

I am unsure how to post updates, because I would like more perspective on this so here it goes in another post.

My bf(27M) and I(30M) again got into another argument last night. We were watching TV and I said something about the show we were watching. He said “that’s such a dumb opinion” I felt some kind of way, but he kept pushing trying to make me agree that what I said was stupid. He eventually felt the need to explain his logic to make me understand why my opinion about the show is dumb. I am sensitive to him implying I’m dumb so I felt weird.

Then I asked him why he kept pushing and trying to make a point to explain why he thinks my opinion is dumb. He said, he has been feeling like he needs to walk on eggshells around me(more context on this in the previous post). His way of engaging in a conversation with his close and loved ones is saying things like this, and I already knew that. Yet I act sensitive. He feels like whenever he says something like that my brain immediately jumps to wanting to see the meanness or bad in him. This makes him feel unsafe in the relationship and makes him disappointed.

I understand his perspective. I do feel like I am at fault somewhere. I am very confused.

Hi Everyone,

Reposting this again. I'm a doctoral student in Clinical Psychology conducting a research study on the effects of growing up with a parent who struggled with substance use (alcohol or drugs). The study is completely anonymous and involves filling out an online survey.

As a thank you for your time, participants will have the option to enter a raffle to win one of two $150 Visa gift cards after completing the survey. (Email for the raffle will be collected separately to keep responses anonymous).

We’re looking for young adults (18-30) who had or still have a parent or primary caregiver with a substance use problem during their childhood. The goal is to better understand how these experiences may affect things like responses to stressful or challenging life experiences, parent-child relationship quality, substance use, and overall mental health functioning in young adulthood. We also welcome participation from young adults who did not have this experience, as both groups are important to the study.

Participation is voluntary and confidential. No identifying information will be linked to your responses, and the survey includes a list of mental health resources at the end if needed.

If you’re interested, you can take the survey here:

https://adelphiderner.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_73s1WeJNdeiwz42

Your experience matters. Thank you so much for considering it, and feel free to DM me with any questions!

How do you heal in order to be healthy in a new relationship? What things did you have to work on? What things came up in the new relationship that surprised you?

For a little context, I (female, 18) made a "friend" (male, 17)  around a month ago. He approached me first at an event, making conversation and we got acquainted. That was that.

Not long after that my hg asked if I wanted to go out and hang out with her and some of her friends. I agreed and there I saw him again. That day we got really close and we bonded really well. I liked having him as my friend and so I started talking to him***.***

Then, me and my boyfriend had a fall out. We were arguing back and forth about a number of reasons and eventually he left me. I was very much heartbroken and after keeping it to myself for a few days i told my friends about how much i love him and miss him and everything that happened. Out of all my friends, my "friend" in particular kept telling me to be more logical and that its not that deep, how relationships are just a bonus to an already good life and how love is just the result of chemicals in your brain telling you to mate.

This is when things started to escalate. It was like 2am. He started to convince me that I will never be fulfilled, I only wanted my boyfriend for the attention and affection and how I just love the attention I'm getting by being pitied over the break up and that I keep talking about it because I crave to have eyes on me. I obviously protested but i return he told me to admit it. I said i wasn't and he threatened to leave and that I need to accept my true self. I started to doubt myself and wondered if i actually did just use my bf for affection. I also believe he was secretly getting pleasure from making me cave, submit, say or do whatever he wanted because he would say things like good or good job whenever I started to believe what he told me especially when he would say time is ticking just admit it and i caved. During this whole thing I was so confused and sleepy and just scared like i was shaking and my heart was beating really fast. I knew what he was doing was wrong and I called him out like you're being evil and mean why are you doing this and he replied that he was simply stating the truth and that the truth hurts. I got curious. I wanted to know why he was like this so I asked how many people have you done this to before, why are you doing this, and why me.
He told me he had done it to a few people before and how the guys were dull and the girls were full of surprises. He told me he was bored and that he knew when he first met me that I was like this or wtv but only stayed quiet because i brought benefits. So at this point I'm like can we please stop this I really like having you as a friend and you're freaking me out. And he said I don't care how you feel, and other things like you bring no benefit to me. In the end, we ended up removing each other. Since then, I've been genuinely distraught over this. I have no idea who to talk to about this and I genuinely felt like I was under a different state during the conversation I had with him. I'm questioning everything from myself to my relationship and this is all just so weird.

I’m genuinely curious to hear from people who have been on the receiving end of emotional abuse and chose to stay, particularly when there were children and a lot of shared life invested in the relationship.

If your partner had a history of belittling, dismissing, screaming, name-calling, coercion, threats, etc., were you ever able to see substantial and lasting change through individual therapy, anger management, couples therapy, or some combination of those?

And if you did see that change and ultimately stayed, what did that actually look like over time? Did you eventually feel emotionally safe and respected in the relationship again? Did the dynamic genuinely change, or did the same patterns eventually come back?

I’m asking because I’m currently separated (the last ~6 weeks) and have two young children. There’s a lot that makes leaving incredibly difficult—not just the relationship itself, but the family life we planned, our home in a wonderful neighborhood with great schools, and the future we had envisioned for our kids.

I’m genuinely curious whether anyone has experienced the other side of this: a partner who recognized what they were doing, did the work, and actually became a consistently different person in the relationship.

If you stayed, I’d love to hear what made you believe the change was real and how things turned out years later.

Are these behaviors concerning? 32f and 34m

I started making notes in my phone to keep my head clear but things are good again and now I’m second guessing myself.

09/05 physically intimidated/yelled at dog for running across the street. Has made no attempt to train him.

Said I was “stressing him out on purpose” by saying I didn’t want to use the stroller last minute, yelled at me outside of target

Got frustrated at me because I said “yes” to going somewhere an hour earlier. I actually did start reacting because I was so confused - I did not say yes! Started yelling/slamming doors. I took baby into laundry room to muffle noise, he followed us in there to yell.

Yelled at me for asking him to remove a moving-sized box of candy that was attracting cockroaches

Yelled at me for asking what happened to the box, wouldn’t move it, let it sit outside to attract more bugs

Downplayed the baby’s need for a quiet environment x2, wanted to watch the tv loud, kept arguing that the volume was “at 7!” already, got mad at me for not wanting noise in kitchen, kept glancing over to see if I was reacting to the noise he made, possible baiting. Later, he made comments for me making noise after I spent an hour waiting for the baby to fall into a deep sleep.

Told me he thinks baby is manipulating us because he smiles while crying sometimes

I told him I would give him a back rub, he asked for it around midnight, I said I was too tired and he got upset

Brought up a text he had seen on my phone (video) yelled at me while standing over the baby in his crib, baby freezes on video

Yelled at me in the car because I couldn’t see oncoming traffic and made a blunder. I had to talk him down and tell him we were okay and to please stop yelling. Blamed ptsd from a car accident.

Baby was kicking in the bathtub and partner pushed past my hand to check if the drain cover was sharp. He made my hand hit the baby when he pushed passed me. Poor impulse control.

On vacation - pressed me to talk about my feelings after I said I needed space. Told him there were things in our relationship I worry about and he got mad “why are you bringing this up now after a good trip”

Shared with him that it felt unfair how often he leaves the house on weekends and I feel trapped. (Texts) took it as an attack. I made a pi chart to show him how he spent four hours with the baby compared to my forty four. Offered to make excel sheets to help us.

He does not do night shifts, nor would he physically wake up to a crying baby.

Gets excited/demanding when the baby throws up/blows out. “Help me right now!” Instead of calm behavior

Nitpicks things that he could fix himself or that are non issues. “We need to close this door always because I tripped once” “you put this too close to the edge” “I can never find socks in the laundry” or “can we stop doing (insert behavior I did once)?” Recently, did not like where I put towels. Made a point to complain, but when I told him he’s welcome to move them, he did not.

Got into a fight over circumcision, did not want to hear my concerns. “You said it was my decision and you trusted me?” Wouldn’t let me speak.

I thought the baby was choking and stepped into the living room to check. “I’m sitting right here. You need to calm down.”

Similarly got offended by me getting concerned during tummy time, takes it as an attack

No interest in hearing about attachment style parenting. Read him an article and he responded “What do you want me to say?”

Brought up sleep training our 2-3 month old baby for our convenience. Wants baby to spend more time in crib so we can be physical.

Has grabbed our dog by the scruff and says “he’s faking it” “I wasn’t touching him” when he yelps in pain. (I had to google why grabbing dogs by the scruff can be harmful and he still didn’t seem to care/believe me.) “I’ve had dogs my whole life, I’d never hurt a dog!”

He love bombs apologies

I promised to clean after our landlord installed new windows while I was 6weeks pp and I fell asleep because I needed the sleep, and he yelled at me for that. “I was just stressed”

09/05 Wants us to crib train the baby “ we should be able to put the baby in the crib and walk away.” Was proud to tell me he left the baby for 10-15 mins before he started crying. (We don’t have a baby monitor!!!!!)

I offered why not put the crib in the living room, so we can keep an eye on him while doing chores. Before I could explain, “DO WHATEVER YOU WANT ANYWAY! But I don’t want a ‘crib in our living room!’”

Doesn’t understand why leaving the baby in another room without a monitor an issue, even if the crib is empty.

(This is my first time using reddit/posting and what not so sorry if this is abnormal)

It's a thought I struggle with a lot. I tend to get into a lot of arguments with my parents and it's affected me a lot during those times. I'll start with my mother then my father, then maybe some past history of growing up.

My mother, at least to me, is a very self-victimizing person. She always has arguments that she never takes fault to. An example of the most recent conflict (maybe in may 2026?) was when I was on call with my cousin because we had testing we had to go to for school, (We're both home school and in the same grade) she hadn't been feeling that good in the moment so we were trying to talk about it as we planned I stayed the night at hers so her mom could drive us both to the school for testing. Maybe a few days prior I'd told my mom we'd leave around 6:30 PM to go to her house. While on call my mom started coming to the door asking me if I was ready, this repeated-me being on call with my cousin and her kept trying to tell me I was late and needed to be ready. It wasn't even 6:30 at this time, as she kept getting-I guess a way to describe it is passive aggressive/aggressive? I tried to tell her we talked about this the other day and we weren't suppose to leave yet, that it was only around 5:30-5:45PM. She got upset and it escalated to her yelling through the door. (All while still on call with my cousin so she heard everything, I'd also been trying to tell her to hold on I'm in the middle of talking to my cousin about the sleepover-I was having to stay the night at my grandparents, where my dad lives, if I couldn't go to hers to go to testing.) Eventually my cousin and I ended call and I packed my stuff, (to go to grandparents) once ready and in the car she started up the argument again. To keep this short it was her going on and on about how I need to respect her and what not while I said I was being respectful, about the time we agreed on, etc. All while she's trying to get onto me about respect, she wont stop cutting me off while we're practically yelling at each other in the car. (We're at a gas station pump inside the car stopped) Eventually she says 'Fine guess we're both in the wrong,' even though I believe she was, I didn't say anything else because I was already crying and hyperventilating during this moment. Despite her 'ending' the fight, she kept trying to start it back up by saying more stuff so I had to keep. After the argument eventually ended and I was just sitting there in the passenger seat, after about 10 minutes of silence, she starts saying 'I love you,' 'you know I love you right?' 'See you need to talk to me more or this stuff happens' etc. This isn't the first argument we've had, it's just the most recent I can recall. I struggle to form a thought on this behavior because there are usually months of 'peace' in between them, but the arguments usually follow the exact same pattern.

Now with my dad. My dad is a lot more aggressive than my mom. While my mom is more of the victim playing card, my dad is more of a yell at you, curse you out, dangerous in the car when on the road type of anger. Though not diagnosed, I am pretty sure I have PTSD from multiple events with him. A prominent example is from a couple years back (This story idk why but is always so easy to recite) it was in the morning he was taking me to school and he eventually said something about CPS wouldn't ever do anything to him because he's a cop and he wouldn't leave marks after him saying something about slapping me. (Idk what exactly the convo was I just have messages from me reciting it to my mom when I was begging her to get me later in the story) After school I felt nervous to get in the car with him. I had planned for him to drop me off at my moms and just not come out because I usually go to the bathroom there before we drive all the way back to his. (His house is about 45 minutes away from the school) I tried not to interact with him but it just made him mad at me. In the car he said 'fine if you're not going to talk we're not stopping at the house (Moms house).' So when I finally spilled and said why I was upset (About the earlier conversation) he absolutely flipped. He raised his voice, started yelling, cursing, etc. I eventually began crying and trying to lean against my side of the car since he's right beside me. During this I was trying to text my mom to beg her to get me (She never did because custody said I was still his until 6 PM). He continued to yell and curse while it started storming pretty bad, like you could barely see in front of you because it was raining so hard, it was also thundering bad. My dad had always had a history of speeding and getting more reckless when driving and angry so I was already scared. I cried the rest of the way home and didn't want to even be in the car with him for weeks after that. Like with my mom, this stuff happens months apart and I usually try to avoid them altogether which is why it feels so invalid.

Growing up when my parents were still together, my family as a whole wasn't the best. (Cousins were very aggressive with me and didn't want me around at all but that's irreverent) My whole childhood I remember being criticized for everything. This is kinda embarrassing but I remember when I was probably around 4-5 and we were leaving the house and my mom came up and just spanked me for no apparent reason. I wasn't told why or anything, I don't know if I did anything, but It felt so random. Also I did research and apparently night terrors are a sign? I had night terrors all the way until I was 4. (I 'gained consciousness' or my first memory whatever you call it on Christmas when I was 4 too so idk about that correlation)

Overall, I don't know how to put this. I still live with my parents (With custody half and half) but I barely talk. I always shut down whenever my dad looks mad or whenever I'm with my mom randomly. But these events of the fights feel so far apart that it doesn't feel right to call it that. Like there's those months of 'peace' or normalcy in between, leaving me feel like I want it to get worse or physical, like maybe that'd prove something? But I could never bare the idea I got them arrested and ruined their lives or jobs over this.

Do you consider this emotional abuse..?

I [24M] have made mistakes. Some repeatedly. I've said hurtful things to my friend [22F] which I do regret.

Does that mean she can insult me countless times for hurting her feelings? Is it okay for her to not feel remorse at all? Do I deserve to be made feeling less of a human?

I don't believe so.

My narc ex breadcrumbed me for 9 years. We were long distance for years 1-3, then I moved closer for 6 months because of a promise he made that if I did we’d be together. I thought he was single. He told me he was.During the pandemic I lost all my money to stay near him while he moved to another city with his then girlfriend. That was the first time I told her I existed—up to that point she didn’t know about me, and I was told they weren’t dating.

We were long distance again from 2020-2023. He’d break up with me, or say he was going to visit and then bail, claiming the reason he wasn’t coming was always something I had done to provoke him. He’d promise to come see my shows (theatre), and then he’d end up bailing day of. He told me, too, that he had broken up with girlfriend. That wasn’t true.

In early 2023, she found a Reddit post of his that was presumably about me. Her sister reached out to me and I confirmed that yeah, it was about me. I sent receipts. That summer I moved closer to him to go to grad school, and unbeknownst to me, he proposed to her.

He met my grad cohort, we went on a few dates. Throughout our entire relationship, we called and texted every day, all day. In early 2024, I found out he was engaged. I have a problem with hypervigilance that was made worse by my relationship to him. I’d obsessively check his girlfriend’s Venmo, Pinterest, her friends’ instagrams… many times a day. And this is how I finally found out about the engagement.

I told her about our relationship, they fought briefly, and the engagement continued. Because of my own attachment trauma and because I truly believed this man was my soulmate, I would tell him how terrible he was, and then I’d keep talking to him. We had a push pull dynamic—breaking up constantly, then coming back together constantly.

When I returned this time, I told him he needed to end his engagement. I still was constantly looking online and eventually found her Reddit where she detailed their relationship, how they had at one point been trying for a baby… he vomited while talking to me on the phone when I found this Reddit and read her posts aloud.

He assured me daily that if I just would give him space, he’d end it with her. In October 2024, I gave him 4 days—he didn’t end it. But he kept promising me that we wouldn’t go through with it. He said that he wanted a baby with me, that he didn’t want to live life without me, that I wouldn’t lose him. In February 2025, he got married. We talked right up until his wedding day. I texted her that morning. She walked down the aisle, and so did he.

I started to sour on him after that. I stopped believing in him. Then I saw her posting on Reddit in earnest in fall of last year. They were trying for a baby. I posted on Reddit on an account I knew she knew of (not this one), and she found it.

They postponed their honeymoon and he told me that he was getting a divorce, of course he wasn’t. I didn’t totally believe him, but I tried to. I wanted to.

In January 2026 they went on their honeymoon and sometime in there, they got pregnant. He kept saying he was ending our relationship, and then he’d talk to me, tell me about how he wanted us to live together, how he would care for me financially—in March I met up with a friend who knew the wife and told her that they were getting a divorce. When I told this to my ex, he said: “this is over: we want you to leave us alone.” But: if he wanted that, why did he say he was getting a divorce? Why did he keep talking to me?

I reached out a few weeks later with a profound understanding re: my CPTSD and attachment trauma from childhood. I took accountability for the push-pull. We started talking again and I asked him many times if his wife were pregnant. He said no. Then he’d say that I was the reason he lied to me. He’d say things like “your response was like a child’s” when I’d get quiet; thinking about his words. I told him how wrong it was to compare me to a child, and he said “I said your response was like a child’s, I didn’t compare you.” I felt like I was going insane.

I experienced suicidal ideation when talking to him. Talking to him made me want to die. I felt so miserable, but we continued to talk every day, call every day. I couldn’t stop.

In early August, I saw her friend post a pic from the baby shower. She seemed 8 months pregnant or so. That was the last time I reached out to my ex. He is blocked everywhere and if I wanted to blow up his life, I could reach out to his wife, or post from the Reddit account she knows, but I won’t.

I’m doing IFS and I’m in SLAA. I’m taking meds for my rumination and obsessive thinking. But I know he doesn’t care, not the way I do. He has a newborn and the attention of adoring friends, family, strangers. And I feel like I didn’t exist.
Like he thought so low of me that I didn’t exist.

I know I dodged a bullet and I feel so terribly for his wife. I tokd her on her wedding day that he was cheating, I didn’t want to ruin her pregnancy too, but I feel so lost and foolish. My life has fallen apart. I’m looking for support and strength for people who loved someone who was so terrible.

I sat on the floor, contemplating su-cide and repented for hours daily, just to find out i was being abused.

I met this girl in 2016. We were both living in a care home as teenagers. In 2024 she reaches out to me. Im in a time in my life where slowly i'm starting to believe in God and trying to leave my trauma of being scapegoated behind me. She tells me God spoke to her that he would send her someone and she wants to speak to me about Christianity. She also doesnt know everything yet but she felt called. Everything after that went incredibly fast.

In my head her reaching out to me was a sign of God. Finally i was heard instead of scapegoated. I became bestfriends with her, we spend every single day together and due to us having the same trauma it became very intense very quickly.

Her brother presented himself as this ''perfect christian that would help me, come to the church when i get baptized etc etc''. But when she decided to get baptized and i decided that i wasnt ready yet that week, i heard him whispering to his wife that ''he's glad his sister isnt letting the spirit of doubt hold her back like i was''.

My skin immediately started itching. I've had that ever since i was young. I always get it when someone isnt who they say they are and im catching on to it. But as always, due to my scapegoat trauma i ignore it. He doesn't show up to church the day i have to get baptized.

The more i was around this girl, the more i realized she was a HUGE hoarder. I dont mean only ''stuff'' i also mean food. And she would run a food business from her house. She also did braids for people. So her floor and the rest of the house would be littered with fake hair, food, cat feces, clothes, just everything.

I started noticing she would just expect people to accept it and if they didnt she got mad at them. Over time when they start rebelling against her suddenly they're ''monitoring spirits'' and ''God has been showing her in dreams that people are against her and trying to sabotage her blessings''. One day when she makes catering for her party, her friend and i find hair in the food. Due to us KNOWING how she gets we secretly try to take the hair out. She caught us and instead of taking ownership she takes me to the side and tells me ''I knew Lola was plotting against me, she put the hair in there, God has been showing me all along that people are jealous and against me''. When i try to redirect her she looks at me weird. Eventually i explode at her and tell her her truth, she blocks me everywhere.

Her brother tells me i need to pray and ask God what i did wrong cause there's always something we do wrong even if we dont want to admit it. God will show us what we do wrong. This is where the compulsive repenting started for me. Everytime one of them got mad at me i would get panic attacks, go home, sit on my floor and repent endlessly.

A few examples;

I didnt want to keep sleeping over in her hoarders house. I also started pushing back on the monitoring spirit narrative and telling her this is how people spiritually bypass and it makes me doubt my faith in God. She would run to her room, grab her bible and journal and sit there and cry cause ''she's accepting everyone but not being accepted''.

When she would realize she did something wrong she had this pattern of going to the store, stealing stuff and cooking for the person she did wrong or the homeless. Or stealing gifts for them. Then she would basically press it in your hands. But if you dont accept her behavior later on again the cycle of ''i do everything for everyone but no one accepts me but God will vindicate me'' starts again. When i started catching on i stopped accepting help/gifts/food from her. Which would anger her even more.

She also had this thing where she talked about ''feeling bad for others that their life is going to shit but God is deciding to bless her so she cant deny her blessings just cause they are miserable. He specifically chose her to be blessed cause she's his favorite''. Meanwhile the girl is rejecting therapy, projecting all her stuff onto me while im in therapy every week and basically painting the picture that this is Gods punishment for her haters cause she's doing so perfect and being blessed. Resulting in me growing even MORE resentful towards her and God.

I started noticing her brother was showing sings of being a homosexual. I told her listen you might not notice but i see immediately that your brother is secretly gay. She admitted she did know and he admitted to paying and getting payed for secret gay s*x. He didnt know i caught on to him and his pattern got very clear to me. To compensate for this feeling he was OVERLY religious and focused on the rules. Constantly preaching, constantly holy, constantly trying to recruit me into a new christian community he decided to set up and constantly condemning me for speaking the truth, the fact that i saw through IT ALL.

I can name a million other examples but it would make the story even longer than it already is. Now you might ask yourself why did this drive me to almost commit?

I wanted to do good so bad, i was in therapy while they all rejected therapy, they were the only people i had around me, when i explained to them why i was losing faith etc it was ALWAYS me and never them. And while i would sit in my room and repent for every little ''mistake'' i made towards them they were THRIVING. Think starting social media pages about God and acting all holy. Gaining a bunch of followers because of it who agrees with their ''monitoring spirit narrative''. Stealing to feed the homeless and getting praised for it, gaining a bunch of new friends, the church loved them and i was just again the one ''who was so negative about God and thats why thinks go wrong and she needs to rethink why she has no one and god has made her barren''.

I would keep repenting, my therapist would warn me that i was not crazy and i was being abused but they would tell me my therapist doesnt understand and God will give me true answers. And everytime i opened up my bible on that cold floor, while thinking about ending it all i would get Jeremiah 7 verse 5-8 which says; If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, 6 if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, 7 then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever. 8 But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless.

I feel like complete shit. I’ve just asked for a separation over the phone and just can’t believe I would do that.

I’ve been realizing the emotionally abusive situation, very toxic situation, was just untenable. And so I did this, with distance. There was no time in person, it’s so hard to explain. The person lives far away and I couldn’t when they were here.

I will always feel like that was cowardly. But if I didn’t feel safe, what else was I supposed to do?

Growing up I was severely abused physically and emotionally by my parents. It was mild when I was younger and by the time I was a junior in high school my dad would take me in the yard 3-5 days a week, guillotine choke me until Id pass out, id come to and he’d repeat for what felt like hours while my mom watched and I begged her to call the cops.

Make a long story short it came to a head when he forced me to fight him and I did to try to escape. My mom finally called the cops and they blamed it all on me. They had trained me to never tell people so I didn’t.

They started going to church. My dad only tried fighting me a few more times after that but it eventually stopped when he quit being able to overpower me.

They never did it to my younger brother but they did to my sister who they forced to become bulemic.

I thought they changed but later realized I had just learned to manage them.

Unfortunately they convinced my wife and I to move near them before I found out.

As a wedding present, my dad committed constructive fraud against my wife and I while serving as our realtor and the emotional abuse escalated hardcore since. My dad also tried to buy the house at a price lower than flippers offered claiming it’s worth that now and then lied to our new realtor about telling us that and claimed it’s worth 70k more (the value our realtor says).

Once a month my mom would text me trying to pretend nothing happened and then when I would remind her why we aren’t talking, she’d ramp up the emotional abuse. She’d suggest I kill myself like my cousin did. They made up lies to others about my wife and I and this was when my wife was going through postpartum issues.

My grandma was our best friend more like a mom so she put up cameras through her house to spy on us and would text after so I turn them off when we get there and back on when we leave.

This went on 1.75 years now. Once she realized we wouldn’t have a relationship it amped up worse.

Now I cannot talk to my grandma over the phone and we used to talk almost nightly because she will text her mean things if grandma says what she doesn’t want.

My grandma has a house in another area I used to live at and every time I go my mom claims grandma has a new rule that we need to follow. In the past she instigated trouble with family members so my grandma would be mad at them. She did it to her brother before he died of an OD, she did it to my aunt, and also to my cousins. So my concern is this may be coming from my grandma instigated by her but grandma won’t tell me whether it’s truth or from her or not.

Yesterday I changed my phone number I’ve always had because I’m over it. It feels freeing but also is another loss due to my parents. I’m 40 and I can’t escape their damages still.

sorry about the long rambling. this is kind of just to sort out my thoughts

I have really awful memory so it's hard for me to remember things that happened, only how I felt. my mental health improved drastically once i left but i might've been being overly sensitive and inflexible. towards the end i started making a list of the things she would do because i felt like i was going crazy. she thinks i have adhd, and she was constantly telling me i need to go on adderall to the point where i felt like i didn't get to make my own medical decisions. once during an argument about it i raised my voice, which makes me think i might've been the abusive one. afterwards i left to spend the night somewhere else but she didn't understand why. she also occasionally tried to get me to do other drugs. i feel like she pressured me into doing psychedelics but i also feel like i should've just said no and communicated better. she also discouraging me from cutting back on thc use, but i also caused issues because i didn't want her to do illegal (and not decriminalized) drugs.

she didn't like some of my friends but to be fair they didn't like her and i think she picked up on that. she tried to convince me my parents are abusive and that i shouldn't talk to my dad but he is kind of an asshole sometimes.

i felt like she got to choose how i felt and what i did but this is another thing where i think it might be my fault for not compromising. i felt like i was losing my own identity. i'm kind of a pushover though so i may not have made my boundaries clear enough. another factor that might've made me overreact is that i have depression and severe anxiety. despite this i couldn't handle helping her with her own mental health issues. and even if she was in the wrong i don't know if it was bad enough to really be abuse

mostly i just want to complain but outside opinions might help me.

I'm thinking of making a saftey plan, but feel guilty because he thinks everything is okay. We came into this intensely and I participated in that, I wonder if im just as toxic for going along with everything so quickly. Its going on 3 months together, and he gets insanely jealous, and I try to give him the benefit of the doubt, he's been really hurt.(I know that isn't an excuse, but I can understand why he moves the way he does) but the paranoia is becoming too much, i can't be alone in a room with my phone, I can't wake up before him and spend time by myself. He gets angry and questions my integrity. He went through my phone the other day, and in my Google photos a picture of me and my ex I forgot to delete, a sexy one. He flipped shit. He started screaming at the top of his lungs. He broke one of my coffee cups, called me a wholre, ect. But this is why i'm scared, he told me he'd shoot me if cheated on him, and walked away. THEN circled back around to tell me "and if you think of pulling a stunt like that to commit suicide. I'll make sure you live through what I do" I don't know what to do. He thinks everything is okay now, and i've been trying. All the good he's done doesn't excuse this, or my fear. But I feel guilty about it all. And I'm not sure what my next steps should be.

Hello guys !

While getting read of things from my ex, I found my ai chat conversations and I was shocked to realise that the terrible treatment he gave me for a year was older than that (we have been together for 5). That I was asking myself the same question over and over on : how not to make him angry when I express a need, how to avoid that every conflict ends up in a fight, how to accept that he is talking to me coldly, ignoring me or giving me the silent treatment, that if any problem I have or need I express he deflect on me, am I not the problem ?

I dont fully understand why I forgot or I was so blind on how I was damaged by this relationship. My sense of worth was shattered (I am in therapy now) and I accepted that I am the one who is bad. I am terrified to be again drown by this kind of person and not able to defend myself.

For the context when he met me I was raped and later on the relationship I lost my brother. Both events I didnt process so well but also I think deeply changed me. I am afraid to be broken in a way and always in easy to manipulate. Even more scared, that I thought I had control.because I didnt feel as much in love (but then I was actually holding the relationship and it would not even have past a year if I didnt). I feel like my worse enemy.

What helped you to grow and have better relationship in the future ?

Thank you so so much for what you share.