Originally Posted by
Member10
My boyfriend always says that nobody in the world will love and care for me like he does. He says that I can never find such a good boyfriend like him.
That is a typical tactic used by abusers. They convince you, and themselves, that they're doing everything out of love and that no one could possibly treat you better.
If that fails, then the move onto the old stand by. 'I'm doing this for your own good.' they convince you that you're a bad person who NEEDS to be punished to be kept in line and out of trouble.
I don't know. It's hard to let go. I mean, what if he truly loves me? Will I let such a guy disappear in my life?
A guy who accuses you of the most horrible things, calls you a dirty whore, hits you, and controls every aspect of your life? That is NOT love. In any form. The sooner you get away from him, the sooner you can begin to understand and believe that again.
And as for my family. They don't know anything about it. When we broke up earlier because he hit and slapped me, I didn't tell my parents. I hid my bruises and just pretended nothing happened. I don't want them to worry.
My parents knew that we broke up when he visited my house the next day. He told them.
My mom asked me why, I just said that he didn't allow me to go out with my friends, I have no freedom with him.
However, my mom thinks that it's my problem. She said that he is just caring for me. My mom always see him as a decent boyfriend because he sends me home everyday without fail. Even when he is sick or it's getting late.
Whenever we quarrel, my mom thinks that it's my temper causing all the problems.
My father didn't ask anything. He knows that I wouldn't speak a word about my problems.
That's very typical. The average abuser is charming and charismatic and just generally like-able I public. They are the masters of deception. They develop ways to hide their true nature so they can draw people in and not get caught.
Think about it. Do you think an abuser would ever make it to that point if they approached every situation with angry yelling, threats, accusations, and violence? no. they find their victims by charming them, drawing them in, then manipulating them into staying. They have an uncanny ability to know exactly what people need to hear and when they need to hear it. They can judge a person in an instant, which is how they find their victims.
I'm guessing you were quiet, shy, and kind of awkward before you started dating him. It was obvious that you had a circle of friends you talked to, but you didn't go out of your way to talk to other people. You care deeply about your friends, and probably spent a lot of your time looking out for them and listening to their problems and offering advice. You probably don't have any obvious passions, like art or music, just a few hobbies here and there. You've led a sheltered and quiet life. You're family isn't bad, but you're not extremely close.
That's the most common type that abusers pick out.
The other type is the tortured soul. Those people already hate themselves, feel rejected by everyone, have a history of at least one type of abuse, and will cling to anyone willing to offer even the smallest token of affection.
He'll be really good at hiding his true colors from people. His closest friends may not even know what he's like. His parents probably have an idea, since the abilities needed by abusers are developed and honed during childhood, but won't admit the whole truth to themselves. Either he learned by watching his father, or he treats them much the same way he treats you.
You're parents will never know what he's really like until you TRULY break up with him. When that happens, they will see an ugly side of him that even you haven't met, yet. He will show up and call and do anything else he thinks might get to you. He'll go from begging, to demanding, to threatening, to apologizing, then start over.
You need to tell your parents what's going on. If you don't, then he'll get to them and do his best to convince them to let him see you. The last thing you want is to come home and find him sitting on your couch.
They may not believe you at first. No one likes to think that something like this can hide right under their nose for so long and they never noticed. They'll accuse you of overreacting and blowing things out of proportion. They may even accuse you of lying. You'll need to tell them the worst details, ESPECIALLY that he hit you so hard it left bruises, to get them to understand.
Recently, a very good friend of mine asked me about my problems with him. I didn't have the courage to tell him.
Everyone sees me as a happy person and I really do not want to spoil that image.
You'll need to get over that. You're going to need as much support as you can get to get through leaving him. No matter what, you DO need to leave him.
My mother was in an abusive relationship for a few years. He would scream at her and hit her and had her convinced it was her fault and she deserved it. She wasn't allowed to go anywhere or do anything. He went through the mail to make sure she wasn't sending letters to anyone. If she was on the phone, he was listening in. she wasn't even allowed to shower on her own. He took the bathroom door off the hinges the one time she tried. For more than two years, she had NO contact with her family or friends.
When she left him, she was on her own. I was an infant, and she was pregnant with my brother. She ended up staying in the battered women's shelter until she could convince her parents to take her in. they blamed her for staying, not him for his actions. She moved to another county, got a new job, and filed for divorce in a newspaper ad (she had to run the ad in the local paper to show that she'd 'tried' to contact him for the divorce before the judge would grant it as 'no contest').
Several years later, he tracked us down and tried to ruin our lives. He claimed that she had cheated on him and that neither of us were his children. The state took away the child support we'd been getting (which was our only source of income at the time). It took months of sorting out before they figured out that he had shown up to the welfare office with a tall blond woman, that was definitely NOT my short brunette mother, who claimed to be our mother and who said that we weren't his children.
Thankfully, he didn't know where we lived. He was only able to find out what county we were in. my mom STILL doesn't let her phone number be listed in the phone book. If it had been, then I have very little doubt that he would've shown up to our door to confront, and probably attack, her.
Don't let yourself become another statistic of the battered girlfriend/wife who wears make up and long sleeves to cover the bruises and is always 'running into doors' and 'falling down stairs.' don't allow yourself to be put in the situation where you have a child that ties you to him forever, and that he can use against you. He WILL end up hitting that child, probably before it's old enough to hit back or tell anyone what happened.
Don't wait any longer to leave him. You live at home, so you don't have to worry about being homeless. You have friends that still care about you, which means they're people who will be in your life for a long time to come.
Hell, I'd let you stay with me if you needed to. No one should be in the situation you're in. people that find themselves there, deserve nothing but help and understanding from wherever they can get it.