I have been on and off with my boyfriend for 8 years. I met him when I was 17 and we have lived together ever since. I am 26 now.

For the first 5 years, he was very controlling. We met through drug use, and while he stopped completley once we met, I continued. He told me I needed to stop and if I didn't he would leave. I said I stopped but didn't, and when he found out, he left. He came back and I stopped for good. After that, he would drug test me and the controlling started. He didn't want me hanging out with friends or family. For 5 years we would fight every week and he would say things that hurt me so much that I lost my sanity and would get violent towards him and myself.

I broke up with him in 2005 after meeting someone else. He pleaded and cried and said he would change but I still left. He had a new girlfriend a week later. BTW, he has done this before... we would break up and he would have a new girlfriend literally 3 days later. He always left them and said he wanted me back, and I wanted him back, so we always got back together.

4 or 5 months went by and my relationship ended with the new guy. I was feeling depressed and lonely, and I contacted him. Long story short, he had a new girlfriend, who he cheated on with me. He had been with her 8 weeks, and a few days after we decided we wanted to get back together he tells me he's stuck because she found out she was pregnant. Long story short, he says he is going to leave her but doesn't know when to tell her, and we continue to have a relationship while she is pregnant. Then I find out he is getting married to her. He claims its so she can have health insurance. Long story short, I end it, we end up talking again, same **** all over, he cheates, says he's leaving her.. then I find out he's moving across the country. He claims its because she knows he's still seeing me and she demands they are moving. He moves and says he is done with me (after I tell her the truth)

So, 3 months later guess who has moved back and is begging me to help him through his divorce, begging me to take him back and saying he will change?

So, I am here now, almost 2 years later, and we haven't made it. We started fighting again very often. He blames the stress on the divorce and the fact she is trying to take the child away. He was nice at first, let me have friends, do what I wanted. But then his old ways started to come back. He would be mean and I would get very angry and violent.

I know the first 5 years were bad, but I am having problems coping with the last 2 and feeling like it was my fault and missing him.

He broke up with me 3 weeks ago because: I was making dinner for him (he required me to do this every night) and I asked him if me and his child and him could all sit at the dinner table for once. He said no, meanly. I went into the kitech, was angry about his answer, and went back into the room. I said, I don't want to fight, I just want to have a civil conversation about why we can't sit at the dinner table. He throws the remote on the ground and stands up in my face and says, because I said so. SO, I go into my roomand start crying. That was mean, and I have been cooking, cleaning, making him lunches and dinner every day, and picking up after his kid for the last 2 weeks because I agreed I would if he stayed with me (he left me the previous 2 weeks because I lost temper over thinking he was being sneaky with other girls). An hour later he comes in and asks me what is wrong, so I explain that he hurt my feelings, all I did was ask if we could eat dinner at the table. He says, I said no and that's the final word. So I leave crying, call him in the car and say, why can't you just be respectful, and he says he's sick of my **** and breaks up with me.

He has had me arrested when I have lost my temper, losing contrl of my anger. I tell him every time we fight, I love you, and your words hurt me a lot, and I can't handle that, so I lose control. He says mean things, uses me as his personal credit card (ive given him several loans which he pays back).

He says I come home angry and its annoying and I'm a ***** a lot. I do EVERYTHING around the house, he doesn't lift a finger. He says, its "my job" to do those things and he needs a woman who can do that. So you, I'm sure I come home angry and *****y when I get off work, and the house is trashed, or he can't pick up his own shirts, or cook his own daughter dinner, or lift one finger. But for threlast 2 weeks I sucked it up, we didn't fight, I did "my job", and STILL, that one night, he is very mean.

I kicked him out that night, quit my job, broke my lease, and moved 3 hours away.

This is my dillemma...

I know it was a bad relationship. I know I need to move on. Im at that point. BUT, I think about him every day, think, maybe it was me. Maybe if I just controlled my anger. But I know my anger was due to the way he treated me. If he respected me, I wouldn't mind taking care of him. If he helped around the house, I would love to take care of him because I love him. I felt disrepsected all the time and it made me act crazy any time he was mean.

I know this is long, I'm sorry. Has anyone experienced this? Ive been reading about emotionally abusive relationships. I feel I fit some of the descriptions, but the I think, I fit those because he made me act that way.

I love him, I have issues. I go back and forth, believing he cares and sometimes he is just mean. He says he's done with me, but he always comes back. He is 100% dependent on me. No bank account, credit cards, or credit. That is why I moved, because I can't say no to him when he does. Changed all my numbers and emails.

I even added in the drug part above to justify his controlling actions. I will justify everything. A few days before we broke up, he says, I willmake you a deal, you don't have to make dinner unless my kid is here. I see this as him being nice and feeling back for demanding I make dinner every night (on top of demanding I make him lunch every day, do all the laundry, clean all the dishes, run all his personal errands, etc)

I feel like a battered wife - he slapped me once when I was 18 for yelling. That is the only time he hit me. But I feel like a pathetic battered wife who can't leave her abusive husband.

Amber - first off, I feel for you. It sounds like you've been through a lot of challenges in life and somewhere inside I see a woman with a lot of love to give and who is worthy of being loved.

You know, I think the common denominator for women who endure abusive relationships is the perception that “I don’t deserve any better than this.” If you never experienced genuine love consistently as a young person, it’s easy to bring a set of beliefs about yourself into adulthood which taint how you make choices as an adult. If a charming guy comes along and makes you feel loved and wanted, he can be incredibly abusive but the fear of losing the attention and love that you do get (however dysfunctional it may be) is greater than the fear or anxiety you experience in the abusive relationship. I think that is why letting go of someone who is cruel and mean to you is so difficult.

Although I sense your tentativeness in letting go, it is clear to you that there is something wrong with the relationship. Clearly you have your own issues to sort out but your boyfriend does as well. I see that there is confidence in you to walk away but you need more strength and self-respect in order to make that decision for yourself.

Really, I see the boyfriend and the relationship as merely a symptom of what is going on in you. Yes, he has issues and yes he has treated you poorly…but the bad relationship simply points to what is going on in your own heart. I hope you can see that for yourself. Take care of yourself. Go and seek counseling for yourself in order to heal and mature emotionally as a person. Much of what you have written really makes me think that you woman with a lot to offer but the best thing I could think of for you at this point is that you need to take a break, seek some help, and work on becoming a better you. I hope you find that.

All the best.

Justify all you want, but that guy is absolute rubbish.

I don't blame you for being violant, it's not a good thing to do but you describe him so evil, not a care in the world no feelings for anyone. Don't think he has emotions, he just needs to control everything.
Don't buy into his crap anymore your better than that.

If your still doing drugs, I would suggest you seek some kind of help, because that's the only downside I see on your part from my point of view.

My mother is a happy loving mother who likes everyone, she's got a calm mind and is really gentle and a regular sweetheart, but even she lashed out after my father for being a total ***...

I haven't done any drugs since the day he left me for doing them. I would never do that to my body now. Thanks for your opinions. I think I need to hear other people say he wasn't a great guy. Because he will tell everyone my anger is what ruined the relationship. I just wish I could move past the good parts of the relationship and really finally believe I can have a happy relationship with someone else.

Don't you worry, you'll be just fine.. and screw what he says that idiot mentally abused you over a VERY long period, I'm surprised you lasted this long, some people have gone through the same experiences as you have and have become mentally unstable because of it..

Just keep one thing in mind. The next guy you meet, don't think he's has the same qualities as this one, or lack there off.

I am going to approach this from different point of view. Now, first of all please understand I come from a very,very abusive childhood, am very versed in the physical and emotional abuse.

With that said let me say that I know for that there comes a time for every victim that they make a decision, that they are either going to stay and take it or they are going to get out and NOTHING is going to stop them and NOTHING is every going to make them go back. That is what defines the difference between a victim and survivor.

Unlike a child you have the ability to get out, and YOU have the ability to stay away. You have had plenty of chances, but you keep ALLOWING him to come back even to the point of CHEATING with him behind his pregnant wife's back. Then you act like hurt because him choosing to move with his wife to different state because she knows of both of you cheating!!

Im sorry that YOU CHOOSE to allow this man back into your life over and over again. Im sorry that you have allowed him to use you as his credit card, but how many times do you ALLOW someone to USE you before you are no longer a VICTIM but EQUAL PARTNER IN THE ABUSE!!

My concern is mostly for the child in the middle of this situation. Iam wondering how disfunctional the biological mother as to be that they allow him to have custody with his moral character. This little girl being witness to his verbal bashing and your verbal and apparent physical out pourings. This little girl is has no stability apparently when it comes to having a place to live, because you have been main financial care taker.

If you go back and start this all over again, the it is the bed you have chosen to make and you will just have to lay in it without complaint. Otherwise please try to get help with getting control over your life. It never hurts to get some counseling to give assistance on how to get started rebuilding your life. Take a chance!!

Take care

All I see when I read this is one negative after another. The only thing keeping you from leaving is yourself. Maybe it's because he's all you've known for so long, maybe you feel you can't do any better than this, I don't know. But I do know that you're 26, it's time to start living your life for YOURSELF! You know what to do here. There is a enormous sigh of relief just waiting for you once you eliminate all of this negativity from your life. Face it, do it, heal, and start living.

You are right in every point. The mother has tried to take the child from him but he has fought with a lawyer. Anyway, you are right, if I choose to stay, it is my own fault. I am attempting to take the steps to not stay - moved, changed contact info... I am trying to stay away, but its hard. I can't tell you why its so hard when I have been treated so poorly.

It seems that one common denominator is that you have no control over your temper, and each time you blame your lack of control, on him. Because he did or does what he does, you lose it, become violent, even to the point of having police involved.

I see no way for you to enjoy a healthy relationship with anybody, until you learn how to control your anger. The anger is still there, regardless if you lash out. It only simmers until you explode.

Because there is now a child in this picture, on top of the already existing issues between you and your ex, please try to realize that if you are an angry person, you are affecting this child, in negative ways. Because your ex responds to your anger, is no excuse to use that to justify your actions, particularly, and specifically when there is a child present.

I don't know why you stay and keep going back to him, and I don't know why he keeps coming back to be with you. How much history has to finally convince you that you are not right for each other, the relationships are dangerous, neither of you are happy, and nothing is ever resolved.

I can tell you to move on, but I think if you knew how, you would have already. And what happens to you in the next relationship when your partner makes you angry- will you continue with excuses as to your behaviour is a result of, or being caused by someone else?

I think you will be a much happier person if you take control of your own life. Get into counselling, tell your counsellor everything you have said here, and listen and learn. You are intelligent enough to put your world together by learning how to recognize and change your OWN behaviour. It matters not how others influence you (ie the boyfriend). It only matters how you go about getting off this toxic merry go round, and develop the confidence and the skills to live a healthier life, without all the negative, violent, and destructive characteristics that have become second nature to you.