My Abusive Ex

This is something I’ve been needing to get off my chest for a while— the story about my abusive ex boyfriend and everything that led up to it.

I met him, we’ll call him Tyler, when I was sixteen years old. We immediately hit it off! He was so sweet, affectionate, and had so much love for everyone in his life... or so I thought. We started dating, and everything was perfect for a while.

Fast forward to almost two years into the relationship, he lost a guardian figure in his family that meant a lot to him. I was there for him and his family throughout all of that, despite his family not treating me very well in the beginning, (they loved his ex, and I wasn’t her, so therefore, I wasn’t good enough.) I knew he was having a hard time processing. He’d lost a lot of people in his life, after all, so I was as supportive as I could be. I never thought he would start taking all of his pain out on me... until he did.

So after this guardian of his passed away, my parents offered for him to stay at our place until he could get his stuff together and find his own place. By this point, I was 18, and he was 22. He became a completely different person. He still had sweet moments, but at the same time, he became very manipulative, took full advantage of me and my family, and ever so slowly, the physical abuse started. It was small stuff at first, shoving me a little, squeezing my wrists a little too hard during an argument, telling me I didn’t understand him or anything he was going through, though I tried really hard to, and was always there for him.

I powered through this though, and I assumed it would go away in due time. He’d been through a lot, that was always his defense for why he did it, so I stayed hopeful it was just a phase. I kept a smile on my face for my family and friends, and I became really good at hiding what was really going on when everyone else was asleep at night. He would do things just to get a reaction out of me, like talk about the girls he worked with, he would like other girl’s pictures online when he knew I would see it. Petty, insignificant things just to see what I would say/do.

If he ever started an argument, and I tried to defend myself, the abuse would ensue. Over the duration of nearly three more years, he would slap me, push me down, choke me, etc. Right under my parent’s roof, but they had no idea. (Remember when I said he was only supposed to stay temporarily? That didn’t happen. He took full advantage of their generosity and didn’t thank them, not even one time.) I even brought this up a few times, “you could be more appreciative towards my parents. They’ve done a lot for you.” But he always said, “I don’t need any of you, I could do this by myself!” Eventually the abuse settled down a bit to the point it was only happening a few times a month. It wasn’t ideal, but it was bearable. I loved him. I wanted to make it work. I was stupid.

A few months before everything finally hit the fan, another member of his family (that he was very close with) passed away from breast cancer. I sat by her bed with him when she took her last breath and I held him in my arms while he cried. Just a few days after the funeral, he had another episode over something as stupid as me not wanting to go in a store with him for something he needed. (We had already went in once and got some lunch and he forgot something, would have taken him two minutes to run back in and grab it) He slapped the food I was eating out of my hands and told me it’s the LEAST I could do for him, (like I hadn’t been babying and taking care of him everyday for the last four years.) I started crying immediately. I could see that look in his eyes again. I dried my face and went in the store with him to avoid conflict and as we entered the door, he said, “ever since ____ passed away, I can feel it again. The anger, it’s coming back.”

This obviously scared me shitless. I think that’s when it started, the falling out of love, the realizing this emotional and physical abuse wasn’t going to stop. It’s just who he was now. I started staying over late at work to avoid going home. I started reconnecting with friends I hadn’t seen in years, hiking, anything I could do to stay away from my house, and him. This led to him accusing me of cheating, and when I did come home, something always happened. I started sleeping on the couch and my PARENTS BEDROOM to be away from him, and this made him even angrier.

One night, I went to my friends house. I was 21 at this point, and we decided to drink and invite some old friends over. One of these friend’s was someone I’d met a few years prior. We’ll call him Noah. We all had a lot of fun that night, despite my phone being blown up with texts from Tyler. He knew what pair of underwear I was wearing (yeah, crazy) and was asking me who I was cheating on him with. This was the first time I just ignored him. That night, when everyone went to sleep, Noah and I were sitting on the couch awake. He could tell something was bothering me, and at this point, no one knew what I was going through. I had gotten really good at hiding it. Years of practice. So I spilled it all to Noah and became a crying mess. I told him everything that had happened, all the tears, the bruises, and the chances I’d given him. I told him I tried to get Tyler to go to therapy and he straight up said, “I don’t need therapy. I can control it.” If he could control it, why did he choose to do it? As I was telling Noah this, he cried with me, he let me cry on his shoulder until morning, he told me I didn’t deserve that. He also said something that has stuck with me ever since... “people like that, they don’t change.”

I went home the next day and I told my mom everything. We found Tyler an apartment. We paid the deposit. We even helped him move his stuff into it.

The final day, the day he moved out, I reluctantly agreed to ride with him to the apartment (only because my mom and brother were following us there.) The whole way there, he was saying “I’ve changed. I’ll never hurt you again. Please don’t leave me. Are you breaking up with me? Is there someone else?” And I was DONE. I wasn’t responding. Told him we could talk about it later, we had things to do. We got to the apartment, and I got out of his car. He reached over, grabbed me by my hair, and pulled me back in. So much for being a changed man, right? I slammed the door and faced him. I’d had all I could take. I screamed, “YES. I AM BREAKING UP WITH YOU. I GAVE YOU ALL THE CHANCES I’M WILLING TO GIVE YOU. F*** YOU!” And I got out of his car, slammed the door. ☺️

He went up to his brand new apartment and tried to get me to come in. But I wouldn’t until my mom got there because I’m not an idiot. He ended up punching a hole in the wall. Not getting that deposit back!🙄 When my mom got there, I pulled her to the side and told her what happened. She wouldn’t let me ride back with him (not that I wanted to), so when we were done, I wrapped my arm around my momma and walked to her car while he begged for me to come back. I ignored him. My brother found out what had been going on while we were on our way back, and I had to BEG him not to kill him... but that’s a different story.

Anyways, that was six months ago. I’m now dating Noah, the friend mentioned above, and we are living in our own place. He is the sweetest man in the world. He goes above and beyond to take care of me and our two dogs, and he is patient with me. I’m still a little timid, but hopefully that will pass with time. I am so much happier now, and I have high hopes for the future!

*There is so much I didn’t add just because of how lengthy this post already was, but you get the gist of it*

Feels great to get some of this off my chest! 🖤

EDIT: I would also like to add in the stalking that occurred for months after we’d broken up. It started with never ending texts and DM’s, I eventually had to change my number & block him on all social media platforms. Then it was 8-paged letters, and teddy bears, treats for my dogs on my doorstep. He showed up at my house a few times and my parents had to make him leave. Then he started calling and showing up at my workplace. So I had to quit. Yikes. When none of that worked, he had his family members message me as well. They all got blocked. Finally, he left me alone.... but then started dating my COUSIN & still is to this day.

**UPDATE** I found out yesterday that my ex is telling everyone the reason we broke up is because I cheated on him. He’s completely leaving out the years of turmoil he put me through. He’s still playing victim and I’m still the bad guy.