Coming out about my abusive relationship

[This article was originally posted on Facebook]

I’ve decided that I need to come out about the toxic relationship I’ve been in the past couple of years which I recently ended. I hadn’t known of it as abusive, but over time I could tell it was toxic, and looking back, the signs it was at least a bit abusive are clearly there. Some of you know some things about it, but none of you know all of it. It started off innocent, but slowly became toxic and unbearable, leading me to finally end it recently.

Some of you might not believe me, some of you might blame me (and some of you already have), I fully expect that. If I am going to lose friends and acquaintances over telling the truth and giving a warning, then so be it. I am willing to pay that price. But for those who are willing to be more open-minded and read my long harrowing tale as a warning of how a relationship might slip from normal to abusive, and why the abused might stay, read on.

Background

I ended the relationship recently because this relationship was not good for either of us. I felt I loved her and this was one of the hardest decisions I’ve made in my life. I wasn’t going to write this post. I was going just going to leave it be and try to recover. However, in the time after breaking up with my girlfriend, I’ve changed my mind. I’ve spent some time away from the emotional turmoil and have had more time to reflect on the relationship, especially on the last two years. The constant monitoring of my social media, the suicide threats, having to deal with the police multiple times, and especially the fact that she has in the past hit me in her explosive anger are unacceptable behaviors. To those of you who told me over the years I should leave, and not get back together no matter what. You are right. I should have left a long time ago.

But why did I keep quiet so long?

There were several reasons why I kept quiet. FIRSTLY, it’s personal, vulnerable, and a lot of people might not understand. Many of you know my ex-girlfriend as charming, well- educated, the life of the party. How could she be manipulative and abusive? Who would believe me?

SECOND, throughout the relationship she had threatened and attempted suicide several times. I was torn between leaving because I was unhappy and staying with her because I didn’t want to feel guilty if she killed herself. This left me scarred, isolated, anxious, always- on-guard, and I even began to question my own memory. I gained 15 pounds last year, adding 10cm to my waist from the stress. For the longest time, I was afraid she’d hurt herself if I left her.

THIRDLY, despite everything, I felt I loved her. Between the multiple weekly fights, she showed a sweetness, she bought me things and cooked for me, and in those times I felt loved and cared for, and I thought perhaps it was all worth it? So despite the fact that for the past two years I had not fully wanted to be with her and stayed in no small part because I felt guilty and afraid that she might hurt or kill herself, I stayed

Why am I saying this now?

I wasn’t going to write this originally. I was just going to break up, block all contact, and then try to recover. However she’s started harassing my other ex (hereafter referred to as my Korean ex) and her fiancé on social media, in the weeks before they are set to get married. My ex-girlfriend had always been jealous of my Korean ex and she had forced me to unfriend/unfollow her before. I didn’t even check my Korean’s ex, whereas my ex did (in fact, it was through my ex that I learnt my Korean ex was getting married). I believe my ex- girlfriend is harassing her because she is angry and wants an outlet, or because she thinks she can force me to talk to her again by targeting my friends. This, like her manipulative behavior, is inexcusable. For this reason, coupled with her past behavior in our relationship, is why I’ve decided to say what I am saying.

My tell-all

I think showing a chronological overview of my relationship can illustrate how a relationship can start innocent and gradually become something abusive, all while keeping you trapped and maybe even unaware. In my overview below, I’ve labelled each period and blurred/hidden names in screenshots so as to protect identities (I’ve also blocked my ex so she won’t see this).

Jan-Feb 2016
Meeting my to-be abusive ex

I meet the girl who would become my abusive ex-girlfriend. Our first date was a simple coffee and we soon became lovers. She was a bit older than me, a former surgeon, and divorced and not looking for anything serious. I hadn’t been looking for anything serious so I was delighted when she told me herself unprompted that she wanted an open relationship. I happily agreed.

May 2016
Our relationship becomes monogamous

I meet a different girl, and I we end up sleeping together. That night my messaging pattern was different, so my girlfriend deduced that I’ve slept with a different girl (I didn’t know it at the time, but her monitoring of my social media patterns would become a common theme in our dysfunctional relationship). She asks me and I answer truthfully. She realizes she likes me too much and tells me we actually can’t do an open relationship. We became monogamous.

Up until this time, I’d been occasionally messaging my Korean ex, who I’d dated in 2015. We stopped messaging in the next couple of months as time passed by and I was in a monogamous relationship with my girlfriend and because my girlfriend was jealous of our friendship, despite the fact she was in Korea and we were in New York.

May 2016–Jan 2017
The first signs of trouble

We go on trips, and have a generally good time, although interspersed with several shouty and occasionally crying arguments, often about things that seemed minuscule to me. This caused me to become more nervous around her. Sometimes I would forget something, or do something that would result in her becoming angry with me. This would worsen in the following years but for now it was occasional. Toward October, we break up once or twice. In November she breaks up with me but asks to get back.

Feb 2017
The first time she hit me

Throughout this time, she had been snooping through my photos on my iPad at home. She’d seen I’d downloaded a few instagram photos of a girl from instagram. I had gone on one date with that girl while our relationship had still been open and later saved a few pictures from her instagram because they looked nice. She didn’t like me looking at or liking photos of girls on instagram. This led to an argument while we were walking home one night. My girlfriend asked me if I’d downloaded the photos “because she’s young? Because she’s got long legs?? Because she’s got BIG BOOBS???” and she suddenly struck me from behind, right between my neck and my shoulder. It stung physically, but the physical pain was nothing to the fear I developed afterwards. After this event, whenever she was angry and shouting, if she made sudden movements, I would become afraid she would hit me again. Even though she later promised never to hit me again I could never shake this fear and my heart rate would always elevate whenever we would have our frequent arguments.

March–Apr 2017
My first breakup attempt

As April approached, I tell her I don’t think I want to continue the relationship, but we continue until April before breaking up, because both of us would be going on trips and that should give us time apart.

We break up as planned. She flies to Hawaii, and I feel both sadness and relief. One day, she calls crying. She’d gone to a doctor to check on a condition, which she learned was grave she had a few months to live. I felt guilty, and we end up getting back together again for a few more months. I felt like I couldn’t leave a heartbroken girl who was also DYING.

Apr–Sep 2017
Trapped by guilt and obligation

We get back together, but I was staying more out of obligation and guilt rather than desire to be with her. I would sometimes wonder: what it would be like in a relationship with someone else? Maybe someone less stressful and argumentative? What about just being single? My heart was not in our relationship, and I met girls here and there, exchanging numbers and sometimes texting, but never actually did anything as that would be cheating. After all, I was in a monogamous relationship, albeit one I felt coerced to be in.

She could sense my withdrawal and I think this worsened her insecurity. This led to a vicious cycle of more fighting, more attempts to control me, and me being more withdrawn from a relationship I didn’t want to be in. I experienced my first panic attacks and anxiety of my life. I was constantly second guessing my every action and trying (often futilely) to predict how to stop my girlfriend from turning it into an argument. I also started taking screenshots of our conversations occasionally to remind to remind myself to consider if I really wanted to stay. Our relationship would seem loving and tender at one moment and immediately dissolve into a massive argument the next. There was no in between.

My girlfriend asking me about my female friends. Insecurity and interrogation would be a common theme in our relationship

Sep 2017
The first suicide threat

Our relationship was rocky, and we agreed to end it in September as we had in April, although I definitely wanted to end it more than she did. I wondered about her condition and she told me that the doctor had misjudged it — it might be years before they would need to do something about it. As our breakup date approached, she would hint about not wanting to live anymore, and I asked her to not do anything stupid, often begging her sometimes, and she would shrug in response. I visited a therapist to prepare myself in case she really did kill herself.

The night we broke up and parted ways she yelled at me and shouted in the streets before running away, strongly implying she would kill herself. I called the police. The police and I arrived at her apartment. Knowing she had attempted suicide when divorcing her ex- husband, I told her doorman to close off the roof. After the police left, she let me in and we talked, and.. we decided to get back together for another month...till she recovered. She told me not to call police again because she didn’t like them. She didn’t want to be put in the psychiatric ward again like the last time.

After this night, I started occasionally audio recording some of our longer (30 min plus) fights because I was afraid of the possibility I might be implicated in her death if she ended up killing herself. Note: In many states, including NY, recording a conversation you are part of is completely legal (This practice would help save me in various smaller arguments and suicide threats, including one time the following year when the police took her away for a suicide attempt and she lied to them, saying I had hit her. The police questioned me, thanks to my recording of her and my conversation, as well as the fact that she had multiple suicide attempts on police records, the policemen let me go. One of the policemen put his hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eyes and said “she’s pretty, but there are a LOT of other girls out there.” ).

Oct 2017
HER FIRST SUICIDE ATTEMPT (with me)

The October date for our breakup came and past, and she stayed in my place. She stayed there for 2 more nights and on the third day, I told her she really needed to leave my place. She got up, went to the bathroom and came back, sat at my table sullen, depressed, and seemingly drowsy. As I waited, I checked my phone and I saw an email from her. It was a suicide letter.

I looked at her at sitting at my table. She was nodding off and falling asleep, drooling a little. I didn’t know it at the time, but she was overdosing on pills that she had stockpiled in preparation to take her own life. I wasn’t sure what to do and my girlfriend seemed barely conscious by this time (I thought she’d fallen asleep). I contacted her close coworker friends because I knew she hated the police.

This ended up not mattering because her sister soon reached out to me for the first time. She was relieved her sister was still alive because she’d received an email starting with “By the time you read this, I will be dead” and then listing how the funeral should be.

Her sister had called the New York police all the way from London, and she and their mother were flying over to New York. The police and paramedics soon came and took my girlfriend to the psychiatric ward. She was confined for a week and a half without contact with the outside world because the doctors deemed her a threat to herself (Several of our friends attempted to contact her in that time but couldn’t reach out. She would later tell them she had fallen and injured herself, I think). My girlfriend’s mother and sister, her coworkers, and I took turns visiting her throughout this time time.

I also met to know her sister and mother. Contrary to what my girlfriend had told me about them, they seemed to care for her. They were not the uncaring family my girlfriend had made them out to be. More importantly, I learned that the way my girlfriend often took ordinary mundane things, misinterpreted them, and blew them out of proportion was not something she did just with me. Her mother and sister said they experienced this often. For example, my girlfriend had told me her sister uninvited her from her wedding. My girlfriend’s sister told me that this wasn’t the case. She had simply wanted a smaller wedding than my girlfriend had planned. My girlfriend took this to mean she was unwelcome, and decided that “my sister clearly didn’t want me to be at her wedding” and therefore did not attend. This revelation gave me a sense of relief that it was not just me. I was glad I met her mother and sister, but told them to take care of her, as I couldn’t deal with her, as it was too stressful and my health, both mental and physical had taken a toll.

My girlfriend’s sister messages me for the first time after receiving a suicide email from my girlfriend.

Nov 2017
Keeping in contact after the breakup

Eventually my girlfriend was released from the psychiatric ward and we parted ways, but asked that we keep in contact so she could talk to me when she felt down. She told me I calmed her. Feeling guilty, I agreed. I would over the next month, I would talk her down from the Brooklyn Bridge in the middle of night while asking my friend to call the police (I couldn’t get off the phone). I talked her out of another suicide attempt, and other middle of the night calls, even having to talk to her when she contacted me to fight again while I was out of the country.

Contacting me while I was overseas. I’d agreed to still be there for her if she needed me, to help her recover. It was a very stressful experience.

Less than a month from our breakup, she had already started dating someone else, although she still reached out to me regularly. One night, we were arguing again, and we decided to meet up in person, we argued but ended up sleeping together. She broke up with him the next day, and we got back together.

Nov 2017–Mar 2018
A Christmas dream and then normalcy

We went to Japan for Christmas having an amazing and carefree time. However, when we returned, so did the fights. Most of this time was a haze and I can only remember drifting from day to day, week to week. I felt a mix of emotions but don’t remember much at all. We did things and travelled.

I do remember she told me to unfriend my exes, which I did in exchange for her unfriending her most recent ex who she cheated on before getting back with me. I also agreed to unfollow several models on Instagram (whom I don’t even personally know). Eventually, I could not continue to handle the constant stress and anxiety of not knowing when the next thing that would trigger a fight would be, and then the surprise arguments with her crying and shouting. We broke up around March. Again though, I agreed to keep in contact with her, and even agreed to her suggestion of a friends-with-benefits arrangement. This would prove a grave mistake.

May–Jun 2018
Open relationship and even greater smothering

Sometime in May, she suggested that since we had been sleeping with each other, that we might as well get back together, this time in an open relationship, with some restrictions. She knew I was hesitant about monogamy with her. I agreed, after all this means I needn’t be with her all the time, and I could have more independence and less anxiety, I thought.

Although I enjoyed some freer, more relaxing time in the beginning, even hanging out with friends in bars and clubs a couple of times, this wouldn’t last. She became increasingly insecure and paranoid because of the openness of the relationship. She monitored my Instagram usage, questioning me on every single girl I added (many were friends I’d meet at language exchange). She kept track of my Snapchat score score, demanding I Snap her more so that we could get the Heart and BFF emojis on Snapchat and when I didn’t seem as enthused, she demanded I show her who else been Snapping.

Thanks to my girlfriend I learned of that you could see on your Instagram activity feed every like and every addition by someone you follow. I got used to having to report to her about any new friends from my language exchange events. Sometimes I would tell people I didn’t use Instagram because I didn’t feel like dealing with my girlfriend’s questions that night.

My girlfriend wasn’t even following her. She just remembered we followed each other.

I kept my phone close all the time because if she messaged me and I didn’t respond promptly she would get upset, likely leading to another argument. I also had to wish her good night every night, even though I wanted quiet non-screen time to read books and wind down before sleeping. My sleep suffered and I’d lie awake many nights a week worrying if I’d done something wrong, and if I should stay. My sleep and health suffered.

We constantly had fights, often from misunderstanding and her usual habit of interpreting something in the worst possible light (eg. I’m late? That’s because I don’t want to hang out with her. I didn’t text her this afternoon? I don’t love her anymore). I urged her to see her therapist again after she’d stopped going last year, but she refused. “Therapy doesn’t work,” she told me.

Being under constant surveillance became a daily norm

Jun/Jul 2018
Setting a boundary

Some of you might be thinking, why didn’t you set boundaries? I HAD tried to before, but eventually the constant fights and dealing with her crying and shouting wore me down and I’d given up. Fear of her wrath drove my every decision. My sole daily objective was to go through the day without upsetting her. I no longer slept well and had constant anxiety, something I had never experienced until two years ago. I no longer knew who I was.

I did set one boundary though. In this time period, she tried to kill herself again during an argument at my place. She rushed to the window and flung it open, stepping up to the sill to and putting her head out as I grabbed her by the waist and pulled her back in. She slammed my nose with her forehead several times to get me let go of her. I didn’t want her to kill herself at my place or to implicate me in her death. I banned her from my place and after some arguments, we only met at her place from then on.

Jul–Dec 2018
From bad to worse

Throughout this time, our arguments worsened. Despite my efforts to do everything she wanted, any small mistake or oversight on my part would often set her off. Sometimes she threatened to disinvite me from events with our mutual friends, whom she had grown pretty close to, especially since she was a great baker and organized great parties. It was around this time I started asking around, friends, strangers on Internet forums, self research, to see if I was in an abusive relationship. I wasn’t sure but it seemed like I might be. I started listening a lot to Eminem’s Love the Way You Lie a lot, as it reminded me of our relationship.

I liked a (female) friend’s photo and forgot to like my girlfriend’s photo and she accused me of making her feel ugly and unattractive.

Once or twice, she’d compare me to her abusive ex husband, and her past boyfriends who she said all had mistreated her. From time to time, she’d bring up another thing I’d failed to do, or allegedly promised to do, but I often had no recollection of it. I started to doubt my own memory. Had I really said this or promised this? Occasionally, I’d argue back, but often I was resigned to just letting her shout at me. Sometimes, though, I’d record it secretly so as not to forget it if I ever got the courage to break up.

I often thought about fully breaking up with her, but thinking of having to help her recover afterwards, and dealing with her keeping in contact with me and occasionally needing rescuing just made me that much more tired. It hadn’t occurred to me to just break off contact. So I did nothing. I was just too tired to do anything and became depressed and listless. I eventually got laid off from my job too, because I always seemed distracted, and in truth I was. I was constantly worried about when my girlfriend’s next outburst would be.

Dec 2018
The Last Hurrah

Things became worse and worse toward the holiday season. The fights became more heated, frequent, and unpredictable. It was no longer a question of if, but of when the next fight would be, and there were several each week.

We had another Christmas trip coming up, and I banked my hopes on it being like the the previous Christmas trip, carefree and happy, and I hoped it could fix things. Looking back, I feel embarrassed I even thought that anything from this relationship was fixable. Looking back it’s obvious I should have left long ago and never looked back.

On the trip, not only did we argue almost every day, we also had multiple public arguments which I tried to avoid out of embarrassment, to no avail. In Austria, I got to experience crying and shouting both at a bus stop and in a museum over taking a photo. In Salzburg we scared away nearby tables at a cafe over a misunderstanding over ordering cake instead of savory food. And in Munich, she shouted at me for half an hour on top of a tower over misunderstood plans, while groups of fellow tourists tried to get by to take photos.

I returned from the trip utterly exhausted. We continued to argue, and when she asked if I still wanted to be together, I said “I don’t know. You choose”. She broke down crying, but she seemed tired of fighting too.

An argument about New Year’s Eve dinner. I was losing the will to refute her accusations. I was exhausted from the never-ending fighting and instigating.

Jan 2019
The Snap that broke the camel’s back

Finally, in the days before I would break things off with her, she exploded one more time. She’d asked me if I knew my friend’s wife had gotten a new job. I said I did because I’d talked to her. She blew up while I was in the shower, ripping the curtain away yelling and crying “you talk to her about her job but you never asked me about mine!” And we argued for another hour after I got out of the shower. She accused me of “loving to torture her” because I don’t talk to her enough (audio link).

A few days later, I had sent a friend a series of Snaps, causing the BFF emoji for my girlfriend to disappear briefly. She called me crying and accusing me of not putting enough effort into the relationship and Snapping other people (audio link) because “Snapchat is a platform designed for cheating”

One of the last arguments before I decided I couldn’t take it any longer.

The Snap emoji returned the next day, but this event had broken me. I couldn’t do it any more. I couldn’t take any more explosions over minuscule things like Snap emojis and ordering the wrong food. I couldn’t take any more constant monitoring of my social media, and constant interrogation of who I hung out with or added on social media, the suicide threats, the looming threat of the next argument, screaming, crying fits, the accusations, and constantly being afraid she might hit me again.

I broke up with her a few days later. I didn’t even have it in me to call her or meet face to face, I couldn’t handle another fight, or take any chances that I might change my mind, which is why I broke up with her over email. I had already told her everything before countless times why I was unhappy— I was tired, scared, and anxious all the time around her. I blocked her on everything, scheduled an email, and left the city, thinking I had some time and a safe place to recover, and resolving to never contact her again.

My ex harassing my social circle

Since then, she’s called and messaged me maybe a dozen or so times but I never responded. I was going to leave it at that and try to forget it all. I definitely wasn’t going to write all of this and revisit the pain so soon afterwards, were it not for the fact she began harassing my Korean ex and her fiancé, possibly to get back at me. Whatever she hoped to do by doing this, this is wrong and unacceptable.

My ex had always been jealous of my Korean ex and hated her. I had added my Korean ex back after the breakup because we were still on good terms. So when my Korean ex mentioned her fiancé was receiving strange messages and public comments on their photos about me and her mere days after I’d cut off ties with my ex, I was immediately suspicious and asked to take a look at the content, as well as asking the language used.

My Korean ex showed me a screenshot, mentioning that the language used was Korean, but that it sounded strange and sometimes incomprehensible, as if it were Google Translated. I noticed the account names used were those of an internet troll (also Korean) that had harassed me online for a period of time in 2013 to 2014, way before I’d dated my Korean ex. I hadn’t heard from this troll in almost four years now, and I’ve only told a few people of this troll, one of which was my ex-girlfriend. It didn’t take too much effort to realize that she was behind this, trying to pose as the internet troll from my past to harass my Korean ex.

The Instagram account harassing my Korean ex’s fiancé had the initials of the name of an Internet troll (also Korean) who harassed me for months back in 2013-2014, way before I even met my Korean ex. Only my ex-girlfriend knew of that Internet troll’s name because I’d told her.

I asked my ex-girlfriend’s friends to get her to stop. But she didn’t. She made more accounts each time she was blocked. My Korean ex, just weeks from her wedding was at her wits end, and asked to speak directly with my ex. I asked if this was a smart idea, but in the end gave her the contact number. What could I do? Deny her a chance to stop someone who she’s never met who’s trying to destroy her wedding mere weeks before it was scheduled to happen? I gave her the phone number but to my knowledge nothing productive came from the call itself with my ex obviously pretending not to know anything of it. However, the messages from the harassing Instagram account user let slip she’d known about the call, firmly identifying herself as my ex-girlfriend.

It seemed she was intent on ruining my Korean ex’s wedding. Why? I believe she wanted to get back at me through her and wanted to break our friendship. Or she missed me and thought doing this would make me break my vow of no contact. Or perhaps she truly thought I still loved my Korean ex! After all that has happened, I wouldn’t put it past her! Besides, she’d accused me of just that more than a couple times in the past.

A series of screenshots of my chat with my Korean ex over the situation.

If she wanted to break up our friendship, then I’m sad to say she’s succeeded at that. My Korean ex now blames me for my ex-girlfriend’s harassment. Again continuing the theme of my ex girlfriend putting tensions between me and the rest of my social circle.

WHY AM I WRITING THIS?

I think it’s important to speak out and warn people of the dangers of slipping into an abusive relationship and not being able to get out, or even know that you’re in one. Things aren’t always what they seem. Many people have over the years wondered why my ex and I, such a seemingly happy couple would constantly break up and get back together.

Some of you have blamed me without knowing the whole story. I forgive you.

This has been weighing on my conscience and heart for months and even years, and I think I need to share it. While at the beginning I didn’t think it was abusive, the people I’ve confided in, close friends, Internet help forums, and professionals have told me this is abusive. Aside from this, some people who know both me and her have been blaming me telling me I “must have done something to make her do this,” so I thought I needed to share my side of the story. Let those who will blame me, blame me. But for you who have read this, thank you for being open-minded and hearing me out.

Well, hopefully this long essay has shed some light on what I’ve lived through the past couple of years and why I’ve been asking you to make sure I never get back with her. Hopefully you’ve seen how you might fall into an abusive relationship from which you might find it excruciatingly difficult to extract yourself. And hopefully you’re better prepared to identify something that might be abusive or toxic, and get the hell out before it gets worse.

If you think you’re experiencing abuse but aren’t sure, here’s a helpful website that lists out abusive behaviors: https://www.loveisrespect.org/is-this-abuse/types-of-abuse/