[Anonymous]

Hi Jo,

I wanted to write about a relationship I was in for about 8 months last year. I don't know if it counts as "abusive" - I know some people have experienced a lot worse, but I certainly have a lot of bad memories from it which are still affecting my day to day life. Some of things that happened were:

- My boyfriend used to get very angry and shout at me until I was crying and had apologised so many times for really trivial things such as arriving a few minutes late to meet him. I don't know why I didn't just walk out of the room when this happened, as he was never physically threatening me, he was just so terrifying when he was like this I felt paralysed. If I ever asked him to control his temper better he would say this was his way of expressing his emotions, so I could not ask him to stop.

- He often put pressure on me to have sex when I didn't want to, or do things during sex I didn't want to. Again, he never forced me physically, he would just keep on at me until I agreed, and he would get really angry if I said I didn't enjoy something. In retrospect, I have no idea why I just kept doing what he wanted and didn't stick up for myself more - it seems really pathetic!

- He used to touch me sexually when we were in public but no-one could see (e.g at the cinema) or when I was on the phone. This made me really uncomfortable, but he wouldn't stop, and I obviously couldn't do anything about it at the time.

This is actually the first time I've told anybody the full extent of what happened. I normally just say "he had a bit of a temper" and leave it at that, as I find the concept of talking about this to someone I know really hard. I just want a way of stopping the memories of this affecting my life, especially now I am going out with someone who really respects me and would never hurt me like this, so I want to be able to move on and enjoy this new relationship.

Thanks for reading this far!

[Jo from AVA]

Hi
Thank you for your post, it sounds like a really difficult relationship and i am glad you have felt able to talk about it here.
From what you have said i would definitely describe your relationship as abusive and i am not surprised you still have bad memories. When people experience trauma like this a common result can be post traumatic stress.
Let's go through each example you gave:
1. Abusive people often use the excuse of anger or having a bad temper as a way of trying to get out of any responsibility for their actions. The way he treated you was wrong and you should not blame yourself for not leaving the room. Emotional abuse can be just as scary as physical abuse so don't think that this was not serious.

2. There are many ways to force someone to have sex, it does not have to be physical force. By pressuring you when you didn't want to, you were not consenting to sex. You are certainly not pathetic, the only one to blame in this is him.

3. This is also sexual abuse as you were not consenting to this sexual touching.

Do you have any contact with him at all now? I just want to make sure you are safe now. It is great that you are now with someone who respects you, and i can imagine it is hard having these bad memories impacting on you still. Do you feel comfortable to tell your new boyfriend about what happened? It may help him to understand you better. Maybe you could also try to talk to a friend or family member about it? If these don't sound like good options to you, there are lots of other places to get support.
Have a look at this list:
http://thisisabuse.direct.gov.uk/need-help
And you can always come back here and talk to me!

Please do not blame yourself, be proud of yourself for getting through such a horrible situation and for being strong enough to start talking about it.
Take care
jo