BellaOnline Forums Relationships Domestic Violence How Did You Meet Your Abuser?

I was the victim of domestic violence this past week. My boyfriend who loved me, and I was the best thing ever and he wanted to spend rest of his life with me, would never hurt me, blah blah blah. He said such great things, we always always had such fun times. He and did so many wonderful things together and then he started drinking more and more and getting angry while drinking. Two weeks ago he got upset with me said I lied to him about how many men I slept with. He choked me, slapped me, and slammed my hand in a door. Ok, we made it through that. he said he has never been that way before and his drinking and depression got ahold of him and that he was So so sorry he hurt me. Well just this last weekend, he was drinking agian, drinking a lot. He beat the [censored] out of me. Punches to face and head, back and stomach Kicks to the back and stomach, chocking etc. it was awful. Ive never been in such a situation. But the thing is that this is just happening recently. Could a person just all of a sudden start abusing woman? he is 38 and I find hard to believe that he has not done this before. WE have been dating a short time 6 months. But boy I sure did fall for him. I love him. I have never in my life felt a rush over my body when someone would just hold my hand. I haven't seen him since he beat me up exactly one week ago. But he has been calling/emailing/texting etc that he really does love me and he is going to quit drinking and get help. Could someone really change? How could I be the only person a 38 year old man has done this to? I find that hard to believe. im just lost, hurt, I do love him and am holding on to all of the fun and good times and serious love we have shared in the past 6 months. Something I haven't felt. Is that just part of the abuser way? To charm, make you fall in love so they can control you? Confused...

Wow, I hope someone gets back to you on this soon. It sounds to me like not seeing him is the best and only thing to do. Stay strong!

jdubb1980, whether you are the first person he has physically abused in this particular manner or not, he did do these things to you.
It is unlikely that a man would make it to the age of 38 before committing this type of abuse if he had a value system that leads to abuse. The likelihood of it doesn't really matter - it doesn't change what happened to you.
The cycle of abuse is exactly what you are describing - you get pulled in to a wonderful, fantastic relationship that is just great and then things start to sour in a big way.
Staying away from him is wise. Drugs only lower inhibition, they are not the cause of abuse. If he has a drug or drinking problem, he would need to get help for his addiction AND his battering in order to improve, and even then, he may still be prone to control and power plays in his relationships. That type of help would take several months.
Abusers also often promise to change to get someone back into a relationship, and then the abuser does not follow through on their promises to change.
It is your life, with you in control and able to make your own decisions. Being with someone who treats you with respect and is safe to be around are really important.

It also sounds like his violence was escalating.

I first met my abuser when I was 17. We reconnected a year and a half ago shortly after he was released from prison for cutting his now ex-wife's throat, practically killing her. That was the first warning sign. But he told me how she was abusive toward him for so long and finally he just snapped. Right. I was just getting out of a relationship and we fell hard for each other. After our first night together he was calling me all the time, texting me how he's been looking for a woman like me his whole life amd he'd finally found her. He told me how proud of me he was for my accomplishments and how amazing of a person I had become. He asked me to move in with him one month after we started dating.. We went on vacation together and I shared a story about how I had been slipped a rufie and was forced to give this guy head and he totally freaked. He told me he wanted to throw me off the roof when I told him that. Another sign. Next came the systematic control: who I could hang out with, when and where I could go places, forcing me to do things that made me feel very uncomfortable. God, I should have taken these signs seriously and not been blinded by the passion and intensity. They were so blatant and obvious that I feel like a fool. As far as the topic of the police, I know that if I were to call the police on him for dv, since he has priors, he'd go to prison for a very long time, and would most likely kill me before the pilice got to him, or have his brother kill me while he was in prison. Fear keeps me from dialing that number, even after taking a servere beating and having guns pointed at my head and knives held against my femoral artery. I have taken self defense, but clearly not enough because he always manages to over power me. I think of killing him often but I don't think I could ever really do it...

Jdubb- if you can manage to hear these stories and run the other way as fast as you can- do so. He will not change and you will find yourself deeper and deeper into the flames of your abusers hell like all of us, until you can't take it any more. Be strong and don't look back. If I could have at the early stage of my relationship I would have, but I was to stupid and thought something like this could never happen to an intelligent, strong woman like me. Not true, abusers can manipulate any one, no matter what. They will prey on your weaknesses, sniffing them out like a blood hound, weakening you until you are a shadow of your former self. I am now so isolated and controlled I don't know what to do or how to do it, so I remain living with the thought that any moment I might have to run for my life and survive off of my survival instinct alone. I live my life now with a safety box outside just in case. It is a horrible way to live. I hope you can prevent this from happening to you. The only way is to run the other way. Good luck and be strong.

Wishingstar, i am relieved to hear you have an escape plan. Did you seek a women's abuse shelter for advice? What do you recommend other women do to find someone to talk to and make a plan with?

Follow up to my story. So him and I had been communicating via text. And I wanted so bad so bad to believe that he didn't mean to do that. He said that he was going to get help and that he had never ever hit a woman before. We have not seen each other since. But we have cried on the phone together for hours etc..exchanged very caring loving words. He has tried to make me feel guilty for the things I said to him after he hit me like "I hate you" "How could you do this, you lied, you said you loved me" .He said that me telling him that he didn't or doesn't love me has hurt him so much. blah blah. So last night I get a call from him, that and he wants to admit to me that he made a online dating profile. Said he made it the Sunday after the major incident. which would have been just around 36 hours after he beat me up. He told me because the dating website shows who has viewed your profile and my friend ended up seeing his profile. I just don't understand how someone who said these things to me could go and make a dating profile just so soon after a indicent like that. Just hours. He told me that he was feeling really down and he wanted someone to make him feel "funny and cute" because all he was hearing from me was that I hated him. funny and cute, really. You want to feel funny and cute while I am at home crying with black eye, broken nose and misc bruises all over. And if this was an isolated incident. How could you even want to feel funny and cute less than 2 days after this. Wouldn't you feel so guilty and ashamed of your actions. Wouldnt that have been traumatic for you. And he wanted to go online and have other woman give him some "positive affirmation" I am glad that I chose to not see him. His personality is so textbook. But so much of me still feels in love with this person he had me believing he was.

Where to begin... It was fate that I met my husband. It was 4th of July. I had had plans to go out of town with a few friends. My plans fell through last minute and I found myself buying a few beers, sitting on my porch alone (I never drank alone, it was just the circumstances that led me there), enjoying a beautiful afternoon when he came walking up the street. He tilted his head to the side and gave me a half smile. He walked up and asked if I had another beer and I said yeah. His cousin kept walking up the street and the most beautiful guy joined me on my porch for a drink. He was on his way to his Aunt's house whom he had not visited in over a year. We ended up talking for 7 hours that day. He had me laughing so hard my head and sides hurt. He made me feel beautiful. He made me feel alive. The abuse worked it's way into our lives so nonchalantly. A two second choke here, a slap on the head there. It would be months between episodes. Over the course of a year and a half, the choking started lasting longer until I was afraid I was going to die. We blamed it on the liquor. He only put his hands on me when he drank it, he only put a gun to my head when he drank it. He quit drinking it. The abuse stopped for nearly four year... four years! The abuse stopped long enough for us to get married, plan a child, and become 4 months pregnant. Then it was too late, or so I felt. The abuse came back full force without the excuse of alcohol. He knocked me out while pregnant, about bit my nose off, threatened to kill me if I ever took his children away. I was married and pregnant, his property in his eyes. He was never going to let me go now. I tried leaving him twice over the next few years but I was terrified. I never went further than our mutual friends house next door. He wasn't worried about me being there because he could watch me. I knew that the only way to get out was to disappear. I talked about leaving in another post. I ran as fast as I could, I'm still looking over my shoulder. I avoided family, moved to a state where I knew only one person, disappeared for fear of my life as well as my childrens. It hasn't been easy. Wish it didn't have to be this way. Still love my husband, crazy as it may seem. How can I love someone I know would kill me given a chance. I finally faced my fear and moved home to family (states away from my husband). Why did I stay? I saw warning signs but I felt I could change him, or that they were minor, or that my mom lived through worse, or I was happy most of the time. He only threatened to kill me every other month or so, I could deal with that to have a wonderful family, right? WRONG! My only consolence is that my children were meant to be. I wish I could have had them with someone else. I wish I wasn't a single mother. I wish my children had a good male role model. I wish my husband was normal and loved me the way I deserve to be loved. I was strong. I watched my mom be abused until I turned 10 when my dad became sick and was no longer physically able to abuse her. I got straight A's in school, went to college, majored in Psychology and Sociology so I could understand the human mind, volunteered at a domestic violence shelter, started babysitting at 10 yrs old and working a regular job at 16 so I would never have to depend on a man. I was independent with experience and knowledge to protect me from ever becoming like my mom. No man was ever going to put his hands on me. It all came down to he made me laugh. He got me hooked then the abuse didn't seem so major. I rationalized that at least it wasn't as bad as my mom. It's crazy... The dream of what could be was so powerful. I had to kill that dream in order to leave. I had to realize it for what it was, a hope not based on reality. I still love him, the 90% of him that was wonderful, funny, respectful, and loving. I had to realize that that did not make the other 10% okay. Unfortunately, it took seeing terror in my sons eyes to wake me up. Fortunately it wasn't too late to leave. It's never too late to leave until you are dead.