He convinced his family that I was abusing him

by Anonymous
(Brisbane now Melbourne)

I was with Charles, also known as Zed from Mullumbimby, NSW for 2 years. The emotional abuse and control over my life began pretty quickly into the relationship. He was very controlling and unfriendly to my friends and family and would regularly speak negatively about them. I became isolated from my friends and family as they did not like him, and I began to feel that he was the only one left in my life.

The physical abuse started when we moved in together, just us..

This was about a year after being in a relationship with him. He had been rough before but nothing constant. Although he never hit me in the face, the physical abuse included throwing me to the ground, pushing me and grabbing my arms so tightly and shaking me, my arms would bruise. The scariest thing he would regularly do was abuse me physically while I was driving, so I had no way of defending myself. I would pull over and get out of the car and refuse to get back in, he would then call his parents and tell them that I was being crazy and would refuse to get in the car for no reason. I could hear him on the phone to them and didn't want them to think I was a dramatic, crazy girlfriend, so I would get back in the car and continue to suffer the abuse. There were so many times where I feared for my life because I thought I would crash.

Hitting A Wall

There were also times where I felt so low I wanted to drive us both into a concrete wall, just so it was all over. There was one time in particular where I was so scared for my life after almost an hour of being thrown around in our apartment that I went to the kitchen and got a knife and said something along the lines of, if you hurt me again, I will have to use it. He backed off and then called this parents and told them I pulled a knife on him. He said to me that they believed he was suffering from domestic abuse. They had become my second family, and it was so upsetting to think they thought this about me. I eventually reached my breaking point and told his parents about the abuse. But they did not believe me and actually accused me of being the instigator of the violence. I never called the police because he had such a skill in convincing people that I was the one to blame. I also didn't want to be seen as that typical dero couple that scream and yells at each other.

No More Victims

I am writing this because I hope he doesn't abuse anymore of his girlfriends. It's been roughly 2 years since this finished, and it is only recently that I've been able to admit to others about what happened. Everyone knew what was going on by my bruises, but I would never admit to it. He broke my confidence so that I didn't think I deserved any better and emotionally abused me to the point that I had changed as a person. I was becoming just like him; angry, physically reactive and negative. I would spend a lot of my money on him and what he wanted us to spend money on, but he would constantly tell me that he was supporting me financially and he had to pay for everything, while I paid for nothing.

Aware of Red Flags

Being isolated from your friends and family makes it even harder to get out of the situation. You start to think, maybe I am causing this, maybe I deserve it. He just has black outs and doesn't mean to do the things he does. But there is no excuse.. He would sometimes apologies, not always, some of the time he would blame me. I am glad that I am now able to see the dependent and controlling 'red flag' behavior, from the beginning, if it were to happen again and would never allow myself to become emotionally dependent on a guy again.