Feel that I'm in an abusive relationship - Is there any hope

Hello everyone, I have been in a rollercoaster of a relationship with my girlfriend over the past 2 years. It feels that it gets better for a short period of time and then something happens to make it worse again. I felt that this might be a good place to reach out and talk with others who might be in similar situations.

A bit of background: I am a 30 year old man and have been dating my 27 year old girlfriend for almost 2 years now. Things started well, but I began seeing signs that things were a bit different early on. In the beginning, we both had social media accounts. She began by taking screenshots of accounts of girls who I was friends with and stating that I was cheating on her and verbally berate me for it. I just brushed it off as insecurity. Eventually this continued and she made me delete and block every girl I was friends with. I had given in at this point because I didn't want to deal with the drama.

After a while, this started to effect my relationship with my friends who were guys as well. Whenever I would be with them, she would blow up my phone and tell me that I cared about them more than her (I would only see my friends less than once a month). After this was happening, I slowly stopped talking to my male friends as well and have not seen any of them in almost a year.

I'm beginning to feel isolated and controlled. She has hit me on multiple occasions, keyed my car, smashed things that I own, and tells me how worthless I am and curses me out on a weekly basis. I have also suffered a traumatic brain injury in the past and she makes comments putting me down about it such as "at least I have my entire brain" and "I can really tell that your brain doesn't work". It kills me on the inside to hear these things.

I feel that I am constantly walking on eggshells. She breaks up with me every few weeks, and I never know what will set her off.

Just this past week, her dog passed away. As soon as I heard this, I called off work and drove an hour to her place to be with her and give her support. While I was there, I noticed her phone going off a lot and could see that it was her ex texting her. They were talking about starting to communicate more often with each other from what I could see. This was killing me on the inside as my girlfriend was there crying in my arms and telling me how happy she was that I was there with her in that tough time and how much she loved me. I didn't want to mention it given what had just happened.

Later in the week she asked why I had seemed a bit distant, so I let her know that I saw that she was talking with her ex (keep in mind that I am not allowed to be friends with a girl, even on social media). She got extremely angry and denied it at first. Then she basically said **** you! At least he knows how to be a boyfriend. You're just ugly and selfish and don't know how to care about anyone. Then she said that she is never going to talk to me again and blocked me off of everything. I feel like I was getting blamed as the victim in this case.

Even though I have only been mentioning the bad things in the post, there are many great things. She is thoughtful and extremely attracitive. We also have a ton of the same interests and get along well when these things aren't happening.

I just don't know what to do. I feel like I can't have a normal life. I'm isolated from my friends, I can't interact with any other girls, even in a professional or casual manner without being accused of cheating, and I constantly have to walk on eggshells. On the other hand, none of these rules that she sets applies to herself. I want this to work, I just don't know what to do. I feel like I have to set healthy boundaries, but I don't even know where to begin. I almost feel like a shell of my former self. I don't even know if the relationship is actually over at this point as she got mad at me and blamed me when I caught her talking to her ex. Thanks for taking the time to read this and for giving advice if you have been in a similar situation.

Hello rma,

I just read your post and felt the need to answer.
On my opinion your girlfriend is trying to control you, as you said it might come from her own insecurities, and yes it's sounds like a great idea to set firm boundaries.
It takes two to make relationship, so you ahve the right to be happy too, and not give up on you friends, familly or any of our freedom to please her. This is counter productive, since as you can see all these concessions didn't help her be happier or trust you.

You could try to make a listof the things she "forbids" you to do, and have a talk with her showing her how unfair this all is, that seeing your friends has nothing to do with her, you don't love her less for doing so for an example.

The problems comes from her, nothing of what you're doing is helping her, so not setting enough boundaries isn't helping her either. She probably needs to work on herself, understand where it all comes from and find what can be done about it, which may take some professional help too (not meaning she is crazy, at all).

You too have the right to be happy, relationships aren't one sided and what you're going through isn't healthy, I wouldn't want you to lose your friends, familly and if se was to leave then you would end up alone.
Think about yourself, too, that's not being selfish but if after doing all this you're not happy in this relationship you have the right to leave.
To be the one leaving doesn't make you a quiter nor that you don't care for her, but if she isn't going to work on herself, after you point all that to her, this situation will not change and it may even get worse.

Good luck and a lot of courage for you.


Larme