Living in an Abusive Relationship

Let me tell you a story about love, which turned out to be the worst story of my life. It all began in winter 2015. I met this guy on social media; he is five years older than me. He seemed genuinely nice and was very much interested in me. The moment I met him was just when I was applying for university. But we still started to hang out. He even got my number from somewhere, which I found adorable. At this point we started dating. This was my first real relationship. I dated guys before for like a month or two, but I knew this time it was real. I was madly in love with him. And he was the proper gentleman - picking me up from school, cooking me dinner, making all these small romantic gestures. Everything was perfect for a couple of months, but then I got accepted at university that is four thousand kilometers away from home. So I had to leave in September for uni. This is when everything changed, he changed. He became extremely jealous of my girlfriends. He didn't let me go out with them. I was only allowed to go to uni and work. He used to get annoyed at me if I spoke to my mum for more than fifteen minutes. He hacked my Facebook profile and was reading all of my messages with my friends. He was determined that I was cheating on him, even though he knew where I was every single minute. Because of him, my first year of uni was horrendous - I didn't meet any new people, I didn't have fun with my friends, I only studied and worked.... and spent hours FaceTiming with him. He wanted to have the FaceTime on during the night just to make sure I didn't go anywhere without him knowing. Yet, I didn't leave him. I was stupid and madly in love.

He came for my 20th birthday. He kept rubbing in my face that he was going to propose to me on my birthday but he changed his mind because he couldn't trust me. I was okay with it, again..I was madly in love. I had dinner with him for my birthday and I paid for everything. Then we had a party with some of my closest friends. The whole night he was criticizing my friends and abusing them verbally. He was complaining about how I bought all of them alcohol but I didn't buy anything for him. He turned my 20th birthday into a nightmare. I spent the whole night crying and all he said was that I'm crying because I like attention. The next day we had a huge fight, he was calling me a whore, hoe, and trash but at the end I apologised. Because I was stupid and madly in love. I didn't want to lose him. A couple days we went back to our home country.

I used to work in a restaurant in town back then. So after a close, occasionally some of the guys will go for a couple of drinks. One time they managed to convince me to go with them. I remember it was such a fun night until I got home. I had thousands of missed calls and messages from my ex boyfriend. He was raging that I went out. He was sure I cheated on him, when I didn't. I never have. The next day I told him that I want us to break up and this was the moment I realised how much of a property I was for him. Apparently, every time we were FaceTiming and I was getting dressed he was taking pictures of me. We used to have this online sex just to keep the flame..well he was taking videos of me naked, just to make sure he has something against me. So when I told him that I want us to break up, he started threatening me that he'll post them all over social media and embarrass me. Also he said he put a camera in my room when he was here for my birthday which is completely crazy. He had me begging him for days not to do it. I was crying my eyes out. He was mentally abusing me for days and then it just stopped. He didn't post anything and I never heard from him again.

Moral conclusion of my story, don't be stupid like me. If you feel even in the slightest that someone is abusing you, don't stay with that person. Put yourself first. I spent two years of my life living in that circle. No more!