4 years as a male with an abusive female partner

WARNING: This isn't a very happy story but I figure it is important to let people know that it is possible to be abused by a female partner. My abusive relationship lasted from 19 to 23 for me and took away some of the best years of my life.

It began great. A and I were perfect for eachother it seemed. We met at a party where most everyone was 4 or 5 years our senior, but she was 18 and I only 19. We kicked it off almost immediately after I shared some of my Sierra Nevada with her. We were a happy couple, a lot people considered us perfect for each other, myself included. She was the one I thought to myself. We had great sex, we loved all the same things (musical artists, writers, philosophers), she made me feel like a man for the first time in my life. We rushed into things quickly but I had no problems supporting her, at the time I was selling pot and some psychedelic drugs, so money wasn't an issue for me. She was in school and worked.

There were a few red flags in the beginning that I ignored.

Mostly it was just my friends at first. Saying that they were glad I was happy, but that they noticed a lot of inconsistancies with A. She was a compulsive liar, and that was something I slowly began to realize. Sometimes we would go out and she would tell strangers that we were married and had kids at home, I couldn't understand why but I thought it came from a place of affection. Instead she was running game on people, trying to relate to them to get close with them as quick as possible. This is something con artists do. It made me think: "Maybe she lied to me and thats why she seems so perfect". Those were fleeting thoughts that would wane and then reappear.

Then a month after dating her ex-boyfriend started all kinds of drama between us. I knew him through the artist community as a great poet but a pretty awful person all around. A was a writer as well so I figured that is how they got a long so well. They were also both addicts, him addicted to opiates and her to the thrill of lying and then gaslighting people. Gaslighting is a technique of mental torture where you get someone to trust you, lie to them, and then let them convince you that you are paranoid or insane when you call them out on it. This was her M.O.

Her ex, I'll call X was a very violent person. I caught him once at a house party she fell asleep at standing over her in a side room. When I grabbed him from behind he spit on her and woke her up, which resulted in fisticuffs between us and ended in me throwing him out. Or so I thought it ended. Returning home I found both of our cars tires slashed and her window smashed in and doors keyed with a knife. We called the police but had no proof it was him, though he later admitted to doing it. He also sent me multiple death threats that were pretty damning, saying he had stolen a gun from another friend and was going to kill me with it. The friend called me saying he did steal the gun but returned it after a few hours with it. I was scared but eventually X went to jail and then rehab.

I was finally safe from the crazy I would naively think.

After about 2 years of the small lies they began to grow, into bigger ones. She lied to me about going home, where she isntead stayed in another city for a week with a "friend" of hers. This friend ended up calling me and saying that she cheated on me, not to protect me but rather to split us up. I wouldn't have that though and I thought we would get back together. "Love is forgiveness" were A's exact words whenever I told her we should be done.

Weeks went by and I felt mentally tortured by A. Every time she went out I thought she was going to cheat on me. The arguements we got into would get worse and worse, and she would throw things at me. I drank more than ever and started abusing harder drugs, to "get back at her" when all it did was hurt me. She never had feelings for me, but rather used me as a means of living. She had a job but I paid for our house, I paid her bills and took her shopping. I to this day have no idea where her money went. I was falling apart at this point.

The first time she physically abused me wasn't much. She scratched me across the face with her nails. Shes slapped me before in arguments after I "crossed the line" by accusing her of something but this was different. She drew blood and left a mark on me that ended up with me in trouble at work. I couldn't say my girlfriend was hitting me, I had too much pride. It wasn't until we were on vacation in austin when she smashed a bottle of Dos Equis on my head after I punched a hole in our hotel wall. I never laid hands on her but I did have a short temper and was wicked with words.

Domestic abuse isn't always one sided and I realize that I elevated a lot of the situations to where she felt the need to hit me to get the point across. Neither of us were right.

I woke up the next morning in a different bed than her stuck to my pillow by dried blood. She split my head open with that beer bottle. It takes a lot of force to smash a bottle especially if it has liquid in it. She could have killed me that night. This is when I realized things had to end between us. After years of mental abuse, verbal abuse, her cheating on me, and another year of scratching slapping punching and her throwing things at me we had gotten to a point where our arguments were going to kill me if I didn't leave.

I was afraid of her violent streak. It was like she revealed to me another person. At this point we broke up and she moved back home. I wish I could say it ended well but I had a lot of issues to work out due to some PTSD from another person attacking me (which shows how little she cared for my health by doing the same while I was still obviously damaged) and ended up abusing hard drugs and alcohol until I could get into a program. A ended up in jail on a few year sentence for forging checks but is now in an institution for the criminally insane for (I'm lead to believe) attacking one of her overseers. Before she went to jail I asked her why she cheated on me. Her response: You loved your band more than you loved me. Total bullshit answer, I ended my band, the thing I was most proud of due to her.

Life gets pretty crazy at times, but I learned a very important lesson through A: You become the people you surround yourself with.

Being with A made me violent, insecure and worst of all it made me feel worthless. I am still picking up the pieces of a shattered ego, but I feel like life is giving me a second opportunity now, so I'm going to try writing down some of these stories for you guys to read. I have plenty of stories from my 20's, being a career criminal at times, getting robbed at gunpoint, saving a friend who attempted a murder suicide against me and more. I will share these in time, but tonight I felt like sharing this one.

I hope you guys enjoyed and if there is anything to take away from this it is this: no matter what someone else says about you or to you, no one truly knows you but yourself. You define yourself by the actions you commit and only you can decide to do the right thing or to do anything else. Thanks for listening and be safe.