I was with him for 25 years. We started dating in high school. He was the love of my life. We always had a rocky relationship. Even when we dated, he would get angry and yell at me, and I’d cry and he’d say he was sorry. That was the cycle. I had wanted to date other people, but he would say no, we’re not breaking up, or that he’d kill himself. Then I decided to go behind his back, which I confessed to, and he never let me forget it.We married, and it’s just a blur to me. He acted like he couldn’t stand me. I used to be fun-loving and silly, but he didn’t like it. He would tell me he didn’t like certain clothes I wore and would get angry if I chose to wear them (hiphuggers, flared pants). He would accuse me of going to the gym just to flirt with men (the gym was a part of me, something I really enjoyed). He got angry when I refused to exercise at home. He didn’t like it that I wanted to use my “special” spoon, or “special” bowl. He didn’t like it that I wanted to visit our dogs every day (he claimed I loved them more than I loved him). If our grass got too tall and I asked if he’d cut it, he said that it wasn’t bothering him, so “you cut it yourself”. He would go on hunting and fishing trips and leave me. He’d go to the local bar almost every night when we were married, and once came home at 7 a.m. There was nothing I could say about this stuff. He’d get angry if I complained (he called me a “nag”). And when I asked if he’d please leave a note to let me know where he was if he’d not be home for dinner, he got angry and yelled at me. The name-calling started maybe halfway through our “marriage”. He’d call me a bitch, or tell me to go to Hell. The one I hated was when he said “f*ck you”. I asked him to stop, and he just couldn’t. All of that (plus more things I haven’t mentioned) just about killed me. I became depressed, crying frequently, because we fought about three times a week. One of the reasons was because I wouldn’t give him sex. He became very angry if I wouldn’t. And he would yell at me and say, “why can’t you ever be happy”! At a point, I realized that the only thing I could do to please him was to do nothing, to feel nothing, because he was angered by just about everything I did (even looking at him the wrong way, or breathing a certain way set him off). So my “self” disappeared”. I was nothing. I thought then maybe he’d stop, because if I was “nothing”, he wouldn’t have a reason to be angry. It didn’t work. When I found a sex site that he’d subscribed to, I barely felt anything. I calmly talked to him about it. And as usual, he placated me with apologies. It was only when he became physically violent that I told him I couldn’t live that way. And he yelled at me one last time and said, “I won’t cow-tow to you, and if you don’t like it, get the f*ck out”! That was the last time he yelled at me face to face. I calmly said, “o.k.” He later came back and said I didn’t have to leave. I said, no, I’m doing what I said I would. He asked if I’d still be there after he returned from his hunting/fishing trip, and I said, “I guess not”. I hurredly packed my things. He called me to try to talk me into not leaving, and then his phone went dead. I was so afraid that he was coming back to the house. I immediately called my friend and she said for me to come stay with her. I scrambled and shoved my things into garbage bags and left. I was out of my head terrified. I stayed with my friend for the night. I moved into another friend’s house and stayed there for a month. During that month he followed me, he put a tracking device in my car, he found where I was staying on Mapquest and came to the friend’s house, he got into my car without my permission, and he took my cellphone to get my number. He repeatedly called my workplace to “talk”, and couldn’t talk to me without raising his voice. I learned how to be assertive, and told him if he couldn’t talk to me in a civil manner, I’d hang up. I did. He did not like that. I received counsel from my friends, and went to an attorney to file for divorce. The whole time I felt that I was in a daze – not in my body. I also felt that I was being a traitor, for leaving my husband. He had my mind so twisted. I had lost myself, and I’d lost my capability to think for myself. It was all about him – none about me.So I’m now 5 years out, and I’m still healing. Sometimes it still feels like a nightmare – not real. I’ve had flashbacks and depression. But now I have friends, I’m learning again how to like myself (even how to be myself), and I am in a good relationship with a very kind man. I believe I still have a long way to go, but I’m on the right path.