My boyfriend and I just had a real serious talk and he didn't like the outcome of that much. Which is understandable.

Another woman was murdered by her partner just recently in my country and it sparked a whole conversation between my boyfriend and I, as he asked me about what you can do when you witness domestic violence, and I showed him some business cards I had for a women's hotline in the city I used to live in that I just carry around with me everywhere in my wallet these days ... simply because I have just witnessed too much crazy shit. Too much. And a lot of that crazy shit has happened to me, too.

So I told him. I told him about the boyfriend I had when I was 20/21. This guy started off as super charming. Told the most interesting stories. He seemed smart, very funny, just such a nice guy, everybody could have everything from him. It started small. We'd get into arguments. He'd get a little angry. Then next argument he'd get a little more angry. And then he'd start throwing shit. Ya know, an ashtray, a glass, and always so apologetic afterwards. And you know he's had a rough life, his parents didn't love him, he's been through so much trauma. And he's so sorry. He'll try harder. You just want to be strong for him. You are just trying to be there for this guy who you think you love because - goodness, everybody's human! He is just trying. He's TRYING, you guys! And then he's started humiliating you. And punching walls. And manipulating you. And telling more and more lies. And you don't know what's real anymore. You become a shell. A walking shell that he fills with his will and you do what he says because he must know better. And he keeps threatening to leave, to just break up with you and leave you alone and you'll be alone forever, because you're totally insane, like he says. Nobody would ever love you. Who could love someone like you. So you humiliate yourself. You get down on your knees, panicked, crying, sobbing, just begging him, please don't leave me, please don't leave me. And it escalates and escalates.

In the end he takes you away from everything and everyone you love. First only internally. He makes sure you know your mom never loved you either, and that your friends are just using you. That nobody is trustworthy - but him. Which you don't see, that he's isolating you. But it's happening. And in the end he took it a step further, we moved cities, were going to build a life somewhere else. Start over somewhere else, far away from your loving mom and your slightly concerned friends. It's a new start. Only things keep happening and the stories seem more and more impossible.

In the end it was my mom that saved me. I had made an off-handed remark about him leaving about something where the police was called and I was involved (I had tried to intervene at a scene of violence, tried to help someone out but it didn't end well [for the people involved, not me, I was ok]) ... and her alarm bells had been ringing for MONTHS. (All this happened in exactly 6 months! ONLY 6 months it took him, a 30+ year old man to manipulate me, a barely 20-year-old into all these crazy things...).

So she called my cousin who was helping out at an attorney's office and asked her to please check on his records, and he had some. Money trouble mostly. That was only what was available to her as a somewhat public record. Who knows what else he did.

She called me, and I'd finally had enough. I listened to her. She made him talk, admit to his lies. And the worst ones he told finally broke the spell. And I was able to break up with him.

It starts off so small and escalates only bit by bit. This guy brought a GUN to my apartment. A fucking GUN and I was shocked, yes, but did I think, "whoa, this guy is seriously dangerous"?? Nope. He got it for a "job", he said. And I accepted that.

And when I finally managed to break up with him, I was lucky my mom made me go to a café - remember, we were in a different city by then. She said, "go to a café, I will come to you, right now, right away. Don't move." And I did what she told me. I waited in the café for her and it took her two hours to get there in her car. She took me back to the hotel we'd booked until we found an apartment and there he was. He'd taken a small dose of my anti-depressants and pretended to be absolutely gone. I was hysterical, calling an ambulance, thinking he'd overdosed on something else additionally. But he hadn't. The on-call emergency doctor took one look at him walking in the door, said, "This guy doesn't need me" and went back out the door.

But he hadn't known that my mom would be there. Had she not been there, I honestly have no idea what would have happened. He had told me before his faked suicide attempt, that he would kill himself and leave a note to let everybody know it was my fault.

That was the end of that story. I went back to the apartment I still had in the city I was from, had the police come and pick up the gun. They asked about him, and then told me they were looking for him, that I should be glad I was rid of him, and to discretely call them should he ever turn up at my apartment.

That's how quickly shit like this happens.

So I told my boyfriend all about this story. And then said, "But it didn't teach me my lesson completely" ... because only 4 years ago I broke up with a guy I'd been with for a bit over a year I think. He was a compulsive liar, like that ex. He lied about so many things. And I was so suspicious so often - yet did I learn my lesson and just get away from this guy at the first sign? Nope. I stayed. For a year and a bit. But at least he wasn't abusive. He was just some poor guy who had no control over his lies, or his life, and lying was all that got him through.

Then the boyfriend looked at me and joked, "Hah, you don't know, maybe I am making everything up! Maybe I am lying about everything, too!"

Only I stayed serious, and I said, yes, you could. Because those guys were "normal" guys, too. You can't tell right away they were crazy. They weren't mean and awful and manipulative right away. And yes, I do stay watchful, as I HAVE to with my history. And I look closely at him, his words, his behaviors and I cannot be 100% sure he won't abuse me some day. I didn't say the bit about not being sure whether he'd abuse me some day though, as he already looked sad enough.

He said to please change the topic or just stop talking after that.

And I know his feelings are hurt. But I told him, I trust him, and that should be worth a lot, because my trust is precious with all that I have been through. That I look at his actions very closely and I see that they are loving and trustworthy.

He did not like to hear any of that anymore.

And we stopped talking. And I went and wrote this blog post.

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