Toxic and abusive Relationships

Let me make one thing clear. Just because they are not hitting you or physically destroying you, does NOT mean you're not in an abusive relationship.  Abusive relationships can be sexual*, physical and mental abuse.

Mental abuse can be, but is not limited to:

-Verbal abuse, as to insults, slander, etc

-Threatening to do or not do something if xyz does or doesn't happen

-*I mentioned sexual abuse. I feel it can be tied to both physical and mental abuse. For mental, it could be as I listed above, if something sexual is or isn't done, something may or may not happen (See below in story #1).

-Controlling your behavior

-Preventing you from doing things you want to do

Physical abuse, well yeah i don't need bullet points for this one, nor for sexual abuse.

Story 1

Well here is a relationship i'll talk about. I dated this dude i met online when i was in my late teens. I ran away from home at the age of 19 to live with him in another state. At the time I didn't really have any friends (This is important for story 2), so I was completely at his mercy when he turned into a complete douchebag. Since i was dependent on him (I had no job, car, family around etc), I had to do anything he wanted me to do, or I didn't eat.  At the time I didn't realize that I wasn't a fan of sexual stuff in real life. I'd talk about it, cyber, etc, but the actual act...I wasn't a fan of (I ended up losing my virginity at the age of 24, so i never had a time to fool around at a younger teenage age to figure out how i was). The only good thing about the whole ordeal is that he was okay with me wanting to wait until marriage for vaginal intercourse, in which he also told me that if I got pregnant by him he would force me to have an abortion...that's nice...Anyways, it was either give him oral whenever he wanted it, or I didn't eat for the day, and he would ignore me for several days. He was pretty biased and set rules like "You can't have guys on your computer wallpaper, real or animated, because you're only allowed to look at me, but I can have girls on my wallpaper because that's what men do, and that's okay." This lasted for a few months until I was able to get back home (A family emergency happened and i was flown back overnight).  One thing he did to get me to /love/ him is that he showered me with gifts, at the time I thought it was awesome, but i realized this was just a way to keep me blinded by what he was actually doing.

Story 2

So, I was dating X for 6 years and we broke up (This will be important). I met Y a few months later and we were friends. We both agreed that if things got sexual between us that it wouldn't put us in a relationship and that there would be no emotions between us.  Things got sexual we both agreed that we were just friends and nothing more (friends with benefits if you will). A month or so later, an online friend of mine (Z), came down to visit me for my birthday.  I've known Z for 10 years at this time, he came down to visit, we spent time together.  He leaves back to home. Y decides to ignore me and said I hurt him.  He told everyone that I had cheated on him because I spent time with Z while we were "dating".  So all of our mutual friends/coworkers (we worked together), pretty much treated me like an outcast which sent me into a depression where i had a failed suicide attempt.  After about a month of the dust settling, I got a new job and Y and I talked about dating and putting the past behind us, because before the incident with Z we were pretty good friends. Cool okay, so now we're dating. 

So at this time I'm 30, I'm also still friends with X (I'm someone that feels that even if you break up with someone you can still be friends with them if you want. I'm also someone that feels that you can have friends of the opposite gender while in a relationship with someone (This is also important to the story)). So Y knows I'm still friends with X, and he's 'tolerable' with it.  I just have to "Not be with him alone" and I have to show him any messages that we send back and forth. So fine I agree with him.  So X wants to get lunch with me one day, I agree to it because we're going to a public place.  While eating lunch with X, Y calls me asking what i'm doing. I told him I'm having lunch with X.  Y flips shit and starts to yell at me on the phone, saying that I'm cheating on him for having dinner with my ex. I tell him that it's lunch and not dinner. The argument was, because it was 6PM that's dinner and it's a 'date'.  I got off work at 5pm -_______-.  He also yelled at me because I was alone with X.  Seems I had misunderstood what he meant by being "alone" with him.  Anyways, after getting yelled at for a good while, X tells me that he sounds like a psychopath and I should get away from him.  I tell him that it's okay and nothing is wrong.  To make a long story short (Too late), the following things happened to cause issues: Y was constantly upset with me because I would communicate with other friends, in real life and online, because the more I talked to them, the less I was talking to him (Aka, i was not depending on him and making him my center of attention).  He wanted to spend EVERY moment with me, to the point that if I wanted to go home (I stayed at his house most of the time), he threw a hissy fit saying that he can't go home with me to watch me. Anything I did he wanted to do with me, anyone i talked to, he wanted to know who i was talking to, what i was saying, and why. The first few months I was with him, I didn't realize how controlling he was.

So, I had problems keeping my phone bill paid (Yes this is part of the story), my uncle had offered me to be on his plan and just pay him $30 for the t-mobile unlimited family line thing.  Okay cool, I do that. I get a new phone, and a new number. I tell Y about this, I also told him I wasn't going to give out the new number until my old one got cut off, because there was no point on people having a number I wasn't using. He broke up with me a few days later because he couldn't trust me anymore.  I asked him why, he said it was because I didn't give him the new number so he cant be sure that I wasn't using the phone to talk to other people besides him, and it was a trust issue. Okay fine, we break up, I'm perfectly fine with it because i was tired of the bullshit anyway.  After the break up I got back with X, we've been together since (now engaged with a child). I have only talked to Y a handful of times (I know in my last post i mentioned i don't talk to him anymore, but "Happy thanksgiving" "Thanks you too" isn't really talking in my opinion. He has asked how my life has been, I just tell him I'm playing runescape and nothing has changed (never told him about the pregnancy or anything))

Anyways, always keep an eye out for red flags in relationships.  If someone is trying to control your life, run.  It's not cute, its not flattery, just run.