Emotionally and mentally abusive. That’s a string of words that I thought I would never pair together. However, it took a good friend of mine, and an hour of crying, to realize exactly what was going on.

My daily routine, over the last two years of dating my ‘boyfriend’, has evolved into an affectionate void. Emotionally, he has checked out and it is quite obvious. When I need him, he shuns me. He doesn’t like to kiss me; he doesn’t like to hug me. This is just how he behaves. He would come home, get onto his computer, and I would be lucky to have ten sentences spoken to me for the rest of the night. I would ask him to go do something with me, and he would give me some lame excuse as to why he could not do it.

It was one day after another, and I suppose that I retracted on myself and began not to notice these things. It was just like someone who was suffering from Stockholm syndrome. When we fought he ingrained it into my head that every problem that we had was because of me. That my ‘issues’ were the source of all of our problems. If I brought up anything about him, then he ‘knew all of his problems’, and did not want to talk about it. Sooner or later, I just started to give in. I became the ‘housewife’ and ‘motherly figure’ that he wanted around the house, on top of working full time and going to college full time.

When I tell you that we fought, he would blame his inability to perform in the bedroom on the fact that during the summer I had gained weight due to severe depression after my father died. He would tell me that I was fat, that I was ugly. Soon enough, I just started to believe that too. It was incredibly hard to realize, incredibly hard to deal with.

Then I had my best friend move in with my boyfriend and me. She lived with us for only two weeks before one day, while I was emotionally upset, she brought forward, “Why are you really upset about this?” And then it all came falling down. She lived with us two weeks, and she pegged the nail on the head about what my boyfriend was doing to me. She let me get all of my frustration out. Then she went on to tell me, “You tell me you’re an Alpha Female, but looking at how you behave at home because of him, you’re really not. I know this isn’t the real you.”

Suddenly, everything that my other friends were trying to tell me made sense. Let me tell you, that when all of your good friends do not like who you are dating, there is a reason behind it. Mine certainly didn’t like my current significant other.

You might ask yourself now, what I decided to do about this situation. I slowly but surely began to do the exact thing that he did to me. When he tried to be affectionate, I would pull away. When he tried to tell me I was wrong about something, I began to slowly assert myself. Lo and behold, he no longer uses me as the doormat that he once did. Things are slowly but surely improving. For instance, since the beginning of December, I was extremely ill. I had an infection that turned into Bronchitis. I couldn’t sleep in our bed because when I laid down I coughed so much it was impossible for me to fall asleep. So, I went downstairs and laid down on the couch with my big comforter. I asked my ‘boyfriend’ to cover me up because I wasn’t warm enough. He got up and went and found three more blankets, and wrapped me up with them like a cocoon. Then, when I was supposed to take him to the city to see his sister who was going in for surgery, he told me that he didn’t want me making the trip. He stated that he would just take the train because I was sick, and he knew I didn’t like driving in the city.

I can’t say that we’ll end up staying together. We probably won’t. All that I can say at this time about the situation is that it is starting to improve. I still find myself at times going back into my old routine, but thankfully I have a wonderful best friend who kicks my ass out of it again. The road to recovery when in a relationship like this one isn’t an easy road. If you have ever known someone who is in this type of situation, it is a lot different than someone who was physically abused.

To some of you who might read this blog entry, what I’ve stated here may not sound like it is that horrible of a situation, let alone emotionally or mentally abusive. I could go in depth with how this relationship is/was that way, but I would prefer to skim the surface as I find myself still recovering from the after effects.

I would like to take the time to tell anyone who may feel they are, or have been told that they are, in a situation similar to mine, that you either need to change it or get out of it. They will either change, or they will continue doing what they have been doing to you. If I could tell you how many times I wept myself to sleep, drowning my pillow in my tears because of how I was treated by the very person who claimed that they loved me, I couldn’t tell you the number. No one should have to live through a situation like that. It isn’t healthy, and the scars that it could leave on you would last for many years to come.

Thinking back on everything that my ‘boyfriend’ told me, and accused me of, and treated me like, I would have to say that I would have rather been beaten every day instead. Bruises and black eyes, those will fade. Scars left deep within your emotions and mind take many more years to recover from, not to mention they affect your ability to be in a happy, healthy relationship later on. If he physically abused me I could have lived with that a lot better. I can handle physical pain. When it comes to emotional strife, it makes me miserable.

Relationships are a give and take situation. They are a 100% compromise. If one side is demanding all the compromising, and the other is doing all the ‘giving in’, then all you can do is assume that the relationship is not a healthy one.

Ladies, Gentlemen…There are more fish in the sea. If someone decides that they are going to treat you in any other way than how you wish to be treated, then they are not worth it. Cast them aside like a ‘baby fish’ and keep going.