Dear Vivien:

You read like an intelligent, coherent woman. You write very well.

This is my input:

1. Regarding his family, you wrote: “I got along with his family great, we all got together every week having ” and that they have “absolutely no idea that any of this was happening. I don’t even know what they think of me now, I’m sure he has fed them some story about how I am ridiculous and crazy for acting the way I have”

It is most likely that your ex boyfriend became the abusive person that he has become because his family was not loving, empathetic and so forth. So it is not as if his family was perfect and out of nowhere there is an abusive son. The roots of the abuse are in his original family. You got along with them very well, but I don’t think he did, as a child and ongoing.

2. You wrote that there were great times, “best friends” times and the love felt so real. And those times were real just as the abuse was real. Both. The two behaviors: loving on one hand, abusive on the other- does not mean he is either this OR that. In reality he is both.

You couldn’t and cannot make him this way OR that way. He is both. Try to take the two into one picture in your brain, a whole package deal. Every human being, it is my understanding, no matter how cruel their actions sometimes, such as serial murderers and war criminals, these very people are sometimes loving to some people.

Does this help with your quest for clarity? Let me know and if you’d like, we can continue to communicate for as long as you need to. I hope others will reply as well.

anita