Dear Billy:

You are welcome and thank you for your good wishes. First I will retell your story (it helps me process information when I do that): 2.5 years ago, you met a woman, it was great for 2 months (July- Sept 2017), “Great  dinners, amazing sex, and decent conversations”. Sept, when you asked her to hang out, she responded with such sentences as: “If you rush me to  hangout again you won’t see me”. When she met your parents, she told you that she felt that they didn’t like her, that she wasn’t good enough. She didn’t listen to your suggestions that her understanding wasn’t true, and the two of you stopped seeing your parents much. December 2017, two years ago, the two of you attended your company dinner at a nice restaurant. She accused you of sleeping with one of your co worker, stating “a coworker wouldn’t stop staring at me and I ‘had to be sleeping with her'”- her accusation wasn’t true. In the very beginning of 2018, she moved in with you into your house, and two weeks later, “it got bad”. In February, you found out she was five weeks pregnant and the two of you decided to terminate the pregnancy so to not “bring a child into a broken home”, that is, the home the two of you shared.

A month later, March 2018, the following dynamic got established: “she threatened to leave, at least once a week. Packing her things and going to the door. I would cry and get on my knees for her not to leave”, and she didn’t leave. A few months later your grandfather whom you loved dearly, died,. When you told her that, her response was: “go hug (your) ex girlfriend”. You then told her to  “pack her things and leave”, but she didn’t.

Summer of 2018, a year into the relationship, and half a year of living together, life with her “was hell”. She accused you of cheating, wondering where you were at any time, accusing you of being on a date when you went out to dinner with two friends, and she “smacked (you) in the face”. At that time you told her to leave,  otherwise, you will call the police to escort her out and she left after damaging your house, “Holes in the sheet rock, scratches on my hardwood floor, thresholds broken”.

While living separately, you tried to work  on the relationship because your “love for her was not gone”. December 2018, you found a hickey on her neck, but feeling guilty, you kept trying to “continue to work things out”. May 2019 you were diagnosed with cancer and had emergency surgery. Back home for bed rest, your parents brought over supplies for you, including paper towels and toilet paper. Next, your girlfriend came over with the same supplies, “flipped out and started screaming” about your parents bringing the same supplies as she later did. Next, you “tried to break up with her”, but “she didn’t allow it”, showing up at your house, at your parents’ house, call you 30 times in an hour, begging you to  not leave her. You then “tried, and tried again”. During your recovery from the cancer surgery, she told you at times things like: “enjoy chemo and radiation, you deserve everything that is happening to you”. November 2019, she told you: “f*** you, the guy I’m talking to is better anyway”. That was the last time you talked with her.

A month later, you feel guilty: “this is all my fault”, you wrote. And you wrote: “She always said.. it’s all my fault”.

My input this Dec 8, 2019: to your question: “Am I a victim of  abuse?” the answer is easy and a no-brainer: yes, of course you were. If you want to categorize the abuse, it was physical, her smacking your face and destroying your property, illegal (battery and destruction of property); verbally and emotionally abusive, most cruel. She has been bad for your health, before and after you were diagnosed with cancer, and for your very physical health, you need to clear yourself from any and every abusive relationship,  most specifically, you need to have no contact whatsoever with this woman.

Her anger is dominant in her interactions with you, it is a strong and undisciplined anger. When she feels it, she destroys- be it smacking your face, be it destroying your home, and she will say things aimed at causing you the most pain possible, intentionally. And then, she tells you it is all your fault. I am not a medical doctor or a therapist, and neither are you, but you may want to google the DSM-4 entry on Borderline Personality Disorder (I like the DSM-4 better than the later DSM-5). There is also a book or two on the matter that may be worthy for you to look at.

I mentioned that your question: “Am I a victim of abuse?” (the title of your thread) is very easy to answer, a no brainer. The reason you asked this is because you either believe that you are inherently wrong, and therefore you are responsible for anything wrong that is happening in your life, and therefore she is… your victim, not the other way around, and/ or you don’t feel that you deserve being treated decently. What do you think?

anita