Dear MKnox,

I am sorry you’ve been through all this. He has hurt you badly and treated you in despicable ways. Your biggest mistake was that you sought closure from him. Instead of leaving as soon as he started abusing you, never to turn back, you went back and sought explanations, and then sometimes he would give you false promises that he would change, but the abuse would continue.

You said you went through at least 7 cycles of being horribly abused and then reconciling with him (I thought this was just another typical discard situation that I had been through with him at least 7 times before.) The last time he discarded you, you went back, followed him in your car, tried to overtake him, he then hit your car on purpose, you then both stopped your cars, you got out, went to him and put your hand on his heart begging him for explanations and closure. And then he grabbed your hand and twisted your fingers, resulting in one of them breaking:

When I went after him and followed him, I passed him on the road, and he sped up and hit my car on purpose though, and when I entered the subdivision I stopped my car and got out and went to his car and begged him to help me understand why he was treating me this way and to give me closure, and I put my hand on his heart and said please have empathy and help me understand and you are hurting me, and he grabbed my hand and bent my fingers all the way back and he broke one of my fingers.

The judge discarded his violent actions, he only took into consideration that it was you who was following him and “harassing” him. His parents confirmed it and testified against you.

I understand your bitterness and the sense of injustice, however you made a mistake of seeking closure and explanation from a sociopath like him. And now, you seek the same from his parents. But they understandably want to protect their son and won’t show any empathy towards you.

That is over now though and please understand I don’t want revenge. Also, I am legally safe now and I want to stay that way. I have no contact with him now. I doubt he will try to make amends or give me closure which is sad but I guess he is not capable of it.

It’s good that you are legally safe now. It’s also critically important that you don’t pursue him any more, trying to “seek closure” because you might get into legal trouble again. You’d need to understand and accept that neither he or his family will make any amends to you. He isn’t capable of it, and his family is protecting him. If they would apologize for their son, they would be admitting that he abused you, and they obviously don’t want that – they don’t want him to get into legal trouble because of his actions. So they will probably never apologize and never admit that he did anything wrong to you.

You need to give yourself closure. And you can do that with the help of therapy. You probably were susceptible to this man due to your childhood trauma with your sociopath father. You sought a similar man and tried to make him love you. Your father didn’t give you closure before he died, and this man cannot give you closure either. You need to heal and give that closure to yourself.

I am a writer, and I have a voice and to have that taken away along with my character and dignity was the most traumatizing experience of my life

Your voice is not taken away from you. You can still write about your experience and help other women who may be in a similar situation. You can claim back your dignity, but not by begging him or his family to give it to you, but by healing your wounds and understanding that you don’t deserve to be treated like that.

He told you you deserved abuse from your father. Well, you’ll claim back your dignity when you no longer believe that you deserved that abuse, but you know and accept that you are worthy of love.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by Tee.