What if you found yourself at the mercy of an abusive significant other or controlling person determined to keep you in the relationship? That's what many people have encountered, though they were fortunate enough to exit the relationship with minimal emotional or physical trauma. The following stories may serve as wakeup calls and help you spot red flags in a relationship.
45. Dark Dreams
Had been dating this guy for a while, and I thought things were going really well. I'll never forget the day because he took me to see Aladdin. We get back to my place and everything's normal. We're conversing and suddenly he gets this weird look in his eyes. He says, "I can't see you anymore. I'm afraid I might hurt you." I'm thinking hurt, like cheat on me, you know, psychologically. I kind of laughed and told him not to worry I was a grown up and whatever happened we could try and work it out. His voice changed and he looked even worse and said, "You don't understand. I've been having these dreams where I hurt you. I mean really hurt you." Then, he jumped off the couch and ran out the front door. Never saw him again. Never tried to call him cause it really shook me up. I guess I should be glad it stopped there. He just seemed so normal up to that point.
44. The Casual Mention
When in the shower, he casually mentioned he had two kids (we'd been dating for a month). His kids' mom had a restraining order on him. Before this he was just a slightly eccentric hippie with a kind heart and a love for spontaneity and bike trips. He ended up pouring patchouli oil all over my door (it's a love oil), leaving cursed voodoo eggs on my porch, and sabotaged my bike so when I went down a steep hill the brakes fell off and the bike crumbled (he had just returned it).
43. Frantic Behavior
He wanted me to text him my work schedule and then would call me on the work phone and wait in the parking lot for me to come out of work. He also wanted to know how much was in each paycheck. One time I texted him my work schedule and he misread it and freaked out non-stop for six hours. He searched for me, called my whole family, and was about to alert the police. It was his own fault he misread what I had texted him. I broke up with him in public because he would not believe it when I broke up with him in private.
42. Psychotic Abuse
After two extreme blowups, one where he destroyed half the house, and the other where he took a hammer to my car, he sent me a text explaining that this is just the way he was and no form of therapy would likely help. He said if I wanted to stay with him I would just have to accept him and all his foibles and realize that every so often he would lose his temper. I realized then that he’d completely rationalized away his psychotic behavior and he’d eventually rationalize away abusing me. So I left.
41. Sanity Lost
We were laying in bed one night after a fight (most likely over something trivial). My girlfriend fell out of the bed. Maybe she rolled out, but it seemed like a fall. She then stood up and started running into walls. She messed herself up real good, and I couldn't get her to stop. A downstairs neighbor heard the commotion and called the police. Police show up and see her sitting on the couch all bloody. I try to explain to them she is running herself into the walls. they do not believe me (who in their right mind would?). She then stands up and runs across the room right into a wall, practically knocking herself out.
Police provide me an escort to the hospital (still don't trust me I suspect). After the hospital staff take her into the back by herself (to ask her if I was hurting her, I'm sure) they allow me in the back room. While waiting she gets out of bed and grabs a bunch of gauze from the cabinet and starts wiping the floor with it. I ask her what she was doing, and she tells me that she is cleaning the floor so the fish can see out of it. During her 2 month stay on the top floor of the hospital I continued to visit her.
40. A Weird Night Out
I went out to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings one night with a few friends. I see a couple of my girlfriend's friends come in and sit at a table near us. They never ordered anything. They just drank water and sat there, occasionally glancing at us. After we’re done eating, we walk outside and sure enough, I see my girlfriend's (ex now for obvious reasons) car in the parking lot. Her driver's seat was leaned all the way back and I could just barely see that she was in the driver's seat trying to hide. I’m already weirded out at this point, so my friends and I leave. As soon as we back out, her car starts and backs out as well and began to follow us through the parking lot. At this point I’m texting her asking her what’s going on but she kept saying she was with her mom hanging out. Needless to say, I ended things shortly after that.
39. Mixed Messages
When I was 20, I dated a girl for a month or so who told me up front that she really likes it when guys "just go for it". One night, we're in my car and looking at the stars through the sunroof of my car. I start trying to kiss her and she pushes me away and says, "What the heck are you doing? Do you really think I'm the type of girl you can force yourself on whenever you want?"
To this day I have no idea if she was testing me. Maybe she actually had a kink and was hoping I'd continue to try to go for it while she "struggled." But if she did, she should've been very clear about it because there was no way in heck I was going to try anything after being told no. No means no means no and that's final. The whole thing left me confused as all get out and that date wound up being the last time I saw her.
38. Stalking Tendencies
My friend found a psycho. He met her at the bar and ended up taking her home. She decided it should be more than just a one-time thing and suggested a date the following weekend. He obliges. Their first date was meeting her parents, where she told them how they were going to spend the rest of their lives together, where they were going to buy a house, the names of their two children etc. He dated her for about a month and after they broke up, she started stalking his friends. Not him...his friends. She'd somehow find out where we would be and threaten us with lawsuits for 'ruining her life.'
37. A Scar To Remember
I was dating this guy, and he invited a bunch of people over to hang out by his fire pit one evening so I could meet his friends. I managed to hit it off with a few of his guy friends (same taste in movies, etc - no flirting whatsoever). As the last person was leaving, he and I were standing in the backyard by the gate. He grabbed me by the belt loop and pulled me towards him. I thought he wanted a hug. He didn't.
Turns out he was unhappy that I hit it off with his friends because now they might steal me from him. He had a large stick he had pulled from the fire (maybe about an inch diameter) in his hand. He wasn't pulling me close. He was pulling my pants away so he could "brand" me with the still red-hot stick I hadn't noticed. I still have the scar, but I don't have him.
36. Online Stalker
We were riding the train home from a date. I look over and she’s logging in to her ex-boyfriend’s Facebook account. I asked her what she was doing and she straight up told me that she was logging in to her ex-boyfriend’s Facebook account. When I asked why, she said “I’m just checking up on him, I want to make sure he’s ok. He never changed his password.” Her checking up on him became reading through not just his statuses but also his private messages. I asked why she couldn’t just look at his profile normally, she said he blocked me. When I asked why she couldn’t just text him if it was that big of a deal, she said he blocked her number too. I had so many more questions, but she started getting ticked off and defensive and I still had a long train ride home, so I let it be.
35. The Big Lie
He sent me to pick up a present he got for his friend's baby shower at a toy store. I went there and asked for it, but they said they didn't have an order. I called him and gave my phone to the cashier. After a moment she gave the phone back to me saying, "I will not be talked to like that." I was so confused. She said he was very rude to her and refused to help me. I left the store. When I came home he denied being rude to her and got mad at me for taking her side. Later he told me I had ruined everything, and we wouldn't be going to the baby shower and that his friend was very upset.
I was confused and felt awful so I called his friend to apologize. She had no idea what I was talking about. I realized he lied about the whole thing to make me feel like a bad person. He was gaslighting me our entire 3-year relationship. He made me feel bad about things he made up to make me feel crazy.
34. The Deadbeat Boyfriend
Mine accused me of cheating when I started going to study at the (very quiet) library while in college. I was taking organic chemistry and some 4000-level science classes and pretty understandably spent a lot of time studying. He was a high school drop out who played video games at top volume when he wasn’t working at his part-time job at a retail store, and it was distracting to study at home.
He never once complimented me in a way that was actually a compliment. I wound up leaving him a few years later to go to grad school as far away from him as I could get. He wound up moving back to our hometown to start a “lawn business” that’s pretty much a front for his substance dealing and usage. I’ve grown and I’ve learned from the situation and I’m happy with where I am now.
33. Unyielding Accusations
He came to my house and accused me of cheating because the cat dish had been moved. I asked him to explain that one to me. He said, “Obviously, the man you’re sleeping with is allergic to cats and you had to put the cat somewhere else while that man was here.” He would also get angry and accusatory over really simple, innocent things that a normal person wouldn't consider suspicious (showering, putting on chapstick, doing a load of laundry) and wouldn't let me leave my house without him for even 5 minutes to go pick up my kids less than 1km away at their after-school program. I am happy that I am out of this relationship, and I hope that he truly makes an effort with the psychiatrist to work on his issues.
32. Demanding Girlfriend
I was dating a girl that demanded I call every day. She would hit me for "sitting wrong." She once lashed out at me over a social media website that was popular in my country. You could see who went to look at your profile. She noticed that a lot of people from my hometown went to look at her profile. She was furious. She said, "You should talk about me enough so that people aren't curious!" When I said, "Wouldn't that make people more curious?" she lost it and screamed at me.
She also screamed at me for telling other people that a family member of mine attempted to take their own life before I told her. She was hot but crazy. I broke up with her and for years later she sent me emails telling me I ruined her life. I met her on a train a couple of years later, and she was with her new boyfriend. He looked like a sad sort.
31. Traumatic Childhood
I took her and her four-year-old boy to a carnival, and the kid won a pair of goldfish. They were in a clear plastic bag like pet stores use. The boy was super excited. On the way to the car, without saying a word, she slammed the bag on the pavement, bursting it, and then stomped on the flopping fish. The boy was instantly hysterical. When I asked her why she did it, she replied, “They probably would have died anyway.” Then she called a few weeks later to ask why I had not called her.
30. Shattered Heart
I was seeing this girl for a while, and we really hit it off. But something in my gut was telling me something was off, so I broke it off and tried to remain friends with her. I found out later from her roommate that she was playing a long con with me and was only pretending to be into everything I liked in an attempt to domesticate me. I also learned once I broke things off she got so angry she smashed a glass against their door, and when her roommate went to sweep it up said “No, leave it. Those are the shattered pieces of my heart.” Safe to say I have no regrets and have never doubted my gut instinct since.
29. Unnecessary Fit Of Rage
We are sitting in a restaurant. She ordered the chicken cordon bleu and a side of fries. She barely had taken a couple of bites and slammed a fry down on the plate. She pushed the whole thing away and stated: "That's Not Ketchup. That's Catsup." Then proceeded to walk out the door.
28. Troubling Anger
My husband is clinically bipolar and can have schizophrenic tendencies. He wasn't like this until 8 years into the relationship. Suddenly all his trust in me was gone and he would have hallucinations of things that "proved" I was cheating. Any nice dress or makeup that I wore became a "sign." His jealousy skyrocketed, and he would give me the silent treatment for days and then explode in anger if he saw me chatting with a co-worker, or smiling at the store clerk. He started logging into my Google account on the home computer and would track my phone. My work was next to a restaurant. Sometimes my Google would get a little off and say I was at that restaurant and he would see that and think I must have lied to him about going to work.
I was miserable. This person who I trusted with my life, my best friend, the person I made a child with suddenly turned completely against me. We agreed that he needed to go to see a doctor, and he did, and with his diagnosis, I knew that he really was having bad episodes. Things are getting better now.
27. Left Abandoned
I went to get an IUD placed and it went horribly wrong. I passed out and had to go to the ER for an ultrasound and my boyfriend was more concerned about intimacy. My roommate went off on him, and he said, “Oh I didn’t realize it was a misunderstanding.” I have to go to the Cancer Center to get infusions for my UC and I wanted him to come because it gets boring and I like his presence. He didn’t want to come so I said it was ok and he offered to pick me up.
He was ticked when things took longer than expected, and I had to get a taxi back home because he didn’t want to wait 15 minutes. I had spent the last couple months taking care of him because he had a severe case of mono. We had plans to move to a different state because I got my dream job and he said he wanted to be with me. He then broke up with me, blocked my number, and gave no explanation. He has since tried to contact me multiple times, but I blocked his number.
26. Exposed Lie
My sister was 17 and was dating a guy who was 22. He tried to tell us he did 4 tours in his 4 years in the army. Yeah, no, he didn't look or act remotely military. His sister was in my year and I asked her why she never said he was overseas. She looked at me like I lost my mind and informed me he washed out of basic training in the second week. I told my sister. She confronted him. He literally stood up and walked away and never spoke to her again. It was weird as all heck.
25. Poor Waiter
We were eating dinner at a restaurant. He got up and started yelling threats. He threatened a waiter after he caught him glancing at me. He also tried to hit me. He claimed he was younger (he hid his ID from me - I realized why later on), lied about pretty much everything. He was shady as hell. I left him after he kicked our kitten out of anger. I took the kitty with me.
24. Whirlwind Romance
We meet at the bar scene. She would stay the night a lot; we would jacuzzi and have a beverage or watch movies and also have a beverage. Then I would wake up to her pouring more at 5 AM in the bedroom. I decided to reduce the amount of drinks I had in the fridge or else she would be drinking most of the day. One morning I was out of beverages, and she demanded I take her to the store to get more drinks. I was already running late for work and tried to take off. She was just wearing her robe and jumped in the passenger side and wouldn't leave until I got her more. I passed a nearby store and she got ticked and threw my car in park as I was going 40 mph.
23. Little Red Flags
It was my first long-term boyfriend, and the drama started with just little quirks. Once he got into doing something, I'd be ignored even if he had asked me around. Then when I had plans he'd guilt me into canceling them and doing something with him.
Loads of isolating stuff like that, to the point that I was almost always with him and he'd be monitoring what I was doing otherwise, looking through my phone etc. My friend once kissed me on the cheek in front of him and he laughed at the time, only to shout at me later. But it built up so I didn't really see the point when he went from an attentive boyfriend to my sole keeper. Luckily for me, one day he just seemed to lose interest. I'm glad for it in retrospect.
22. Downward Spiral
I was really young and innocent at the time. It started with him posting all of my information online. He put my full name, my address, and a bunch of other info out there for people to find. That was already pretty bad. Then, he started sending me pictures and videos of himself doing horrid things to himself. He’d send videos of him swallowing entire bottles of medication. And that was when I knew I needed to get away from him.
Public Domain Pictures
21. Radio Hysteria
I was driving my ex, and the Lady Gaga song "Bad Romance" came on the radio. I turned it up a little and started singing along. He totally lost it. He started crying in the car, saying that I was sending him a secret message about our relationship. I tried to calm him down- it's just a song I liked! No, he was convinced that I really just thought we were in a "Bad Romance" and that this was a telltale sign of some impending breakup. He was still inconsolable 15 minutes later when we got back to his house, and his parents had to intervene and talk some sense into him.
20. Long-Distance Monitoring
This was a long-distance relationship. She banned me from watching adult films. At one point she got so serious about it that she forced me to install remote access software so she could randomly remote into my computer and make sure I wasn't watching behind her back. This extended into my social media, where she would randomly log in to my Facebook and scour my messaging history to make sure I wasn't cheating on her. I have no idea why I allowed this to continue for as long as it did. Abusive relationships turn you into a shell of yourself. I'm so glad I got out.
19. Adult Crybaby
She threw a full-blown temper tantrum in the middle of a store because I wouldn't buy her a new dresser. My tire just had a blowout and I needed to buy a replacement, so her dresser was no longer in the budget. She called a friend to pick her up and left the store in a huff. The next week, she called me up as if nothing had happened. She was 33 years old at the time and was screaming and crying like a 5-year-old because she didn't get her way.
18. Persistent Lie
She decided she was pregnant when I tried to break up with her. There were lots of red flags beforehand, but that was really the icing on the cake. She would send me pictures of positive pregnancy tests but refused to take any tests while I was there. We made a doctor appointment to confirm and she canceled it behind my back. She was also pulling the whole guilt card while this was going on. I should have known better but I was young (20) and stupid. Turns out she pulled all of this on her next boyfriend when he tried to break up with her.
17. Toxic Relationship
I have blocked a lot of his abuse out so the details of this are very fuzzy, but one day he just started punching himself in the head. I tried to tell him to stop and he started staring at me while he did it. Please tell me why I stayed for 3 years and 8 months after that? Codependency is a crazy thing.
16. Prying Ex
I dated a girl in college for 2 years. The craziest stuff happened after I smartened up and broke up with her. She was a little nuts, so I broke it off. Much later, I was at the big spring concert at my college seeing one of my favorite bands (Brand New) with my new girlfriend (who is now my wife)...this is at LEAST 6 months after I broke up with the crazy ex. Well, of course, she's there too. Comes right up to us, checks out my wife, looks at me and just goes "This is fine. I don't care. This is totally fine." And then just walked away.
15. Cry For Help
I once dated a girl who was cheating on me. She became very upset when I told her to get her things and leave my house. She decided to grab one of my butterfly knives and held it to her arm while screaming at me. She then harmed herself. I had to call her mom to take her to the ER for many stitches.
14. Two Is Better Than One
On Valentine's day of my junior year of high school, two girls asked me out. One was super cute and timid, and I liked her a lot. The other had a boyfriend. After turning the second girl down, she went to her boyfriend and told him to beat me up because I was at fault for making her want to cheat on him. Her boyfriend apologized to me and broke up with her in the same sentence. We both received deadly threats from that girl for multiple weeks after that.
Photo by Denise Johnson on Unsplash
13. Man Shrine
She stole my jacket and made a shrine to me with manga style drawings of her and I getting cozy.
Photo by Adrian Ordonez on Unsplash
12. Bragging About Death
My first gf had a rough home life and when I tried to break up with her she said she would take her own life, so I back-pedalled. This happened multiple times until one of her friends confided in me that she bragged about it to her because she hates being single and was trying to date other people “until he was replaced before breaking up with him”
Photo by Jez Timms on Unsplash
11. Omnipotent Father
We were talking once about kids and how he wanted to have some at some point (and I definitely did not). He said that the reason why he wanted to have kids was due to the way kids revere their parents and he just wanted to have that kind of omnipotence. He also said that kids were great when they're young because they're so gullible and you can make them believe in anything and he couldn't wait to tell his future kids all kinds of lies and have them believe it. He just loved the idea of having that kind of power and control over other people. It was sick and seriously disturbing that the only reason he wanted kids is to warp their mind. We broke up, but he's now married with 2 kids.
10. She Needs Help
When she called me and told me about struggling with depression, I asked her if she'd ever considered speaking to a therapist. Having grown up in the home of a depressed and ill parent and been to therapy myself, I know it's good stuff.
She hung up on me.
Then called back. 15 times in 40 minutes.
The last 3 times, she left voicemails in a really flat, emotionless affect:
- I'm going to keep calling until you answer.
- If you don't answer, I'm coming over there.
- Alright, I guess I'm coming over. See you soon.
And then this crazy lady actually shows up at my place.
I suppose I'm crazy too, though. I dumped her, but got back with her two weeks later and dated her for another few months before I perma-dumped her.
Photo by MINDY JACOBS on Unsplash
9. Mommy Says So
She was 22, and dumped me. Because her mom told her to. I'm serious. Her mom said I was playing her. Yeah, I always wait 4 months when I'm playing someone. Sure.
For four months, I tried to get her back. Pleaded. Begged. Gave her space. Bought her flowers.
Then one night, out with friends, I met an amazing girl (still think of now and then, 12 years later...). We dated, and became intimate...but my ex found out and all the sudden wanted me back.
Yep. I fell for it. More fool me.
Three weeks later, the girl I dated during our time apart showed up next door, to babysit. I hadn't even been aware she KNEW the neighbors. I said hi to her, she replied and we spoke for two whole minutes.
My girl came outside and threw a glassware plate at me. Then she hit me with a (flimsy) lamp. And her duffel bag. Which was good, as that made it easy for me to toss all her stuff in it. And thus onto the front lawn, next to her car.
The one consolation: the babysitting got called off next door so, I had a great day after that!
Photo by Meghan Holmes on Unsplash
8. Am I Hallucinating
When I'd spent weeks trying to help her through a bad time and ignoring the stuff she did by writing it off as due to stress, all while slowly slipping into substance-induced psychosis and hallucinations.
At some point, I tried to get her to help me because I had no idea what was going on, had essentially lost my mind, and was terrified, and she just dismissed it and shouted at me till I shut up about it, said I was lying and just trying to get attention or whatever.
In hindsight, she was a person who was constantly generating lies about herself and always had a reason she would use to explain that she's stressed and blame her behavior on. That by itself I could have coped with if she were also supportive to me, but she wasn't.
After that, a few weeks later, I stopped seeing her. A few weeks after that, I caught on to the fact it was hallucinations and not a literal conspiracy against me, and a few weeks later that realization was more permanent and less elusive, something I was able to keep in mind all the time rather than something that could be shocked out of me and leave me believing the hallucinations again.
Photo by Ehimetalor Unuabona on Unsplash
7. Unnecessary Revenge
I dated my psycho for about 8 months. She used to like to role play and all that. She had a thing with being tied up, and so one night she asked to reverse roles. I was ok with that. After she handcuffed me and tied my ankles to the posts, she gagged me with a bandana and got dressed and left me there. She came back an hour later with two guys and got intimate with both of them in front of me several times. When she finally untied me and I was able to speak, I asked her "What the heck was that?" She said she knew I was cheating on her with a girl at work (I wasn't) and that was her way of paying me back. I moved out the next day.
6. Hostage Relationship
I dated this guy who told me he was an NY firefighter. After a few months, I realized he was NOT a firefighter and was actually a psychotic substance abuser. When I tried to break up with him he told me I couldn't because he was in a gang, said if I left him his guys would attack me and my family. Said he had a whole file on my father and his business, and knew everything about him. The actual moment I realized he was truly deranged was when he got in my car all messy, told me he'd been jumped and asked me to take him to the hospital. We got to the hospital and the doctor pulled me aside and told me he suspected that he had done this to himself. I realized he made it all up to manipulate me into feeling bad for him and bringing him to the hospital.
After that night, he essentially held me hostage in this relationship for a few months. He held a weapon on me once and didn't let me go to work because "Tony was coming over and he wanted to meet me." Obviously, Tony never showed. He left me voicemails threatening my life. I called the cops and played them the voicemail, but they said there was nothing they could do with that information. I went to get a restraining order on him and found out he had NINE OTHERS on him, mostly from his parents. I got out of it when I moved to a different state.
5. Missing Food
I was with my first boyfriend in college, and we had only been exclusive for one week before the psychosis started. First thing, I noticed food was going missing in my house. We didn’t live together. He was throwing out my food he didn’t want me to eat. Next, a boy from my class who didn’t know I was dating (we’d only been exclusive for a month at this point) called to ask me out. My boyfriend answered and accused him of being a home wrecker. Third and finally, we were walking and I was almost hit by a car, but he pushed me out of the way. I later found out his friend was driving the car, and he orchestrated this so I would feel I owed my life to him.
4. No Time For Reality
My best friend from high school joined the military and ended up getting married at 19 to a psycho.
Really cute, but constantly attention-seeking. Posting very suggestive pictures on facebook, would brag to his friends about the size of her "plugs", etc.
She also never had a job in the 13 years they were married, or in high school. Literally, her only work experience was the 9 months of Army service before she was discharged when she got pregnant. Instead, she'd sit around all day playing Eve Online, for like 12 hours a day.
Eventually, he decided he'd had enough and was going to get a divorce. It had gotten far enough along that all of their friends knew of the divorce. But after about a year, they were still together. Okay, I guess they worked it out.
Five years later, we find out she passed away. Details are extremely sparse, he doesn't wanna talk about it. Police are getting involved. Now we're worried.
Turns out she took her own life, in the living room in front of him, with the kids asleep upstairs. The reason they hadn't broken up was because she was threatening to do it if he ever left, but eventually, he'd decided he couldn't take it, and told her he was leaving for real this time.
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3. All To Me
I dated this girl one summer during high school. She seemed nice enough and we kind of hit it off at a church function. Until my summer schedule started. I went from working evening at a local fast-food joint to working overnights and I guess she couldn’t cope. She would call my house and accuse my mom of lying for me, and demand she tell her where I really was. She’d drive by all night, and would even wait for me to get home at 6 or 7 (still in my work uniform) and accuse me of cheating.
Eventually, she’d start calling me every hour or so at work, which as you can imagine my managers just loved. She did not take the breakup well, threatening to take her own life. She threatened to harm me, and she threatened to harm my dog. When I started dating a coworker towards the end of the summer she threatened her too.
2. Such A Cheater
Lied about being married and wore a ring on her ring finger as 'proof' of being married as a means of showing interest and trying to provoke me to cuckold a man that doesn't exist.
She also sent a text to someone else right in front of me where I could easily see and clearly about me. It was about how 'he can't court a woman' in another attempt to provoke me to somehow be interested in her. Never mind the fact that she already made herself out to be a liar and someone to avoid.
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1. Flawed Goals
Went out once after being matched online. Didn’t work out. She kept calling during dates with other guys and asking them to tell me I was an idiot to pass her up.
After no calls for a few months, she called crying and asking me to tell her current BF that we were not intimate. She put him on the phone and he asked me directly. Of course, the answer was “No, we didn’t” but he responded with “Then why she always hitting you up?”
I just hung up. She called 37 more times, but I didn’t answer.
