Growing Abuse

[Adrenaline]

To start things off, I'm a male in late twenties, and never had an abusive relationship until now. There was history of abuse in my family, but very minor. I have never actually seen my parents hit each other, only my grandmother socking my father in the face for coming home drunk when I was around seven years old. For the most part I had a very happy childhood and a loving supporting family.

 

I've been going out with my girlfriend for over a year now. We are very different people, but get a long just fine being ourselves. She is a lot more outgoing then me and has hundreds of friends, while I tend to stick with my long time friends who I grew up or served with in the military. For the most part I'm pretty content with myself and can cope for months alone without friends and family due to my past military experiences. She on the other hand needs to see and hear from me every chance she can get. She constantly feels that I need to reassure her that I love her and miss her when she is at work or school. She is constantly saying how much she loves me, and how lucky she is. This is very flattering, but can get a little excessive sometimes to me because I'm just not used to it. I have brought this to attention couple times, but it has always resulted to her not trusting my love for her.

 

My girlfriends childhood background is not is pretty as mine. Her mother had her at a young age, and her mother was constantly abused by her many boyfriends she was living off. My girlfriend not only was exposed to this abuse, but also was abused by her mother's boyfriends and her sisters. My girlfriend had to raise herself and do everything on her own. She later left her dysfunctional family to have a real education and a better life, while her sisters continued to abuse drugs and get pregnant. Few months ago we went back to visit one of her sisters, which ended with a fist fight between her sister and her. I had to intervene and stop the fight, which ended with both of them wanting to hit me. I was later blamed that day for their actions because it was my fault for not wanting to spend the night in her sisters one bedroom apartment with her two kids and boyfriend: in the same room.

 

In most cases, about 80% of the time, my girlfriend is very loving and nice to me. But she is extremely sensitive, and gets offended very easily. She tends to stress out very easily, and when she does she would cry or tell me how I dont love her enough. This usually happens late at night when we are both very tired. This is when she really angers me. When I get mad, I would keep my mouth shut to prevent me saying anything I regret,a dn I would contantly tell her to please stop and discuss this matter when we both have clear minds. But to her she sees that as me avoiding her "feelings". Honestly though, I get very tired of hearing the same story about her being abused and me not loving her enough. At times, when I'm angry I start to feel that her love insecurity means that I really don't love her; but that's not true, because I know in my heart I still have legitimate feelings for her.

 

Things got worse from there, and this is why I am here on these forums. She had one of her mood swings again while I was trying to get some sleep. I actually was so tred I dozed off, only to wake up to her shaking me. My blood just boiled and I reacted by pushing her off the bed. When I realized what I have done, I wnet to see if she was ok, and she punched me in the face. To the reaction of that I pinned her down into the bed in the attempt to calm her down. Couple weeks later we ended up having the same incident but this time when I pinned her down she started laughing at me, telling me that she is not sacred of me and used to this. And told me I can't do anything to her because I'm not a real man. After this I told her we can't be together and we both need some help. We split off for only 24 hours, and got back together again with some rules and guidelines to keep this from happening again. One moth later, she wakes me, I snap and pull her hair, she punches me in the face twice, and I stuff her face in the pillow ...

 

This is all very new to me. My last few relationships have never resulted to violence. They were more military deployment related which made it hard for us to continue dating. This time around I was tired of work getting in the way of my love life, and decided to leave the military to have a relationship with this girl. We tend to be both very dominant and stubborn at times, but for the most part things have been really nice with her. The biggest problem is differently the mental and physical abuse that seems to happen around the time she is under a lot of stress. I just don't know if I should continue .. I feel like the longer I am with her the less control I have of my anger. The last thing I want is my fist touching her face, and I'm a pretty big guy.

[Omei]

If she makes you feel like you cannot control yourself anger wise and have to worry about hitting her then I think it's clear this "match" isn't going well.

 

Part way's.

 

Or if you truly feel stuff can be worked out I would suggest you go see relationship counselor.

 

Sound's like she could use some self therapy too, might do her some good to talk about her past/family/present issues with someone.

[That_girl]

Your girlfriend needs help. I can kind of relate to what you are saying which is why I know that she can't change just like that. These are deeply ingrained issues that she needs to sort out. If she's not going to help herself while she's with you, she can do it on her own. But you need to make her understand that if she doesn't change, you're gone.

 

You're treading on dangerous territory here, and you also need to control your temper before you do something you'll regret. Best of luck!

[Eve]

Seems to me like your girlfriend has many issues. This is why I don't go with the idea of revealing too much about ones past, without there being some support mechanism there.

 

Nonetheless, you have crossed a line. This line has been passed before within your girlfriends life and really I don't think she knows what to do to heal. She is going to be looking to you to sort out this out now, now that she has got you involved in this dance.

 

I can only suggest that you swear down that you will not get involved in any further physical stuff when she goes into that 'zone'. Seriously, tell her you are sorry and swear that will never happen again and if she continues to push you beyond reasonable limits that she will have to get out. Make sure she agrees to this. She must not lay her hand on you again either.

 

Maintain your boundaries -

 

. The most important boundary is to not get into any conversations when she is in the 'zone', unless she is calm. Don't get drawn in. Refer back to the above agreement when things begin to get edgy.

 

. Let her know that you love her but will not accept these standards.

 

Personally I think it is to do with being either under or over stimulated in her early years and she has not learned how to self soothe. For example, you probably don't notice the steps you go through to go to sleep. Most people have a pattern. Your girlfriend may never have had enough stability to build routines and the frustration she feels is hard to manage.

 

Hope I explained that ok with the example of sleep.

 

Anyway, find support in terms of someone who she can talk to. Many groups now have off shoots that also cater for friends and loved ones of the afflicted person.

 

As hard as it is, try not to resort to blame.

 

I do believe these things can be overcome but sometimes they can't. Sometimes it takes someone leaving for people to change.

 

I hope you both work it out because it seems like this is a relatively new thing that has happened and you don't seem messed up (like a potential predator) by how you have explained things.

 

Take care,

Eve x