How do I get over this?

[Primrose]

Hi, this is my first time posting but I just needed to get this out and get some advice. I was in a four year long relationship with someone who was very abusive, but I did not see it when I was with him. I moved across the country to live with him when I was 19 and then his behavior changed and he started getting angry at the drop of a hat. I got called every name in the book. I had to walk on egg shells around him. No disagreement seemed to be solvable between us because he had a way of twisting things around so they were always my fault, and little things just turned into explosive rage when it came to him. I felt trapped because I had moved for him, and all my friends and family back home thought he was a great guy and I was embarrased for anyone to find out the truth. It was exhausting pretending to be happy.

At first, he would pinch me if he got mad, then soon enough he'd grab my arm really hard while yelling at me, then shoving, and soon enough he hit me. One night he came home drunk and attacked me. There wasn't even a fight, he just clobbered me. I curled up into a ball on the couch where I had been sitting and he mostly got my legs.

The next day i had horrible briuses on my legs, nasty and purple and it hurt to walk. I showed him and he begged for forgiveness, just begged and begged until finally I said it was alright. Then he never said a word about it again...nothing.

This was a year after I'd moved in with him. Usually, he was a nice guy but his moments of anger were terrible, i was holding on hoping he would change, pleading with him just to be nice to me. THen he dumped me. It was for the best I thought, but I didn't really have the money to get home. I saved for about a month and he didn't help me pack or anything and then calulated down to the day how much rent I owed him for that month...then I drove home alone.

 

My family thought he'd dumped me for no good reason and they were upset with him for hurting me, but they didn't know anything about the abuse...I didn't even think of it at abuse, those words never crossed my mind, i never had any black eyes and i decided not to make too much of a big deal out of it. I never went to the police after he beat me because he was in the Military and I would have felt awful if I'd gotten him in trouble with his job.

A few months later he started calling and telling me how sad he was without me and begged me to take him back. He promised to be better (he never mentioned the physical stuff though) he promised never to call me names or explode and we'd work it out. He even volunteered to go to counseling. I took him back and we saw each other every now and then when he would fly over to see me. After a couple months he just reverted back to being the same way....this time though he started yelling at me and humiliated me in public over simple disagreements. He didn't hit me again. So finally I broke up with him (after years)...I'd been put down so much and my self esteem was so low that it took me a long time to get up the courage to do it.

We decided to be friends (I wanted to try and be mature and not leave the relationship with us hating each other ) and he has called me every couple of months to see how i'm doing. He has apologized for treating me badly, and he said he didn't know why he did it. I told him the incident when he hit me was one of the worst experiences of my life.....and he didn't even know what I was talking about, he'd forgotten about it. I explained to him what happened and he blew it off, telling me that I was making too much of a thing about it. He denied ever being physically abusive towards me.

I pretty much left it at that. I last spoke to him about a month ago (I never call him, he calls me) and had a nice conversation with him (just about stuff we've been up to and etc...) he can be so nice that it's easy to forget all the mess we went through.

 

the thing is....I get very angry when I think about this, and I think about it alot. I really wish I had gone to the police and shown my bruises, then maybe it would have made enough of an impression on him to remember it! I don't want him to do this to another woman. Also, my family does not know what happened and I feel like I'm keeping a big secret, but I also feel like If I do speak about it then I am just making a mountain out of a mole hill because it happened so long ago, ya know? I don't want to feel foolish or like I'm just trying to get sympathy.

 

I am dating a wonderful man now for a little over a year. He has never said an unkind word to me. But I just can't seem to get over the abuse I went through with my Ex.