This is a complete account of the 5 years of hell I lived in as an abused man in America. The story starts in high school. My best friend Doug was dating a girl a few grades below us named Patti. Patti and Doug would get in fights all the time. I remember one for example, doug and I were smoking a cigarette on my parents front porch. Patti rode by on her bike to spy, and saw doug smoking and started yelling. She rode her bike away and came back a few times, stopping to yell in a childish attempt to get him to follow her. Doug died the next year. Patti started coming on to me. We liked each others company. It made us feel close to doug. I told to her many times that I was not interested in a romantic relationship, I didn't feel like it was right. She eventually got me to fall in love with her. Almost a year into dating she became pregnant. I was 18, she was 16. We went to the clinic and they helped get an adjudication through the court to get an abortion without her parents knowing. The judge never showed up. They just granted it to us. (Looking back I am wondering if they did this because I could have possibly been charged as a pedo?) The abortion and it took a toll on us. I no longer wanted to be with Patti. She was controlling and would threaten suicide or do coke with people I didn't know if she didn't get her way. I tried to break up and she threatened suicide. I told my mom. Patti was irrational and I didn't want to be forced into something. I told my mom about the abortion and she was really upset and called Pattis mom to tell her about it(her very catholic mother was appalled) and her suicide threats and that I do not want to see her anymore. Her mom and her came to talk to us. The meeting was awkward, Patti was not to contact me anymore. Sitting here typing this, I cannot remember what brought us back together, but we started dating again. We were safe during sex until one time, she was on top and I didn't have a condom. I told her I was going to cum, which meant get off. This time, she just said "so?" and kept going. I started to cum and tossed her off of me, but it was too late. she was pregnant and said "Since she got pregnant again it is a sign she should have our baby." I am 19 and she is 17. In my young mind I think the child would bring us closer. Maybe we would fight less now, have a special bond. After our son was born, we lived together. this is when things got crazy. I was no longer allowed to go to a friends house, only allowed to drink once a month, regulated my diet, made me take my clothes off outside after work because she didn't like the smell of them, she refused to work and I HAD to buy her something new once a month or she would throw a fit. I felt trapped. I worked 3 jobs. Managed a pizza store second shift after working an oil refinery first shift. Once a week I worked third shift in fast food. when I got home she would tell me "If you don't do the dishes/ laundry I will call the police and say you beat me".This goes on for a while, if i refused to do something, she would start verbal abuse, then hitting, spitting on me. Example: One Sunday morning we had got up early, were going to have breakfast and watch cartoons. I had made her breakfast and she was on the couch eating and I started cooking turkey bacon (eating healthy because she called me gross because I had gained weight) she said "why do you have to eat that it smells like shit, I hate when you cook that, its disgusting" kept going on, I said "Why do you have to be such a bitch?" instantly regretted it. She shouted "BITCH! YOUR A LITTLE BITCH!" kept spewing insults at me for a while. I finished and brought my food to our spare room to be alone. This pissed her off and she did not understand why I was ruining our morning. I said "After what you said to me, I want to be alone" She hit me and knocked my glasses off. I sat there hoping she would stop. she picked up my food and threw it in the trash. She began punching my head and face,spitting on me. I couldn't see well because of my glasses, and I was crying. objects in the room were a blur, i started looking at the different colors in the room and naming them in my head to bring my mind to another place. She hit, yelled, and spit on me for about 5 minutes then she started gathering my things like shoes, contacts, glasses, wallet, phone, keys. She did this a lot to keep me from leaving. Once I heard her pick up my keys, I ran to the living room and tried to take them from her. She let go of the keys and dug her nails into my face leaving 3 inch long scratches down the sides of my face saying "scratches on the face are a sign of self defense. If you leave I will say you beat me" I had a job interview the next day. The lady interviewing me was visibly horrified. According to Patti I am worthless piece of shit because I didn't get that job. Events like that were common. One time when trying to leave she hit me in the back of the head with a pot. It knocked me out and I woke up to her hitting dents out of the pot with a hammer. One time, she was hitting me and our 1 year old son was crying and wanted me to pick him because he was scared. I bent down to pick him up, she yelled "Don't touch my child" and kicked me in the face. Blood splattered all over and knocked me out. She thought I was faking being knocked out so she started stabbing my leg with a knife to prove to her friend that watched horrified that I was faking. I woke up in a puddle of my face blood to her friend telling her to stop and my son crying. she would take my pillow and blanket if I tried to go to bed during a fight. She would fill the pillow case with hard objects and hit me in the head until I got up and continued arguing. She told me that only when I fought back did she feel like she could stop. This continued for years until one night she took things too far. One night she went to bed, I told her I would be in later. I fell asleep on the couch. She came out and I was snoring with my mouth open. She poured draino in my mouth. I ran to the bathroom to rinse my mouth. she began the ritual of hiding my stuff. she reached over my head to grab my contacts from the medicine cabinet, I lost it. I sat down on the toilet while simultaneously grabbing a bottle of spray cleaner. I smashed the top off on the tub while I pulled her down over my knee like a little kid. I dumped it over her head while yelling "What the fuck is wrong with you? Do you like that?" I spanked her like a child and pushed her off. She yelled "Help me!Call the police!" She left the bathroom. I was trying to get my contacts in when she hit me from behind with a hammer. I turned in disbelief. She swung again and hit my ribs. I took the hammer, raised it in the air like I was going to hit her, she fell to the floor scared. I ran, threw the hammer into the spare bedroom and was attempting to leave, She got the hammer and started coming again. I tried waking up our son, because when he woke up Patti would stop and get him back to sleep and settle down. He wouldn't wake so I jumped out a window and ran. I was barefoot, blind and miles from my parents house.I started walking. Patti went to sleep, thinking I couldn't go anywhere. On the walk, my feet became bloody. I was crawling on the side of a country road. Every car that passed, I would reach out to for help. One threw stuff at me, turned around and threw more. Eventually cops found me. I told them I had an argument with my girlfriend and I was trying to walk to my parents. They said they had to call her to be sure she was okay. They called her and she said everything was fine and she didn't want to see me then. They gave me a ride to my parents house. Patti thought I had told on her. She went to the police station and filed a report saying I beat her. The police said they could see no marks but she made them take pictures anyway. After a couple hours my mom took me back home and I fell asleep on my couch. I was woken up by the police officers that had found me on the side of the road. The female had tears in her eyes as she said "I am sorry, but we have to arrest you for domestic violence, she filed a report first so we have to arrest you" I was in jail until I went to court. They told me I could not have any contact with Patti or my son until our court date over a month away. That night I saw Patti with another guy at a concert I was working. She was in the mosh pit all night. The next day she went to a different police station (we lived in the township so they took the first pictures, she went to the city police and had them take pictures of the bruises she got at the concert. Somehow this was admissible in court.) I followed the TPO and did not contact her even though it KILLED me to not see my son. This drove her crazy. She started stalking me. saying I followed the TPO because I wanted to fuck other girls. She eventually guilted me to come home. Biggest mistake of my life. Once back, she was relentless. The system had her back, not mine. She beat the absolute shit out of me, made me her slave or she would call the cops. The police would come by from time to time to make sure I wasn't there. I would have to hide in a crevice between our bed and the wall when they came. We went to court and my lawyer advised me to plead guilty (public defenders work for the court, not their clients) The prosecutor must have smelled bullshit in Pattis claims because all of my charges were dropped after I completed counseling (3x a week for 6 months at $75 per session, a scam for sure) paid fines and probation was over. I also could not see my son legally until counseling was over. I want to state that I was not an angel in this relationship, I drank a lot then. I would black out and the next day Patti would tell me I beat her. I thought I was the asshole for a long time until I pretended to be drunk. When she thought I was blacked out she beat me worse than ever. the things she said, the things she did were worse than anything else I could remember her doing to me. She to this day does not know I know. Eventually I returned home legally. When this happened Patti seemed annoyed all the time. She treated me like an unwanted guest. One night I was trying to leave to stay at my friends house. She got mad (even though my presence was terrible) I happened to get away and the last thing i heard was "I am calling the police if you don't come back" as I ran away. I hid under a neighbors porch with spiders crawling over me for 3 hours while police searched for me. I called my mom and she picked me up. I was officially a wanted man, and going back to jail for something I didn't do again. We could not accept this and hid out at a friends house before leaving and going to the other side of the country. I called Patti when I was 4 states away feeling safe from her finally and told her I left and was going to start a new life without abuse. It broke my heart, but I could not live like that anymore. I was gone for a couple months before I got a job offer and moved back. I stayed with her, hiding with the blankets on the windows and the cops knocking. I was her slave and was not treated humanly. I took every dollar I had left (I was still paying for her 100% at this point, even while I was gone.) and got an apt one street into the next state. I worked a couple roads into the state i was wanted, it was a different city so i felt okay. Once again she was mad that I had my own place where she couldn't regulate my life. One night after visiting my parents, I went to visit Patti and my son (we were back together and trying to work things out) I saw through the window of my home Patti and some other guy making out on my couch while my son watched. My blood boiled. She got HPV from that guy and got cervical cancer, I was there with her holding her hand at surgery. I still cared for her after all. She continued to ditch me for the HPV guy. I ended it, told her to move out of my home and I moved back instead of paying for 2 homes. I let her use the address for food stamps because her moms income was too much if she used that address. This meant I could not get them. She wouldn't buy me food. I was ordered to pay almost $200 per pay period which meant $400 per month. I lost that job and got $65/ week in unemployment. child support was the same. I was also ordered to pay back support for the time she lived in my home. She never had a job during our 5 year relationship. She gets my tax returns now. The tax returns have been spent like this 1st year: tattoos, 2nd year: an engagement ring for herself (yes she bought it), 3rd year a down payment for her fiancee to get a new car. The other years I don't know what they did with it. New furniture I think is what they got one year (she tried selling the couches to me for $900 when she didn't like the color.) One incident that I feel needs to be brought up, simply because this is the worst I ever fought back is one time after she moved out, she was dropping off our son and yelling at me about something and started punching me in the face as i was getting my son out his seat. I pulled my head back and she punched our 1-2 year old son in the face full on. I quickly grabbed him and ran in the house and tried to lock her out. she got in since I couldn't hold the door with him in my hands. I handed him to my cousin who was staying with me and turned to Patti. She started swinging and screaming that I hit the baby. I picked her up and threw her against the wall, picked her back up and did it again a few times before my uncle stopped me. she realized there were witnesses and she couldn't get away with the usual bullshit and left.
This happened 6 years ago. This year I will finally pay off my back pay and see a tax return. Our son is 8 years old and loves his time with me and hates having to go back. I have never seen her hurt him, but I can imagine. He sang a song once, it went like this: "Daddy likes to play with me, mommy doesn't like to play with me". It broke my heart. This year his mother didn't let him have a birthday party because she "has to save her money for her wedding" she wouldn't let me throw him a party by not letting me have contact info for his friends parents. I probably forgot some stuff, if something doesn't make sense ask. We have not had a fight in a couple years, we went our separate ways. I have never had a physical fight with any girlfriend since. That leads me to believe Patti was the abuser, even though I question myself at times just because nobody else ever believes me that I was abused. That is my story. I can't drink too much alcohol or I start going into PTSD type episodes thinking Patti is there and going to beat me. These episodes make my girlfriends since Patti hate her. They see a real mental scar she left. I think women are going to hit me when they raise their hands sometimes (I used to flinch a lot when women moved quickly, that is going away slowly)