I’ve been with my boyfriend for just over 7 years.

I saw red flags in the beginning but I ignored them. I thought “oh, wow, his ex really destroyed him. I’ll fix it with unconditional love!”

Please don’t roll your eyes too hard, I don’t want to cause a migraine. I can’t believe I was that stupid.

Red flags included, getting angry at me for sitting on his couch talking to him while he cooked lunch for us when we just started dating. We had a big fight that day.

I moved into his house a few months later. I really shouldn’t have but I had to out of necessity.

He was sometimes unemployed (this was understandable because where we are from, work was incredibly difficult to find). I was always employed (worked with the same company for 4 years). He’d be home all day playing xbox with his friend. I’d come home to dishes. Having to clean, cook then clean again. He would get really mad when I didn’t clean his house. When I did clean, he would still complain. The house was spotless and he was complaining I never cleaned so I asked what was dirty right then? His answer was: Have you seen the stove knobs?!

I should’ve left then. I didn’t. Love can fix everything.

A few months into living with him. I find out that his ex is still calling him and stalking him online with her real accounts and making fake ones too. She would sometimes use pictures of me as her own. She’s a special kind of woman. The story was that she left him for some other man she met at work about 6 months before we met.

I asked him why she still had communication with him. He said she was asking for some baby items she had left behind. I told him to get rid of it. Drop it off at her friends house and let her get it from there. He didn’t. It took months for that to happen. Eventually he did it.

She never went away.

He started playing around with her, letting her beg to come back. To kick me out and let her come back. She made fun of my weight. She would leave him voice mails saying she couldn’t reach him and how much she missed him and that she loved him, baby.

When I heard that voicemail, it was because he was asleep next to me and her number popped up on his phone. My blood ran cold and we had a huge fight. He was mad I went through his phone. I was mad it had been a year and she was still causing fights.

I told him to block her everywhere and stop. I looked into studio apartments. I couldn’t afford one on my own. When I did find one, the landlord backed out.

Boyfriend apologized, said he had said goodbye and blocked her. I said I didn’t believe him and wanted to see the messages. He refused and said they were deleted.

I can fix this with love. She hurt him and he’s still not ok. I can do this. I’m better than her and he’ll see that.

Months go by and we argue about chores. When he does laundry, he only does his. Dogs through mine to get to his even though I’m the one working full time.

More months go by and he asks me to play some music on his car radio through his phone. I connect to Bluetooth, open Pandora and it crashes and closes. That’s when his WhatsApp conversation with his ex girlfriend pops up. They’re talking when he works part time nights as a security guard. She sends selfies of herself. Then their convo moved to a phone call. The messages weren’t inappropriate, at the very least I though that was a good sign. I froze in the moment, then quickly pretended I didn’t see anything and run inside to call my BFF.

She tells me to come to her house and pretend I’m helping her wrap Christmas presents for her daughter so we can talk. I head over and tell her everything. She tells me to be extra nice to him and then drop the bomb that I knew. I go back home, treat him like a king and offer a manicure. As I’m doing so, I ask “So, how is she doing?? Haven’t heard about her in a while”. He says “I don’t know, I haven’t spoken to her since that time...”. I continue to fix his nails. Calmly breathing. Then I say “really? Cause I know you talked to her last night”.

He laughs and asks how could I possibly know that? I said, I saw it on your phone.

He gets mad because I snooped. Vows to put a lock on it so I can’t do it again. We argue.

I should’ve left then. I love him though, I just need to try harder. Maybe she was prettier than me? Maybe I’m too fat? I’ll lose weight. That’ll show her.

I start Keto and the gym.

He says she won’t leave him alone. He says he blocks her and still finds a way. I make him change his phone number. While he’s on the phone with the phone company, he yells at me “Is this what you want?!?!”. Yes, yes I do. He changes his number. She “finds” it a few weeks later. I find out again. Every time he blocks her, he unblocks her afterwards. I’m so stupid.

The situation in our home country is bad. He gets offered to move to the US with a friend. He takes the opportunity and we plan for me to join him in a few months when he gets his own apartment. I move in with him a few months later. I had lost 80 lbs while he was gone. He had gone to the gym. We looked great and we seemed to finally be over the dark cloud. I felt better knowing he was far from her.

We have arguments every weekend morning because I don’t wake up and immediately make breakfast. He wants to wake up and eat breakfast but hates having to cook it. I don’t cave. I hate breakfast anyway.

The first year in the US went by really good! I thought it was all over. I started to really want a baby. I wanted a baby more than anything I ever wanted before that moment. He agrees and we start trying. Two months later, I’m pregnant. I’m so happy. My life is finally falling into place.

A few weeks after we find out, he comes home with a ring and proposes in our bedroom. Just us. Nothing planned or fancy. I’m so happy.

Two months into my pregnancy, I see a message from her on his phone while he was looking for something to show me. I feel ice cold. He hadn’t responded but I still felt sick. He vowed they had not spoken and took my hands and prayed with me, asking God to get her to stop bothering him. I decided now was not the time to argue about this and let it go. We’re 3,000 miles away from her anyway.

My pregnancy progresses. I’m working full time. I take care of our bills, the apartment, groceries, all the cooking and laundry. I’m 8 months pregnant and I have a pinched nerve in my right leg. I can’t move without wanting to cry in pain. I spent a Saturday laying in bed. He comes home from work and his laundry isn’t done. He yells at me, calls me a lazy princess.

I wanted to leave again. I was trapped then.

I have our son. He’s so amazing. In the hospital, my boyfriend sleeps and sleeps some more. I have to throw things at him to get me the baby when he’s crying and I can’t sit up because of my c-section. I’m not producing breastmilk and my son is dehydrated and peeing blood. I cry and cry. The nurses won’t give me formula. I beg them to and around 3am, one of the nurses listens to me and brings me two 6 packs of formula. I’m crying hysterically because baby is crying and I can’t find a nipple to put on the bottle.

I throw something at boyfriend to wake up and help me. He gets up and is grumpy and mean. Takes the formula, puts a nipple on it and shoved it in baby’s mouth all while raising his voice at me for being so emotional.

Four days later, we get released to go home. He raises his voice at me for taking too long to get dressed to leave. Rushes me at the pharmacy for my pain medication. Then, he drops us off at home and goes to work. There I am, newborn in my arm. No friends, no family. Just me. This begins the worst nightmare of my life.

I have no help. My son doesn’t sleep more than an hour or two in a row and I cannot rest. I do all daytime and nighttime wake ups. I sleep twenty minutes here and there. I am going insane with post partum depression and anxiety. The lack of sleep turns into post partum psychosis and I see shadows, hear voices.

I beg him to help me. Please take him on your days off. Please don’t go and spend 4 hours washing your car when I really need you. He tells me I’m on vacation and he’s jealous of me. We argue.

Six weeks after my son is born, he asks me to take his phone to be upgraded at our phone company. I am at the store and I check his cloud to make sure our sons newborn videos are properly stored.

Cue my waterfall of tears as I see screenshots of him video chatting his ex while she has her tits out and pumping breast milk. While making fun of me for not losing all the baby weight immediately. All of those images are between pictures of my son in the hospital. They were at the same time.

I turn around, I put the screenshot with her breasts out as his phone background. I had it to him at work and tell him I couldn’t change it and drive off. I go straight home and start packing. He calls, I don’t answer. He texts and laughs saying he knew I’d go through his phone.

I go to a hotel with my son. His mom calls me begging to go back to him, he’s destroyed. He lost his family.

I’m unemployed, I have a 6 week old. I am dependent on him. I go back.

Six months later, he gets home from work. I’m battling PPD and suicidal. He knows. He still argues about chores (the apartment was spotless!) and I take his dinner and throw it in the trash in front of him. We argue so bad an online mom friend and savior takes me into her home for a few days, she lives 6 hours away. While I’m there his mom tells me to go back. He never texted during my stay. I was wrong for leaving and staying with a stranger.

I start getting therapy and I’m on medication. My PPD isn’t as debilitating as it was. When my son is 10 months old, boyfriend and I are arguing about his abandonment of us. I need him and he’s never there and refuses to help when he is. I tell him I’m on pills and therapy because of this. He looks at me and says “You’ve always been crazy”.

I get up from my chair, tell him “We are done”. I start making dinner for my son. Boyfriend is following me on his knees all over the apartment, screaming and crying that he didn’t mean it. I am firm. We’re done. He leaves. Comes back the next day after work, asks me if we’re done and I again confirm that we are done. He takes his clothes and leaves. Tells me to put him on child support and argues about wanting the TV.

I look for resources but ultimately, I cannot find daycare, I have zero money. I agree to move to a different state where my mother is. The mother I left at 15 because she was an abusive narcissist. I had no other choice. Before I move out, I had met a guy who seemed nice and wanted to hang out before I left the state. We were supposed to watch a movie but he tried to rape me instead.

I still miss my sons dad. As I’m leaving, we sort of begin discussing getting back together in this new state. I like honesty so I told him what happened and he flips out. I’m disgusting, how could I let a man do that to me, I’m on the floor crying by his knees asking for forgiveness. Now I wonder why I had to ask to be forgiven for a mans actions against me. I leave to the new state.

The only person who helps me is a long time friend and ex boyfriend. His family and he took me in when I left my moms house at 15. I consider him and his family my real family. He flies in to pick us up and help us drive the truck 22 hours across the US. He helps us get there safe. Gives me money to pay for car insurance and tags. Warns me that my sons father will want me back and not to give in.

I should’ve listened.

During this break, I am bored and lonely. I flirt with men online. I never meet anyone or do anything. Just online flirting. Some racy pictures are exchanged. I love my sons father but I’m so, so drained. We talk on the phone every night and he is angry I was so quick into meeting a new man. He doesn’t want to let it go. He flies in two months later for our sons first birthday. We argue. Somehow, we make up and he promises to move with us soon. It must be because my mom is already driving me crazy and she just met a man on Tinder and let him move in with us 6 weeks into knowing him.

I get a job. He moves over. He gets a job. It’s an expensive state and we can’t afford to move out of my moms house. We argue all the time, no surprise there. I think my trust and love is fractured, finally. We sleep separately and have little to no sex.

I get lonely again. I turn to online flirting and sexting. I was wrong here. I should not have done this. I cannot change it. He finds out. He humiliated me in front of my mom and her boyfriend. I apologize. He accepts. We move on.

I sell everything and we decide to move back to the state we started in. Around 5 months into that, he’s still going on about how I cheated and I understand he was hurt. I do. He doesn’t trust me. I understand. I don’t trust him either after abandoning me during my hardest time and starting this snowball. I tell him we’re through again. We live together so it’s awkward. He’s always crying over me. Or asking for sex. He needs me so much.

One night I decide to go out with friends to a bar and to eat. We have fun! I feel good. I go home around midnight.

Ex boyfriend is there, waiting for me. He says he’s happy because he met some girl on tinder and they talked all night. Yay! I’m happy for you. He takes my phone and goes through my DMs and sees me flirting with a friend. Sees a racy picture I sent. He loses his shit and starts screaming at me and rips his shirt off. Breaks his chain off his neck. Throws my phone across the room into a wall. I tell him I can’t do this and try to take my phone and hide in my room. He follows me, I sit on my phone on the floor. He pushes me and takes it from me. Tries to unlock it and can’t and gets even angrier. We argue more. I tell him I want to call 911. He takes my phone and smashes it across the room into a wall again and it falls downstairs. I take his and try to dial and he does the same. I try to run down the stairs and out the door and he stops me. Screams in my face that I’m a whore. Tells me he’s taking my son away from me because I used to be medicated for depression. Smashes my phone until it is just bits of glass. Takes his and calls 911 and tells them I’m drunk and hitting him. They arrive, they see me scratched and bleeding. They arrest him.

He spent 2 nights in jail before mom bailed him out. I’m a whore to them now. I sent him to jail!

We reconciled shortly after because I cannot afford to live alone. It’s been 9 months from that and he doesn’t forgive me, always goes through my phone. Accuses me of cheating. I failed him. I’m wrong.

I will leave when my son goes to preschool full time. It isn’t far away now. I just can’t believe I let this happen to me. I’m so stupid.