Male victim shares absolutely awful story of abuse and assault at the hands of girlfriend, and shows how men are told they aren't victims, but that they're abusers who use violence. This is why men don't reach out, or share, because they're told not to; not toxic masculinity.

Throwaway account because everytime I bring this up on a normal account I get followed around reddit and accosted further.

​

This will be long I'm sorry.

​

About 4 years ago, I was in a relationship that was incredibly toxic, and abusive, and like a lot of those who have been in this situation can attest to, I didn't really see it, I believed the psychological and emotional abuse. All the gas lighting, all of the put downs and all of the times I was told I was not good enough, and I didn't deserve better, and that it was my fault I was being treated this way; got through to me, and so I put up with it up. This relationship did involve sexual coercion on her part, on several occasions that I did not want to have sex. Let's call her R.

​

At one point during this relationship R had gone on a trip with university, R told me after this trip that R had got drunk with a guy there and she said he took advantage of her, and had raped her. I supported R through all of this, I tried to take her to the hospital to get a rape kit done, or at the very least have her clothes bagged as evidence by the hospital staff so that if anything came of it, the police would have something, she refused to do this. I took a week off work to help her through this time, to encourage her to go to the police, and to be as supportive as I possibly could. I tried to take her to the police, and after explaining the story for 2 or 3 hours to the police R decided to leave when they asked her to fill in an official statement so they could investigate. I took R to the police station on 3 other occasions over the next week in attempts for her to do this, I was patient, and respected her wishes everytime she changed her mind. In the end nothing was done, because she wouldn't make the statement to police. And that's okay. R never expressed any gratitude for the effort I went to help her out, she never acknowledged the week+ of work that I took off, that I had to make up within the next 6 weeks. She never thanked me, and only ever pointed out when I made some kind of mistake, or she perceived that I did something wrong.

​

After this time she went back to drinking and partying like she had been doing previously, she would always drink to excess, and would flirt with men in order to be bought drinks. She would go out without fail every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday night; and would occasionally go out on Tuesday nights. Every night she would get absolutely wasted, to the point of passing out or vomitting. She would expect me to drive her around, even though at that time I was working full time, while also studying full time, and barely had time, but she would guilt me into doing this for her she would say "she had no other way to get to classes, and she was still a provisonal licence holder so would get done for DUI because of the amount she drank the night before". She would also use her rape as way to guilt me into picking her up after she had a long night out.

​

She didn't allow me to hang out with my friends, she didn't allow me to go out with my friends because some were female, and would verbally abuse me about how I wanted to hang out with girls over her, that I must have liked these girls more. One night I did go out with my friends, she told me I had to leave and go hang out with her after asking me if any of the friends were girls, and I told her they were.

​

This issue came out the most one night when I took R out to dinner, and whilst out I saw a girl who I was acquaintances with at university, at no more than a pass each other going to class every now and then, and speaking for 2 minutes once a week level. When I said to hi to her while we were out, R went absolutely ballistic, asking me how I knew her, and that I because I said hi to her, I "obviously wanted to fuck her", and she continued on with this tirade. And I just took it, because at this point, I just accepted that I was what she would say, a bad person, and a bad boyfriend.

​

R's habit of going and getting blind drunk ended up with her hanging out with some guy one night and then bringing her home. The only reason I found out about this, was because I went to surprise her with flowers and chocolate, and her favourite pastry. I'll never forget the feeling of finding out for the first time ever that you're being cheated on. They ended up having sex on multiple occasions, and like the idiot I was, I figured it was my fault I was being cheated on.

​

Now this next part might be hard to believe and I honestly wouldn't believe it myself, if it didn't happen. After basically hitching up with this guy, R accused him, to me, of raping her. At which point I told her I would step in for her and tell her, he needed to leave her alone. Now at first they did stay apart, but it wasn't 3 weeks until they started seeing each other again, and then another 2 weeks that she started to tell me how he would abuse her, and hit her. It was after all of this, that R told me that she wanted to move out of the bad university accommodation dorm room, in favour of an apartment; I asked her how she would pay for it, and she told me, that she would be moving in with this same guy. She continued to accuse him of abuse after they had moved in together. As you can imagine, given the circumstances, I can became slightly incredulous of her claims, given that she had decided to move in with this bloke, after she had accused him of raping her while she was drunk.

​

This all culminated in me breaking up with her, after I came to at least partial senses and realised I was being treated badly, and the reason I was depressed was because of this relationship. I got told I should go away from uni for a weekend to a hotel somewhere and recharge, and do something purely for me, and do things that made me feel good. So that's what I did. I rented a a nice hotel suite for a weekend, it had a kitchen and a separate lounge and dining area. I treated myself and bought some nice red wine, and some cider, as well as the most expensive steak I've ever bought from a butcher. I had got a movie that day as well, and was going to watch that with my wine and steak. I was feeling good for the first time in a long while.

​

At some point, somehow, this ex girlfriend found out where I was, (this still scares me to this day). She took it upon herself to come to this hotel, and walk there (this is important for later). At this stage I was pretty drunk, and I accept I chose to get drunk, because I wanted to, I wanted to relax and feel good that weekend. So she came to the hotel I was staying at and managed to manipulate the reception staff into giving out my room number, and came up to my room. I answered, and she demanded I let her in, because it was night time and she was afraid. I told her several times I didn't want to see her, but she made her way into my room. I made an effort to be nice and polite. I went back to watching my movie. At some point I had moved to the bed and passed out asleep.

​

Then I remember waking up with her on top of me, having sex with me. I told her several times, loudly to get off me. I tried gently getting her off of me. Not only was she on top of me having sex with me while I was passed out, but she had done so without a condom, which at this stage I had not done with her before, and didn't want to do with anyone. Not only that, I know she had been having regular sex with the other guy, and who knows who else. Now at this stage I can feel myself getting close to ejaculation, and I don't if she knew this, or if she could sense it in my panic, but when I started trying to get her off me, she leaned down and tried grabbing me, and squeezing her legs around me, she whispered in my ear "I want to have your babies so you can never leave". This scared the shit out of me, and along with the fact I was nearing finishing, I got some clarity and ended up pushing and tossing her off me as hard as I could, and I had thrown her a considerable distance off the bed and onto the ground. Somehow, she still managed to get me to give her a lift back to where she lived, even though she had walked here the other night.

​

It took me a few weeks to process what had happened, and it was at this stage that she had contacted me again, after moving back to her home state after failing her classes her parents stopped paying for her tuition and told her to come back home. Seeing her number come up on my phone caused me to have 1-2 hour long panic attacks, that at one point got the ambulance called on me. At some point I finally did speak to her, and she made the claim that she was pregnant from the night in question and that she was going to get an abortion. She told me the abortion was going to cost something like $900 and she was calling to ask for half of that money from me, because as she put it, this is “half your fault”. I finally found my self-respect, and I did not believe her, I had pushed her off well before I had ejaculated, and it all seemed very suspect; I also told her that that night in question was rape, and that any further communication of this nature, i.e. asking me to pay for an aborting would lead me to reporting her to the police. I haven’t heard from her since, and she has dropped off the map, and I couldn’t be happier.

​

​

Don't worry I am acutely aware of stupid and clueless I was back then, looking back on this I feel incredibly ashamed I let someone do this to me.

​

After about 6 months post R, I met another girl, who I thought was amazing, let’s call her M. She seemed to be very understanding, and very loving, and the sex was good and healthy; and I was allowed to take my time. It was in this time before meeting M, that I had a very bad accident, which has left me with a disability, and some bad PTSD. This relationship went on for over 3 years. However the last year became quite bad, and there was stuff going on I didn’t see until afterwards, hindsight is 20/20.

​

I will try to keep this brief. M was good at emotionally manipulating me, using my mental health, past issues, and my disabilities to gas light me. I have trouble with memory, however, I am always aware when I do. I am always aware when I forgotten something, there is a whole there, that is incredibly noticeable to me. M would tell me something I had done, or something I had failed to do, or when I questioned her as to something she had done, she would almost respond with something along the lines of “well your memory is screwed, how would you know” she challenged my very perception of reality at almost every point where I tried to communicate with her about something she was doing that I didn’t like or that I thought was mean.

​

She could never take any constructive criticism, and would never listen to any of the problems or feelings I had about her or some of actions; she would immediately begin to cry, and accuse me of attacking her, and then would go in for retaliatory strikes back at me, with things she was “saving up” to throw back at me in some attempt to discredit any of my issues.

​

She also turned out to be a compulsive liar, and a narcissist. She would lie about the smallest things constantly, she would lie to me even when I knew the truth and told her. She would constantly point out my flaws, and everything I screwed up, I was struggling at this stage with my PTSD, and so it was difficult to be on top of everything in my life, and my disabilities restrict what I can do, and also leave me with a lot resentment and depression; and have also meant I’ve been dealing with chronic pain for the last 3 years.

In the final year of our relationship things got very bad, sex was non existent, I felt bad for both asking for it, and bad for being rejected for over 12 months; it wasn’t that I felt entitled to it, however previously in our relationship we had been fairly regularly physical. I found out at the end of our relationship why there was no physical component anymore. I didn’t attempt to make her feel bad about any of this, and largely kept my feelings about constantly being rejected to myself, and I tried not show any of those feelings around her.

​

At around T-7 months from the end of our relationship I had found out that she had been seeing a friend for the last 4 months secretly, as in lying to me about what she was doing when she was seeing this person. They had previously (before we had met) been in a physical relationship together for a short period of time. Apart from being lied to, I was fine with her seeing him, as she assured me they were just friends, and I wanted to see her hang out with her friends more often; however that was on the proviso that she didn’t lie to me about seeing him. I honestly didn’t care, I just don’t like being lied to; in fact I was happy she was, because she seemed happier.

​

T-3 months; I wake up one night (2am) to an empty bed, and start to freak out as to where my partner of 3 years has gone after walking around the house looking for her. I start frantically panicking about something happening to her. Her car is missing, she is missing, and when I call her, I can’t get a hold of her. I’m texting her, and calling her, worried sick. Finally I get a hold of her and she replies with “What?”. She then proceeds to tell me she went to his house, at 1am because she was struggling to sleep. Now you could be the least jealous type on the planet, and this would still be a giant red flag. And for me it was, and yeah, I did start to get suspicious, I found it incredibly difficult to trust what she was telling me.

​

Fast forwarding a little while to about 1 month before the breakup, I am using our iPad, and with M being the only one with an iOS phone, she has her phone synced up to the iPad. While I am using it a series of messages come through that point toward something more going on between the two, messages to him, as well as messages to her friends. I wasn’t trying to snoop, I was just playing Bejewelled, and these messages began to pop up. I tried confronting her about this, and on come the waterworks again, as well as the “saved up” slights to try and negate her behaviour. She tells me I’m crazy, and paranoid, and jealous, and that they’re just friends. She goes on to promise me, and swear on her parents, that they are just friends and nothing is happening. She tells me how much she loves me and can’t wait to spend the rest of our lives together.

​

Now at this stage, the proceedings for my accident are coming to a close and I have been awarded a decent sum in compensation for the accident and disabilities. At this point M suggests that I buy her a brand new car with this money, because she deserves it after “looking after me” and that her car now is a bomb, and needs to be replaced. So we go looking, and go for a test drive, and I say that I want to sleep on it, meanwhile she is champing at the bit to sign documents and get me to sign for a loan so she can have the car now and I can pay off the loan when I get my compensation. She gets quite upset about this, and becomes very distant after saying I need some time to think about a huge outlay of cash like this. I don’t feel comfortable getting into another car loan as a co-signer, because I know I will be the one paying the loan until I get my compensation, which is something I cannot afford, and she has racked up $12.5k in CC debt in the last 8 months because she has a shopping problem. She ended up applying for the loan and putting me down as cosigner, however she was denied because of her huge debt.

​

Now fast forward to the week of the breakup. She has been seeing this guy more frequently and for longer, at stranger hours, which causing my red flag alerts to be going off non stop, I can’t help it. One night she says she is going to his place with a bunch of friends for a movie night, something in that made me not believe that at all. And whilst I am not proud of what I did, I am glad I found out, and caught her. I ended up going to his place. There were no other cars around except for hers, when she told me there were at least 8 other people there. And when I looked through open window from my car, all I saw was him and her, sitting alone together snuggling up, and making out. I texted her to ask her how things were going and how everyone else was doing. I watched her text me about all the people that weren’t there and how they were all laughing and having a good time. She lied, and I caught her doing it.

​

Somehow I managed to blame myself for this, for a week, until I finally broke it off with her, after she lied to my face after she came home and I asked her about. She didn’t care whatsoever. She lied and lied and lied. For literally hours.

​

Anyway down to the issues. And my apologies for the rambling and super long story.

​

I feel incredibly violated, and incredibly bad about all these things. I always blame myself for what happened.

​

I tried to get help, I tried to talk to people about what happened. But I got met with the same shit, over and over, I had most people ask me “So what did you do to make her cheat on you, or make her so mad with you”, my own mother said “men can’t be raped. Did you get an erection? Well you must have enjoyed it then” and variations on the “dude you had sex, you should feel lucky”. Well I don’t. This shit haunts me everyday, and I looked in a lot of places for help and support, but was constantly met with the same shit, the majority of support services only cater to women, and when there is a for men support service, it talks about stopping your violence, and talks about you, the man, being the perpetrator. I only ever found one place that was specifically for male victims of sexual assault. But everywhere else, it was either for women only, or the support they provided men was support in helping men stop abusing, and stop using violence. And seeing this everywhere I turned, every place bar one that I looked at for help, I keep getting told that no, you aren’t the victim, you’re the perpetrator. Constantly seeing this, and not getting any support, not even from my own family has caused me to not talk about this with anyone, and the few times I have felt brave enough to share a snippet of this story, I get shut down, primarily by women. And I can’t take it. This has led me to being admitted into an inpatient mental health unit for a suicide attempt. After I was raped, I visited family in 3 states, and looked for support services in all of those states, and again was met with the same shit. And here is some of that stuff, and this is what is available today, this is what men looking for help will find.

​

https://imgur.com/a/5w3h7Kg

​

Now I am not trying to make some political statement, I am simply sharing my story and the difficulty I have had in finding any support services. I know women get abused, a lot, and I'm not asking for any of their services to be taken away, or anything like that. I am glad they get that support. But I would like to see men not labelled only or first off as the abusers. Because I guarantee that it is causing male victims to not seek help, because they don't feel like there is anything available to them. It certainly doesn't help us with the feelings of shame either about being a victim, when we constantly see how we are perpetrators.

​

And because of all this I now shut everyone out, I rarely if ever talk about this stuff. And it is affecting my relationships. I cannot for the life of me move onto the next stage of dating past meeting up for the first time. I can’t get out of my head the thought that something bad is going to happen again, I am going to get hurt again, and I am once again not going to have any support. I am going to get taken advantage of. I cannot trust anyone. I cannot show my feelings to anyone. I cannot tell this story, because it seems like every time I do, I get lambasted about me being the cause of the behaviour directed toward me, or that I am weak, and a doormat. I know I got trodden all over and I don’t want that to happen again. I have so much damn love to give, but I am so scared of letting anyone in that I am ruining relationships.

​

I have been in therapy and seen shrinks ever since I was raped, but it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.

​

I don't know what else to do.

​

tl;dr after experiencing some pretty bad abuse, physical, sexual, psychological and emotional from an ex girlfriend, and subtle psychological manipulation from the next, I struggle to find any services for me, and those that I do, make out like I'm supposed to be the abuser. I struggle trusting or opening up with anyone, but particularly women, and can't get any relationships to the next level. How do I move on?

​