This is not dating related... but from lurking on this subreddit, I’ve seen such confident and powerful women here and I need to have this mentality because of the issue I’m going thru. I recently separated from my husband because he punched me. He had always been a verbally and emotionally abusive person but I ignored it. I was so focused on keeping this marriage together but I never noticed that I was with the wrong person.

I have always been a feminist, I was huge on women empowerment and it makes me so angry that I was actually the women ignoring this issue and letting it happen to me.... I did everything for him, I’m a working women and pay the mortgage for our house, i work 9-5 and then I come home and cook for him, I did everything he wanted me to do. No questions asked. Because my whole focus was on how to keep him happy, I put so much hard work and effort on this person and it all came crashing down when he punched me. You know I feel even more stupid knowing that I saw the red flags even before we got married and I still ignored it. At certain times I blame myself for making the decision to even marry him.

Not only was abuse an issue in our relationship but we were in a dead bedroom situation too. He did not want to have sex with me ever, he was either “too tired” or it was “too late” and again I ignored it. I have never experienced good sex in my life because I lost my virginity to him and everything went down hill from there.

I feel like such a failure after this because I put so much work into this marriage and now it’s just done. The craziest part is that it keeps getting worse, just recently I found out he was calling escorts while we were together. Yet he never talked sexual with me ever, Rarely gave me compliments and never told me I look sexy. There was just nothing sexual there. I feel like the ugliest person in the world....

I feel like my whole world is crashing down and all I want is confidence so I can stand up for myself rather than feeling like a mess.