Hello,

This post has been pre-approved by the moderators (NSFW). I want to call attention to a growing community to raise awareness about surviving life-threatening abuse perpetrated by primary caregivers in childhood, to show how this abuse can continue into adulthood, to identify and prevent fatalities, and to improve treatment outcomes for survivors. After years of research, I have discovered there are no studies on the experiences of adult survivors of this specific pattern of abuse.

This site documents a lifetime of severe financial, psychological, physical, and coercive control within a family system that ultimately contributed to my sister’s death. It offers personal perspective on clear blind spots in the mental healthcare system, and the resources in place meant to protect us, such as Childhood Protective Services and Adult Protective Services.

Please be aware this site contains descriptions of severe parental abuse, psychological trauma, and death. Some content may be triggering, so it is important to prioritize your safety and mental health. If you are able to relate to this content, please consider processing this information alongside a qualified mental health professional.

Reddit played a major role in my own recognition and escape. Posts here helped my early understanding of these patterns, assisting me in breaking free of a future I did not want. It may have been the pivotal turning point for me and the reason I survived a system that consumed my sister. I’m sharing this experience so that others in similar homes may recognize the signs earlier, trust themselves, and find a way out.

The site includes our story, redacted evidence (family messages, witness statements, police statements, and counselor reports), and resources. I’ve since been joined by other survivors, with their powerful stories available in the new survivors’ blog and resources.

If you are a mental health professional interested in researching this topic, I welcome the opportunity to speak with you.

Thank you, Victoria

www.filicidesurvivor.com

I was 17 when I entered a relationship with this 22 year old guy, I’m 26 now but at the time I was just finishing highschool and he of course convinced me to move in with him, alienated me from my family, whole nine yards. I was arrested at 18 after I had to fight for my life essentially, he tried to strangle me, cops believed him instead of me (the newly unemployed, Black, teen) compared to him a 20 something year old EPA (he worked with kids in the learning center and mistreated some, my reports there also went unheard.

Eventually I beat my charges, I have a clear record and no regrets really when it comes to what I did (only regret being not shutting up right away and foolishly thinking the cops would believe me.

That brings us to today, I get a DM from some random new account and guess who it is. Mind you the gap from 17-26 isn’t tiny, I no longer feel a super strong reaction connected to him but I genuinely wonder if he’ll just never leave me alone. I’ve literally been an out and proud Lesbian for years since, no legal grounds for a restraining order since the contact from him is relatively spread out and comes from different accounts. Guess I’ll be blocking for the rest of my life 😩

He got away with it. Everyone believed his narrative and no one cared that he physically assaulted me several times.

They said the problem was that “I just need someone less nonchalant.”

No, the problem was that he was violent, manipulative, and cruel.

He posted about me on social media after the breakup. His mom was constantly calling me and telling me not to tell anyone about the abuse and told me not to tell my family about the breakup.

I got a no contact order and then he went and made counterclaims with someone he knew I was meeting with at my university.

I have him blocked everywhere, but I’ve developed such a strong fear of him that I’m always checking to make sure he’s far away from me.

His post count went up by two and now I’m anxious that he’s posting false things about me again.

He’s more well known than me and more charismatic so everything he says goes. I was so isolated while there. It’s like I’m living in hell.

I’m scared to meet new people because of the lengths he went to in lying about our relationship and I’m states away. I’m constantly in a state of fear. I’m doing everything I can to leave the country.

No matter what I do he always wins. His smear campaign won, he got away with intimate partner violence, he has a following on social media, he got away with posting about me. He wins. My reports and complaints did nothing. I was treated like a monster, while his secrets were protected by fear of him.

I’m 21 and I feel like my life is completely damaged and his is just fine. I lost so many opportunities the last 3 years of college, because I was in that abusive relationship. Now that I’m graduated I feel stuck. I genuinely want to die. I’m sick of the lack of consequences.

I’m reaching out to this community because I feel completely trapped, mentally exhausted, and isolated. I am a literate, peace-loving individual, but I have been made to feel like prey by people driven purely by ego, malice, and control. 😔

​Here is what I have been going through:

​1. Childhood Harassment & Psychological Abuse 🛑

○ ​The Beginning: Back in the late 90s, when I was around Class 5, an old woman in my neighborhood targeted me for no valid reason. Even though I was a normal, playful kid who spoke to her children, she became obsessed with publicly declaring that I was "ignoring" her.

○ ​Escalation & Bullying: Over time, her obsessive behavior turned into open harassment. She publicly humiliated me, threatened to have her local relatives beat me up, and constantly attempted to frame me as a troublemaker.

○ ​Driven into Depression: As I grew into adulthood, her tactics grew more sinister. She actively tried to instigate me into reacting so she could call the police or have me assaulted. To protect myself from taking a wrong step, I stopped going out. I was forced to live inside my own home in severe depression, isolated from the world. 💔

​2. Trapped in a Orchestrated Marriage 💍⚡

● ​The Trap: When her direct harassment failed to break me entirely, she conspired through a relative to get me married to a woman from an uncivilized, troubled background.

○ Domestic Abuse & Destruction: My wife works in tandem with this old neighbor and her network of relatives. They visit my home against my will to irritate and provoke me. When I protest:

○ ​My wife physically assaults me 🤕

○ ​She deliberately smashes costly household items 📉

○ ​She immediately plays the victim card, knowing law enforcement rarely takes male victims of domestic violence seriously.

○ ​The End Goal: They are financially, physically, and mentally draining me to force me out of my own house so her relatives can move in.

​3. Isolation and Inaction by Authorities 🚨

○ ​My mother passed away years ago (this old lady had targeted her as well), and my father lives in another town with my elder brother. Seeing me live here alone, they treat me like an easy target.

○ ​I have filed multiple formal police complaints against every individual involved, but no action has been taken so far. 📄❌

​Questions for the Community ❓

1. ​Childhood Protection Laws: Does the long-term harassment and psychological trauma inflicted on me during my childhood (starting around Class 5) fall under strict child protection or abuse statutes like the POCSO Act, or general criminal intimidation laws? ⚖️

2. ​Protection for Male Victims: As an adult male facing physical domestic assault, property destruction, and extortion by a spouse operating on remote control by third parties, what concrete legal steps can I take to safeguard myself, my property, and my sanity? 🛡️

​I am hanging on by a thread and would deeply appreciate any genuine legal guidance, personal insight, or steps on how to escalate my inactive police complaints to higher authorities. 🙏

I (22 f) have been with my partner (27 m) for 9 years and his abuse has gotten out of control at this point we have 2 small kids together and anytime I bring up a small issues or not even somtimes I can just literally say somthjng he doesn't like such as (you left the pan of high) and literally get cussed and screamed at and beat I get told almost every single time I speak about somthing he doesn't like to (shut the fuck up mental bitch) over and over again until I break down it caused me to have a studder now and I'm can't belive this is the man who is suppose to love and care for me and my kids which is obviously never going to happen I literally made him lunch for work this morning and said can you please put the toilet seat down bc I'm potty training our daughter and I literally get told to shut the fuck up mental or stupid bitch everytime I'm so tired of it at this point I'm just waiting for him to leave or somthing big to happen bc I have no where to go and will not leave my kids with him bc he most likely would go find another woman to come watch them and I have nowhere to go with them.

​

It's been over a year since I left and I am still so fucked in the head from what happened. I feel like I should be "over it", people don't want to hear about it, I sound like I'm still hung up on my ex. Nobody in my life understands at all, even when I try to talk about it I don't think they even begin to understand. Everything was under my ex's control, when we ate, what I was "allowed" to eat, when we slept, when we had sex, how I spoke, when I spoke. My ex would make fun of my accent, criticise my tone of voice, if I spoke too much I was selfish, if I spoke too little I was manipulative and guilt-tripping. If I was sat with my arms crossed, then I was being passive aggressive, if I was too happy and open I needed to be taken down a peg. I was never told "you can't spend time with people" but if my ex was around, I would be put down, mocked, told to shut up, embarrassed, things I said in confidence were brought up, our sex life was complained about, so I ended up just not spending time around people - my ex would hang out with them alone. Everyone was in on the joke, too, Since leaving I have not spoken to my closest "friends" who I had known for 6+ years. There is no better way to find out who your real friends are - and it turns out I did not have any at all, that still stings. Yes, yes I am better off without them but fuck that hurts too. I have new friends but it takes time to build connections like that, and I have made a fair share of mistakes in trusting the wrong people. I go to therapy and I try really hard to be "normal" but mostly I try really hard to not think about what happened. I don't want to think about it, I don't like to think about it at all. It hurts too much on just about every level possible. Wasted years, false friendships, abuse, sexual assault all the fucking time, no right to my own body, no right to my own life at all. I wasn't even allowed to grieve the death of my fucking uncle, I was not allowed even that. I just feel so hopeless and in so much pain I don't know what to do with it or put it. I do things like creative outlets, go to therapy, I exercise, always hoping the "fake it till you make it" stuff will finally stick but it is so hollow. Everything feels so hollow, I just want it all to be okay, I want to stop having flashbacks and intrusive thoughts and being terrified of my own body, and just feeling wrong all the time in ever way. The worst thing is part of me misses that old life, my old friends I walked away from, the way I thought I was loved. I wasn't but like I just feel so hopeless. I don't know how to keep going anymore.

’m trying to end the relationship with him, justify the break up because I am mad at him for bruising me. He was dismissive of it initially but said sorry later. But I am still upset. But the longer I don’t respond to his texts ( I am forced to see him in anther aspect of my life too) the more anxious I feel about him and if he’ll be upset. I also see him for who he is the longer I stay away, and the thought of him and who he actually is (a predator) makes me so frightened and so scared that the alternative feels so much better. When I have to see him in person in this state, I also then start feeling a little physically nauseous and feel like I’m walking on egg shells.

I then cycle to craving to spend time with him and have him be affectionate and I know he will if we start talking again. It’s crazy to feel this way. It’s like I can’t bring myself to face him - the angry violent man who preyed on me instead of the playful charming goofy guy that he presented himself to me and still can be, and I really prefer that version. I just can’t believe he is using and manipulating me. It’s really scary.

I honestly don't know if I'm being unreasonable here, so I'm hoping for some outside perspective. My husband and I have always essentially shared our finances. We’re married, we have children together, and we've always treated the money coming into the household as family money—not “his money” and “my money.” There have been multiple periods throughout our marriage where my husband was unemployed. During those times, we still had bills, groceries, childcare, kids' expenses, etc., and we got through it as a family. I never told him that he needed to get off my account or that he wasn't entitled to the money because he wasn't currently earning an income. Recently, my husband got a new job that pays significantly more. Around the same time, I went part-time at my job so I could be more available to take care of our children. So yes, I make less money now. But I didn't just decide to work less for fun—I made a choice that benefited our family and allowed me to take on more of the childcare and household responsibilities. Now my husband is telling me that I need to get off of his bank account. And honestly, I'm hurt and confused. Because suddenly it feels like the money is being viewed as his money because he's the one making more right now, despite the fact that we've spent years functioning as a family financially—and despite the fact that my reduced income is directly related to taking care of our children. I'm not saying married couples aren't allowed to have separate accounts. I completely understand wanting some financial independence or having personal spending money. That's not really what bothers me. What bothers me is the “you need to get off my account” attitude. It feels like the rules changed the second he started making more money. And I can't help but wonder: if I had never reduced my hours to care for our kids and was still making what I used to make, would he be saying this? I'm also struggling with the fact that this isn't happening in a vacuum. We've had other issues surrounding money, anger, control, and disagreements about responsibilities in our marriage. So when this happens, it doesn't just feel like a normal conversation about budgeting or financial independence. It feels like another way of establishing power. Maybe I'm completely wrong. Maybe this is a perfectly reasonable thing for a spouse to ask for and I'm too emotionally close to the situation to see it clearly. So I'm genuinely asking: Is this financial abuse/control, or is this just a husband wanting separate finances? Would you be concerned if your spouse suddenly wanted you removed from a shared account after years of shared finances, especially after you reduced your work hours to take care of your children? I don't want validation just for the sake of validation. If I'm looking at this wrong, tell me. I just need some perspective from people who aren't emotionally involved in our marriage.

A closeted gay guy who married a woman fyi. "Have" in quotations. I tell people I'm an orphan sometimes because explaining that I actually did have a father he was just objectively worse than if I'd been an orphan is a bit harder.

You've heard of the father who molests his daughter but I bet you haven't heard that one. Yeah... It's real. No, it isn't fun. I'm currently unemployed (guess why. hint: mental crisis) but when I do get a job I'm definitely hitting up a therapist. What the fuck right

I just wish I'd gone to therapy when I was 19 and not when I'm 23 but I had an phase of having to run away from literally every living human being and be on my own for a while which got in the way of that

I’m 18 and I’ve already had two mentally and physically abusive relationships and since then I’ve just never felt the same like my brain doesn’t work . I’ve became stupid can’t focus on anything . I don’t miss them or anything but I feel like I don’t know how to be a normal person . I feel disconnected from everyone and everything I don’t know how to speak to people anymore I feel like I always hear my abusers voices and even tho they are gone I still feel like they control who I am. I don’t know who I am anymore . I’ve been in a cycle of just drinking since to escape the way I feel everything I do is to escape the way I feel because i genuinely feel like I’m not a real person . I feel like they have forever tainted me, I just feel disgusted in myself . Does anyone else relate or feel the same way will my brain ever recover ? Will I ever feel normal again and not so damaged.

Trying to get over bring called the n word by my wife multiple times during a argument but getting harder to get over the words targeted at me . It just keeps on playing over and over in my head and the last time it happened my mother in law sat in the living room and watched her call me the nword without saying a thing to my wife. Somedays I am good and other days it burns and worst of all my children heard my wife calling me the n word. I am still shocked because I have never been called that and I guess hurts more when I comes from someone you love. Forgive and forget they say but this is tough to get over. How do I get over this replay in my mind.

TW: DV, s*xual, emotional/mental neglect, self-harm, slurs

Hi guys, I just found this sub and decided to go ahead and vent about what I've been dealing with for the past year and a half. Throwaway because I'm nervous. I had posted this last night before bed, but I got scared he'd find it while I was sleeping, so now I'm reposting it. I'm on the very cusp of getting out fully and starting my recovery, but I'm struggling with no contact and needed somewhere to vent. Also as a sidenote, I have been professionally diagnosed with BPD due to traumatic upbringing and abuse. I grew up in a very dysfunctional family, prevalent with neglect and abuse of all kinds. Any advice/support is highly appreciated :) (F, 20s), (M, 20s).

I met this guy last year in December. We started dating a little bit afterwards, and immediately it was wishy-washy. He would go back and forth about if he wanted to date me or not (legitimately stand up during the conversation, walk towards the door, then come back and start crying. This happened multiple times during the conversation). Then we started dating. It was never a good relationship, and all my friends disliked him pretty much from the start.

I was consistently competing with his friends for time and affection -- he'd disappear for a week on a trip and wouldn't text me once, would get upset when I'd call him out on it after. He'd say he wasn't going to take time away from his friends to text me. He'd never take me out on dates besides to bars (said he was too busy to do anything during the day, which I'll admit is true, he worked multiple jobs). He'd complain about having to drive to my apartment (30 minutes), he'd show up late anyway, he'd hold the money he spent on me (somehow, despite never taking me out?) above my head. He would complain about buying me flowers and it'd cause big arguments, telling me that since I asked, now he couldn't do it, and I'd have to wait longer. The only flowers I got, I had to beg for 3 months to finally get them, despite him promising me he would in the first place. I never received birthdays or Christmas presents, either.

I threatened a break up. He told me he'd fix things. He didn't, I broke up with him. Shortly after this, he's getting me flowers, taking me out, etc. Of course it faded. We didn't date again, despite how much I begged him to. Our inside jokes were great, we found each other attractive -- I had never been called "perfect" so many times in my life. He allowed me to express who I was without stifling. If it weren't for him, I would've been alone most of the time (I live alone, I only have a couple friends but they all work full-time). I'm incredibly lonely without him. I feel like I can't leave. I have a compulsive urge to text him everything I’m doing all the time, as if I need his permission or validation to make it a real activity that I’m doing. Anyone I meet now with the prospect of dating feels dull in comparison to him. I want them to already know everything about me, I don't want to start over. But he did stick around for another ~14 months. Due to BPD, I have a major problem with being alone, which kept me in this situation entirely. After the break up is when it gets really bad, specifically in the last couple months.

He continued to only show up at night, as he had done before, saying he can't ever hang out with my during the day because of his work/hobbies. This time, consistently drunk. He'd try to initiate sex, I'd tell him no. if I didn't explicitly say I didn't want to have sex with him before he came over, he'd get mad that he had even come over in the first place. But it didn't matter anyway. When I was sleeping, I would wake up to him groping me (this happened during our relationship, too. He said it had happened with his ex-girlfriend as well, but she enjoyed that stuff). It was a cycle like this. If we didn't have sex before sleeping, he'd grope me. If we did, he wouldn't. I have a lot of sexual PTSD from multiple rape/assaults incidents, which he knew about. It began to be a time for me to disassociate, to not put any effort in, let him do whatever, and then be glad it was over so I could sleep. It was horrible. I had a full-blown PTSD episode once afterwards because it felt like I was being raped again, I threw up after. Also, I couldn't ask him to leave after he was already here. If I did, after he "had driven across town", he'd throw a full-blown tantrum, slam things, and rush out the door and not talk to me for the rest of the week.

I had a former partner pass away within the past year, and I was grieving for months over it. Every time I'd talk about it, he'd get angry and tell me I needed to move on. He'd yell at me, then get mad at me for going quiet. He said I had been through "way worse". He said I always ruined the night by talking about him, or being sad over him, and that he came to my house for "no reason" because now the night was ruined.

A breaking point for me was actually this past Saturday. He had called me on the phone and accused me of having a guy over (I did not, I had just gotten home from work). He decides to come over. We start talking; about how he won't date me again anyway, so why's it matter if I am talking to other people? I begin spiraling as he continues to remind me of all the reasons he won't date me, how I should find someone else (yet, won't let me leave). I go into the bathroom and begin to cut myself. He comes and finds me, says "so now you're looking for attention, huh?", grabs the blade out of my hand, grabs my hair, and throws me on the ground. Screams at me to sit up, then yanks me by the hair when I don't respond. He grabs a wet paper towel to help me, and is taunting me while he's helping me. He says "I dare you to do it again. I'm twice your size.", Saying "I'm so proud of you, this one is really deep. You're gonna get a lot of attention for this one, r*tard. You look like one of those 2010s Tumblr girls." The only thought going through my head are Lana Del Rey's Ultraviolence lyric, "he hit me and it felt like a kiss", as cheesy as that is. In that moment, it really did resonate with me. At this point I'm shaking, disassociated, sobbing, nauseous, everything. Finally he grabs a beer from the fridge, stands over me while he sips it. Then sits down and tells me through tears how much he loves me. Hugs me, kisses me. We get into bed, he attempts to grope me again...I wake up and he's gone.

Any time I brought up wanting to date him, he said he's too busy with his work/hobbies. He says he can't give me what I want, and that I need to find someone who can. He says he's stupid and I'm a very sweet girl, and that I deserve better. He says he can't give that to me. My response was always, why? If I'm perfect and you love me, why can't it be us? Even when he was yanking me by my hair and yelling at me. Even when he was groping me. Even when he taunting and threatening, it was always me asking why I wasn't good enough.

I am exhausted. I am so tired. I don't want anything legal to happen, I just want it to all go away. I'm scared to block him. I'm scared to post this. It hurts like hell to initiate no contact and keep it; I cave after three days. My friends are supportive but I know they're tired of hearing me go back to him. My parents never met him, and that was because I've never felt loved by him, and I didn't want them to see how he treated me. I honestly hadn't realized how bad it was until this Saturday night. I didn't think it would ever get physical, and I could handle all of the emotional stuff because I've been dealing with it since childhood...Thanks for reading my story.

I'm trying to get better on behalf of everyone. Anything welcome ❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹

I am 30. relationship lasted 5 years. Abuse started 2 years in. Most of it has been mental abuse, one year ago he was physical.

Quick summary:

I had an abortion one year ago where everything was pain, both mentally and physically. He insisted to watch porn while I was crying 2 meters away from him instead of giving me some support. (He kicked my jaw when I told him that his priorities while I was in pain was hurtful)

He treated and talked about me like he was doing charity dating me: him about dating me(a single mother): "I am ashamed dating someone with a child, no one is actually proud about being a step parent" (he never met my child again after that), he kept me a secret from his family, any problem that he caused our relationship was always my fault, he lied a lot, he got mad that I did not trust him, he did drugs while hiding it from me, I asked to take an informed decision about us dating -he lied, I was not allowed to have male friends. If I had sad feelings about things he would get annoyed or angry, he never took accountability -even when he kicked me he never apologized, I even asked for an apology, his reply was: "I have nothing to apologize. I am overall pleased with my performance of our relationship"

____ THE END ____

I've finally broken up. But no one around me knows we have been together since end of last year. Instead I've lived a double life, and now I have no one to talk to.

I have no one to tell. Im ashamed to even tell strangers on the internet, but: I just want someone to tell me they're proud of me or something for breaking up.

Once or twice a week I am grabbed in my sleep, sometimes my underwear halfway off before I wake up, hands down my pants and slap his arms away or being humped. About a month ago I woke up to him on top of me. I felt pressured to go through with it. I don't think it's been penetrative in my sleep yet.

I feel like I'm going to throw up. I've had horrible sleep for two years at this point. Pure panic when he wakes me up in the night. Says he doesn't remember it or denies it. I'm starting to wonder if my bc was tampered with back when I got pregnant. I can't even really remember much back then. Everything is a blur. I never have a libido anymore.

Currently sleeping with a knife under my bed, but trying to stay put.

Has anyone here been financially dependent on a partner as an immigrant and needed to leave? How did you plan despite the obvious obstacles?

I have been in therapy my whole life, so that part is partially covered - this situation is sick to live through. Lately, I've been wondering if I should move money to my secret account. He is very controlling and doesn't let me work. I have no idea what to do. My visa is tied to his financial support.

I'm scared for my life, but I do not want to give up and go back to my country!

I left an abusive relationship two years ago. It was verbal, emotional, and starting to involve physical threats. I was so isolated and really doubted my own sanity.

For the first year or so after leaving it defined how I saw myself. I felt like a victim, didn’t trust my own decisions and it impacted work/friendships. even deciding what to have for dinner was hard. I was so low, and couldn’t see a future for myself.

Now (after a lot of podcasts/journaling etc) it’s almost the opposite - I’ve compartmentalised what happened and can’t relate the “me” now to how bad things were then.

A friend who knew a little asked me about it recently and I couldn’t stop shaking, remembering the details.

How do you successfully move forward with your life without completing shutting off a whole painful chapter?

I’m really really in a lot of emotional pain at the moment. My husband and I have been married for almost a year now, and we were dating for about a year and a half before we got married. I think about the first year we were long distance. I know it’s not very wise to rush into marriage. I won’t go too into detail about why we decided to get married so quickly, but one reason is I really thought he would be a good partner to raise children with because he is very smart and can be so gentle and tender. What I didn’t fully realize until about a month after the wedding though is that he has pretty bad anger issues. I can’t say that I didn’t see any red flags about his anger before the wedding, but I heard a saying once that makes sense in this case: red flags just look like flags when you’re wearing rose colored glasses. After moving in together, I truly thought that over time his extreme anxiety and mood swings and sudden anger would subside. Because when things are good, they are so so good. He is so funny and smart, we have great conversations and there are times that he looks at me and I can see so much love and tenderness in his face. He’s the first man I’ve ever loved, my first everything. I really thought that the pure dedication we both showed our relationship and the constant ways he has showed up for me and been there for me could get us through anything. Especially after we survived a seriously bad mental health episode I had, where my depression was so severe I wasn’t safe to be by myself and he kept me safe. He supported me through getting my medications sorted out and has been supporting both of us financially since I have been unable to get stable employment since moving to his country. I know he loves me very much and really wants to have a life together and raise a family. In so many ways and on so many occasions he has gone out of his way to love and support me.
That’s why it hurts so much when he gets so angry at me all the time. He is really prone to mood swings, and anger and frustration are a default response to a lot of stressors.

He has said things that really hurt my feelings, like that I’m really annoying, that I’m making him sick from how stressed I make him and I’m doing it on purpose, that it’s my fault he’s gained weight and isn’t in great shape like when we first started dating (these are all his words not mine. To me he has only become more beautiful since the beginning of our relationship as I have fallen more in love with him, and I always have expressed my attraction to him and tried to support him in healthy habits to make him feel better), that I make everything stressful and over complicated. And those are all just from last night. Last night truly was a breaking point for me. For context, at the moment we are taking care of some kittens that still need to be bottle fed and helped to move their bowels. As with taking care of infants of any species, this has come with a lot of stress, exhaustion and for me at least a lot of self doubt in my caretaking abilities as I’ve never done this before and I’m trying my absolute best to care for them. My husband absolutely loves cats, has rescued many over the years and he really wants the kittens to be okay. We’ve lost a lot of sleep and spent quite a bit on the kittens already. The stress alongside the kittens throwing off our normal schedule and me flailing to keep the house fed and watered has caused my husband to lose a lot of sleep. It’s been really hard. Everything I do for the kittens is met with criticism and anger. They had a lot of fleas on them and I was really worried about them losing too much blood to the fleas, but my husband was really worried that the bath would be too stressful and I could do more harm then good to the kittens. I just tried to keep combing out any fleas I found. After like two nights though I was just too worried and I grabbed the two most flea infested and bathed them with dawn dish soap and went over them really detailed with the flea comb. My husband was super angry with me and telling me that the kittens were all my responsibility and that it’s my fault if it goes wrong. His criticism was so severe and his anger so strong that I began to really doubt that I was doing what was best for the kittens and I stopped after those two kittens. I had prepared a new warm box for the clean kittens, and the two that had just been bathed were meowing a lot (I guess out of confusion from their new environment and not being with their siblings?) and he kept telling me that they would be too stressed out to have a bowel movement later on and that I may have really hurt them. I was so tired at that point, it was after 9 pm and I had barely any sleep the night before after their nighttime and early morning feedings that again I was so confused and self doubting that I put the clean kittens back with the flea having ones to calm them down and that was also met with a barrage of criticism and honestly mean comments. It’s exhausting how relentless he is when he’s worked up. I was bottle feeding the kittens as he stood over me yelling, demanding to know why I always make things so complicated. I kept calm and just asked him to please give me some space, please stop yelling at me, please stop swearing at me. If I wasn’t in such a good place mentally right now, I know for a fact that I would be having really dark and self destructive thoughts. Because for the majority of the past year we’ve been married, I heavily blamed myself for his anger. I truly did believe that I was being annoying, offensive, or stupid when he would get angry at me. But then as I started to really work on my mental health, helped in large part by consistently with my mental health medication and a long visit home with family, I began to realize some things. One thing being that I’ve moved around to a lot of places, lived with many different roommates from many different places over the years. And no one has ever gotten so angry at me, said such cruel things to me that were intended to hurt me, and actively been cold and uncaring. Except my father. Growing up my father was physically and emotionally abusive to my brother and I. I always told myself growing up that I wouldn’t end up with an angry man, that I was going to break the cycle that my mom had endured with her own father and husband (my father). But I was really naive and blinded by love when it came to my own husband.
I don’t know what to do. He’s so hot and cold, and honestly I’m just trying to ride the waves of his emotions without letting them pull me under. He’s had so many switches between loving me and hating me in just the past 24 hours. I’m happy that at the moment I’m in a healthy spot where I can realize that his emotions and responses to things are just completely out of my control, and that his anger and outbursts show his character not mine. I have been able to let his hostility kind of slide off my back recently instead of immediately blaming myself. If anyone has any advice on how to stay calm and collected in the face of unpredictable anger would be super appreciated.
I love my husband. I think he’s so smart, and thoughtful, and generous and funny. I really could go on and on for ages about how proud I am of his accomplishments, how loved he has made me feel, how he’s the first person to every make me feel loved body and soul. But he really wants a family, to be a dad. And I know that I cannot do that with him. I cannot bring children into the world knowing their father has anger issues. I would love to be a mother. Maybe this sounds like a crazy thing to say, but I love my little unborn babies too much to bring them knowingly into a house with an angry man. I would say that the biggest thing stopping me right now from just grabbing my bags and leaving are our animals. Aside from the kittens, we have a dog and two other cats in our house. I love them all very very much. The thought of never seeing them again truly causes me physical pain. But leaving would mean going to stay with a friend or family member, and no one I know is in a position at the moment to take me and a pet.
I don’t know. Just writing all that out was harder than I thought it would be, and I’m feeling really sad and tired. I just gotta stay focused and positive for myself and the babies. Any advice though would be really appreciated. Am I too naive to think that people can learn to manage their anger?

I’m 22F and he is 27M and We started dating over a year ago now. I can’t fully blame him for having me on drugs but he is the person who introduced me to them and got me hooked on them to where I feel stuck. When I met him I had a job and was sober besides weed but I was going through a horrible loss I lost my only sibling my sister died of a fake pill for the longest I felt like it should’ve been me . Now I’m on a very hard and hard to get off drug and financially dependent on him he sold me a dream and I was so utterly stupid I did and still do know better. He started abusing me mentally and physically only a few months in and I felt so trapped and stuck I ended up emotionally cheating on him after he tore up the whole house broke everything (I stay with him) pulled out guns and broke me down to nothing. I still feel so guilty and he reminds me everyday I shouldn’t have done that and I wouldn’t ever again to anyone I just feel so stuck and alone he’s made me feel like nothing . He just broke my windshield the other day because I saw everything he’s been saying about me in his phone it was horrible stuff to everyone. I need advice / help . I sound like a victim loser I know I do I just want to be me again 😔

I am in the process of divorce with my husband who I have been separated from since July. Thankfully I have never lived with him, but I have been wanting a mutual consent divorce since July which I thought he would agree to. But instead he kept saying he wanted to see me one last time (we last saw each other in February 2026) and he kept saying that I made a promise to help him with his green card application so he could become a U.S. citizen
eventually. I decided to take back my promise because he is the most vile and evil emotionally abusive person ever. I have made this post to bring awareness and to share my story and to also ask for advice on what to do in this situation. I don't want him deported but at the same time he had threatened to blackmail me and wanted to share and leak my intimate videos and photos with him to my friends and family and I panicked and felt so scared. Yet this sick twisted man then tells me he lied and then tells me that he was joking. Idk whether this qualifies as a crime in the state of Maryland. He and I both live in Md in different counties. I won't reveal any information as I feel anxious and embarrassed already and we also got married in secret. I believe he only married me for his green card because he was emotionally abusive to me the whole marriage and I only found out he was undocumented a few days after our wedding back in January 2026. I also was not able to include every single screenshot of the convo so some texts had to be skipped over.

Hi everyone ! I (22F) have been in a relationship for about 3 months. This isn’t a new partner and he’s a person I have history with. For about 3 years, I went through a lot with my daughter’s dad. I can’t even put into words how horrible the relationship was from him self harming in front of me to him going as low as spitting on me. There were many days where he’d abuse me so bad and I’d wonder if that would be the time he killed me. I ended our relationship when I got pregnant with my daughter and I’ve been going strong with staying away from him as much as possible unless absolutely necessary. Just trying to heal while also coparenting.

Something about him in particular is that he’s very explosive when it comes to me and other men. Even family. He recently found out about my new relationship (he doesn’t know who yet) and it’s led to disrespect, threats, etc.

My question is how do I open up to my current partner about the things I went through?

It’s heavy on my heart and mind to think about. Some things I even forgot about. But I feel like he needs to know some level of truth and how it actually was vs just thinking it’s a “bad relationship”. Some of you may disagree or have separate thoughts about this but deep in my heart I do not trust my child’s father alone with our daughter. He is very explosive, has bipolar disorder, and can be super unpredictable. My current boyfriend also has 2 sons and is going through separate issues with custody and his children’s mother so I feel like he only understands me on a certain level.

How do I explain my past to him? I don’t know where to start, how to explain it or how to even put it in words without crying sometimes. He’s open to receiving the information, I just don’t know how to open up. No one knows how bad it was, not even my family or best friend. I feel like I’m just living with it on my spirit and no one truly understands.

Is feeling so depressed or just like everything is hard and little to no motivation a normal feeling after an abusive relationship? I just can’t fully articulate the way I feel but existing feels so hard these days following everything. I feel like my brain has been rewired.

I just wanna vent a little about an experience I had a dew weeks ago. I cant bring myself to tell people in my life about this so I need somewhere to vent. I’m wanting out of the relationship for many reasons but this is just something that stuck out.

So a few weeks ago me and my partner went away for the week and when we were away we came across a stall selling bb/airsoft guns. I’m in the uk and i think you need a licence or something for these. My bf got one and got metal pellet thingies. I told him that if he buys it he DOES NOT shoot or aim it at me. We get back to where we’re staying and he shoots it at a plastic chair and it goes straight through. He then aims it at me. I tell him to stop and he doesn’t. I throw a bag of sweets and it hit his tummy. He then launched the gun at the floor and told me to get the fuck out and go home.

He claimed he took the bullets out and put the safety on, which I didn’t see him do as far as I was aware the gun was loaded. We get back from our holiday he unpacks the gun and aims at me again, and after maybe 30 seconds of me saying I told him that he does not aim it at me he put it away.

I don’t know if its just me but regardless is its loaded or whatever you don’t aim a bb/airsoft gun at someone?? And after I told him not to aim it at me.

So I live in China and work in China and that’s the main thing to consider. I teach English and my husband has his small side businesses, but he also helps me whenever I do tutoring. Mainly by helping me to translate or controlling the class for smaller kids. For tutoring, almost everything is paid in cash. My husband takes the cash, deposits a percentage into his bank account and then gives the rest to his mother (my mother in law) for safe keeping and to save it.

So because he deposits all the money into his account, I have to ask whenever I want money. It’s usually no issue and there’s no pushback. If I say “hey I need xxx for xxx” then he’ll send it to me, or if I ask him to buy me something online or pick something up, then he will - but occasionally he’ll straight up tell me no and that it’s a waste of money. I’ll be waiting in the grocery store waiting for him to send over the amount, or I’ll be out with friends and have to ask him each time I purchase something different or have him give me some money before hand.

I have my own bank account (that hasn’t been touched in a year) and have asked if we could deposit an allowance into my own bank account and then connect my phone pay to that bank account instead of the kind of gift card system we have going right now (it’s through WeChat - not super important - it just works by him sending me a “gifted amount” that I can then use basically anywhere). But he said that’s a lot of work and that he knows I’ll just waste it all and won’t be able to save anything, and that if we do it his way then we can save more money.

He stresses that it’s insanely important that we save money because every year I typically go back to America to travel (about $4k-$5k yearly) and we have a daughter in kindergarten who we pay fees for (about $250 a month). But we don’t pay rent as the house was bought when we moved here, electricity typically runs under $100 a month, food is maybe around $300, WiFi and phone are typically $50, etc.

Whenever I ask about finances and why he says we have no money, he always gets cagey and avoids the subject and says that there’s no money because we have to save it. He’s said before that he feels guilty for his parents buying us our house and often helping us with our child so he wants to pay them back. He often chalks it up to cultural differences and blames Americans for not knowing how to save money and buying frivolous things while Chinese culture places a lot of pressure on a family to save as much money as possible.

But I feel - honestly - trapped, and like I’m living off of the goodwill of others to provide for me. When actually I’m the one working and making more money than him yet I don’t have any financial freedom to spend my own money how I see fit.

Any advice?

No sé cómo actualizar un caso, soy nuevo en Reddit, pero en resumen:

Teniamos 4 años de relación, él tiene 20 años y yo 21. Fue nuestra primera relación seria. Hace unos días pedí la opinión de ustedes sobre cómo terminar una relación que “se sentía bien ahora”, pero que había sobrevivido a más de 3 infidelidades.

Todo apunta a que volvió a ser infiel o, mínimo, volvió a ser deshonesto. Tuvo 2 dobles relaciones mientras estaba conmigo en diferentes etapas. Siempre volvía conmigo y yo lo perdonaba con la condición de que fuera más transparente públicamente.

Siempre me ocultó públicamente en redes y me mintió sobre un amigo con el que aparentemente tenía una relación de sexo casual. Literal le dijo:

“Me caes bien nene, no solo para coger, también para salir, algo lindo”.

Eso fue la gota que derramó el vaso.

Gracias a los consejos que recibí aquí saqué la fuerza para terminar. Mientras él dormía le dejé una carta explicando mis razones. Fui muy amoroso toda la semana sin encararlo por lo que supe, incluso en la carta fui amoroso. Al final lo bloqueé de todos lados.

Al principio sentí mucha culpa por no haberle dejado despedirse, pero neta ahora estoy desconcertado. Me está buscando por lo poco que queda. Incluso encontró una forma de escribirme por Pinterest. (Ya lo había bloqueado de sus otras 2 cuentas).

La verdad sí tengo miedo. Durante la relación él tenía mucho poder sobre mí y nunca había sido yo quien terminaba la relación. Jamás me había ido ni puesto un limite.

Tiene tendencias narcisistas y en el pasado tuvo episodios de violencia física con un hombre sin hogar que me siento horrible por sacar a la luz, tambien veces con muchas personas con las que tuvo desacuerdos. Siempre era cuidadoso con su celular porque decía que podía ver algo horrible, que mejor me quedara con "una buena imagen de él"

Nuestra relación era a distancia. En estos 4 años siempre viajaba yo a verlo, él nunca visitó mi pueblo. Sería irónicamente cruel que viniera ahora para hacerme daño, pero no me quiero confiar, pues siento que siempre lo movieron más rápido la ira, el miedo y el rencor que el amor. Guardé capturas de todo, pero no sé qué hacer.

¿Esto es un patrón común cuando alguien narcisista siente que está perdiendo el control de una relación?

A quienes les ha pasado algo parecido: cuando alguien amenaza con hacerse daño o con dañar a la otra persona, ¿realmente llegó a pasar algo? ¿Qué hicieron ustedes?

No tengo contacto con su familia para avisarles si intenta hacerse daño o si vuelve a amenazar. Ya no tengo sus números. También me da miedo que tiene videos íntimos de ambos y que por rabia los use para algo malo.

Muchas gracias por leer. Pidan o recen por ambos.

Transcripción de los mensajes:

Te voy a mandar mensaje por todos putos lados hasta que me contestes

Manipulador y culo eres

Neta

Horrible

Te odio

Te odio

Contéstame

Y borra los putos dibujos de ig

Pq te voy a spamear la puta cuenta

(Mi nombre)

Ni siai queue una plus

Una pinche playlist

Y ya no tengo ni la carta

--- otro día ---

(Mi nombre)

Mátame

Pq así no puedo

Voy a ir a (lugar donde yo vivo) y te voy a matar

Porque

Porque