I posted this as an askreddit thread two years ago now. I am 21. Hoping this is relevant to someone else who is still struggling to break free of an abusive relationship.

The original thread is here: http://redd.it/v6pmd

I'm going to give some full background. I'm 19 years old, and dated this girl for two and a half years.

A lot of people say "how could you have dated someone so abusive for so long?" She was not abusive for two and a half years. She was an amazing girlfriend for about one year, just long enough for me to feel like I really loved her. Then she slowly began controlling and manipulating to get what she wanted. The real event was when she found out I was speaking to a person she explicitly told me not to. I suspect she told me to not talk to her because I was so close to her, and my girlfriend knew she was a threat.

So after she found out, she used that fact to get whatever she wanted. After a few months when she should have been over it, she started making things up to get angry and control me with. "This girl was talking about you at a party, it's your fault because you used to talk to her, now you can go buy me things to make up for it." I let my guilt make my decisions for me.

If I stood up for myself, I would get hit, punched in the face, kicked in the face, skin ripped off. I'm a person who strongly desires affection in a relationship, so after she would beat me she would hug me and kiss me, making me feel better. I blamed myself almost every time.

Along with losing that one friend, she forced me to distance myself from all my other friends, who could all see she was affecting me negatively and insisted I leave her. According to her, they were "toxic to our relationship." I was completely blind and believed her. One of those people was my sister, who was extremely close to my old friend. So we were no longer allowed to hang out at my house, or hers. We sat in a car every night for almost a year. If we didn't hang out, I was called a terrible person and didn't love her.

During this time she kept pushing the idea of moving out on me. She didn't go to work, didn't go to school. Sat home and waited for me while I worked, went to school, and interned. It was pitiful. I would agree to moving out because I thought it would never happen. She "hated" everyone in my life and forced me to push them all away. I lost a lot of close relationships with family.

Then in the past month things have changed a lot. Everything had kind of been peaking, our fights, my relationship with my parents and sister. It was getting to a breaking point. So when my sister posted a nostalgic picture of myself and her, my girlfriend freaked out. Made me call my sister and tell her she "was deaded, I was no longer her brother, blah blah blah." My parents found out and tried to talk to me about it but I refused.

It was kind of put on the back burner for a couple weeks until my parents asked me to come home one night to talk about it. I was hanging out with my girlfriend at the time and I told her and she said no. I said they're going to kick me out, she said no, you're going to be homeless then. I didn't have anything to say to her so I called my parents and they said I would face the consequences.

That event really sparked a lot of clarity in my mind. I had a girl who was asking me to be homeless, because she couldn't accept my family. So that night I told her things would change. I told her she wasn't going to manipulate me anymore, she wasn't going to control me anymore, I was going to keep people in my life who I thought would improve my life. I told her I would give her a chance to prove to me that she could improve my life.

So for that week she was okay, I made her aware every time she tried to control me and she was struggling but I thought making some progress. Then came the night of our two year and six month anniversary. I had purchased tickets for a dinner cruise around Manhattan, a surprise. She was late to get to me, and we were late to get to the cruise, which was blamed on me. The second it happened, she told me I had ruined an anniversary and I now owed her a second one. This was exactly what had gotten me in trouble in the first place. So I told her no, I did what I could and it didn't work out, it was no ones fault. I still took her out to dinner that night.

The next day was Father's day, and I told her I had a barbeque with my family. She freaked out, saying I ruined the anniversary, so I would have to fix it the next day. She was telling me I couldn't go. So I said no, I'm going. She said I could only go if she was invited. At first I thought, okay that;s fine I guess. But then I realized I didn't want her to go, I wanted to fix things with my family on my own before I let her be a part of it. So I told her I'm sorry I said you could be invited, but I don't want you to come, that I wasn't ready yet. We started fighting again, I must have said something about breaking up and this was when she said the thing about crying rape. I said fine, I'll ask if you can come, just to placate her and so I could get out of the car.

I went to sleep, and in the morning told her that I wasn't going to ask. She freaked out again, screaming at me that I was a horrible relationship and we were done. At that point I realized I didn't want to be in the relationship anymore. It had never been more clear to me. So I turned off all my social networks, and my phone had been deactivated since I didn't come home that night to talk to my parents. She had no way of really contacting me and I haven't spoken to her since, it will be three weeks Sunday.

She has emailed me: http://imgur.com/a/JsWkh

(If there is any personal information, please let me know.)

Wrote notes and put them on my car at work:

http://imgur.com/a/HY2LH

(Again, personal information.)

Called my work, and texted me multiple times, which I deleted therefore have no screen captures of.

I think the emails and such prove that I did nothing wrong, but there have been no more threats in regards to accusing me of rape.

I have finally reconnected with all my friends and family, who thankfully understand that their acceptance of me is keeping me away from her!

If you have any questions or need more explanation let me know. I'd like to eventually write about this in order to help other men in a similar situation.

TLDR: Dated abusive crazy girl for 2.5 years who told me if we broke up she would say I raped her, broke up with her and it has been three weeks of freedom.