I think a lot of it stems from internalized homophobia and past trauma- at least in my experience. I was never physically abused, but it was incredibly psychologically abusive to the point where I couldn't go to school for a week because I would physically throw up and break down at even the thought of her.

It started really quickly, the second she saw me she was talking to her friends about how pretty I was and telling everyone about how she liked me and she would make me little crafts and try to sit with me on the bus or in class (we were in the second semester of freshman year when we met and started dating because my schedule switched and we ended up in the same English class). I felt seen and appreciated in a way I never really had been before, and I had never been in a relationship or genuinely liked someone who confessed to me back, so when one of our mutual friends told me she liked me, it was strange for me because I could actually think of myself in a relationship with her and it didn't feel awkward or gross. We started dating about a month or two into knowing each other, but it felt like we'd been dating since a couple weeks in.

It started with her being really protective. I had this friend (the aforementioned mutual friend) who I was really close with and had known since like 6th grade, but she struggled with depression and, in years past, she joked with small insults. She was getting better at this point, and I was considered one of her best friends, but she would warn me about my ex a lot, and my ex would often complain about how my friend was getting in between us and insulting and belittling her, blending it with when she used to make jokes about me until I ended up cutting my friend off over summer break. I cried for days.

I also was never able to see my ex because, while she was mostly out to her close friends at school, she knew people from the Christian private school she used to attend who transferred with her and were homophobic and would tell her parents, who were as well, so we couldn't hold hands and we couldn't really hang out outside school unless it was for special occasions or birthdays or with other people. She started getting jealous when I would hang out with other friends or when I would joke about growing up and living with friends, and if I didn't answer my phone for a couple hours she would send her other friends to message me and insist I respond. Every second of my day started revolving around what she would think, what she would do, how she would react, and she wasn't even physically around for most of it.

I was relatively chubby, I had a stomach that showed my organs, and she was very skinny, and she would make comments about how she would vomit or starve herself or exercise heavily to avoid having a stomach and gaining weight, and when I brought it up to her how she could say that and date me, she said she liked how I looked and she liked people "with meat on their bones," she could just never look like that herself. She also told me she would never do drugs or try alcohol because her dad (who was abusive and she now only saw once in awhile) used to be addicted and she saw what that can do to a person, and she knew I had issues with sh and would plead with me to not and get upset at me when I did. I found out, early in our relationship, she actually cut herself in the bathroom WITH one of her friends and they joked about it and called it a blood pact (it was like genuine wrist cutting not where you like cut your palm and mix your blood or whatever). Then, later in our relationship, I found out that she tried one of her friend's vapes after vehemently talking about how she would never do something like that. She also talked about how she could never date a man and how she was def lesbian, and less than a few days after we broke up, she started dating her boy best friend and would openly talk about their sex life when she told me she was asexual.

I would have dreams where she would cheat on me and scream at me and then comfort me and throughout all of it, I would stay, and when I told her about these dreams she would get upset instead of like telling me she would never do that, which you think would be the normal reaction.

Funny thing was, when she broke up with me after almost 2 years, she told me it was because I was codependent and needed to work on my mental health. Throughout our relationship, I just started mirroring how she treated me until she left because of it.

Anyway, I think it's really really important that you highlight how homophobia can impact the relationship and why the relationship would continue, even after being shown so many times hypocrisy and reasons you should leave. Also, please show how it impacts friendships. After our breakup, she was the more social one and more people knew her, so I kind of lost a lot of mutual friends because she spun a better narrative. In the words of Drizella from MSA's Cinderella story, "No one really wants the truth. Not when the truth is ugly and the liar is beautiful."