My relationship… an abusive one? Nah!!

People say that the person inside an abusive relationship is the last one to know about it. In my case, that is really true.

I stayed in a relationship for more than 20 years…and yes I cried a lot but… It was an emotionally abusive relationship? Nah!!

I loved him blindly. If someone told me something about him I will do one of two things: I will excuse him or I will get angry because of what they were saying about him. I never, not even once, think about what people were saying. Well, yes, I thought about it. I thought they were wrong.

You know, even if I didn’t knew what kind of relationship I was in, my love for him began to die. It started to die like 5 or 6 years before we broke up. I started getting tired of his insults, his screams and for me to always be with him. Did I notice it was abuse? No. I blame it to genetics (His mother and other member of his family, they scream and sometimes insult). Also, I excused him with his autoimmune disease. The doctor said it can make him have mood swings. But, you know what; he had these moods swings since I met him.
As my love was dying my tolerance was declining. I answer if he insults me, I screamed back, and stayed out of home on purpose.

One day, 2 years before the breakup, I began to question myself … My younger son will soon be going to college (He was in his sophomore year at that time). My other son was in college already. Do I want to be with him, alone, without the kids? Do I want my life to be the same it was until that day? The answer was NO. I want something else.
Did I believe then it was an emotionally abusive relationship? Never.

So my love for him kept dying and dying. That and the need to have another life without him, made me took the decision of breaking up with him.
I guess that the abuse was the reason for me to started un loving him. But I never saw it.

I lived like that for twenty something years without knowing.
I know for sure that there are a lot of women like me. Living with abuse and not knowing it.

Take care, T.