10 Signs You Are In An Abusive Relationship And Need To Get Out NOW

1. He has low self-esteem.

I want to first acknowledge that having low self-esteem is 100% okay, and is something many of us, if not all of us, can relate to. It reminds us all that we’re human.

However, using your low self-esteem as an excuse to cheat on your girlfriend is most definitely not humane. Texting girls and not wanting your girlfriend to know about it is cheating.

Cheating means doing something you wouldn’t want your significant other to know.

I would always find that girls names would pop up on my boyfriend’s phone, but he would be so quick to grab it. It got to the point where I would constantly be questioning him about girl x, y, and z and he admittedly told me that he texts girls to make him feel wanted, and good about himself.

Did these girls know or care that he had a girlfriend? No. They felt desired.

2. He hasn’t introduced you to his friends.

We had a handful of mutual friends from our local music scene, however, I was never invited to go out and get to know his buddies. Anytime he made plans on the weekend to go to Atlantic City, or hang out on the boat, or simply go to the bar, I wasn’t thought about.

“I don’t have any friends,” he would tell me, “You wouldn’t have anywhere to sleep,” he would lie. Truth is, he didn’t want to bring me into his life for reasons I’ll never know, and maybe in the end it was better that way.

I find it ironic that all of the girls he would get messages from, who he claimed were “just friends,” he never talked about. I always talk about my friends, because they’re wonderful and I want the entire world to love them as much as I do, but these girls were different.

3. He doesn’t give you any gifts.

This is very low on the list as I am not a materialistic person, but it only started to mean something when, for the first time in my life, I saw him make someone else happy.

Simple as it is, gifts are nice. It could be a CD, a single flower, a piece of jewelry, an adventure, or even a card.

Gifts are not meant to be materialistic, they are meant to show you that you’re being thought of… especially in a long distance relationship.

I never received a thing, and that was fine. All I wanted was to spend time with him, that would be enough.

My friends would tell me about special things their significant others would do, and I hid my jealousy by trying to convince myself that they were selfish.

But they weren’t selfish. I didn’t start to feel rage until one of the girls who must not be named posted a picture of a gift she received in the mail exclaiming her gratitude and affection toward my boyfriend. She was thought of, and she felt special. I cried myself to sleep that night. My dad gave me a rose the next morning.

4. He doesn’t spend time with your family.

It was hard, he lived 3 hours away and when we were able to spend time together, we just wanted to be alone. However, he never made an effort.

I heard the same excuses over and over, and when I wanted to participate in family movie night or a baseball game, he didn’t. I’ll never forget the first time my parents met my current boyfriend, who insisted that we go to my brother’s baseball game. They couldn’t stop talking about him for hours.

5. You’ve never met his family.

We dated on and off for roughly four years, and I never met his family. I heard him talk about them, and I even asked to get to know them multiple times, which led to arguing and him being defensive with excuses.

He told me I couldn’t come visit because they wouldn’t allow me to stay over, even if I slept on the floor. The truth is, he didn’t think I was good enough to meet his parents.

I was worthy enough to hear him vent about them, know about their lives inside and out, and learn about personal issues that would arise within, but not to meet them.

6. He flips arguments to make you feel guilty.

I cried more times than I laughed. We couldn’t catch a break, we were always arguing.

I wanted to feel loved, so I couldn’t understand why he blocked me out of his life. I was the crazy girlfriend who didn’t trust him and had no reason to.

I was bringing out his insecurities — I wanted to know about the people in his life, I wanted in, and I fought hard and he didn’t budge.

Soon, very soon, I started to hate myself. I loved him so much and he made me believe that I was selfish and unappreciative. He told me he didn’t trust me.

7. He accuses you of being easy.

I stopped going out, and stopped seeing people I loved. I didn’t know it at the time, but he needed a reason to make me feel guilty, to substitute the lies he was participating in.

I was in college, I never cheated in my life, and to be honest I thought so highly of him that I wouldn’t even consider it if Channing Tatum walked in the room.

However, I had a “flirty” personality, and of course because I’m a woman and have zero standards, I must be easy. He would get mad at me for spending time with my friends.

He would get mad at me when I drank, because I’m a woman and of course I can’t control myself, and he questioned every decision I made, with nothing I could do about it.

I specifically remember going to a music festival with three of my best girl friends, and being screamed at for not answering the phone, because he assumed I was hooking up with someone.

I remember being told that I lead guys on and don’t know it, and that all of my guy friends were trying to get in my pants. Every single one of my friends tried so hard to like him, my guy friends wanted him to become a closer part of our family, but he didn’t accept it. I started to believe him, and I started making up excuses as to why I was no longer around.

8. He tests your worthiness.

Like I mentioned, I never met his friends and family and I became so frustrated that I begged for an answer. I cried and I tried to make him understand why it was important to me and we fought for months.

That’s when he told me he was testing me. He had to make sure I was worthy, and that this was a commitment I wanted to be in.

Four years and I still wasn’t good enough. Four years and he never put our relationship on Facebook or introduced me as his girlfriend.

9. He makes you feel numb.

Once you go though this for long enough, you not only lose your friends, your self worth, and your head — you lose your feelings. I was numb, I would get screamed at and I wouldn’t shed a tear, I wouldn’t even fight back.

I was weak and I felt nothing. I was accused of not loving him, because I wasn’t able to show emotion for him.

10. He’s always covering his ass.

I made up excuses for his behavior, and all I wanted was my friends to accept him. He tried to convince me that they we’re wrong about him, he tried to tell me they weren’t good for me.

When he screamed at me, I blamed myself and thought of every possible reason I could have made him upset. I cried in my room alone because I didn’t want my friends to know I was upset and disapprove.

I didn’t want to be lectured and most importantly, I didn’t want to be told I was in an abusive relationship. But they were right. He was abusive.