I've only come to the realisation very recently that I was abused a few years ago. I'm not going to pretend what I went through is half as bad as some/most people who are victims of abuse, and I'm honestly not trying to take anything away from those people, I just need to talk about this somewhere and I don't feel like I have many places/people to turn to.

The cycle of abuse lasted about seven or eight months. It isn't a whole lot of time, but it's significant enough. I've basically just blocked the whole situation out of my mind for the past few years, and I think I mainly never labelled it as abuse because I never wanted to think about it enough to label it as anything. Basically I got into a relationship of sorts with someone I didn't fully trust, like my gut instincts told me not to trust him even though I liked him and he seemed nice. But at that point there was no-one I did trust, so I kind of figured that I just wasn't very good at trusting people and I needed to force it, so I forced myself to trust him.

He was manipulative, emotionally. He wasn't a big tough physically abusive guy. He didn't come across as being intelligent enough for serious emotional manipulation either. But he was very good at making me feel guilty for things I shouldn't have felt guilty about. And he was nice, he was nice to me, and he let me believe he was okay with going as slow as I wanted to go with things, but then he'd push and he'd push so gently I didn't really notice it was happening until I was in a situation I was uncomfortable with, and he'd coax me into doing sexual things for him and at the time I'd feel like maybe it was okay because it was making him so happy, but afterwards I'd always break down a bit and hate myself a little more, and he'd comfort me and say it was okay and we could take things slow and then he'd lay low for a week or two and then start pushing again. And it took me seven or eight months to stop and say "No, this is bad, this is making me feel bad and it's not getting any better" and get out of the relationship, and even after I got out, he waited a month or so and then tried to slowly ease back into it again and I almost let him.

And I hated myself for it, for going along with things, for falling for a guy who obviously couldn't understand what I wasn't comfortable with, but I never blamed him for it. I always blamed me for it. I felt stupid for not seeing that it was bad for me earlier, for still liking him after all the crap. And I still thought of him as a nice guy, and I don't know why. And then a couple of weeks ago I read an account someone wrote of their experiences with sexual and emotional abuse and something just clicked inside my head and I thought "That's me, that's what I went through." But I don't have many people I trust enough to even try to broach the subject with, and honestly I'm embarrassed at the thought of having to talk to someone and say "So I was in an abusive relationship about three years ago but I only realised now" because how fucking stupid does that sound?

Hello BreakingtheHabit,

Well, the good point is you realised it before it happened again. I mean, that has got to count for something. It shows that you are NOT stupid. You just realised it when you needed to realised. Hence the saying, You should tell him that to decline his persuasions.

Say you had realise this much earlier, the outcome would be (worse case scenario) that you'll still have the anger and come after him with malice.
Now you're past that, right?

I think I can relate. Many people would advise to simply stay away from him or at the very least stand your ground.
I remember saying no more than once to someone awhile back but he would do his best to ease his way back. He has not contacted me for a long while now especially when again I had voiced that I was so uncomfortable about what had happened. The experience had reminded me of how worthless I had felt because I could not measure up to the desirable traits their ideal girl would have and yet expect me to be a poor substitute or settle with me because of limited options. Just remember trust must be earned not forced and if you are uncomfortable just don't. It gradually becomes abuse when you are the one unhappy and being taken advantage of as he has made no effort to truly understand where you are coming from rather than just take a break, play nice and try again for his amusement then repeat. I don't blame you for blocking it out as it had become unpleasant for you. No matter how nice he appears to be just remember what it was like before and walk away. Sorry if I could not offer much more than that.