[beerchick]

I stayed with a cheater who was a narcissistic psychopath. I'm pretty sure he never had just one girlfriend at a time. In hindsight, I’m sure he was with his ex when we got together, during which time I was fully falling for his love-bombing bullshit.

As far as I know there weren’t other women until about 2.5 years later when he flat out told me he was going on a date with someone. We still lived together and had never had a conversation about breaking up. He was so confident that I wouldn't go anywhere, he knew he could get away with it. And he was right; I stayed with him. In part because I was stuck since we owned a brewery together, which had been my dream from the age of 19. But I also for the same reason the abused stay in abusive relationships, because the psychopath had masterfully manipulated it to be this way.

Then he found a second woman. At that time, I decided that even though we were still living together (I honestly had no idea how to kick him out) and running a business together, I could do as I pleased since he was out banging multiple women. When I did finally hook up with someone, he found out about it and berated me endlessly for days. Sometimes not letting me sleep, smashing and breaking things in my house, texting and calling me constantly. He threatened the guy I hooked up with, telling him he would send his old Outlaw motorcycle "friends" after him if he didn't confess that we had been hooking up for months (we hadn't - it was one time).

He would use work as leverage: Since I didn't know how to do his job, he would not come to work, leaving me to scramble to meet deadlines, and explain where he was to employees. He would threaten not come back until I was honest with him about all the other guys I was fucking (because he was sure there were dozens - there was only one). I would admit to things I never did just to appease him, to end it and to "go back to normal".

Sadly, this is what my life looked like for another 7 years. He picked up new girlfriends (there were at least 2 more that I knew of), losing his mind if I tried to move on or meet any one, torturing the other women the same way he did to me and then threatening the business if I didn't fix his messes. Not only did I have a fear of the business failing because it was my dream, but my house was also on the line if it failed. Do you think he had any worldly possessions on the line? Yeah right.

He would also pressure me to have sex with him, force me to sleep in the same bed with him, and then use me to manipulate his relationships with his other girlfriends. I was always his excuse as to where he was, when he was bouncing between the two of them. The sick part is that in the meantime I'm befriending his other girlfriends and begging them to get out while they can. I hated myself for knowing that I had slept with their boyfriend, even though I didn't want to, and I knew about his cheating and I didn’t tell them. I still feel duplicitous and shady and shitty. It's taken me a long time to realize that this was both physical and emotional rape and I still have a hard time seeing it that way because I still blame myself for not “trying harder” to escape. And I’m fearful that you all may think the same. The truth is, by that time I was pretty much an empty shell of a human being, gutted by this evil man. I had resigned myself to the fact that this would be my life forever.

Then one day he hit one of his girlfriends in the face multiple times and gave her two black eyes. She worked in our industry, so for the first time he couldn't cover it up. As horrific as this was, it cracked open the door for me to escape him. Coupled with the fact that I had wised up and learned how to do his job (by that time he did very little for the company anyway - except commanding me to do things). Because of his actions he was excommunicated by the local industry which gave me the exact support I needed to finally boot his ass from the company. Sadly, it was one of the hardest things I've ever done though it should have been a no-brainer. I spent 10 years of my life being tortured by this mother fucker and it's going to take me a long ass time to heal from it.

I want to thank Chemda for her openness about her abusive relationship. It has helped me so much. Just knowing you're not alone, you're not crazy, you didn't create this situation. I hope that her telling her story and me telling mine could save someone the pain of what we have been through. If I had known how to read the signs in the beginning, I might have been able to rescue myself from 10 years of emotional, physical and mental torture.

Thanks for hearing my story. Peace Love and Keith and the Girl.