*sits in corner*

We cannot continue at this rate. Well be out of awesome before June.

This is absolutely horrific.

The main reason I haven’t watched it is that it felt like Blackfish for humans. There may have been a miscarriage of justice here, but an edited documentary is not exactly an impartial forum for truth.

Of the sausage variety, to be specific.

Obviously they can, but how common is it in a situation like the one described here? New partner, trying to seduce... This is a situation where a kiss gives you information you need, and it was information he was intentionally ignoring.

See, that’s what bothers me here. The author says she didn’t move a muscle, so if he had tried to kiss her on the lips, he would have to have realized she wasn’t participating. What sort of person would undress and penetrate someone who hasn’t even kissed them? Even someone playing out those coy black and white movie…

You say you blew it... Sounds to me like you dodged a bullet. That is not a person with a healthy approach to relationships and communication.

This crap is hard. =( It took a whole lot of time, understanding, and actual work from my friends to get me where I needed to be, and that’s with my soon-to-be-ex respecting at least legal boundaries, if not ethical ones. It sucks for all of you, I know. I hope she’s able to be rid of him soon, but from the sound of…

I’m so sorry. =( I hope she’s able to cut that tie soon, and I hope doing so is safe for her. I don’t know her situation, or what’s going on in her mind, but I can tell you that each little step in breaking ties with an abusive mate is emotionally complicated and hard to do. Especially if he’s coming over to…

I’m so sorry. =( It’s hard enough going through all the emotions that go along with separating from an abuser....those feelings of betrayal, and the loss of the person he portrayed himself as—the person you believed was there. Losing a friend on top of it is so hard. (I’ve got my own similar-but-different story, which…

This is so close to my experience. I never recognized it as abuse until his barrage of texts started to roll in while I was sitting in a friend’s office, crying over the catalyst situation that was going on at the time, and she looked at them and said “This is abuse.” And it took her months to get me to admit it to…

They’re experts at excusing their own behavior and making you feel responsible for it. As for saving their future victims... I’ve worried about this new girl my husband’s with, but I know damn well there’s nothing I could do to help her. Nothing could have saved me at that point; I was too invested to have believed it…

But that’s a different kind of charming, isn’t it? Mine wasn’t the conventional rom-com type of charmer. He was quiet and self-deprecating and funny, and both of your adjectives would have applied to him as well. And he knew all the right things to say and do to make you feel like he thought you were the most…

YESYESYES. And the abuser sees *himself* as the victim, and has a thousand horror stories of how he’s been mistreated and how that mistreatment has led to the “baggage” that occasionally comes out hurting you. And you internalize all that, and you take on the job of making excuses for him, and explaining away and…

I am so sorry. That’s been one of the hardest things for me, too....knowing how many people he still has fooled, and what he’s got them believing about me. I hope that your situation has improved.

You’ve got this! You are already past the worst of it, and everything from this point on is downhill.

SO VERY YES. I still haven’t revealed details to most people, but when I began telling close friends what I had covered up and hidden for all those years, that’s pretty much exactly how they reacted. My mom was all “I thought this was off, and that was off, and in this context it all makes sense,” but everyone had…

I am so glad you’re away. We’re taught to get away if we’re getting physical bruises, but we’re just not trained to recognize and escape from emotional abuse. Yours sounds so much like mine in a lot of ways.

Thank you for being that friend. Friends like you are important, even if you feel like your help is being ignored or unappreciated for years.