Mike flipped through my college photos.  Since we had a long distance relationship, I was excited for him to get a glimpse of my new life at school.  He studied pictures of my girl friends, dorm room and college campus.  But then he saw a photo of Rob.

            “Who’s this?” he demanded, tossing the stack of photos across the room.

            “My friend, Rob,” I answered, surprised by his sudden anger.

            Suddenly, my new boyfriend stormed away from me yelling obscenities.  “You slut!  I knew I couldn’t trust you away from me!”

I stood in utter disbelief at his reaction to such an innocent photo.  It took hours of chasing after him and being physically pushed and reprimanded in front of his friends to finally calm Mike down.  I wish I had taken heed of this first warning sign of power and abuse in our relationship.  Little did I know, however, that this vicious cycle was just the beginning of my relationship from hell.

Like most female victims of relationship abuse, I was initially flattered by my boyfriend’s possessiveness.  “He must really love me,” I thought.  I later came to realize, though, after Mike actually became jealous of gay and dead guys, that my boyfriend was not so loving after all.

Mike’s possessiveness and verbal abuse reached a peak when he forbade me to go dancing with a group of girls accompanied by a gay friend and when he told me to kill myself and join my friend from high school who had died in a car crash three years before.  Mike was enraged when he found I had had a crush on my deceased friend at the tender age of 16.

Our relationship got to the point where he harassed me every time I went out and constantly accused me of cheating on him.  The infidelity he had created in his mind began to rule our relationship.  He made me believe that just because I was a woman, no man would ever respect me for my mind.  Therefore, I was to stay away from everything that had a penis between its legs, because I would only be seen as a sexual object.  And since I was “Mike’s girl,” it was his duty to “protect” me from them.

I was not even permitted to speak to Mike’s own friends or brother, who was married and had a child.  I got so used to keeping my head down and not initiating conversation because I was accused of flirting every time I did.  Even months after I ended the relationship, I would find myself hiding behind my new boyfriend and shying away from most social interactions.

There is no way I could ever recall the countless occasions of verbal, mental and emotional abuse that I suffered.  Although Mike never caused me any physical harm, my self-esteem plummeted to the point where I developed a severe eating disorder.  After months of reevaluating my health and all the negative energy in my life, I finally had the strength to walk away from him.  Now, I can fortunately say I am in a happy and healthy relationship with a guy who would never so much as raise his voice at me.  Finally, I realize what it means to be in a partnership, not a dictatorship.