Do you guys think I went about this in a smart and safe way?

[Anonymous]

my boyfriend, now ex boyfriend was very abusive toward me. Physically, emotionally, verbally and mentally and was very manipulative about it as well. He talked me into leaving my home with my parents to come and stay with him and he doesn’t live alone. He stays with his mom and two younger sisters and he would be violent with me even with them there and it got to the point where it was embarrassing and awkward to even see them around the house knowing what they have heard and that they know what goes on between him and I, though they weren’t/aren’t any better. His mom drank a lot so often times she would be drunk and would come banging on his bedroom door, starting things with him and me and then it got to a point where I would speak to her and she wouldn’t say anything back to me or would just give me a cold stare and his sisters never spoke back either and I would only speak, because that’s common courtesy and that isn’t/wasn’t my house. So it got to a point where I stopped speaking and on top of all of the animosity from his family he still was violent toward me so this morning, he had to be at work before me so I took that as my chance to pack my things the moment he left out for work. I even went along with it like it was normal day for us. I told him I loved him, hugged him and told him to have a nice day at work but all along I was planning on leaving and I did and it was sort of awkward when I walked out with all my things once he left because his mom saw me and just once again gave me a cold stare but it didn’t bother me any because she isn’t my mom, I have my own family and that environment was all around unsafe and toxic for me.

[20yearsolder]

Definitely the most safe way you can do it, the smart way? The smart way would have been to do it the first time that he was abusive to you. I'm still glad that you got out of there. Now he's going to come apologizing and try to get you back and you better not go back

[Asker]

Trust me, I’ve went back many times and each time it only got worse and it felt like it only became harder for me to survive his physical violent attacks towards me. His other forms of abuse were bad too don’t get me wrong but the physical started to frighten me more and more. Each time I would feel myself blacking out from him choking me, the bruises he would create from grabbing on me as if I were a man, punching me in my face as if I were a man and my eye would be swole to the point where l it was almost closed shut, he has even grabbed me and thrown me so hard on the floor that a knot formed on my arm. He has dragged me out of his house by my coat and he was so aggressive doing it that he ripped my hood to the coat off and the hood wasn’t even detachable. He has kicked me in my legs and formed bruises as well punched me in my legs and formed bruises, slapped me so hard that my right eye vessel was bruised and I had a red eye for a week and notice I mentioned what he did to my coat and how it happened, which means that was in the winter and that means I endured a lot before that and after and still went back and it took me until now, fall of 2021, to get some sense and decide that I had enough. My family and friends would always say that they could lecture me to leave him until they turned blue in the face but ultimately, I wouldn’t leave until I was tired and that statement has never been so true now more than it was before.

[20yearsolder]

I'm so sorry that you had to endure shit like that from an asshole. I'm so very proud of you for getting out of that situation. Many women stay until they are just a shell of their former self. Hold your head high, you didn't deserve any of that. You deserve someone that loves you and respects you. Don't accept anything but that. If you ever get into that situation, the very first sign of physical abuse, end it right there please