I spent the last year in a relationship that was doomed from the start and am desperately trying to find a way to get over him and move on but I don't know how..

To give everyone some background on myself, I grew up in an abusive family, dealing with beatings and being raped. My family was constantly yelling and fighting, and I was often used for a punching bag. At 9, my mother told me she hated me and wished I was never born, and spent as much time as she could afterwards telling me how worthless and unlovable I was and would always be. I was gang-raped by neighborhood kids at 11, then passed around to my older brother's friends from 13 to 15, with threats of beatings if I resisted at all. My father, the only one I had felt was there for me to protect me from my mother and brother, couldn't take things anymore and walked out on us all a few months before I turned 16. I found myself out on my own at 16 1/2, when my mother, who was diagnosed with severe manic depression, shot my father.

I had my first child a month before I turned 19 with the guy I had dated through the later part of highschool. When she was 6 months old, I had discovered he was cheating and left before my daughter was old enough to get the impression that that was acceptable.

I spent the next 7 years married to someone who I used to feel was my best friend. Despite numerous miscarriages caused by the damage of years of sexual abuse, we managed to have 2 more children together. But between health problems, miscarriages, arguing and stress, so many wedges were put between us. Things turned from bad to worse when I found out I was pregnant again and he forced me to choose between this child and him - threatened to leave the children and me if I kept this last child and that, unable to support 4 children on my own, I would end up losing all 4 if he left. To try and hold my family together, I did the unthinkable and gave my youngest son up for adoption when he was born. Three months later, on the day after the adoption went final and was irreversible, he walked out.

In the midst of a severe depression, I began playing an online game to give myself some sort of stress release - a place I could log into at night and relax and play and try to take my mind off everything. The first person I became close with in this game ended up taking advantage of my vulnerability and after agreeing to meet him, he used me then threw me away, hurting me even more. However, In this game, I also met what I thought was the sweetest guy - so attentive and gentle, sweet and loving. We became close friends but began talking about starting a relationship. There were obstacles there that should have sent up red flags - he was on the other side of the country, we a good ten years younger then me, and had never been in a serious relationship. He had also come from an abusive family, with a mother that neglected him and beat him, making him feel he was as worthless as I felt. We bonded through our wounds.

The first few months went wonderfully. I felt I finally had someone that understood how much I was hurting. I didn't feel so completely damaged and worthless anymore. He even came out to see me for the holidays and I had the first two happy weeks I can remember where I wasn't haunted every night by nightmares of my past. We talked about him moving here to be with me, of us maybe one day getting married, of us having a beautiful future together.

But after he left, things seemed to change. He would want to go out partying with his friends and accuse me of wanting him to sit at home and do nothing. I never had problems with him going out with friends, but didn't like him wanting to go to parties drinking around girls he knew liked him, especially after confessing he couldn't control himself when he drinks, and would come home with stories about them trying to make out with him. I was not comfortable with him wanting to go to a friend's house to hang out in a hottub with his friend and a couple girls, his job being to entertain the one so his friend could try to hook up with the other.. We argued a lot about things like this until he agreed to stop it all. That should have been my first sign that he was too young and not ready for a serious relationship, but I loved him so I stayed. He would continue to hold over my head that I was keeping him from his friends whenever we'd fight, but I loved him so I stayed.

He was still living with his family when we met and there would often be arguments there. If his mother or his sister got him angry, he would become very short with me. If I tried talking to him about things, I often heard "I don't want to talk about it" until I felt completely shut out from his life. I tried talking to him about my feelings but, unless nothing else was going on, I would lose his attention to the tv, to the game, to anything else going on in his life until after repeating it 3 or 4 times, I felt it wasn't even important enough for him to hear it.

The same game that was our reason for meeting became our biggest argument. He would dive into that game as an escape the same way I used to, but he used it as an escape from me as well. We frequently argued over his putting the game before me. If his group was full, he would not even let me come out and sit outside the group just to be with him, complaining that having an extra person would ruin the fun for him. The day I found out my ex was filing for custody of the children, he refused to even log out of the game to talk to me, telling me he'd answer my instant messages in-between fights in the game. We've even gotten into major arguments because I did not want to make other characters in the game with him. It felt like the game continuously mattered more to him then me or my feelings.

It's gotten to where we argue all the time. When we argue, he curses and says the cruelest things until I lash back at him and end things. He's told me I was crazy like my mother, abusive like his mother, told me that my therapist has warped me whenever I've tried to stand up for myself and tell him I deserve to be treated better then this. I've told him I couldn't handle the yelling and cursing because it makes me feel like I'm back in my past and he gets angry saying I have no right to compare him to my past but that's just how it feels... As much as I love him for how much he was there for me before, with each new fight, I find myself trying to end the relationship again, because I just can't handle the hurt anymore. With each fight, I find myself crying and telling him to please just go, I can't take it anymore, to please just leave me alone. He's begun threatening to kill himself whenever I try to end things, making it so it's either stay in a relationship where I'm crying all the time, or putting me to blame for his committing suicide.

My nightmares are back and worse then ever to where I'm staying up as much as I can to try to avoid dreaming at all. The stress has me throwing up almost everything I eat, usually speckled with blood. A month ago, on one of the nights the kids were with their father, after a very bad fight where he told me he hated me and that every reason he ever had to love me was gone, I tried to kill myself by overdosing, and woke up in my own vomit almost a day later.

The hardest part of this all is that I still do love him. I had seen so much good in him, so much sweetness and love. He wasn't always like this, snapping and cursing at me, saying cruel things to hurt me whenever he gets angry. I can't help but wonder what I did wrong to change him because he wasn't always like this. I used to be his everything and used to make him so happy. Now, though he says he cannot live without me, he only seems happy when he's not with me and that breaks my heart. I don't want to walk away from him, but I know I have to because if I stay, I know I'm going to end up back whre I was a month ago, where I would rather end my life then spend another day hurting. I don't know how to get over him though or how to be strong enough to walk away and stay away.

It's gotten to where I can't help but wondering if any relationship I could ever be in would be doomed from the start. If I'm just too damaged, inside and out, to ever truly be loved and appreciated for who I am. If there isn't something wrong with me that I'm not seeing that keeps making everyone I've ever loved or cared for hurt me and hate me like they do. I look back now and I feel so stupid for having fallen for him, or my ex or ever letting myself feel anything at all because opening my heart up just seems to lead to getting hurt. I'm so very afraid of being alone right now, but I'm even more afraid of letting anyone else in and having them tear my heart out again and treat me like I'm nothing.