Hello everybody. I'm new here.

I am in a toxic relationship, I've known this for a while, but I'm just now really facing it. And I don't know how to get out of it, even though I want to and know is the healthy thing to do.

Please bare with me, I'm gonna vent a little bit...

I met him in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, we live in different countries, having a long distance relationship with plans of living together. We fell in love really hard and intense. I was even with someone else at the time and I broke things off with that person (who was pretty wonderful) to be with this person, because of the intensity of my feelings and of it all. I regret so much to have broken things off with that other guy, but it's way too late now.

I'm an optimistic girl, a bit naive, was way more before I met my current partner. I used to be always smiling, very friendly and outgoing. I'm also very stubborn, a bit argumentative and hard on myself more than anyone. I always try to do what's right, that's important to me. I don't like conflict and believe there's always possible to understand each other, as I sad, an optimist.

I am now severely depressed. Don't go out anymore, don't do much at all anymore. I sit here, binge-watching tv shows just so I don't have to think. I cry a lot and have severe anxiety. I can't even fall asleep without sound in my ears and I haven't been able to concentrate enough to do my job, which is hard since I work online from home.

My current partner had a really rough childhood, him and his mother on their own, she was sick most of his life and died almost 10 years ago. He always had to take care of her and he has a lot of repressed anger because of all that. Also, I feel like he can't grasp basic human emotions, not really. I feel like he's numbed from his childhood. He's also incredibly smart, generous and creative, but of course, that's not the toxic part.

The toxic part is all that anger that he has inside. I happen to be around most of the time and I get the bitter end of it. He gets so incredibly angry over the most minute things, if things are not as he expected. He has lied, cheated on me, manipulated and is emotionally abusive. And I keep allowing it. He can sometimes fixate in the smallest word that I say and we spend hours on it, with him insulting me, belittling me, ridiculizing my feelings and just not letting go until he's satisfied. Last time I went to stay with him for 3 months and I ended up just staying 1 after he called me useless, said I wasn't as important as any of his ex-girlfriends and said he didn't love me anymore. So I left. It took everything out of me to leave. He never thought that I would do it, so he was kind of shocked when I left. I didn't even think that I would do it, and I still don't know how I got the strength to leave.

This all happened a month ago and my life has been paralyzed since. I'm literally avoiding living it. Sometimes I can't breathe and just tears roll down without even thinking. And there he comes back, saying all the wonderful things and all the beautiful promises of a great future and all the love that he has, and that he wants me back, that he truly loves me and all that he said in anger should just be viewed as that, things said during a heated moment. And of course my heart goes immediately to him. I feel like I love him so much, like I truly care and love him. And if I really love him, I should be able to take whatever crap he throws my way, because he had a rough life and because I didn't. I had a pretty stable and strong family life and childhood. So I think how is it that I'm not able to withstand whatever anger he has because he had it so rough? And countless of other rationalizations.

I physically left him, but emotionally I'm still there. I don't know what to do anymore. It's been 2,5 years and I have seriously tried, really, really, tried to make him happy, to make his life better, to support whatever problem, to be by his side, to not "abandon him" as he says everybody in his life does. But it's so hard. I'm destroyed. My family and friends really don't like him, because they've seen him yelling at me and they've seen how much more sad I am since we've been together. I tell him I love him, I tell him that I wanna see him again, and I mean it. I tell him I want him happy and I mean it. I feel like at any moment I'm gonna buy a ticket and go back to see him. I've already checked prices and airlines.

I never had a relationship like this one. All my other relationships were so "normal", not that they didn't have issues, but nothing like this. They were stable relationships and he's so unstable. I never thought I would be one of "those" women who stay in relationships like this one. But I am. And I don't know how to stop, I feel like I'm obsessed with it, checking all the time if he sent me a message, fixated on talking every day to him. And I do nothing else, except cry a lot.

Sorry about the long post.

Any comment, advice or perspective will be really appreciated, any at all. I just want to be the person I used to be, I completely lost myself. I want to not feel sadness and angst anymore.

Thanks for reading,

L