Early on Dean told me I was the girl for him and he wanted me to be his. He was over protective and wanted to beat up every guy that showed interest in me. I saw this as flattery and thought he must really care a lot. He got into a lot of fights but he was not violent towards me at that time. Over time, I noticed he had a bad temper and he was a jerk when he got wasted. He would drink so much he would have black outs and couldn't remember anything the next day. I knew he was bad news from the start but I mistakenly assumed he would be different with me. I fought my feelings as I did not want to get hurt but in time he got me to fall for him.

After I moved into his apartment things got progressively worse. Dean tried to control my every action. I now needed his approval to do things and if he didn't agree with it than I couldn't do it. He got angry with me one night when he was drinking and he threw his beer bottle which hit me in the head. That was the beginning of the abuse I suffered while I lived with him. Every time he hit me he promised he would never do it again and I believed him. He always bought me flowers afterwards because he felt lousy about what he had done. I chose to stay with him and honestly believed he would change.

My mom noticed bruises on my arms and legs and I lied to her making up reasons why the bruises were there. I covered up for Dean because he begged me not to tell anyone and he swore he would not hit me anymore. But those were just empty promises and the violence continued. One day a neighbor called the cops because she heard us fighting, he was arrested and charged with assault. That's when my parents stepped in and made me move back home. He was pissed that I moved out and he tried to get me to come back to him. He called nonstop and left messages threatening to kill me and my parents if I continued to ignore him. With the help of my parents I decided to end things with him and even got a restraining order so if he tried to contact me he would be arrested. From what I heard from mutual friends he tried to kill himself and blamed it all on me.

I have since moved out of state and had no contact with him since his arrest. I chose to write my story to let other women know that once a guy hits you just once he WILL do it again. Who knows, if my neighbor didn't call the cops that day I possibly would have stayed in that abusive relationship or worse yet, I could be dead. My advice is to stay clear of any guy who tries to control you because staying will eventually lead to physical violence or worse.