Abby Connolly
Throughout their relationship, he always said he refused to introduce her to any of his friends because he lost his previous girlfriend to one of his guy friends.
When he found out she had guy friends, he hated it and often asked her to show him what she was texting them.
As scary as that is, she would still find excuses to defend him and thought he needed more time to heal.
He also started becoming very critical of her appearance, how she spoke, and how she dressed. One time when they were arguing, he made a comment about killing her, and somehow that wasn’t what made her break up with him.
“Red flags [were] everywhere, but though it might be hard to believe, I was actually convinced I was falling in love with him,” she recalled. “Most of the time, he was perfect until he wasn’t.”
Things came to a head when she told him what she thought was a funny story about a guy who asked for her phone number in one of her college classes. The guy had asked her, pretending he needed it for class notes, so she gave him her college email address instead and told him she had a boyfriend.
She thought the story was funny because, at the end of class, she saw the guy throw out the piece of paper she had written her email on. However, her boyfriend didn’t find it funny at all.
“He accused me of leading the guy on, accused me of wanting to cheat,” she said.
“I was furious because I knew I had done nothing wrong. When he angrily threw a mug at the wall, which shattered, the whole argument came to an abrupt halt. I was scared and angry, so I grabbed my bag and bolted out of his apartment.”
She lived with her older cousin then, who encouraged her to break all contact with this guy. She finally realized how toxic the relationship was and heeded her cousin’s advice. However, her ex still spammed her with tons of text messages saying how sorry he was.
A few days later, while commuting home from work, she was on her daily walk to the local train station and felt the sudden urge to turn around. She saw her ex following her, looking disheveled and out of it. She waited for him at the train station, where she would try and talk to him privately.
