Lack of stories?

I did come out of a bad relationship and though it is still hard sometimes, I am so incredibly proud of myself. I was with a handsome, incredibly bright guy who was crazy about me. Sometimes it seemed, literally. He was so jealous, insecure and controlling and in order to make sure that I would never leave him, he started to do everything in his power to undermine my confidence, telling me I was a bad person, not beautiful, not smart, he said men only ever talked to me because they were hoping I would sleep with them. How offensive and disrespectful is that?

You see, I am one of those women who would have never ever thought I would put up with anything like that for even five minutes. But when I met the guy in question, I was in a very vulnerable place, I had just left my partner of 15 years (nothing bad happened between us, but we wanted very different things in life, so we parted very graciously and are still very close and dear friends), but because I had left my partner, I felt I was not a good person and because my longterm partner never said a single bad word to me though he was deeply hurt and saddened, I felt I deserved to be punished for hurting someone I had loved so much. For the first time in my life, I did not like myself and just like Paige says in her book, emotionally abusive men are drawn to you like a moth to the flame when you are really down .

I live alone in a foreign country, and though I have a few good close friends, I don't have the 'normal' network of family and old friends around me, which made me stick with the abusive guy as long as I did.

Once he started to force me to move in with him, I realised I could never live with this man and finally broke it off. I asked myself just one question: what contols me: fear or hope? And fortunately, hope won and I was single again. And free again!!!

What really shocked me was that though I waited for a while before I started dating again, I had changed my pattern because my confidence had been erroded.

I met someone who I fell for and everything was going really well, but because I had put up with abuse for so long, I had changed how I behaved and began making all the classical mistakes which I had never done before. The relationship just waned, I ended it and that is when I bought DWD. I read it and realised, I had always been a real DWD girl but had allowed the abusive relationship to change something very special about me. I read the book and decided there and then, I will not allow my abusive past to haunt me anymore. I will have to get ME back.

I don't have the Hollywood happy ending to report to you. I am currently dating four or five guys, keep it all very light, but I don't think I want anything more with any of them. But my 'happy ending' is that I like myself again and have a happy, healthy relationship with myself. It actually feels pretty wonderful!!!

Hi wise_until_it_happened_to_me

Okay so there is no Hollywood ending (...YET!) - but as K203 says, it's an inspiring story. 'Success' isn't necessarily just about finding the knight in shining armour, it's about learning to live happily in your own skin. Good for you!