Ladies, who have been in an emotionally abusive relationship/had a friend in one, how did it affect your friendships?

Most of my friends and family swiftly gave up trying to keep in contact with me. My ex made it so hard for me to keep in contact with them that I eventually found it too hard to keep up those relationships. Little by little I committed social suicide so he would let me sleep and stop making my life so miserable (which never lasted more than a day for each small thing I surrendered). Little by little I gave away little parts of myself and watched an exodus of people who liked and loved me leave.

There were a small handful of people who tried keeping in contact (and I could count them all one one hand) and most of them happily sided with my ex (since in order to keep in contact with me, they had to go through him to get to me and everything was filtered through him).

Those people I'm still in contact with, I'm not sure they try out of nostalgia and trying to keep up the appearance of a happy family or it's because they love and respect me. There is a definite distance now, and that hurts.

Some of the friends I lost contact with before him tried to contact me afterward and there was a lot of finger pointing and condemnation towards me. They said if they were me they would have fought back (like they were John McClane in some cheesy 90's shitty action flick), or that God had punished me with marital rape because I wasn't living according to his will. Others didn't like how the relationship had changed me and I was "broken" and "damaged good", that I was a better person when I was "pure". I'm not friends with them anymore.

I learned that all love is conditional, whether it be friendship, family or romantic in nature. Anyone who claims otherwise is an idiot or a liar.

I started over for myself. A new environment, new name, new faces, new life. Tabula rasa. I know you weren't hoping for pessimistic answers, but there was no repairing what I had. I let the light of those burning bridges guide my way out of the mess my life had become. It's not to say that I couldn't in theory remain friends with someone before. But those who were a part of my life before resented me for vanishing when I was with my ex and then resent me even more from establishing personal boundaries after I left that I didn't have before I was with my ex.

/r/AskWomen Thread