My ex didn’t defend me when her parents mistreated me and later said it was all my fault, is this considered abuse? How to get rid of all the resentment?
I (25M) broke up with my ex (23F) two months ago. Looking back, I’ve started to wonder whether I was abused by my ex.
Long story short: my ex went through surgery, and she asked me to stay at the hospital to take care of her. While I was helping her adjust her clothes, her father shouted at me. My ex did not intervene. She just watched me being shouted.
After that, her father left without any explanation. I approached her mother to ask what happened. She said he had no ill intent and was just trying to “protect his daughter from me.” While she didn’t say it explicitly, it strongly implied that I was sexually assaulting my ex, something I am absolutely certain I never did and never would. (I’ve worked in sexual violence prevention, so I take this very seriously.)
Again, my ex said nothing to stop her mother from implying this. For the next three days, I was repeatedly accused of being an offender and a person of bad moral character.
I was angry and frustrated, and I sent some texts expressing how upset I was about how her parents treated me. (I admit I shouldn’t have done that.) Without my knowledge or consent, she showed those messages to her parents.
After I left the hospital, my ex sent me a letter written by her mother. It again implied that I was a sexual offender, criticized my character, and blamed me for arguing with my ex (which her mother knew about because she had read my private messages).
My ex later claimed that she didn’t think her mother was actually accusing me and that I was overthinking and being too sensitive. She also said I was emotionally immature and unstable, and that I should have stayed quiet when her parents mistreated me. She threatened to break up with me if I didn’t let it go.
After all this, I was diagnosed with major depression and PTSD-like symptoms. My psychiatrist recommended trauma-informed therapy, and both my psychiatrist and therapist considered this a traumatic experience. I am still under medication and therapy to this day. My lawyer also said that what they did could constitute a crime (in my country), and that I could consider a restraining order, though I chose not to.
After that, for about six months, my ex repeatedly told me that I deserved the way her parents treated me. She acknowledged that I was mentally ill, but claimed it was entirely due to my emotional instability, and that she and her parents had absolutely no responsibility for what happened to me.
She denied that her parents had hurt me verbally. She said everything, including her father shouting at me and her mother accusing me, was my imagination. She claimed that it was me being too sensitive, and that my mental illness was my own fault.
At some point, I started to believe this. I thought everything might really be my fault, that I was too emotionally unstable and lacked anger management, and that everything is my imagination. It was my therapist who eventually helped me start questioning that belief. Even now, I still sometimes struggle to fully accept that I was mistreated.
While I recognize that her parents treated me badly, I never thought of my ex as abusive. She never shouted at me, humiliated me, or called me names. I also don’t think she was intentionally gaslighting me, as I believe she genuinely believed what she was saying. Yet I feel that something was just wrong.
But after the breakup, and after talking with my therapist, I started to wonder: Was I in an abusive relationship?
I now feel a strong sense of resentment toward my ex. She never stood up for me when she should have, and she denied any wrongdoing by herself or her parents and refused to take any accountability. I never got an apology, and they never faced any consequences for hurting me. How do I get rid of all this resentment?