[29/m] New relationship with someone who has gone through an extremely abusive relationship (27/f)
I need some advice on how to handle this new situation I'm in.
I've known her long before our month together and have been seriously dating the last month. In the last few days she's disclosed things about her last relationship. About how abusive and negative it all was. She started off by telling me that her last boyfriend would hit her. On top of that, she went through two years of emotional abuse from this guy to top it off with a pregnancy and an eventual abortion because of how out of control thing were.
She's been out of that relationship for a year now and in that year she's been in therapy and on anti-depression medication and is still on both. I'm not certain which medication, by the way, but it includes anti-depressants and sleep aides occasionally.
This is new to me, I've never been with someone with so much abuse in her life. She's absolutely happier and more in control of her life now, from what she's told me and what I've seen of her but there's still times when she feels vulnerable and she gets very emotional.
I'm developing real feelings for her. There's times when I wish I could just snap my fingers and make it all better but I know that's not how it works.
So how do I handle this? Tell me how I can be supportive in the right ways? I'm sure there's many of you out there that have been in her situation that can describe what you needed during those rough emotional patches. I want this to work.
Posted Dec 2, 2012, 7:10 PM UTC