Intrducing myself

Hello all, I thought I'd better say hi because I'm new at this site, which has been a great source of strength and hope to me over the past few weeks as I've been going through the horrible process of discovering the truth about my partner, what has happened to me (yet again!) and establishing no contact.

I'm lucky in the sense that I wasn't married to this latest woman and we have no children together, but it has still been an awful experience. I met this woman five months ago on a dating site and in the beginning it was bliss. She was SO attractive, charming and endearing and she made me feel like a king. Of course I wanted to hold on to that, but a few months into it things started to change. She became emotionally abusive, sexually coercive, gas-lighted the hell out of me and even flew into a rage at one point and slapped me hard across the face in public.

I made excuses for her rages, her domineering episodes, her contempt and lack of empathy for many people. I indulged her 'talent' for producing crap art and poetry that SHE thought made her a genius but which was in reality the worst, borderline-comical doggerel. How fantastic and impossibly brilliant her children were, according to her. Even now it feels unkind saying these things about her, but I see now that I compromised my own truth again and again. I see I have to focus on my part in it all in order to move on.

Anyway, I expect there'll be time to post my story in a more appropriate place later, about how she has harassed me since I left her etc. Just wanted to say hi for now, now that I'm in a safer place. I imagine if you guys have been through similar then it must cause a degree of caution when someone new enters this site. I look forward to communicating more with you all, and wish all of you the very best on the path forward!