Hi CS and anyone reading

Just thought I would share this with you since (in a way) although it has taken a long time, your help has influenced my decision.
CS, I know you get a lot of posts with different names, so just to summarise quickly and hopefully you will know who I am ... I am the one who has written in here a few times about an emotionally and few times physically abusive BF who I had difficulty in leaving and eventually began to question my own sense of right and wrong and even my sense of reality!

I have finally ended it, and this time HONESTLY I feel for good ... and you know, even though it is going to be difficult, I feel a glimmer of hope and like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Ironically, it was not the abusiveness or the drinking that ended it .... it was the Pandora's box of the DREADED going through cell phones!!! (I hear a BIG groan coming from CS now!!!)

Well, actually I have gone through his phone whenever I have suddenly 'just had a feeeling' - it has been 4 times in the space of a year. And you know what? Each and everytime I went through it I would find something horrible said about me to a friend. Each time he would talk his way around itand make me feel like a moron for even thinking anything bad. The last 2 times he refused to deal with the issue at all, chosing rather to focus on how dispicable I was for doing it in the first place .... I had now lost all his trust and he can never forgive me for doing it and this relationship is obviously a pretend game to me etc etc.

Funnniest thing is, it worked for a while and I began grovelling for his forgiveness for not trusting him - never mind the stuff that I had found out about him. In a nutshell it then occurred to me that I have never gone through ANYONE ELS'S phone EVER - HONESTLY. And that I went through his phone when I (rightly) felt insecure. He goes through my phone in front of me and I have never minded as I really had nothing to hide. Also, when you are together with someone you shouldn't feel the need to go through their phone, BUT it shouldn't matter to them if you do. I have realised now that it really is a pandoras box, and I would forever be torturing myself with re-opening it. And, finally, also that my instinct was right.

So, there is my 'ray of light' from my own experience ... funny how it REALLY is the small things that matter hey? Thank you all for all your advice relating to him, I think it has definitely sunk into my sub conscience over the last few months and really helped me eventually to trust myself ... because what I feel may not be right for everyone else, but it is right for me!!!

So thank you, ... and maybe my little story will have hopefully helped others who are in a simlar position to find some strength