I thank you all for your advice. It is hard to convey the depth of something like this on a forum, obviously. I'm sorry if I offended anyone. Of course it's hard to hear that people think you're fucked up, or that you want sympathy, or that it's partly your "fault" for going back to an abuser. (On a side note, my original post had nothing to do with her being butch. Her large size did, because it was part of how she intimidated and controlled me. But size doesn't make you butch and I don't think it's any more okay for femmes to hit butches than the other way around). So many people on this thread said they experienced abuse and kept going back...are they all "fucked up" as well, or exaggerating what happened to them, or is it their "fault" that the abuse continued? This happens to thousands of people everywhere, and the tendency is to blame the victim or to question if they are lying. I knew all this, and yet I allowed myself to be dragged into this as she slowly broke down my self-esteem, telling me no one else would ever love me and isolating me from my family and friends until I was afraid and alone. I became reliant on her as this continued.
As for the question about "what would her side of the story be," she has finally admitted that she is abusive (with the help of her therapist) and possibly bipolar, and (very) recently admitted to me that she had been in jail previously for domestic violence, against a girlfriend and a police officer, and has had to attend mandatory anger management twice, and that other girlfriends had accused her of physical abuse as well. These girls were dragged into it as well, sometimes for years. So no, she would not disagree with what I said. I just don't know how I could have been so stupid.
For those of you who have not been abused, the guilt of a victim is so strong--I should have acted different, I should have made a better sandwich for her, I shouldn't have asked her to stop drinking, I shouldn't have cried and she wouldn't have done anything--that it becomes a constant cycle of beating yourself up. So to be questioned about if I was lying about whether she was drunk, or saying I was in a mutually abusive relationship, or being told that I was "painting" myself as a victim, when really my question was about why I could still feel things for this person who repeatedly abused alcohol and abused me and terrified me to the point that I did try to fight back (I honestly did not know if she was going to kill me) and if anyone had been through something similar, made me very upset, even though it's just a forum and no one here knows me. So I'm sorry if I seemed like a grouch, but I just felt misunderstood and the whole thing has very much shaken me up.
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