You know, I'd forgotten all about it until reading this, but years ago, back when I was still dating, this guy I was going with did a similar thing to me. In fact he asked me to reach for something, so I'd be more vulnerable, and then slammed onto his brakes, so my head and face smashed into the windshield. When I started crying, he laughed and laughed. It wasn't until he got 'shipped out', in the service, that I was able to break up with him. He still attempted to intimidate me, even got an emergency 3 day leave and showed up unexpectedly at my workplace, etc. That was a long 3 day week-end, but I didn't relent.
It makes for a very miserable life. I remember being made to think I was cray cray when I pointed little stuff out and the larger stuff like that got blown off.
I didn't like to carry a cell phone. (I do now, reluctantly, for work.) I felt like they were a leash. I can remember making plans and then having them break them, etc. I would call and check in, usually at the place we had agreed to meet and get greeted with "What, are you stalking me?" She eventually got me a cell phone and would freak out when I didn't answer and the retaliation for me innocently not answering would be for her to give me the silent treatment for days. Trying to budget later on became "financial control". She would tell my family I didn't want to speak with them and then make up crap about my family so that I would ask them questions. When I asked the questions, I can't think of a clear example, it would make me look like I was off my rocker. When I went back to get an explanation, I was always the one who had misheard something.
I hadn't seen her in like nine months once and she called with the same story: I've changed, I really want to see you, etc. etc. Before I even agreed to meet up with her (she was apparently pet sitting on the side of her regular job) she called me and asked me why I'd taken so and so's keys out of her car (a pet sitting person, I guess. I don't think I actually knew what she drove or where she lived at the time.) I kept trying to shrug it all off. It gets to heavy to shrug eventually.
Now, with technology, etc. she's learned to fake her caller ID and fake message me and read my emails. She's helped herself to my bank account a few times.
There's always some innocent explanation that makes me feel like a dog and makes me look like I don't know what I'm talking about.
Finally, I just stopped going back for more whooping. It does wonders for your self esteem when you just step away. Even with all of the evidence in hand, I've had local police look at me like I don't know what I'm talking about. And the few who would listen looked at me and basically said: You're a 6'4, 230 lb man. She's a 5'4 110 lb woman. You're telling us you're scared of her?
I'm in no way equating my situation to MY/JY or the others we've discussed, but I think that, on some level, people do not realize how hard it is to leave. They sit and say: Just don't talk to her anymore. Pretend you never met.
She's shown up at my work, filed false police reports, harassed my family. It got so bad in 2010 that I just wanted to die. I didn't know what to do. I'm scared of very few things in the world, but what was going on terrified me. I didn't know what to do, who to trust or where to go.
The best thing I did was to start getting involved with close friends and family members, got out, met new folks, got active in my community, worked harder at work, and just moved on. But, it wasn't an overnight thing and it was definitely (leaving, moving on) the most dangerous thing and simultaneously the most healthy thing I could have ever done.
ETA: This was a woman I had a child with, had been married to (and divorced upon her request, not asking for anything at ED) for a number of years. This was not how the relationship started. It just got this way the last four or five years of it.
