GoodKarma.org

Thank you for sharing your story... there are so many people that have gone through or are going through something very similar.  I posted some thoughts on forgiveness that might help you:  http://goodkarma.org/node/227.  The most valuable thing you can do to recover from the break up and abuse is something that may be very difficult, but at the same time is the most empowering thing you can ever do and once you do it, your life will never be the same - if you can do this one thing, your life will be forever better. 

Take responsibility for your life, your actions, your choices, and your emotions.  You can choose to feel taken advantage of by someone else and powerless over the situation, or you can choose to say, "everyday I made the (conscious or unconscious) choice to stay with someone who was unhappy, unkind, and lowered my quality of life - I made that choice... it may not have been the best choice at the time, or maybe it was... either way, I chose it.  I always have choices, even if I don't recognize them right away, and from now on I will look for more and better choices.  Now I have learned and become stronger and smarter, and I can choose whatever I want from this point on.  Even when my situation is not the best, I have the power to see the good in the situation or the bad... and my happiness or unhappiness is based on what I choose to focus on and process - the good in life or the bad - because there will always be both, and it is my choice to focus on and feel what I want.  I can choose to continue to hold onto pain from the past or I can choose to release myself from negative feelings and choose to ground myself in the present day and look for the good in today.  I choose only to have good people in my life who support me and only want the best for me.  Everything in my life is a choice and it always has been, but now that I realize it, my life will be filled with love, joy, happiness, bliss, and a deeper understanding of life."

If you can take responsibility for all of your life - all of your choices, past and present, then you can do anything you want with your life - you can take yourself in any direction you desire and experience happiness every single day for the rest of your life.  Just as there are rich people who are happy and rich people who are unhappy, there are poor people who are happy and poor people who are unhappy - because it is not our circumstances that define our happiness or our emotions - it is how we choose to process these outside circumstances that we either choose to feel happy or unhappy.  If you truly want to feel happy, choose to be happy - choose to dwell on the good things in your life and choose to let go of the bad things.

I hope this has helped some, if not a lot!

BB