2.
“At 18, I was in a dark place mentally. My mother’s friend’s son, 21, started messaging me on Facebook. We started as friends, and we’d talk for hours. He then wanted to pursue a long-distance relationship. I agreed because I didn’t date in high school. Guys were never that interested in me, so this was new and exciting. I was sexually assaulted by a friend’s relative when I was 15, so I’d never felt at peace with my body and not had a physical relationship up to that point. Then, he started pressuring me for nudes and wanted to sext all the time. I was uncomfortable, but I did it because it was nice having someone to talk to. When I was 20, I started to build a real sisterhood with a couple of my friends, and he started getting possessive — but I wanted it to be loved so badly and wanted to feel wanted, so I stayed. Having my friends really changed it for me. They wanted me there, alive and happy, and it brought a new perspective to my life.”
“I had their platonic love, and it felt better than whatever love I thought I had.
In the beginning, when we’d talk on Facebook, I felt like he understood what I was going through. We were trying to build a future together. I was going to move 20 hours away from my family to be with him, wore his class ring on a necklace, and had a wedding Pinterest board with his mom.
As I got closer to my friends, he tried to control me because he didn’t like me going out with them and manipulated me by threatening suicide a few times. After three years, I started to break it off, and he said what he knew would hurt me. The relationship was done.” —swamp_witch96
Source: https://www.buzzfeed.com/victoriavouloumanos/teen-girls-who-dated-predatory-older-men
