When I was 13 (I'm now 17) my ex-boyfriend and I got together. He was a good boyfriend for the most part, apart from his jealousy and control issues; I wasn't allowed to have male friends and I was rarely ever allowed to go out with my girlfriends (especially if there was the slight chance there may have been boys there). He even got angry when a boy would text message me or talk to me online. I had to delete my MySpace account just to make him happy.

We were together for a straight 16 months until he decided that he wanted to go on a "break". Mind you he had just turned 18 at this stage. Before this time, things had been fine; there was no liable reason for why we should stop seeing each other, he couldn't seem to give me one either. As I was so "heartbroken" I tried my hardest to get him back, but nothing seemed to work. He didn't want a bar of it, until one day, he decided that he did. So, I went back to him.

We weren't officially "girlfriend and boyfriend". Don't ask me why because I have no idea, but we still did all the things which couples do, which I now know was a stupid idea. I was head-over-heels for this boy, and it showed. He knew he could do practically anything and get away with it. He basically had me wrapped around his little finger and I couldn't seem to untie myself. I was stuck.

Things were very up and down. He started to hang around a new crowd of friends and not a good crowd I must say: very much into drugs, alcohol and violence. This was definitely not the scene which I wanted to be involved in and he knew that.

He started to put his friends (including other girls) before me, which I would be fine with if he wasn't doing it constantly. He was forever making excuses as to why we couldn't see each other after school/work or as to why we couldn't spend the weekend together.

When he would stay at my house for the night over the weekend, he would never get there any earlier than 3am because he was too busy doing stuff with his so-called friends. I knew this was wrong, but yet, I didn't do anything about it. I didn't know what to do, I just put up with it. Thinking back on this, I make myself sick. I was such a pushover.

A few months went by and he yet again, he decided that he didn't want to be with me "at this point in time". I was upset, but I knew I had to get on with my life so I tried. After a few weeks I had become friendly with another boy, but we were nothing more than friends. He stayed at my house one night and my ex-boyfriend somehow found out the next morning and went crazy. He came over to my house going mental, but once he calmed down he started saying how "sorry" he was and how much he "wanted to be with me". He obviously knew what I wanted to hear because I fell for it, again. Things hadn't changed, he was still in with this bad crowd, still putting them all before me, still being controlling and whatnot.

We went through stages from seeing each other every day of the week to being lucky to see each other once a fortnight. After a couple of months of this he randomly stopped speaking to me for no reason at all. He wouldn't answer his home or mobile phone, he wouldn't write back to text messages, nothing. This went on for about 5 weeks and that was it, I'd had enough, I couldn't take it anymore.

I started becoming close to a boy, let's call him Toby*. We would spend days on end together; he made me so happy. As soon as my ex-boyfriend found out, he decided to start talking to me again. This time he was very aggressive about Toby, saying that he was going to bash him and whatnot.

To attempt to make things easier, I stupidly stopped all contact with Toby, but this didn't stop my ex from being an idiot about it all and it didn't making anything any easier. He told me that if I wouldn't be with him that he would kill himself. This made me sick. He also told me that he had completely changed, that he wasn't a part of the "feral" scene anymore. I didn't believe him, but stupidly enough I gave him one last chance.

He made a few promises and I told him that as soon as he broke one, that was it. He didn't last long at all, a little over a week maybe. I stuck to my word and that was it. No more chances. I was sick and tired of being treated like a toy and I finally decided to do something about it.

Toby and I are now together. I was extremely lucky that he was willing to stick around through all of the mess. This proved to me that he really did want us to be together. He's amazing. We're happy and I hope it lasts. I don't want this feeling to go away and I especially don't want things to end up the way they did with my ex and I.

There isn't really a point as to why I posted this story; I just wanted to finally let my feelings out.

* Name changed