I was 19. Now I’m 35 and finally trying to face the past. This is a moment from year one of a five year abusive relationship

The controlling eventually became so severe that it finally came to a head on Halloween that year. Me, my ex, my roommate, and my best friend visited my best friends boyfriend at university and went to a big party in the woods called venue.  It was crazy because we had the best night ever. No fighting, lots of dancing, and just an overall fun time. We went back to stay at my best friends boyfriends place. We all stayed in his room. My best friend and her boyfriend in the bed, me, my ex, and my roommate on the floor. Everyone had just fallen asleep, and my ex tried to initiate having sex with me. I told him no, that I wasn’t going to hook up with him in the room full of people. He got so angry telling me I didn’t love him. He was, for lack of a better term, “whisper yelling” at me to come speak with him in the bathroom. After refusing several times, he finally grabbed me by my arm and dragged me on the floor from the room, down the hall, and into the bathroom. He picked me up, closed the door, grabbed my face and held it there while he proceeded to yell in my face about me not loving him. He then let go. It was surreal. I felt quite numb. From what I remember, I just walked out of the bathroom and back into the bedroom and laid down. He laid down next to me and tried to put his arms around me, apologizing over and over again. I said several times do not touch me. Keep your hands off me. He said no, he loves me and he’s sorry and he’s going to touch me because he loves me and he’s sorry. The next day I was just in disbelief that that had happened to me. That it had truly gotten to that point and that I was truly in an abusive relationship.  It felt like an out of body experience. He showed up at my door with a bouquet of white roses. Exactly like the one he brought me the first time he acted weird towards me. The second I saw the roses; I felt physically sick in the pit of my stomach. It was like what happened had become a reality and he was admitting to it and thought flowers would make it okay. I knew I had to break up with him, but I was so scared to do it because I knew it would hurt him. It’s crazy to look back at it now, that I never considered my own safety being at risk, I just considered how much it would hurt him and that’s why it would be difficult to end it. I think it was about two weeks later that I ended things with him (the first time). This was year one of a five year relationship that eventually led to me uprooting my life