Girl is physically scared of me
We've been dating/living with eachother for more than a year, have known eachother for 6 years, were both young and she has a daughter and we've built endless dreams together in romantic conquest. It's been a rocky ride, with both major ups and major downs, and I mean major, but through it all, the one consistent thing has been our immense love for one another.
About a couple months ago, I came into contact with somebody I have held a very long grudge against for what feels like an age. I didn't react pleasantly upon seeing them, and after a mistake earned myself a felony, assault with a deadly weapon, of which I am working on removing now (my arraignment is next month and I have a great lawyer, and it's looking good for me, shes talking to the DA and thinks it will get dropped to a misdemeanor nonstrike). After spending an evening in jail, however, and through all of it her endless support and love, she's never thought the same of me. After seeing what I have wrongfully committed she knows what I'm capable of, and even though I tell her, that I would never ever hurt her physically like that, it isn't enough. She knows it's irrational but she cannot help but believe that one day, I will hurt her like I did this man, if not infinitely worse.
She loves me, deeply, as do I love her, but it's too much for her to take, this very palpable fear for her. When we get into fights, which couples do in fact occasionally do, she comes home fearing for her life thinking I might swing around the corner with a bottle or baseball bat or something. She thinks I would beat her within an inch of her life.
I'm not going to go much further into it, but I would like you all to consider that I would never, NEVER physically hurt her like that. What happened with the other person, while foolish and a mistake, was a CONSCIOUS decision, and I know that it's not in me to consciously hurt a woman like that. I love her. And to me, although I can see the fear in her eyes when she tearily cries out how scared she gets, how afraid she is of me, it still sounds ridiculous she would even think that I could do that to her.
And because of this, even though she loves me and I love her, tonight she has broken up with me. In a painful, relatively quiet series of tragic happenings after an angry day I silently gathered my stuff in bags and left. What could I do to convince her something that was so real, so palpable to her as a genuine possibility, something to fear for the rest of her life, wasn't at all me. I tell her I would never do it. I tell her that while I'm capable of horrendous actions, so is the next guy. It's a choice. And I would never choose to hurt her that way. But beyond my word alone, what else can I do to show her.
Any advice? I do love this womoan, and I want her to come back to me, but is there nothing I can do to dissuade these pervading anxieties of hers?
Thank you for your time.
