I didn’t think I was in an abusive relationship. I’ve had family members that did really survive; beatings, choking, real abuse. He didn’t really lay his hands on me, so I wasn’t being abused, right? He lied to me so often and when I was hurt and angered by his lies, it was my fault, I wasn’t an understanding enough kind of person that he could tell his mistakes to, that seemed reasonable, but why continue to make the same mistakes for months? How is that still my fault? When I wanted to leave because I couldn’t take the lies anymore, he was going to kill himself. When I was put last for his wants and needs, so he could see his friends, I was in the wrong for being upset about it. I was told that I was the one who was being manipulative, because no one could tell him what to do and if they tried it meant they were toxic. Yet, he was constantly telling me what to do…? I hadn’t even noticed at first that when I made phone calls, he never let me make them alone. When I got text messages, he always asked about them. After a while, who I called and texted mattered too. I no longer was able to talk to my aunt, because he didn’t like the things I had told him. He didn’t like my mom, so I wasn’t able to talk to her either. I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere that he didn’t want to go, I didn’t have a car or a license, but what about friends? No. He didn’t want me going out with friends, he didn’t know them and didn’t trust them enough. I stayed at home. Only went places with him, but would be stuck at the house while he left, and if I texted him while he was gone, he would be upset, why did I have to check up on him while he was with his friends? I was controlling him, he told me. I was manipulating him, I was trying to come between him and his friends, he said. When all I said was “when will you be home?” One day I needed a ride home from work, but he was with his friends, he had promised to pick me up that day so we could spend the night together, he broke that promise. He came to my job and tried to break up with me, he said he needed his time with his friends and he couldn’t take it that I was getting between him and his friends, but all I needed was a ride from work, and all I wanted was to see my fiancé. After a reconciliation, he said he was going to spend night over there to think about things, he promised me he wouldn’t drink or do drugs, he broke that promise too.
We fought so often, I pointed out that he was controlling and manipulating me and he said that I was downright crazy and paranoid, he said my anxiety was so bad that it made me think those things and maybe I should get some therapy. Of course, it couldn’t be his fault. He held me to the wall in a fight, telling me to get an abortion if I was pregnant. He kicked me so I would get out of the way while I was trying to get into his car, so he wouldn’t be able to leave me at the house all alone again. Subtle things, those couldn’t have been abuse, he didn’t really hit me.
I had harmed myself in the midst of a fight one night, he said he wanted to leave, and I thought then that I wanted to die because he was leaving, but I realize now, I wanted to die because I didn’t think I could get over what he had already done to me. He convinced me to stay with him for so long because he said if I left it would hurt him so much and me staying with him was helping him. He said that when he got angry and yelled at me and said the horrible words of abuse that he did, that it was just because he was hurting and he would get better once he got it all out. He led me to believe that being his punching bag (verbally) would help him be a better person and made me such a good person. How could I be so naive to believe that manipulation? I told him that I hated him one night, in yet another fight, and he broke my favorite statuette that I had of a Siberian tiger, one that my dad passed on to me after having it for nearly 20 years. He broke this in retribution to my statement that I hated him, and the next day, said that I should thank him because the statue was ugly anyway. He broke my cups, my plates. He would block my number and ignore me for hours. When he was upset and I wasn’t there I was a horrible partner, but the few times I begged him to be at my side to comfort me, he told me I was too needy and he couldn’t be there for me all the time, even though I rarely asked. He would get angry and tell me the most horrible things, the things he knew would hurt me most. He tried to leave me at the store, 20 miles from our house. Then he tried to leave me on the side of the road, he throws my purse out so I’ll go get it and he’ll drive off when I get out. He says that I’m nothing to him, that he’s keeping the house and I need to get my shit and get out, he says that he just used me to get out of the place he was staying and he can’t deal with me, he says he can’t see how anyone can deal with me because I’m so stupid, I’m fat, I can’t do anything right. Hours later he just says that he was overwhelmed and that I know how he is when he gets angry, he says if I just wouldn’t push him to get angry that these things wouldn’t happen. It was my fault, I understood that, it was my fault. We got each other’s names tattooed on each other, and only a few nights later he called his father and told him I was just a rebound and he made sure to get the tattoo thin so he would cover it up. He told me his ex was who he loved, not me, after getting me to say yes to marrying him, to agree to love in with him because he needed the help and my money and help would make him a better person, after trying to have a baby, he states I’m nothing but a rebound. I end up moving out, leaving in just one day. He calls and begs and even apologizes to my parents, so I think that he could deserve a second chance. Weeks go on, and I realize, it’s not happening. I sit in a car, dry heaving through years, listening to him tell me that I’m stupid, useless, gross, a loose whore, an easy slut. He tells me that he just used me for the sex and to get a better house with my money. He said that I deserved everything I got and that he wasn’t sorry for hurting me. I sat there and listened and tried to think that he would feel better after he was done saying these things, like he had done so many times before. I get out after sitting there for nearly two hours, and I’m done. He comes back and says he just can’t leave me and he can’t live without me, but I tell him it’s over. A few more weeks go on with him trying to show that he’s better and he’s changed, but I can’t do it, I’m trying to be stronger, I tell him we’re not getting back together, I find a friend, I find a companion. I start to see my companion, to take this companionship as a way to get my abuser out of my mind, and he listens to my stories, to my pain, and becomes a close friend.
From 6 am to 3 am nearly every night I get text messages and phone calls from my abuser, telling me that I’m stupid, that I’m a bitch, I’m a whore, etc. Then remorseful ones stating that he can’t live without me, that he was in hell without me, that he’s sorry, that he only says the mean things to try and push me away but he needs me, he says he thinks he’ll die without me. But, I had already told him, it’s over, it had been over, it was still over. I couldn’t bear to live another day being degraded, threatened, verbally, emotionally, and mentally abused by him. He broke my things, he scared me. I never went back. Instead, In February I started dating a coworker, my now husband. I thought I had gotten over it, but now, a year after we’ve broken up, I’m with my husband, carrying our daughter, in the best and happiest relationship I’ve ever been in, the safest place I’ve ever been, the most comforting and patient and kind man I’ve ever met, and I’m still traumatized. My husband listens to my stories, he hears my fears about what could happen to our daughter, and cries with me often. But my husband can only help so much, he can only help so much with PTSD. It’s become clear to me, in these months, that what I’m experiencing is PTSD. Vivid nightmares, vivid day dreams, I still hear my ex’s taunts, threats, verbal degradation, mental abuse. It rings in my ears many days out of the week. Wakes me from my sleep at night. Leaves me shaking and heaving in the shower. Cradling my belly begging God to not let my daughter go through the same thing. I still tremble with fear, over a year it’s been, and yet it still affects me so much. No, I didn’t think I was in an abusive relationship, he never really hit me. I was in an abusive relationship, and he never really hit me.
