My Abusive Relationship
Before we dive into the meat of this post, I wanted to say two things up top: first of all, I am changing the name of the guy in this not for his protection, but my own. While I respect women who share their abuser’s name, it also needs to be said that survivors of abusive situations need to take control of their narrative however they see fit, and this is how I see fit. Second, I was not physically abused by this guy. Everything I dealt with was emotional and manipulative and gaslighting. It is no less abusive, but it is different and I cannot speak to the physical abuse side of things. I have left resources for both kinds of abuse at the end of this. The timeline is purposefully vague because I am not interested in anyone finding out who the guy was, that is not the point of this post.
I had no intention of sharing this story right now, or ever potentially, but I met a young woman at my new job who made me change my mind. While physical abuse is horrible, it is not the only kind of domestic violence or intimate partner abuse that happens. People hear “abuse” and assume that someone is getting hit, but it never starts off that way. Nine times out of ten, abusers do not start with physical violence. They start with subtle manipulations, tiny comments, tiny moments of control, and gaslighting their victims so that when things begin to escalate the victim is perceived as crazy and they are sitting pretty. They do it slowly so when they do escalate the victim is too afraid to tell anyone or to leave them. Which is what I told the woman I work with after she shared some scary red flags with me the other day. I told her my own abusive relationship story in hopes to shed some light on the fact that abuse starts small and escalates and emotional abuse and manipulation is just as horrible. I figured if me sharing my story with her helped, sharing it on a larger platform like this could help someone else. And if it helps just one other person leave an abusive relationship I have done my job. I would also like to note that since I am cis and straight, my story will be told with us as the players, but an abusive relationship can be perpetuated by both parties, or either one. While men are more often the abusers, it can happen either way and is also a problem in same-sex relationships as well as gender non-conforming. So no matter what your relationship looks like, now or in the future, you could be a victim so pay attention to these red flags.
This goes without saying, but everything I am listing are not the only red flags, and I am not an expert. I am simply telling the story of what I have been through in hopes that it helps, I will have resources listed at the bottom of this blog that you can give to a friend who needs them, or for yourself if you are in a situation you need to get out of. Now without further ado, here is my story of getting out of an abusive relationship.
Red Flag #1- “All my ex-girlfriends are crazy”. This was one of the first things Chad ever said to me about his past relationships. He and I met at a bar through a mutual friend so he initially felt very safe. I didn’t meet him through an app or by chance at a bar with no prior knowledge of him. A friend I had worked with at an old job introduced us, so he must be safe. I would say this lulled me into a false sense of security moving forward, but something I should have noticed even in this secure state was that he said all of his exes were crazy. Now, if someone says this but then follows it up with a true example of horrible behavior, like maybe their ex broke into their home and stole their underwear or harmed them in some way, then, by all means, they have a crazy ex. But Chad’s example left something to be desired and I would soon realize why they were so “crazy”, and it is because Chad’s behavior drove them to that. He told me about how even though he loved them and protected them, they still had other guy friends he didn’t like and two of them had cheated on him. While I do not condone cheating, I can see how these women probably used it as a way to get out of a relationship with him. The fact that he was willing to degrade other women he had claimed to love to me in the first couple times we hung out speaks volumes.
Red Flag #2- “I would die without you”, “I wouldn’t be able to survive if we broke up”. These two came just 3 days after we made it official. Chad informed me that he cared about me so much that he couldn’t live without me in his life. At the moment this was cute and felt very romantic. But especially since we had only been casually dating for a month, and in a relationship for 3 days, this was a lot to say. If you are in a serious, committed relationship for a long time then, of course, it is only natural to feel like you might die if they died. It’s part of grieving but this is not like that at all. He was already priming me to think I could never leave him without him causing harm to himself. Most times, the abuser starts with things like this to condition the victim to not speak out or leave once the abuse starts to escalate. They are also doing it to present a front to the people around them both that they are so in love and things are going so well that if the victim starts to talk about anything the abuser is doing, it will seem like the abuser is just very protective or that the victim is crazy. Usually both. These were both things that happened to me.
Red Flag #3- Chad would get upset if I wanted to stay at my place, and not stay at his with him. He worked nights on the weekends so I would stay a couple of nights during the week at his place but always stayed at my own on the weekends. He didn’t mind this initially, but shortly after we became official, he started getting upset when I wanted to stay at my place alone. I am a very independent person and pretty introverted, so I need to have alone time often to reset and charge my batteries. I explained this a few times and still was never met with understanding and was instead met with his version of a compromise: Chad would come and see me at night before his night shift began, come and see me in the morning when he got off, and ask me to stay up until 4 am to talk to him and keep him company while he was working. All of these things meant that I never had the peace I craved and the space to be away from him. Plus, if I fell asleep before 4 am, told him I was going to sleep before that, or asked him not to come over before or after his shift, he would have a toddler level pouting fit. He would ask why I didn’t want to see him, why I needed so much time alone, why my room that was so small was better than his with a bigger bed, and so many other things that were such a red flag for the way things would get worse. I always took it as just part of his personality and his issues from his past girlfriends but just a quick reminder: you are not responsible for how someone was treated in a past relationship. You are not responsible for their actions towards you because they feel wronged in a past relationship. They are the only ones responsible for how they act and how they treat people, not you. They are responsible for seeking help to get there.
Red Flag #4- He would look at my social media to see if I was on there when I wasn’t texting him back. I would fall asleep, or even just say goodnight and then do a late-night Instagram scroll. I also would sometimes be in the middle of reading something on Instagram or doing anything else and didn’t see he had texted me. Like any normal person, I would be distracted and take too long to answer so he would check my social media, see that was on it (or not) and then bombard me with messages. He would also call me until I answered, even if that was 30 times in a row. He once called me 52 times in a row while I was in the shower and then showed up to my building where he kept calling until I let him in the building. Social media stalking is a term we throw around so easily these days, but be careful because it can be indicative of a larger issue.
Red Flag #5- He started questioning what I was wearing. This was the last minor red flag before things started to kick up. It started with little things of just asking me why I wore crop tops or liked going braless, but then it escalated quickly to asking me not to wear certain things to work where other men could see and maybe find me attractive. It also started to become a larger issue later on where he was taking clothing he didn’t want me to wear and hiding it. Whenever I caught him doing this he made an excuse as to why he was doing it but it only worked the first couple of times before I caught on. I then quit bringing clothes to his place or letting him into my room if I had laundry hanging up, which sparked a fight because Chad told me he was trying to help me and protect me. He got that I liked fashion sure, but he wasn’t here to let me be a slut. That was how women got hurt. Those were all things that he told me often.
Red Flag #6- I went on vacation with my family, including members I hadn’t seen in a while, and he got mad when I wouldn’t call him daily or text him back within ten minutes of him texting me. He also got mad when I posted a photo of myself in a bikini. I was in Vegas, and it was extremely warm and we had a pool, of course, I was in a swimsuit. I posted a very benign photo of myself that my sister had taken and some witty caption and that was the first time he ever made a move to threaten me. It wasn’t a direct threat, it was a threat light if you will. All the same taste of a threat, but much fewer calories. I brushed it off as the first time we had spent time apart and it is a new relationship that he was still learning to trust me. And honestly, building trust is a normal part of a relationship, but it is usually done without threats. It is done by getting to know people. But at the time, I thought it was ok and normal. He was only bummed I was gone. Turns out I was wrong.
Red Flag #7- Chad asked me not to speak with my male friends, even those that were gay or in happy relationships. This piece of the gaslighting puzzle came pretty quickly after I got back from Vegas. A male friend of mine (who is gay, but that shouldn’t have mattered) had commented on my bikini photo which had prompted Chad to go through my Instagram followers and find every man who followed me, whether I knew them or not. He asked me which ones I knew and which ones I didn’t and who was family which he told me he wouldn’t ask me to quit speaking to. Kind right? But he asked me to quit speaking to all my guy friends because I had him so what need did I have any other male attention. I lied to him and told him I would like to avoid a fight. The first time he went through my phone he found that I was lying and then because of how badly it had gone, I did quit talking to my guy friends.
Red Flag #8- He asked me not to work so much. Apparently, it was taking too much time away from our relationship with the time I was also spending on my school work. I was a manager so I was working almost full time and going to school full time. I also wanted time to myself, and time to see other people who I was friends with who lived in my building. At this point, I was still allowed to see my girlfriends, and I wanted to see them. Plus, as I have said before, I need time alone and time in my own home to stay sane and mentally healthy. None of this mattered to him; I was working too much, I was doing too much school work, and therefore I was not giving the time to him that he thought he deserved.
Red Flag #9- After I said I would not work less, he told me to request to not work with any male staff members. As I said before, I was a manager so if I had requested not to work with about half of my staff, I would have most likely lost my job. I was the manager. The managers above me wouldn’t be able to accommodate a request like that, and finding a job in a college town is incurably hard even when there is no pandemic. I knew if I couldn’t work there I would be screwed. I told him as much, and he told me that he wished we could go back to a time where men had a say in what their women did. I shit you not, he said these things to me and I fought him about it. I called him sexist, and I threw a huge fit about it. After I told him that if he said something like that again I would break up with him, he had his first freak out. I say “freak out” because I do not believe they were genuine panic attacks like he called them. They never came on when anything else stressful happened, only when I told him something he didn’t want to hear. They were small-child like tantrums he would throw where he was inconsolable and would fake shaking. The first time he did it I thought they were real tremors but by the third time it happened, he seemed to forget that the tremors were part of the tantrum and he added them in a little late to the game.
Red Flag #10- I went to a few friend’s graduation and told him I wouldn’t be on my phone most of the weekend so I could spend time with them. He called me the first night there claiming a panic attack and calling me over 20 times. He then did the same thing when we were driving back to Oregon and called equally as many times until I turned my phone off. All of this was because I said I would be busy that weekend. I was seeing friends that I hadn’t seen in a couple of years and we were catching up, so when I ignored the first few calls, he texted me and asked “why do you hate me? You’re never there when I need you” and then kept calling until I answered him. He didn’t even want to talk about anything special. Nothing was happening to him or his family, there was no emergency, nothing had happened even remotely problematic. He was mad that when he called me, I dared not answer him. The phone calls he made to me when we were driving home were all in regards to me hating him because I wouldn’t answer the phone. That was all.
Red Flag #11- I told him not to come over because we got in late and he did anyway and wouldn’t quit calling me for two hours so I could let him. We got back to town around 9 pm, and he was there when my friend dropped me off. He was in the back parking lot so I hadn’t seen him but he saw us. I told him I wanted to talk about this tomorrow, I was tired and just wanted to unpack and go to bed. But around 11 pm, after I had unpacked and showered, he hadn’t quit calling me. I told him if he didn’t leave me alone I would break up with him because this was harassment. This prompted one of his freak-outs and I let him into the building because someone on my floor mentioned that “some guy in a car was losing his mind and he was going to call the cops”. I let him in. I told no one he was my boyfriend. I was embarrassed.
Red Flag #12- He had our future planned out far too quickly. Before we had reached the four-month mark he had told me how many children I would have, and I wouldn’t be allowed to have a career because I would need to stay home with the kids. But being a mommy blogger was fine as long as it didn’t take up too much of my time. Me telling him that this wasn’t going to happen resulted in a fight big enough that his roommate came to check on us because he said it sounded “violent”. As I said before, Chad never laid a hand on me, but the yelling often felt like it could have easily escalated to physical violence. This was the last time I ever said that something wasn’t going to happen, or that I would break up with him if his behavior didn’t change because now I was afraid.
Red Flag #13- He started going through my phone. This would happen roughly 7 times from the first time to the time we broke up and each time he would act so offended and upset that it made it nearly impossible for me to be upset that he had gone through my phone. I was trying to explain how it was a breach of m privacy, but all that mattered to him is that he found I had exchanged messages with my childhood, guy best friend and that I had texted a girlfriend that I was worried that Chad had anger issues. Those things were a violation of his privacy.
Red Flag #14 and #15- The first time he went through my phone I was in the hospital for an unidentified pain condition at the time. While I was getting x-rays he went through my phone after he had added his thumbprint to my phone one time when I had left it unlocked. He also went through my various social media apps and went through all of my DM’s to see if I was talking to anyone else. He did this while I was in the hospital. I look back at this moment as the one where I should have left and never looked back, but I was sick with something no one knew about, and was in the process of alienating all of my friends so who would I have been able to turn to when this was over? So I also stayed because I was afraid.
Red Flag #16- He got defensive while I was getting an x-ray because the nurse was male. Chad asked if the male nurse could see my boobs through the x-ray. I was livid with him. I told him to leave if he couldn’t be a better person. I was suffering, I was in widespread intense pain and he dared to get upset over whether or not a male nurse saw my boobs? I have never been so mad, and I took a risk when getting mad at him in that hospital. He didn’t have one of his freak-outs until we were out of the hospital and in the car where he had one on command. I told him I wanted to go home, to my home, and he didn’t listen to me and drove me to his house. He took my purse into his house so I had to follow him to get my keys and once I had my bag I left from his house. I had no feeling in my left leg and had pain that hurt so badly I could hardly stand to wear clothes and I was prepared to walk home so I wouldn’t have to deal with him. He followed me outside and started talking to me in the most condescending tone I have ever heard to this day. He kept asking me to come inside, I had had a long day, wasn’t I tired from being at the hospital all day? He said it loudly enough so that all of his neighbors would here. This was the bossiest gaslighting moment. Before this and after this it was much smaller things that made me doubt my sanity all the same but this was the most grandiose. His roommate came out and told him to stop yelling and to let me go home if I wanted. His roommate’s girlfriend gave me a ride home.
Red Flag #17- He didn’t want me to hang out with anyone. I suddenly wasn’t allowed to even have female friends, and the only people I could hang out with were his friends with him present. If I was at my place, I would have to send him Snapchats periodically to prove that I was in my room and not with anyone else who lived on my floor. I was no longer allowed to talk to my high school friends, which I did anyway, and then would just delete my messages, but I never told them how bad it was. I said he had anger issues and that he had some issues when it came to cheating, but that was all I told them. I hadn’t interacted with any other friends but his in a handful of months.
Red Flag #18- It was always whatever he wanted to do. Meaning that if I didn’t want him to walk me up to my room, he would yell and cause a scene until I gave in so he would quit causing a scene. If I didn’t want to go see a certain movie or eat somewhere, he would have a freak out until I gave in. Eventually, I quit fighting him so I could avoid having to deal with a freak-out and he got complete control.
Red Flag #19- He started making a habit of going through my phone when I was in the shower and once I realized he was getting in because he added his thumbprint, I took it off and that was the first time he threatened me. Not with physical violence, but with telling people things I told him in confidence, with throwing out my clothes he thought was slutty, and so many other things. He had made thinly veiled threats before, but this was the first one that was real and concrete. This was the first time he told me I was insane, and no one would love me but him. He would make a habit of it over the next few weeks we dated, especially when he decided I wasn’t acting following how he thought I should. He threw a bottle of my perfume away because he didn’t like it and he bought me razors so that I would shave every day because even having one day worth of hair growth on my legs was unacceptable.
Red Flag #20- On our fourth month of dating he came back home with me for a doctors appointment and made a scene in front of my mom and sister and told me that I was being rude when I wouldn’t nap with him upstairs even though I was there for an appointment and hadn’t seen my family in a while. I didn’t want to nap with him, he thought I was being insane and wouldn’t sleep because I hadn’t given in to napping with him. He spent the rest of the time he was at work berating me for not sleeping with him and allowing him to suffer at work like he was. It was all my fault.
Red Flag #21- Chad told me that the new medication I was taking for my nerve pain was “pointless” since it made me sleepy and he didn’t like me so tired. It made me less enjoyable. He was bored that I was always napping and I wasn’t interested in him in the right way so I would force myself to stay awake so he wouldn’t yell at me.
Red Flag #22- He would buy me presents after a big fight. A boyfriend buying his girlfriend presents without cause is usually seen as a nice thing, but he would only give me things after we had had a massive fight that lead to him winning when I gave in. It was like he was showing me and training me how he wanted me to behave. If I didn’t show the right amount of enthusiasm when I got these gifts he would freak out, telling me I must hate him. I told him sometimes I was tired or not feeling well and that’s why I wasn’t as enthusiastic. Chad would then tell me I was making it all up. Never pain wasn’t real. I still second guess myself sometimes when I feel the pain.
Red Flag #23- I told him I needed space before I knew if I wanted to continue being in this relationship, so he told all of his friends I was insane when I was with my mom and sister he told all his friends I was at a long weekend in a “medical spa” be treated for my mental health. By the time I had come back his roommate had also told mu boss so many things about me that they were initially going to try and remove me from my job because they thought I was unstable. Lucky for me there are no mental health centers that do extended stay near me and my boss quickly realized what was going on.
Red Flag #24- I finally broke up with him and called 911 more than once for an ambulance to go and check on him when he texted me telling me if I didn’t get back together with him he would kill himself. He told his roommate who I worked with, that I was trading sex for drugs, that I was cheating with every man I knew and so many other things that I don’t need to share. He even briefly followed me and I had to threaten a restraining order before he finally left me alone. The last straw I took from this was when he followed me to the movie theatre when I went to see a movie by myself. We had already broken up and he was convinced that I was there with another man, though even I had been it wouldn’t have mattered. He gaslit me and belittled me and my emotions to the point that to this day I still sometimes question if what I’m feeling is correct or if I am just being dramatic. When I found that he had followed me to the movies I lost it. I was yelling and freaking out because of how insane the whole thing was and he looked me in the eye and said “Don’t be so dramatic. I was making sure you weren’t cheating on me.” It was the same way when he would go through my phone: I was the one who had had her privacy breached and he was the one who convinced me that he had a right to do that. Which he didn’t. No one has a right to you or anything you own or do accept for you.
I am no expert on abusive relationships, but I hope this was helpful to someone struggling to know if they are in a toxic relationship or not. Below are some resources of true experts who can give you resources on how to leave, how to leave safely, what to do once you leave, and some therapy resources on who you can talk to once you have left. Don't be afraid to leave and get the respect that you deserve, because these things I have listed up above are not what normal healthy relationships are like. If two or more of these things have happened it is time for you to leave.
I hope you were able to make it through the end of this post, it would be worth it if you did. If you have any questions, or just want to talk, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Also please peruse the links down below for professional help. I know that I had this so easy compared to a lot of people who are victims of emotional abuse. Luckily I had people around me who noticed a shift and were there to ask me what was going on when I wouldn’t tell them. Having people around me helped so much. And things could have gotten worse so much quicker and more drastic than they did.
Madey
Important links:
National Domestic Violence Hotline
Women’s Health state by state assistance
Use this to find a therapist in your area that takes your insurance, works on a sliding scale, and based on what your needs are. It is a great resource.
Cover photo found here