TW: abuse, SH, SA
I was in a physically, emotional, and mentally abusive relationship for over a year with a boy I thought I was going to spend my life with. He is not a man, so I will be referring to him as a boy. A man doesn’t treat anyone with the disrespect and hatred that I was shown. I’ve held all this information in for almost two years now. Since then I have tried everything I can think of to recover, to heal. From crying endless nights to therapy. I won’t ever be healed, but I can overcome the feelings. This is my story.
We were colleagues. I had a boyfriend and he had a girlfriend. We weren’t even a pair anyone would have thought would be a couple. We didn’t interact, we worked in opposite areas. We were as much stranger as anyone who walked into that store was to me. As a cashier, I saw many people every day that I would spend less than ten minutes with and within seconds I’d forget them. He decided to pass by my lane, catching my eye. We had a brief conversation. Said our goodbyes, never did I expect to talk again. Until he asked for my snapchat the next week. My naivety thought he was flirting with me. Then the next few days I saw him doing the same thing to another colleague, who also had a boyfriend. I was jealous. Why was I jealous? I had a boyfriend who loved and cared for me. The guilt swarmed me, I had to let go of my boyfriend, but I didn’t want to be alone. I drug him along as the boy and I started talking. He would invite me to hang out, but I would say no cause I had a boyfriend. I was alway loyal. The boy told me that him and his girlfriend broke up and he needed someone. Since I still had a boyfriend, I declined. He tried to convince me it was just as friends, but I knew that in my heart I couldn’t be him friend without wanting more. Two weeks later, I ended things with my current boyfriend. The boy found out and asked me out. I said yes.
We went mini golfing. Everything was great. The butterflies, the nightly walks, the nights spent in each others rooms. I told him I wanted to take things slow. I know how I get attached and I didn’t want that. I wanted a casual, nothing more, relationship. Day eight of dating and he told me he loved me. This should’ve been my first red flag. I was pressured into telling him I loved him because he was on top of me, vulnerable. I felt I wasn’t gonna keep him if I didn’t tell him it. The first few months of the relationship were how any relationship should have been. The love, the caring, the respect. What I didn’t know was how much it was going to change.
Two months later, it was October, my birthday. I was turning 22 and I wanted to go to the bars with my friends. We were all finally 21 and I wanted to go out and make up for my lack of a 21st birthday. He was 20, he wasn’t able to go. I remember my roommates girlfriend told us it was time to go, I kissed him and my friends and I left him. He kept telling me not to drink too much, to text him where I was. He just wanted to make sure I was safe. I guess I drank a bit too much and sent a text saying “oops”. I told him I wasn’t gonna drink anymore and I had one more drink. He started to text and call me more asking when I was coming home, crying. He was furious that I didn’t want to leave. He told me he was having a panic attack and I needed to come home right that minute. I told my friends I needed to go, they very reluctantly agreed and we headed home. We arrived in our court, he was standing in the middle of the road, crying. I hugged him and we went to my room. He cried and told me he doesn’t trust other people around me when I’m drinking. He told me he wasn’t comfortable with me going out like that and to promise him I wouldn’t do it again. I told him I wouldn’t do it anymore and that I’ll drink at home with him. I comforted him all night long.
From then on, I was scared to drink at all, with my friends or without. If I drank I had to be with him. We continued to date. People at work thought we were the perfect couple, that we were so in love. And I did love him. I was completely oblivious to everything that was happening and what was going to happen. He started to make comments to me about how he didn’t have any friends. So he started to hang out with me and my friends. He’d get upset and angry if I tried to hang out with them without him. He had to be with me 100% of the time, unless it was his choice. He started failing out of college. It was my last semester, I wanted to finish it strong. He started skipping class to stay in bed with me, then blaming his failure on me. Telling me that it’s my fault that he’s missing all his classes. He would skip, even when I was in classes. I started to feel as if it was my fault. I tried to help him with coursework, driving him to class, helping him study, everything to make him pass. He failed out, blaming on hanging out with me as the problem.
He started to stop telling me I was beautiful, that he cared about me, that he loved me. Anything positive. It was always what I was doing wrong, everything negative about me. I’d ask him if he loved me and he’d say “you know I do”, I’d ask him constantly to just tell me and he goes “why do I have too?”. I’d ask him a question and it was always, “sure” “maybe” “I don’t care”. When I asked if he could stop saying sure because it made me feel as if he didn’t care and didn’t want to do anything I asked, he just went “it doesn’t matter, it means ok”. He would take any opportunity to tell me that I was irritating, annoying, and just doing everything for attention. I started convincing myself that he didn’t love me, that I was just an annoyance to him. I was about to graduate and we needed to talk about what we were gonna do since I was moving home after graduation. He told me to move in. So I did. After graduation, I moved in with him and his roommate. He refused to let me make any part of the space my own. All my belongings lived in the living room, still in boxes. I cried night after night, not belonging. He allowed me to put my comforter on the bed to make it feel more like my space as well. He didn’t understand why it mattered so much to me. That room was his, I was just a parasite in his room. I only had my clothes, pillow, comforter, and a fan in that room with me. It wasn’t home, it was a nightmare.
One night, we were both fast asleep. I woke up to him on top of me, making out with me. I pushed him off, but him pushing harder to undress me. I kept telling him no. I started crying, he wouldn’t let up. Finally, he rolled over and fell asleep. When we woke up, I told him what happened, he laughed and said “I guess I was horny while asleep”. I told him it wasn’t okay. I wasn’t okay with it, since he knew my history with sexual assault and rape. I was terrified and couldn’t sleep for days, scared he was going to do it again. He proceeded to tell all my work friends about the situation and they all laughed and joked about how I took it so seriously. I was embarrassed that I was reacting that way. I didn’t think of it as sexual assault at the time, but I didn’t like it. I started to feel as if I was being a prude, and that I was overreacting. He convinced me later that I was crazy and he was just sleeping, it meant nothing. To this day, the vision of him on top of me, putting all his weight on me and forcing me to have sex with him, is burned in my brain.
I stayed with him. Through this. Through everything. I was starting to go through a bunch of family problems. Always his response was “I don’t talk to my family either”. I remember him going to shower and I started crying about how I wasn’t gonna have a mom anymore and he came out and hugged me. I hadn’t seen this side of him before, it was reassuring that he still wanted me in his life. We were in a good point. Growing up I was a self-harmer. I would slice into my skin like I was a piece of meat. Through these family problems, I relapsed. He knew that I had these problems, since I had the scars laced on my skin. He started questioning why I wasn’t having sex with him, or showering with him. When I showed him, he was mad. Angry that I didn’t tell him. Constantly asking “do you not trust me?”. I would explain that I did trust him, I was embarrassed and didn’t know how to tell him. Within the next few days, he started to not let me shower with him, acting the same as me. When I finally had the confidence to approach the situation, he showed me fresh cuts on his hip. I comforted him, but realized that he didn’t have a history of self-harm behavior. I questioned it, but also wanted to make sure he was okay. When I asked if he did it because I did it, he responded with “see how it feels?”. I didn’t know what to do. We never went back to this conversation again. The cuts healed, but I was breaking down even more.
We hit our one year anniversary. We went to Disneyland. I could tell something was wrong, but I didn’t want to ruin our weekend. When we came back from the trip, the worst came out. The nights would start with him yelling at me for being gone all day with friends. He would hold me down, or pin me against doors. He would stand in front of the door, not allowing me to leave until I gave him what he wanted. I started crying every day at work. I didn’t know how to get out. I was scared of what he would do to me. I became silent. I did what he asked, he convinced me that everyone at work was against me. That they would choose him over me (which he was right). It was hitting my birthday time again. I decided to go to my home town cause I knew the boy and I were having problems. On my birthday he texted me “happy birthday” and that was it. I cried all day; I didn’t understand what I was doing to deserve this. When the weekend was over, I came back to the apartment, and he just played his video games. I asked if he still wanted to be with me and he didn’t respond. I asked if we should break up and he didn’t respond. I went to work the next day and a bunch of girls wanted to go out and celebrate my birthday at some bars. I was scared. I knew what happened last birthday. I decided to go. When I texted him to tell him the plan, he called me. He asked if he could go, but I told him it was a girls night and I needed it. He was furious. I got home and changed and he asked to drive me, even though he knew the plan was for me get a ride from a friend. He started heavily crying and telling me that I was gonna cheat on him and that I was only going to wear my “slutty clothing”. I told him I needed a girls night to celebrate my birthday because I had a crappy one. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t come. I told him that he couldn’t tell me he wanted to be in a relationship with me, so I didn’t want him to go. I left, but he blew up my phone with calls. In the room with a bunch of my girl friends, I put him on speaker and they heard him screaming at me over the phone. One of them took my phone and hung it up (later finding out he cheated on me with her). We went out and I came home to him drunk out of his mind. Once again holding me down, yelling at me. Leaving bruises all over my neck and hips.
The next few days, we barely talked. We went to work then home, he’d go on his gaming computer and I’d watch netflix. I decided to go to lunch with my best friend because I was suffering. He asked to come. I told him no, I needed time with her alone. He once again started getting frustrated that I was gonna go “talk shit” about him. He ended up coming, cause I was afraid. I was terrified of him. We started to become strangers, but I tried to save the relationship. I fought every day for the boy that was inside him that was there before this all. I kept asking if he wanted me to stay, did he want to be with me. He could never answer these questions. I fought for weeks for us. Everyday I would ask if he wanted me to leave, move out. He would never say yes or no. He would just say I don’t know.
I loved him, I was so in love and I still am. I may have been terrified of him, but I loved him and wanted to be with him. I was blinded. He couldn’t give me an answer so I finally decided I needed to leave. I packed all my stuff, telling him I was leaving. He told me he’d “find a new girl quickly”. I was broken, numb, and lost.
