A Battle with a Demon

When I would look away and see someone who was an "abusive relationship," I would think to myself, "Why are they still with them? They can just leave, right?" Boy, was I wrong.

I met him in 2015 at a retail store we both worked at. He was cute and friendly and I would go out of my way to go over there and talk to him. This went on for only a couple weeks before he finally asked me to hang out.

I thought it was love at first sight, like wow, I'm finally done looking. He respected me at first, was always asking me if I was alright. When it finally came for that time to be in those times to talk about moving out and being alone, that's when all the toxic gas started to come out.

It started out with the innocent, "no, you can't hang out with your guy friends and you can't be friends with them period." And I thought this was reasonable. I was in a relationship and this is how they go, right? Right. It then became, "you can't wear this in public, but wear it here at home where I can only see you." And it then became worse...

When we would get intimate, it was when the manipulation would begin. "If you do this, it means you truly love me?" "Wow, why aren't you doing this? You just don't want me anymore." And I would reassure him with the "Of course not, I love you, there is no one else" bullshit. Knowing damn well he knew I was loyal and would never hurt him like that....

It then became the "your role as my woman is to take care of me and my children..." I'm still unsure if I can have children, but here I am, promising to be a good wife when I didn't even get a ring yet.

It was "respect my house and my family," "don't make any jokes with them because they won't understand," "be sure to cook and clean for me when you come over because that's what women do," etc., etc., etc., until...

I attempted to leave the first time. I cried and cried and wondered why someone who claimed to love me would treat me this way... I would block the number and ignore him at work and pretended not to care when deep down I wanted to pick up my phone and call and call and apologize for being so stupid and that of course I'll be the woman he wants me to be...

I lost all my friends. I couldn't make any new friends, not even girlfriends because they would already know that I was in this kind of torturous situation that I knew I couldn't get myself out of...

He dated someone while we were apart and it ruined me. How could he move on so quickly, someone who claimed to hurt when I left? I cried and cried for him...

I claimed I wanted to be his friend in the time we were apart and he didn't want that, and with that came a blonde revenge. I bleached my hair and did my makeup a different way so that he could notice I didn't need him.

That's when I finally got his attention and I won him back. But then came my own toxic tendencies that came with what I thought was this huge betrayal: jealousy.

I would ridicule him and tell him to go back to her, since he wanted her so bad. My trust was broken and I never did shake it.

The final straw was a simple request of going to a friend's shop. I had this gay male coworker who owned a store in the opposite side of town and I asked him if he would like to go there tomorrow so I can pick up a piece furniture that I promised I would buy. He went off on this rampage of, "I told you I didn't want you hanging out with other men..."

And I proceeded with, "I've had enough of this, please take me home."

I got dropped off and didn't speak to him again for a couple months. I reached out to him months later to see if we could try to be friends and help him with his toxic masculinity issues, but I found myself lusting for what we once had and I knew I couldn't do that myself.

September 2018 he reached out to me to apologize and ignored the message...

I never thought I would be strong enough to leave such a toxic environment. To be free of someone who all they wanted from you was control and sex...

No man will ever tell me what to do that I don't feel comfortable doing.