What I Wish I Had Done in My Abusive Relationship...

I've always been a shy girl/woman. My whole childhood and teen years I was nervous to really do anything, fearing that I would fail. It caused me to avoid lots of things. Even though my parents encouraged me, there were still some things I could not do. I always felt loved by my parents, and never yearned for love outside of what they gave me. However, I was very naive. Inexperienced in relationships and how some men can be. I dated a couple of guys before I met "him." I don't believe in slandering people so last names will be kept hushed. For personal reasons, we will just call him "Cal" because he always reminded me of Rose's boyfriend in Titanic.

Well I met Cal in 2009 and he swept me off my feet. He made me feel wanted and loved. He was sweet, protective, respectful... everything I wanted in a man. We dated four months before we were engaged, first mistake. Don't worry, we didn't get married. He asked my Dad for my hand. Gentlemanly, right? His mom was kind of a pain, keeping it kind. She was invasive, nosy, and particularly chatty. At first I thought she was just a helicopter mom. It wasn't until years later I realized why she was that way.

Cal and I dated for another year before things slowly started to fall apart. We got engaged in August and in September his grandmother died. He went to Kansas to straighten out all the inheritance crud. While he was there, let's just say he was asking for company of the female kind. He was sending pictures of him with no shirt, in a towel and cowboy hat. First red flag. He of course denied it and my desperate self just believed him.

I stayed with him two more years and a move before things escalated again. We lived four hours from my parents and his, way in the middle of nowhere. It was then that he could no longer maintain his "Gentleman" visage and his true colors started to show. He'd gotten custody of his 3-year-old daughter in 2009 and I had been taking care of her since then. We were now three years later in 2012. Unbeknownst to me he was starting writing women in jail. Not just writing but creating these fantasy worlds that were not even true. No mention of a fiancée in ANY of them, mind you. I found some of the letters in a drawer and was mortified by their "love" for him. We went to counseling but he destroyed the letters. I had suggested we show them to the counselor because he accused me of lying. I had mentioned the letters and he said, "Those are gone." A fragment of his life was just gone. Cal was extremely argumentative because he liked to fight. He'd tell me that I was crazy when I mentioned something that had happened a few months before. He'd tell me, "that never happened and you're making that up," trying to make me question my own sanity. It wasn't until he got up in my face, screaming his head off, when I touched his shoulder to make him back off that he grabbed my arm and threw me face down on the living room floor. He'd thrown a coffee cup at the wall a few minutes before and I had swept it up. My face was now inches from that broken coffee cup, with him pushing down on me with his full strength. I pushed my other arm underneath my face and over the broken cup. I could feel the sharp pieces digging in. He wrenched by arm behind my back and whispered in my ear, "No one F-ing touches me." He let me go and I ran into the bathroom. I stayed there for a while trying to contain myself. I questioned what my next step was. If I called the police, it was my word against his and he was VERY persuasive. He was also vindictive, so the possibility of him lashing out at me again was highly likely. So instead, I just kept quiet. My elbow was bleeding where I had touched the broken coffee cup. I came out of the bathroom terrified he would do something else. He just looked at me and asked if I was okay. Was I okay? I scoffed.

"Like you care..." I muttered.

He looked at me surprised. "I do," he responded.

My mind was boiling over. Just another way he was messing with my mind. Like what I just experienced didn't happen. It was after that argument that I got smart. I started putting things between him and me. When he started yelling, I would just leave the house. I started thinking about how I could leave him. Cal was nothing if not resourceful. I knew I'd make enemies the minute I left. I also knew there was a high possibility I would come out of the relationship with none of my personal belongings.

October 2016 I'd had enough. I'd had enough mind games, enough of his "you're crazy" and "you should be admitted" snipes. I was starting to question my mind. Starting to question if something actually happened or not. And worse... in 2015, I started believing him. So in 2016, it was over. Like I predicted, he turned the entire thing on me. He'd done everything he could to make me happy, what was wrong with me, why was I doing this to him? He hadn't worked since 2012 and we'd been living off my paycheck. He prohibited me from going to my own home to retrieve my things until he gave me permission to. Police couldn't do anything, and no support group I went to could help in any way because I had never reported his abusive behavior. I left the relationship with my computer, a bed frame, a garbage bag of clothes, and a box. I lost about 5,000 dollars worth of items. Things he has sold or still has to this day. Things I cannot get back.

I wish I had reported his abusive behavior. I wish I had listened to my mother when she told me he was bad news. I wish I had listened to my dad when he begged me to come home and leave Cal. I wish I'd listened to my friends and extended family when they said I could do better. I wish I had respected my mother and father more while they watched me fall apart. All these wishes can't be remade. I can't go back in time and save myself. Maybe, just maybe, my story can save someone else. Someone who is in a similar situation.

I always said I would never be one of those women that stays with an abusive boyfriend. I was one of those women. I loved Cal and he used my love to control me. He never loved me, he never cared about me, and I was just his cash cow. His verbal abuse, his mind games, making me question my sanity, and physically abusing me all should have been in some policeman's report. They aren't.

Don't let a man/woman abuse you in any way. If you are being verbally or physically abused, tell someone and get out. Your love for them is all that is keeping you there. They DO NOT love you. If they did, they would not treat you that way.

I'm happy to report though that I did meet an amazing man. With lots of caution and continued caution, I believe I've met who was supposed to be my true soulmate.

While I regret the experience, I think my love for the little girl and the pain I suffered from Cal have taught me something. It's taught me my worth. It was six years wasted, but also six years of learning. I now know what I do not want, and what I will not ever experience again.

God Bless!