Emma Age 19-21
I share this story with the sole purpose that I hope it will find it's way to help somebody recognise the red flags and to reach out and ask for help.
Although you feel stuck, frightened, trapped and like your life is over without this person, I promise you this is the result of everything you are going through. There is hope and there is a new life waiting for you.
There is so much more I could write on this, and I will talk more about other aspects of being in a relationship like this and what to be aware of, but for now this is a good place to start.
From the beginning....
When you first met and he told you his ex-girlfriend was crazy and wouldn’t leave him alone, you believed him, because you trusted him.
When he made you sleep in the back of his car because his parents didn’t approve of girls staying over, you believed him, because you trusted him.
When he told you that you would look nicer in that dress with your hair a bit more like this and your makeup a bit more like that, you started to change yourself because you liked to make him happy, because you liked him.
When he told you about all of the females who make passes at him on a daily basis but how he turns them down, because he chooses you. You feel flattered and special and can’t believe how lucky you are.
When he told you that he loved you and you couldn’t believe that someone who was so much older than you, with loads of friends and a successful job, could actually like someone like you.
When he told you all of the things you would do in your future and made you feel amazing and full of hope that you were going to live the fairytale.
When he told you that it wasn’t becoming of you to be so loud and that you should be quieter and watch what you say and how you behave as it was a bit embarrassing. You don’t want to embarrass him, you love him, so you decide to watch what you say moving forward.
When he tells you (in detail) whilst you are carrying out sexual acts on him that his past partner did it much better than you did, so you try harder and fight back the tears...
When he asks you to carry out his sexual fantasies, that feel utterly wrong to you but you do it anyway, you want to please him, you are already not as good as his past partners and he has told you that they are all asking for him to get back with them, so you do everything without ever stopping to ask yourself if you actually want to do these things...
When he tells you that all his friends merely tolerate you and don’t really like you and that they think that he could do so much better than you..
When he disappears for the weekend uncontactable and then when he returns and you’re upset, he then tells you that this is why he didn’t come home as he can’t deal with you being emotional. Then he accuses you of being with other men whilst he has been gone, accuses you of sleeping around, and that you are lucky that he stays with you after everything you have done to him..
When you realise that you have caught an STD, so you speak to him about it to ask him if he has been with someone else.. He goes crazy and cannot believe that you have given him a STD and that he has finally had enough, enough of all of the grief you bring to his life!
He grabs you by the throat slams you against the bed and pins you down holds you there until you can’t breathe… he is strong and heavy… then just as you think this is it, he let’s go! He goes to leave, telling you he doesn’t want you… you beg him to stay, “don’t leave me, I’m sorry I won’t do it again, I’m sorry”… he leaves anyway and doesn’t come back until the next day. You have learned your lesson, you stay quiet and you are grateful that he came home.
He tells you he doesn’t want to have sex with you, he wants to have sex, but not with you, he tells you to beg him, so you do, then laughs at you and says "why would I want to have sex with you anyway". He then shuts you in the bedroom and lays outside the bedroom door and self-pleasures himself so that you can hear him whilst saying things like ‘if you had been better then you could have had it”
When he doesn’t come home again... Then when he finally does you can’t help but be hysterical and ask him where he was?! He goes crazy and drags you in to the car by your neck, puts you in the passenger seat and pushes your head between your knees, his fingers dug in to the back of your neck so hard and deep that you can't think straight. He drives and drives whilst shouting at you telling you that you’re crazy and you are ruining his life, you feel so sick with the motion you don't know what is worse the pain or the sickness. He stops, you have no idea where you are, as your head was in between your legs in the footwell the whole way. He pulls your head up violently and proceeds to bang your head repeatedly against the glass window with his hand gripped, too hard, around your neck. He tells you that it’s over and he is leaving you. You are begging him, he takes your phone and money and leans over and opens the door and starts to kick you out of the car. You are hanging on to the door frame with your fingers whilst he stamps on your fingers and you have no choice but to let go. He slams the door and drives off…. you have no idea where you are, somewhere in the countryside, you walk until you find a pay phone and reverse call for help…
When he calculates the money, so that no matter how much you earn you are never left with any, you don’t have a car and you live somewhere remote and he often leaves you with no food and no phone, and then doesn’t come home…again…
When you discover that he has been crushing drugs and putting them in your food and telling you that you’re crazy…
When you finally get a job you are so proud of but have no money for food, as you don’t get paid for 6 weeks, so he gives you enough for a vendor cup a soup per day, there is no food at home, even though he has money to eat out every day...
When you finally move in to your own place (until now you have been coasting from place to place, some good, some bad) and you can’t believe its all going to work out, maybe he does love you after all
When he tells you that you can’t be trusted so you have to call him on every one of your breaks and talk to him for the whole break so he can be sure that you aren’t speaking to any men.
When he makes you run home on your lunch break so you can prove to him you’re not with men, leaving you no time for food or a break
When you were walking around the flat “too loudly” so he hits you repeatedly, on your hips and legs, so that no one can see, and you spend the next 2 weeks hobbling around, it’s so painful and you have to be careful to not wince too much when you sit down at work or people will notice..
When you’re going to the supermarket and he grabs you and shakes you and asks who you have dressed up for and smears the little makeup you do have on across your face and tells you to remove it and get changed before you leave because you look like a sl*t. You change and go to the shops shaking…you were only going to get the groceries
When he pins you down and hits you on the back of the neck and head and forces your face so hard in to the bedding that you can’t breathe, all because you have some friends now and "you have chosen them over me" and "why should I be with you anyway, now look what you have made me do", you make him so angry and you need to try harder to not make him angry..
When he lets you give him the bulk of your money to “pay off his debts” so that you can travel the world and get married one day, he does love me, maybe we will be ok...
When you come home to discover that he has gone, taken everything, and completely disappeared….
When you see his car parked outside a club and look in the back to see the mattress in the back of the car with the bedding…. You wait, and out he comes with another girl… and you realise the cycle has started all over again…
