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On June 21st the Summer Solstice – I’ll be 38 years old. Every year I do some sort of self reflection in the weeks leading up to my birthday, mining myself and my life experiences for interesting things to share with others. This year, I’m sharing some deep truths which may offend some, but that I KNOW WILL free some others.
Today I’m sharing vignettes from “incidents” I’ve experienced in 3 relationships. My intention is to educate those who “don’t seem to understand how someone could stay with an abusive person” and to let those who ARE in the early stages of an abusive relationship KNOW, so perhaps they can leave BEFORE they get hit!
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#1
“He got intensely, like SERIOUSLY angry, for some little thing I said or did. I couldn’t get him to calm down, and I couldn’t understand WHY he was so upset… it made no sense”.
“He was really disrespectful in how he addressed me, because he was offended by something I’d said. Thing is, I said nothing particularly out of the ordinary. . . I guess it was just him being himself again”.
“He demanded that I do something I didn’t want to do, and got SO annoyed when I kept refusing. WOW”.
“He started insulting me and calling me horrible things when he was upset. Like zero to 100 escalation. WHY was he being SO MEAN???”
“He asked me to get out of the car one night in a place KNOWN to be dangerous for women, and he got SO annoyed when I refused, that I eventually DID get out. He was upset for days afterwards, about my initial refusal to get out of the car, in a dangerous area, at night”.
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#2
“He would get totally annoyed for the smallest things – if I said or did the wrong thing, if I said or did something that he felt would make him look bad to his family or friends, if I didn’t do something he wanted me to do . . .”.
“I was working an event as usual, and he met me there to take me home. He got annoyed that I wasn’t wrapping things up quickly enough, got into the car and began pulling off . . . even though I was already walking to the car. Then, each time I tried to reach for the door to open it, he’d roll the car forward so I couldn’t get the door open to get in. My team was watching. I was totally embarrassed. He had this nasty smirk on his face. He eventually let me get into the car, and maintained stony silence all the way home”.
“He jabbed me in the ribs because he was upset”.
“He left me at an event once, far from home, because I’d decided to go walking through the crowd on my own, without him. I had to go looking for someone to give me a ride. A mutual friend eventually agreed to take me home, after I explained what had happened”.
“We were in the backseat, while his friends were in the front. I was lying on his lap. We pulled into a gas station and then something was happening outside the car, but when I tried to get up to see he hissed at me to stay down!, then he held me pinned down in a headlock for the rest of the time until we finished in the gas station and were back on the highway”.
“He pinched me because he was angry with me”.
“He tried to hand me some vodka – that was both our drink of choice – but I didn’t want any. He kept insisting that I drink some, and I kept refusing. He eventually held the back of my head with one hand, while he forced the full glass of vodka to my lips AND of course my nose, with the other. When I needed to breathe I began to sputter, then had to shove him violently away to get him to stop. He thought it was funny”.
I have no doubt that it would have gotten worse, had I stayed in that relationship. He’s the same guy who once filled a large pot with water and poured it on his sleeping girlfriend, because he was upset at something she’d done.
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#3
“He wanted sex. I had the young baby. He insisted. I avoided. I was lying on the bed breastfeeding our new baby one day, and he decided to take what he wanted”.
“We had already broken up – I’d had enough of his serial cheating and the weak lies about it, but . . . we were still sharing an apartment. I had my room, he had his, we didn’t speak . . . it worked.
He’d begun a campaign to get me to sleep with him “one last time”, and he was getting nowhere, because…. No. One evening he came home . . . drunk. I’m not sure I’d ever even seen him drunk before, in our 3 years of being together. He walked into the house, shoved me into my bedroom, and lay his FULL weight on top me. I struggled and shoved, but he KNEW that I was no match for his 6ft 2, 200+ lbs frame. My struggling was in vain. He reeked of alcohol and it made me sick, and he just lay there.
I screamed and cried, screaming at him to get off, and screaming for the downstairs neighbor, but nothing. I couldn’t budge him, no one seemed to be hearing me, and he wouldn’t move. I was scared out of my wits.
After an eternity, the downstairs neighbor came up and started banging on our door. She’d apparently been asleep. When I started screaming her name, she began screaming at HIM to leave me alone and leave. He slowly got up, unlocked the front door, and left. She told me to draw the dead bolt and to call her if he came back, then she left.
Little more than an hour later, he came back again, and began banging on the door. I refused to open it, and that incensed him. He kept insisting that I couldn’t lock him out of his house. I was adamant, and he eventually went silent. The downstairs neighbor is what made me realise that he was there still, because SHE came up and began shouting at him to leave me alone. They went back and forth for a while, and eventually he left again.
When I opened the front door to speak with her, the entire bottom of the door swung free. He’d removed the pin from the bottom hinge. If she hadn’t come and interrupted him, he’d have gotten the other pins out, and come through the door at me.
I threw some clothes into a bag and fled to a friend’s home. When they got me cleaned up and calmed down, they dropped me off at my dad’s place. Thing is, I had to go back “home”, the next day, because I couldn’t explain to my dad what had happened. . . I was too ashamed, and I also didn’t need my [abusive] dad throwing nasty words in my face.”
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An abuser NEVER hits the first time.
They’re generally quiet, easygoing and/or sweet. No one would believe you if you said they were abusive.
They start off being like gun powder kegs – BOOM at the slightest thing, when they get upset.
They start off being disrespectful of you, your body, your space, your beliefs and your things.
They start off hurting you in SMALL ways – verbally, throwing something at you, going silent for hours or days and making you feel guilty for something you don’t even know you did, etc.
They physically accost you – a shove, a jab, shoving something in your face, dragging something out your hands violently, etc.
They put you in dangerous situations – putting you out a car at night, when they KNOW you have no way of getting home.
They embarrass and disrespect you in front other people.
You get the point.
So, to the bystanders:
I hope that this has shed some light on “how someone would stay with an abuser”. They’re nice, until they’re not. Fun until they’re mean. Sweet until they hurt you.
It’s not that you’re staying with someone who is hitting you all the time. That comes later . . . much later. That comes after they’ve worn you down and you’re too embarrassed and too weary to do anything about it. When you’ve chosen to socially isolate yourself, so you can save yourself the looks of disgust and pity from others. By then you feel that you have nowhere to turn or to run, when the abuser DOES start hitting.
At any rate, most people don’t see the behaviors I outlined above AS abuse. So if someone is experiencing those things in their relationship, THEY don’t even realize that they’re on the yellow brick road to Domestic Violence Ville, and by the time they DO realize, well, they’ve already committed to a 15 year mortgage there. Sigh.
To the one being abused:
Run! Swallow your pride, FORGET your financial stuff, your friends and family LOVE YOU… remember that! And don’t think about what your abuser will do when they realize you’re gone.
Leave NOW. RUN!!!!
There IS life after an abusive relationship or marriage. My mother did it. I’ve done it . . . more than once, in fact, millions of women and men HAVE done it and WILL do it! Join us. Save yourself!!
Choose Yourself!!! Choose LIFE!!!!
You CAN!
With ALL the Love
KAramel
I offer VIP Coaching sessions for those needing support, work on their self love, and/or just a listening ear and calm solutions. Visit https://linktr.ee/teamviplife to learn more.
