I think I’m in denial

[Indenialx]

I was friends with this man for a lengthy period of time and he appeared to be the friend who helped everyone who was the class clown type of guy however had an ego if anyone disrespected him then he would be violent. I lost contact with him for (detail removed by moderator) and he appeared to have turned his life around, started his own business and really doing well for himself. We went on a date and started getting close. At first he was always giving me lots of compliments and being so kind and caring however once time went by he began to stop saying anything nice about me, name calling that I was a ‘s**g’ almost as if I should feel lucky to be with him. During an argument many months ago he told me he wouldn’t (detail removed by moderator) by making me his girlfriend. I mentioned due to the age gap that there seemed a power imbalance and he agreed with me rather than reassuring that we were a team. He would lie about trivial things and when I pointed it out he would fully convince me that I had gone mad. It was very hard to know what mood I would get him in day to day or minute to minute, it seemed that I couldn’t do anything right so I’d try harder and harder, making us a nice dinner or booking something for us to do after he had picked an argument with me. When I brought up that I wasn’t ok with him speaking to me the way he was his answer always was ‘if you don’t like it leave, I’m not keeping you here’ knowing that I loved him and would stay anyway. I gradually realised that if I went out with my friends or took on extra work ((detail removed by moderator) work) he would end the relationship immediately by saying (detail removed by moderator) or he’s not dating someone who does that. I offered to stop working those jobs and stopped seeing friends but he would say ‘I’m not wanting to change you’ so it became very confusing to me. He kept reiterating that things were going to change, he was going to take me away somewhere nice and everything was going to be good however I tried to (detail removed by moderator) and he spat on me and threatened me and my family. I ended up apologising to him and I wasn’t sure what for. He would call me in the morning and appear in great spirits and tell me to call him on my break, I would and he wouldn’t answer until the next day at times and when I would bring up that I was worried about him he would call me needy or crazy. The silent treatment would be used a lot by him so I would constantly live in fear of him leaving or the mood changing. He began to get physical with me many months ago but it’s almost as if each stage of behaviour became normal to me. He would leave me knowing that I loved him and would try fix and things would go good for weeks then ignore me again. He never apologised for his behaviour ever, if anything I seemed to apologise for it, which is probably why he didn’t respect me and pushed the limits. It just jumped back and forth between him saying he cared and being really nice to him saying he never loved me and I was needy, too much, a s**t. He was very violent to me in public this time which was captured on camera which has got him in trouble, but somehow I’m starting to miss him, I miss the nice him and I’m thinking maybe I am crazy maybe it was my fault, why do I miss someone who can do that to me? Am I going to choose someone like this forever?

[Wants To Help]

Hi indenial,

You are not crazy, you are trauma bonded to an abuser. Have a google of trauma bonding and you will get an understanding of what this is.

This man has used his charm and manipulation to make you believe he is something he isn’t. He has then actually ‘shown’ you his real self, but by this time, we are so in love with the ‘fake’ man that we keep on trying our best to believe that the ‘fake’ man is the ‘real’ man and we throw ourselves in to the process of trying to find him time and time again. His ego has been boosted by the fact that he can treat you any way he wanted to and knows that you will still be there for him at his beck and call. He has shown you no respect, only contempt and scorn. He holds you with no value, men like this just use us when it suits them. Please don’t fool yourself if he comes back in to your life all nice and sincere, it is just a part of his game to prove to himself he can get you back any time he wants – it’s all about his ego.

You need to take this time apart from him to educate yourself on domestic abuse, the cycle of abuse, the behaviours of the coercive controller, and use this to empower yourself and strengthen your self esteem and self confidence. Once you have learned about abusers and red flags you will not ‘choose’ to be with a man like this ever again. Your power of choice will be to find a man who treats you with respect and to weedle out the ones who don’t.

Learning to live a life without someone we loved is hard, especially when we find out the one we loved didn’t really exist. Sadly, we continue to put ourselves through this pain by giving them chance after chance to see if they can become the man we want them to be, only to find they never will be. We waste our life projecting the idea of what we want in a man instead of accepting the man they are showing us they are. We convince ourselves that if we become what they want then they will be happy with us, but they never are.

Instead, we should focus on who we are and what we want from a relationship. We need to put our energy in finding someone who accepts us for who and what we are, we need to value who we are and what we have to offer, not change ourselves to suit someone who doesn’t care about us. We are enough as we are, if we have things about us that we’re not happy with then we can change ourselves for our own benefit, not for someone else’s.

This man has treated you horribly. He has deliberately set out to belittle you and destroy your confidence. The violence is unacceptable and would have got worse over time. Please use this time away from him to your advantage to learn how to free yourself from whatever hold he has over you. Your life will never be happy with him in it. No matter how unhappy you are right now he is not the answer to your happiness. Our happiness comes from within, it does not get given to us by other people. Unfortunately, leaving an abuser is a process and there is no quick fix, but allow yourself to take that time, work through the process and educate yourself and you will come out the other side stronger.

xx

[Author]

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