Situations were traumatic, but was it abuse?

[storybook]

I’m new to this forum and new to reaching out for support from others. I got out of my first ever relationship that lasted (timeframe removed by Moderator), but am still in contact with him. As I’ve been talking through things with my therapist, I’ve been wondering if I was in an abusive relationship, or if it was just that some situations were traumatic. For context, I was SA’d in college and this all happened years afterwards.

We had so many conversations about my hesitations, my boundaries, why I felt the way I did, and so on. I can’t even describe how many times we talked about this. Yet he always tried to push my boundaries a little bit more each time (and would frequently do things to me without asking first). Because of my previous trauma, I found it really hard to say no—not just due to my resulting feelings of intense guilt and fear that he would be angry, but also because I tend to freeze up and it makes it hard to speak.

However, there were never any consequences to me saying no (he never got angry or gave me ultimatums, for example); he might’ve seemed slightly upset by pulling away or moving to a different part of the couch, but by the next morning he would be acting like nothing even happened, like everything was perfectly fine. He never showed anger about these kinds of things. He would get angry about other things only sometimes: he threw a (specific detail removed by Moderator) remote when he lost a game, he threw a fork into the sink when he was frustrated about something, he yelled in another room when he was running late, he punched (specific detail removed by Moderator) when it kept going off while he was cooking.

Something that’s never felt right for me is when he recognized that I was “frozen” or not enjoying myself, but kept going. He would ask how I was doing and I’d say “fine” or something—but clearly not enthusiastic about it—and he would keep going. Though, I would tell him I was fine when he asked, I would offer things that I knew would make him feel good, I would say yes to things even if I didn’t want to. So there is some responsibility on my end that I can’t ignore. He can’t be a mind reader. But also I feel like he should’ve known me enough to not ask for things in the first place, etc.

 

Some key incidents that happened while we were dating:

– I had my first trauma response with him about (timeframe removed by Moderator) months into knowing each other. I pushed his hand away twice and he still put it back (and then kept going). I don’t remember being comforted. He had said “you lied to me” because I told him I was fine to keep going when I wasn’t.

– Context: I don’t ever want to have penetrative sex. One night, after a lengthy conversation about my boundaries and why it’s “never going to happen,” he gave me a choice: do a sexual act I really didn’t like or have penetrative sex. I chose option 1 (horrible) and afterwards he asked if I “could at least try” to have sex with him. This was the worst night of my life.

– Once he said (specific detail removed by Moderator). This hurt a lot, especially because we’ve had so many conversations on why I didn’t want him to. He also slapped me this night but I can’t remember why and he seemed apologetic afterwards. This was the only time he ever was physical like that with me.

– When I didn’t want it and was trying to stand up for myself, I would tell him we could be intimate but only to a certain point. More times than not he would go past the point we agreed on.

– Twice he told me, when he was very stressed, that sex was the only thing that would make him feel better. So we ended up doing things.

– He told me (specific detail removed by Moderator) in response to me saying I was having suicidal thoughts (this was (timeframe removed by Moderator)).

– I came up with a list of non negotiables to make future interactions safe for me. He read and agreed to them, and then broke multiple the very next day. He later said, about this night, “it was obvious you weren’t doing okay”, yet he continued.

– He had downloaded tinder again. Justified it by saying he deleted it afterwards.

 

The reason we broke up was because I caught him sending pictures and sexual messages to another girl. I told him so many times that if that ever happened we could never come back from it. Yet I still messaged him again and here we are.

 

Incidents since we’ve broken up:

– caught him taking pictures of me during sex that I didn’t consent to. Led to a (timeframe removed by Moderator) hour standoff where I was asking to check if there were any other photos from when we were dating. Finally he let me check for and delete them, only after I agreed to having sex with him for them. There were (number removed by Moderator) very explicit photos and a few videos where you could hear us but not see anything. He let me delete them and check the rest of his phone. I didn’t hold up my end of the deal, but I still had to do something sexual for him in return.

– He offered to pay for a year of therapy if I had sex with him (specific detail removed by Moderator).

– He went over to the girl’s house (the one he cheated on me with) and claimed nothing happened, but I can never believe anything he says.

-He made my birthday feel so special. He made me my favorite food, gave me gifts, did everything I wanted to do. That’s how I’ve always wanted to be treated on my birthday and he finally did it for me.

 

I’m just not sure what to think about all of this. Clearly there’s a lot of traumatic experiences here, but I don’t know if the whole relationship can be summed up as abusive. Because even if it’s hard to remember them now, there were good times. Good memories, laughing together, feeling so loved and understood. He always complimented me, would take care of me when I was depressed, he always told me things weren’t my fault and he was the problem. When I look up what abuse is, I don’t see him in any of the perpetrator descriptions; I see a lot of myself in the survivor deceptions, though. I just don’t understand

Thanks for taking the time to read this all. Thanks for your support.

[Lisa]

Hi storybook,

Thank you for sharing so openly about what you’ve been through. It sounds extremely difficult and traumatic.

One of the confusing things about domestic abuse is that the “nasty” behaviour isn’t constant. There are times where the abuser is very loving and attentive, they may seem like a perfect partner. Many women talk about the intensity of the connection and how high the highs were. You aren’t alone in struggling to see this person you’ve had such strong feelings and shared part of your life with as an abuser.

From what you shared, I see someone who communicated her boundaries clearly, who explained that it’s difficult to say, “no”, or, “stop”, during sex. You were courageous and open and he repeatedly violated those boundaries, deliberately. You stating what you consented to in advance should have been enough. He knew what he was doing. It was sexual abuse. Abuse is all about power and control and he took your control away. He used coercion to make you do sexual acts you didn’t want to do. When he slapped you, he was using physical abuse, it doesn’t have to happen a lot. After he’d done it once, the threat was established and backed up by his other violent acts. Taking pictures that you didn’t consent to is intimate image abuse, and leveraging them for sex is further coercion.

I’m so sorry that he’s treated you like this, none of it is in any way okay and it wasn’t your fault. It can be so tough realising that a relationship was abusive, I’m glad that you’ve been able to discuss it with your therapist and post here. If you wanted to learn more about the dynamics of abuse, you might find the Freedom Programme and the Duluth Wheels helpful. The abuse has been ongoing, even though you’ve broken up, for some ongoing support, you could reach out to your local domestic abuse service. Rape Crisis offer specialist support to anyone who has experienced any kind of sexual violence at any time. Hopefully some of the other women here will be able to reply soon and you’ll find it helpful to share support with them.

Take care and keep posting,

[Author]

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