I've been in three abusive relationships. Which out of four long-term relationships in total is a pretty sad percentage. The first was mental, the second physical and the third verbal. None of them were particularly pleasant, and all of them shared some pretty nasty characteristics. But the verbal abuse was probably the worst.
I met Dan when I was still with River, the man who hit me. River was bisexual and wanted a threesome with a guy for his birthday, and we'd organized to have it with Dan. I'm not proud of it, but I ended up getting closer to Dan than I had planned and with River hitting me, I was incredibly vulnerable. I made the mistake of cheating on him. I should have broken up with him first, but I was scared of leaving him because of my visa. Once I started sleeping with Dan, I didn't have a choice.
Dan was great at first. Paying me compliments, telling me he was in love with me right off the bat. In hindsight, I can see that this was gaslighting, but it didn't stop me from moving in with him after only a month of us being together. It made sense at the time, my apartment was infested with bed bugs, and I slept on an airbed because I repeatedly had to get rid of my furniture. I was spending all of my time there anyway. Why shouldn't I save a little money?
After a while, things turned sour. The first time I can remember him raising his voice to me was as he took a hit from his bong, saying he missed his friends. I get nervous meeting people's friends. I'll admit I can be difficult to get on with, and I'm often scared that they won't like me, which can negatively affect a relationship. I spent some time with his friends, but it wasn't long before I was left at home. The honeymoon period was over.
This started with him going out after work, no big deal. He'd come home eventually. As time went on, it became later and later, and I would frequently wait up until 2, 3 in the morning with the light on, waiting for him to come home. This is when the shouting started. Yelling at me because he was drunk, throwing his headphones at me, calling me psychotic because I spent the tip money I had made. The first real argument we had was outside a gaming bar. He shouted and screamed at me in the street, but blamed me for antagonizing him the next day. One of the most memorable was him telling me he felt like I was obsessed with him and that it wasn't attractive to him. I'd told him I'd missed him.
Next came the not coming home after work. He'd either run home for 30 seconds without saying goodbye or not come back at all, leaving me waiting and wondering where he was. This progressed into him leaving work without saying goodbye. When he did tell me he'd get angry if I asked when he'd be back. Eventually, he got angry if I asked him if he was coming home at all.
On the odd occasion, we did spend time together at home, but things weren't much better. Any movie I wanted to watch was off limits. Any song unplayable. He'd repeatedly scare me by saying I should move out or using the word "if" when he talked about our relationship. One night he got so drunk on a night out that he peed in our bed, called me a cunt and said he didn't know why his parents let me live there. Eventually, I had to ask permission to speak.
To everyone else, though, Dan was the complete opposite. Friendly, relatable and personable to a fault. Everyone we worked with adored him, and he could do no wrong, repeatedly winning awards at work or being praised by my colleagues and employees alike. On the rare occasion he did slip and speak to me at work the way he did at home, very few people saw. Only one person noticed when he talked down to me, and it took months before I confided in my friend that he was a mean and aggressive drunk.
I would eventually spend 3 months living on this person's couch after he kicked me out, and I found myself homeless for the second time. I now count her as one of my best friends.
The Dan that I met, the Dan that I was in a relationship with and the Dan that everyone else knew were three different people. To the point that it was impossible to see how each personality could be connected. I was screamed at for the most ridiculous things. Drinking his juice, eating his snacks, accidentally buying the wrong beer, or not wanting to go and buy him a pack of cigarettes. We thought I'd broken his computer once, and I sat on my knees in front of him, sobbing and apologizing. All he said was that sometimes, sorry wasn't good enough.
In the same way that River did each morning after he hit me, Dan would always claim to not remember anything. Apart from the night he broke up with me. He couldn't remember calling me names and shouting at me for interrupting him, but he could remember holding a pillow over me and making a hideous "waaaa" noise, impersonating a baby, making fun of me as I cried. Thankfully, that sadness didn't last very long.
Dan refused to speak to me after we broke up apart from to ask for money or have a go at me, asking why I was telling people he was "shit". After getting drunk and trying to call me, he told me not to contact him again because it was a "huge inconvenience" and moaned at me yet again for disturbing him when he was eating. Thankfully, I was out of his house by then and so didn't have to listen to his verbal abuse. I haven't seen Dan since the day I moved out, and I haven't spoken to him since I left Canada. In one of the last conversations we had, he told me I was scaring me. Ironic when you think about it.
I couldn't see that I was in an abusive relationship because I didn't know what verbal abuse was. I'd just broken up with someone who hit me, that was abuse. How could it be considered domestic violence if he never physically hurt me?
A lot of people stopped talking to me after Dan and I broke up. He accused me of hitting him when I put my arm against his to stop him from people hearing the speaker he was blaring through our bedroom window, and when I grabbed him as he threatened to damage something important to me. It's obvious that these people weren't my friends to begin with, but losing my boyfriend, home, friends and job at the same time left me feeling wounded and alone.
When I was with Jerren, I justified his bad treatment by saying that he didn't hit or scream at me. A lack of abuse was a bonus for me because that's what I had been used to in my most recent relationships. But just because a relationship isn't abusive doesn't mean it's healthy, and it's going to be a long time before I heal enough to see that.
Stay safe on the road
Jess
If you have been affected by domestic violence in Australia, call 1800 737 732
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