Don’t relight my fire: an account escaping emotional abuse

Ten years ago, a bright eyed and bushy tailed 22-year-old me met a guy. 

I say ‘met’; but really, he was a friend of a friend. Everybody warned me about him; even his mum told me to stay away. Would I listen? Would I shite. I don’t appreciate other people ramming their views down my throat before I have even processed what my own opinions are. Especially when those people are my parents.

Plus, he was hot (or rather, 22-year-old me thought that he was hot. 32 year old me in’t so impressed), he had a sexy Scouse accent, and was pretty damn good in the sack. 

So, we dated, we fell in love (did we, really, though?), we travelled, got engaged, even had a big white wedding; closely followed by the arrival of two beautiful children; a boy and a girl. And that was when the cracks really started to show. 

But these cracks could not be filled by anything that you could buy in B&Q; let me tell you.

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Before the children, he seemed fun. We smoked weed, we lived in different cities, we smoked weed, worked in different countries, skived work to smoke weed, and generally enjoyed chilling together. In the beginning, we were so in love. Or I thought we were, but looking back on it now; I’m not so sure. 

From the start of our relationship, there were red flags. They were literally blowing in the wind from every angle; but the more that people who loved me told me to leave him; the more determined I was to prove everyone wrong. 

Firstly, there was the phone episode; within the first few months, I’d found incriminating messages from another girl. After I confronted him, he told me I was jealous, that I was being a bunny boiler, that these messages had upset me over nothing. Why was I so sensitive? 

Then there was episode two: the dating website, which proved more difficult for him to talk himself out of. The classic ‘it’s from ages ago’ line, ‘we weren’t together when I sent those’, and the standard go to defence – offense – ‘why are you looking through my stuff?’ and ‘don’t you trust me?’.

 I can almost hear you asking me why I didn’t just check the timestamp; I was so shocked at finding it (literally because I turned on his laptop! It was right there; I wasn’t even snooping. Legit though!) that I didn’t have a game plan, I just jumped right into confrontation. This was a shit plan, because he managed to delete it before I could pull it back up. Ok, maybe it is in my imagination; why am I being like this? 

So, we carried on dating, and decided to move abroad together. How else would I shut everyone up who had nothing nice to say about my perfect boyfriend?

Being abroad was the fresh start that I thought we needed. (Looking back on it, not even a defibrillator could have saved us. We were doomed from the start; and only time and experience has taught me that it was him – not me.) 

But I was wrong; it wasn’t long before I found more incriminating stuff on his laptop…

Episode three: this time he’d left his emails open. And there it was, right in front of my face, a conversation between him and an ex, with him asking her to webcam chat as he ‘really wanted to see her’. The worst part about this episode, was that I had a job, and he didn’t. Before we’d moved abroad, I had something loosely related to a career; working in accounts. Boring, but necessary for a business; thus, giving me a guaranteed job, most of the time. When I got home (after commuting on two trains and a bus) that was what I found. Again, in my naïve and unbeknownst to me, very manipulated already by this point mind, surely what I was seeing had a logical explanation? 

So again, I let him talk himself out of it. The same excuses, the same accusations; the same method – gaslighting. Making me doubt everything that was right there in front of me. Making me doubt my own mind and sanity.

I get what you’re thinking now – come on babe, three times? Surely you would have clicked on by now you fucking idiot!

But no, I hadn’t, and that’s what makes gaslighting so, so dangerous. Gaslighters will take their shortfalls and mistakes and somehow twist them to make you feel as though it’s you, not them. I was still the same, little old manipulated me. Falling for everything; standing for nothing. We got engaged, I let him talk himself out of more questionable stuff. We moved back home, we got married, I let him talk himself out of more dodgy dealings…

But then, I got pregnant.

When I was about six months pregnant with my son, I found more emails with another ex. The episodes weren’t numbered any more. I’d even lost track of what season we were on. This time, my fight had gone. He was at work; I cried for hours, but I didn’t have any energy for an actual fight. I think maybe this was my weakest point. How could I leave? I wasn’t capable of raising a baby on my own! (as it turns out; I’m more than capable of raising two of them, but I definitely would not have believed that at this point) 

So this time, I saved him a job and talked myself out of it. I was misinterpreting the emails, I shouldn’t have been looking through his stuff, why am I freaking out over nothing? He had become my inner voice. I had pushed my family away so that I wouldn’t have to admit that I had failed at marriage. At parenting. At life.

So, married we stayed, I had another baby, my daughter. And life was hectic. Less than two years between the children, and a million miles between my husband and I. I tried everything, but I needed more, and I started to realise that perhaps staying for the children would be all that I could do at this point. Sign myself up for a life of pretence and misery. It’s doable, so your children can grow up in a picture-perfect family, isn’t it?

Well actually; it turns out that children can really fuck with this plan. The resentment inside me grew every single day. I did every night feed. I got up with our eldest in the night. I got up with him when he woke before 5am for the day. I made every meal; I did the dishes. I ran my husband a bath after his ‘long day at work’ every day. He would lock the door and spend an hour alone, and I’d keep the children downstairs. (Even though he would give me a barrage of abuse if I ever tried to lock the door to the bathroom and do the same. I mean, he was financially supporting us, so I had to repay him somehow) And I have to be honest…. I got lost.

Not the normal lost though; fully lost. In the wrong place, contemplating things that should never be considered an option. Wondering who the fuck I was in all of this chaos. Wondering why other people enjoyed being a parent when it, for me, was pure hell. See, my warped and broken mind resented my children. My sweet, innocent little babies. Not, the absolute fucknuckle that I married, who had watched my fire burn out over all these years, leaving me with a tiny pile of red-hot embers. 

I decided to get some help. And it changed my life. I took prescribed drugs, the ones I had avoided for so long, and slowly but surely, my mind started to come back. I started working out, to force him to look after the children, ‘are you going to see your new boyfriend’, ‘tell him I said hi’ and ‘don’t forget to shower afterwards’ were daily comments as I jumped in my car and went for my two sweet hours alone. Then I started to look different, talk like I actually gave a shit, wear colour. I was getting some confidence back and he didn’t like it. 

I decided to have one last shot at making this work; I didn’t want to be a Ross Geller, with my first divorce under my belt not long after 30. I wanted to be the dream, the couple that everyone admires. I would do anything to get there. So, I booked a romantic Valentine’s trip. We went out, we partied; it felt like the beginning again. 

But then we went home, and it dawned on me, after almost a decade, that this was the end. While he was at work, I found a dating profile online, and pictures so incriminating that there was no talking his way out of them.

I’d finally woken up from my ten-year nap. Or that’s how I felt. I ended our relationship; it was messy, there were threats. I wondered if he was right when he said nobody else would want me; but then I realised that I didn’t care. All the feelings I had for him just dissolved, and our past hit me in the face like a wet fish. It’s taken me six months to share this, and to be honest there’s so much more to tell. He would slam doors, swear at me and call me names if I was late. My children are so much happier now we aren’t together, which fills me with guilt. I didn’t realise the effect that he had on our family. I thought it was just his effect on me.

But we’re a new family now. The three musketeers. He sees them every other weekend and – as exhausting as life is as a single parent – we love the way things are. I am still damaged and scared and insecure – and it shows. I think it probably will show for a very long time. But I am not jaded about love any more. And I’m not settling. My children are enough for me for now.

If you’re still reading, and this resonates, just remember;

“Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same”.