By the end of their first year together, he had convinced her to move out of her clean, beautiful apartment and into the dirty, expensive, main floor unit that he had recently moved into with a buddy. The apartment she had been living in, that she moved in to by herself like the Independent Woman she thought she was, had 10ft ceilings, a balcony that faced the courtyard of her apartment complex, as well as a beautiful museum. It had a glittery, white concrete floor in the bathroom, a great kitchen, hardwood floors, and was the cheapest rent she could have ever imagined. It was a unicorn apartment – literally too good to be true. It was a brand new unit in a brand new apartment building. No one had ever lived in that space before. It was all hers. And yet, the draw of living with her boyfriend, and the pressure he was putting on her to move because rent was cheaper at his place with three people instead of two, forced her to make a choice that would expedite her relationship from bad to worse.
She was so blinded by the love and affection he gave her when he was in a good mood or wanted something out of her, that it didn’t even seem like a question not to move in with him. All his bad behaviour, his cruel words, his obsession with porn and sex and the idea of other women, didn’t seem enough to hold her back. She was smack dab in the epicenter of the mental and emotional manipulation and abuse that encapsulated her relationship as a whole. They were spending every day together anyways, and her apartment would have been too small for him to move in to officially. It just made sense for her to move in with him and his friend, didn’t it? His friend, since he had lived there first, kept the big bedroom. She and her boyfriend would have to share the significantly smaller, cramped, second bedroom. But it was okay, she reasoned with herself. She was in love… or whatever she thought romantic love was at that point.
Her friends had made it very clear that they didn’t really like him and that she deserved better. She made excuses for him and tried to force them to be compassionate towards him. She would end up using the same lines he had used to manipulate her, on her friends, to try to convince them that he was a good guy. That she wasn’t wasting her youth on someone who constantly put her down and made her feel bad about herself, or who could fly off the handle at any moment over something seemingly innocuous. Someone who would text her nudes or graphic porno shots from Tumblr, under the pretense of “Oh I like the lingerie she’s wearing,” or “see? She’s fat too and she’s into (whatever sex position the woman was in)”. And despite all the times she told him to stop doing that, he would just continue because it was something he liked that he wanted her to be a part of. No regard for how uncomfortable it made her, or how bad it made her feel about herself being constantly bombarded with images of women who he found sexy and attractive, doing sexual things that she would never have even considered. How could she not compare herself to these women? How could she feel confident about herself when she knew she could never live up to his expectations? Her friends didn’t know all the details at the time, and looking back now, it seems unfathomable that she would have spent so many years protecting him and making excuses for him, thinking this is what relationships were all about.
Wanting to be supportive of their friend, they all put their reservations aside and tried to get to know him more. Once she was all moved in, they had a few of her friends and their boyfriends come over for dinner. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. They had an elaborate meal, they played games, they drank. She had hoped against all hope that this would be the occasion that would change all of their opinions of him, and his of them. Everything went well and she really felt that things were turning a corner, until everyone left. He told her that that was the most tedious night ever and that he never wanted to have friends over for dinner ever again. Her friends were equally unimpressed. They all had fun with her but felt that he didn’t try enough to really chat them up or get to know anyone. It was all for nothing. Still, that didn’t deter her. If anything, it just pushed her closer to him. Months later, her best friend told her that she was unable to remain close with her for her own mental health. She said that she couldn’t watch her friend give so much of herself away and get nothing in return, and she could no longer deal with all the excuses and lies she was being fed about their relationship. Even then, she didn’t waver. She was willing to give up the closest friendship she had ever had in order to make this relationship work. That was a defining moment in her life, and a choice she regrets to this very day.
Their first year living together was the definition of toxic. They fought all the time, mainly about how much time she wanted to spend with her friends and family. Once they fought so much about her wanting to see her friends on Canada Day, that he threw an empty flask at her head and she stormed out, but had to stay at a coworkers house that night because she didn’t want her close friends or family to see the huge goose egg on her forehead. However, their main source of argument was about all the pressure he put on her sexually. He would constantly be forcing her to wear certain outfits that made her feel overly exposed and insecure. He would pressure her to do things sexually that she wasn’t comfortable with, asking her to talk dirty but to say things that were really gross and that were definitely not a turn on for her.
He constantly pressured her for things she knew she never wanted to try, but which then became things she would have to negotiate about and plead with him not to do. She even promised to do a certain back door act once a month (though she never did follow through), if he would just stop hounding her for it literally every single day. He would make her feel guilty for not wanting to do it, saying that she was being selfish and inconsiderate of his wants and needs. He would remind her that from the beginning, he told her he was a very sexual person and that she was a disappointment for not wanting to do the things he wanted to do to/with her. It didn’t matter that it hurt her, that she didn’t like it in any way, and that she got nothing out of it except pain and shame. He would just remind her how sexual she was with him in the beginning of their relationship, and that it wasn’t fair to him to be committed to her now, but not be getting the sex he signed up for.
He even went as far as creating a profile for them on a fetish website, advertising that they were looking for a woman to join them in the bedroom. Without her knowledge or permission, he also posted photos of her in lingerie, or photos he had taken of her during sex (all without her face in it) to this website. When she discovered this, she was understandably outraged, but again with the manipulation, he convinced her it was okay A) that he had done it without her permission because it was a “surprise for her”, and B) he pointed out all the comments from strangers saying how sexy she was and how much they wanted to fuck her and do dirty things to her, as if those were compliments and she should be happy strange men found her fat body so attractive. Her thoughts then were, “I don’t care what they’re saying! You did this without my permission! You violated my trust and my autonomy for your own sexual deficiencies! How dare you!!” And she did make her thoughts known, but in the end, the only resolution they came to was allowing her to have the password to this account, and to have final approval on whatever photos were posted of her. Oh, and she was also allowed to read the messages between him and other women on the site. Did she not mention that? Oh yeah, he was chatting with other women about sex and their relationship, and sexual things they wanted to do together. But oh no, this was totally an okay thing to do.. (that was sarcasm, fyi).
It was a constant domestic war zone. But, a little over a year after moving in together, after his friend had found a new place and they were living alone just the two of them, the opportunity arose for him to go back to college to pursue a career he had always envisioned. The problem was that it was in a small town about two hours northwest of the city. This would mean she would have to leave her friends, leave her family, quit her job, and leave the life she had always known in order to move to a small town with limited job opportunities for her, where she knew no one, all so he could pursue his own dreams.
Clearly, the time they had spent living together had not been all rainbows and sunshine. They fought constantly. Loud screaming matches were a weekly occurrence (sometimes daily). She already felt the unhappiness of her relationship weighing on her and yet, it was all she could to do to just keep fighting for it. To keep trying to make it work, despite all the red flags and signs telling her to leave. Though she did weigh the pros and cons, her love and her relationship outweighed everything, and she decided to follow him out of the city. This would be their chance to get it right. They moved into a small two-bedroom apartment, close to the college. She was able to find employment in another small town directly beside the one she had moved to. It was about a 20-minute drive and she was being paid significantly less than her previous job. But, as long as he was happy, she was “happy”.
Things were going well for a while. Two hours isn’t that long when you really think about it. Often enough, she was able to drive back and forth to visit friends and family. He rarely came with her, of course. But it was nice to get away and to see the other people in her life that she loved so dearly. Until things started to take a turn again. He started getting angry and upset that she would be visiting them so much. “The car is old, it’s falling apart, you can’t take it back and forth so much,” he would say. Or, “you can’t afford the gas! You can’t afford to keep going out and partying like you’re some drunk single girl!” When in reality, it was her car that she purchased on her own before she even met him. She was allowed to take the car wherever she wanted, whenever she wanted to. Also, though he was right in the fact that the gas was expensive and she couldn’t really afford it, her parents were more than happy to cover it if it meant they would get to see her. And yet, even though his reasons for her not going away were moot, he guilted her and pressured her and yelled at her and manipulated her enough that her visits became less and less frequent.
They started fighting more. She started standing her ground and standing up for herself more. This only made him angrier. One Halloween, when they were both supposed to attend a Halloween party at her friends’ house back in the city, he purposely started a fight and punched and smashed a picture frame of her and her friends. When she rushed over to stop him, he grabbed her forcefully by the wrists, held them together in front of her, and spit directly in her face. That was one of the first times she really, really considered leaving him. She packed her bag and drove home to her parents’ house as fast as she could, crying as she sped away. She was in no condition to go to the party but another friend of hers, who is a nurse and was unable to attend the party to begin with, came over after her shift. She told her friend everything that had happened. “You need to leave him,” her friend told her plainly. She nodded her head and wiped her tears. She knew she was right. She had no arguments to support her staying with him. And still she could only reply, “I know. You’re right. I just don’t know if I’m ready…” Her friend paused and chose her words as carefully as she could. She said, “I love you. I will always be here for you. But I do not respect this decision. I cannot respect you voluntarily staying with someone who treats you so poorly. I will always be your friend, but I can’t listen to you tell me these things anymore if you’re not going to do anything to change your situation.”
The next day she drove back to that small town. Back to her verbally, mentally, and emotionally abusive boyfriend. Her relationship with her friend was not the same again for a very, very long time. However, looking back, she recognized that that experience is just one example of what true friendship is. Someone who will tell you, point blank, how you’re fucking up and why. Someone who will explain to you why they disagree with you or your choices, and who will set boundaries for themselves not to endanger their own mental health, but who simultaneously remains present in your life despite how they feel about whatever is going on. In hindsight, she was so grateful for this friend of hers. And for all her friends, really. But more on that later…