Me Too :: A story of cheating, abuse, and finding confidence
Me too. #MeToo. ME TOO. It was a powerful hashtag that took the internet by storm. Women all over the world could understand they were not alone in feeling hurt, violated, and overall scared from the experiences they had. Some people chose to share the hashtag and give their stories, others shared the hashtag and gave words of encouragement for others, and some just shared the hashtag and nothing more- wanting to be part of the movement but not ready to share more of what they had been through. I was that third person….and now is the opportunity to share my story.
I’d known him since middle school but we hadn’t talked much since he moved while we were in junior high. The age of social media helped us reconnect and so we started to talk more frequently and we got to know each other more than we had. We were in high school and so a teenage romance began to blossom. How magical it all seemed to an 18-year old senior in high school, craving to be loved and feel wanted by someone. We lived a couple hours away from each other so it was hard to find time to see each other, and so it was easy to keep the illusion going for a while.
We talked about boundaries and what we were and were not comfortable with.
I told him that I wasn’t interested in any kind of sexual acts and wanted to wait until I was married to someone before sharing that. He would say he understood, but would talk about how he thinks he is a sex addict. He frequently discussed his sexual history and would talk about how he wanted to respect me but wasn’t sure how well he would be able to wait for me. I suppose this should have been a red flag, but I just wanted to believe that he would respect me more than he wanted sex.
The abuse really didn’t start right away.
It was subtle and built up. It started with him just wanting to press against me. There couldn’t be harm in that, right? We weren’t doing anything that teenagers don’t do on the dance floor at prom. But for me it still didn’t feel right. I didn’t want to say anything because it seemed like we were staying within my boundaries. So if it was technically within my boundaries, I had no reason to complain. At least that’s what I told myself. But the problem was it didn’t stop there.
It went from pressing to him wanting to touch places I wasn’t comfortable with.
And for me to touch him places I wasn’t comfortable with. At first I would tell him no and remind him I didn’t want that until I was married. I stayed firm with my convictions. He was also firm in his convictions and this was when the mental and emotional abuse began. I started being the bad girlfriend for not meeting his needs. I was now the bad guy for being too rigid and not flexible enough with what I was comfortable doing. If I loved him then I would want to show him in these ways. My self-esteem and confidence began to shatter and I started feeling that I had to do what he asked or else I would lose him. I so believed that he loved me and that I was in the wrong for not showing him that I loved him too. It would be completely my fault if he left me. And so another boundary was broken and the short spiral began.
It didn’t take long before I had completely lost all of my boundaries and he dictated to me what we would and would not be doing, intimacy wise. I had no autonomy over my body and I didn’t feel like I should have that autonomy. This is what love is in an adult relationship. This is what he needs to know he is loved. This is what will show my worth to him and prove that we belong together. It took only a few months for me to truly believe that the only way that I could keep this relationship healthy and happy was by giving up what I felt was important. I lost all sense of myself and felt guilt every day, but it was all worth it since I had him.
I honestly don’t know what finally pushed me to leave him.
I know at the time I suspected him of cheating on me several times with one of his ex-girlfriends. I know that we had been fighting more and more because I decided some things I wasn’t going to take from him and he wasn’t happy with that. I know that I wasn’t happy and I was beginning to recognize that. Maybe it was all of these things put together. Maybe there was just one breaking point that I didn’t realize was there. Regardless, I finally told him that it was over and I didn’t want to be his girlfriend anymore. It took a lot longer for me to completely push him out of my life, because that is what abuse does to you. It makes you think that the person it still worth keeping around because, deep down, they are a good person that you were happy with at one time, and you don’t want to lose that completely.
After I started dating my now husband, I got a phone call from my ex. It was midnight and he wanted to talk to me because he had been thinking about me recently. He told me he was sorry for how he treated me while we were together and wanted to see me to catch up. I declined and got off the phone as quickly as I could. I haven’t seen him since we broke up and I have no desire to see him again. I’m honestly not sure how I would react if I were to run into him. I hope I don’t have to find out.
It’s been almost 10 years since that relationship and I still find myself flinching at certain memories and struggling with certain parts of intimacy with my husband. I've told him everything I went through at the start of our relationship and he has been a rock in teaching me what a healthy relationship looks like and working with me through my warped ideas of what intimacy means. I can’t erase what happened to me. I can’t change it in anyway. But I decided a long time ago that it was not going to be the driving force that defined me and dictated to me what kind of life I wanted to lead. And I think, for the most part, I’ve been able to achieve that.