How I opened my eyes to my abusive and abusive relationship

In 2012, when I met her, I had just separated from the father of my two children, because I understood that I had lost my way, that the life I was living was not mine and that my life could only continue with a woman. . I had just gone through a very painful year during which everything I had built had exploded leaving me alone faced with the immensity that awaited me. In hindsight, I think that is also why I threw myself headlong into this new adventure, taken by this desperate need to finally be myself, to experience what I “had to experience”.

She was the exact opposite of me : extroverted, at ease in society, full of certainties, she represented everything that I wasn’t, she impressed me with her freedom and all the adventures she said she had experienced. I was elated to experience what I discovered and it all happened very quickly. Shortly thereafter she moved in with me.

Read also: How to recognize and fight a violent relationship?

The gradual establishment of a toxic relationship

Quickly, it established a distance between me and the people I hung out withand it got to the point of insidiously forcing a choice to be made… Then it came attacks of jealousy, then anger, always excessive, but of which I soon became “the cause”. During a weekend when she went with her friends, she drank a lot, she insulted me for the first time on the phone and scolded me for behavior I had engaged in a few days earlier. Now I know I never should have agreed to that first time.

Little by little, what would become our relationship took hold: she would react violently for small things, always in an extreme way, when things didn’t go the way she wanted, when I didn’t tell her what she wanted to hear. . So I started to be careful about what I said to him, how I expressed it. I avoided, bypassed, feared her reactions and lived in fear of another crisis. Any facial expression, response, look that can be interpreted her way and trigger a virulent reaction. Nothing was light between us and within our family. I adapted to what she expected, there was only one way of doing and thinking: his. Under the pretext of opening, he was extremely intolerant and had single thoughts and strong opinions on everything and did not tolerate any opinion that diverged from his own, be it clothing, food, education, children, musical tastes, ways of living: Alla in the end I told her she was right, I didn’t try to argue anymore and when she reproached me for something, I ended up giving up and going my own way, otherwise he wouldn’t let me go and it could last for hours. The number of apology letters “for putting her in that state” that I could write… I thought she would change, I tried to do my best, to conform to what she expected. She hasn’t changed. The situation worsened when she drank, which became more and more regular. I ended up no longer knowing what I loved or who I was, I no longer had any free will, my brain no longer thought for itself. I had the feeling he had become one “a soft organ that took on the appearance that was given to it”.

Everything had become a stake, everything that could have been a pleasure was systematically ruined by a crisis, by the threat of not going out with me, of not leaving with us, by reproaches about my way of being, of expressing things to him. All this always when we found ourselves alone, never in front of others. The others, for whom we were “the ideal couple”…

A very difficult relationship with my son

Soon, my older son became obsessed: she felt perpetually attacked by him and attacked him verbally, for nothing, for everything. She kept saying that she didn’t understand him. That he didn’t understand me. He was overwhelming us, because we had become the reason for his constant stress, his overweight, his aggression, his insomnia, his tiredness, his lack of desire to move, his lack of libido… I can’t protect my son from his angry attacks, often going his own way without even knowing why…

When my mother died, things got worse. If you were a real support in grieving management on a practical level, I think the noose tightened even more as I was weakened. I thought I was nothing without her, I no longer knew how to live alone, I relied on her for everything, I didn’t do anything without her, I no longer saw anyone outside and even if she scolded me, the rare times I went out without her turned into terrible fits of jealousy and persistent calls.

He monopolized my time, calling me many, many times a dayI couldn’t tell him that he bothered me sometimes and when I didn’t answer it made her angry. Paradoxical injunctions rained down, what I also call “hot/cold”, which dive deep insecurity : she was unpleasant, then kind, and I let it go. She never really apologized.

Perhaps one of the ironies is that we were involved in feminist struggle groups. One day I realize that I’m ticking several boxes on the violence meter but my brain doesn’t go haywire, in fact several times deep down I know perfectly well that nothing is going right and I’m so ashamed of it that my thoughts run away.

The shot after ten years of relationship

One day, after almost ten years of living together, of aggression and secret violence, she, again, insulted me very violently, something that she had once set as a limit and promised me that it would never happen again. A few days later, she yelled at my adult son and that she was unresponsive, and I imagined her getting up and hitting her as the only response. The intrusion of this violent image shook me and I told him that I no longer accepted all this, that it was impossible, unbearable.. But I couldn’t do more than tell him to leave. About her She calmed down like every time but for the first time I understood that she wouldn’t change and I expressed it in front of her. Was this what made sense to her? Because one evening, after dinner, she left.

I collapsed. I begged her to come back: Without her I was convinced that I was nothing, that I didn’t know how to live alone. I went back to a psychologist to whom it took me more than a year to be able to talk about what I had experienced, thus stopping protecting her. I was so ashamed. He continued for many months, even after he left me, to try to orchestrate my life, to humiliate meto give me lessons, to explain to me what I should do, or not do, who to see or not see anymore…

Take back my freedom, finally

It took a while… But one day I understood. I realized that what I had experienced had taken away my ability to react, that I had spent all these years masking his crises, absorbing his anxieties, swallowing his hatred, without ever talking about anything to anyone, because I was terribly ashamed of what I was experiencing and letting happen. I realized how much rejection I had endured, how unhappy I was, and how much she had changed my life and hurt my children, the things I held dear.

I’m free now, I live again, I enjoy the happiness of those who know the price of independence. I think how I want, what I want, I follow my path, I decide. My freedom and respect for who I am have become essential. And I find it difficult to tolerate something being imposed on me; in those moments my reactions can be a little heightened.

I met a woman with whom I live in a peaceful and respectful love relationship, characterized by sharing and trust. We don’t live together.

I found those I no longer saw and we talked a lot, all very surprised to discover the reality of my relationship with her.

AND I’m trying to make up for what I can with my kids., even if I will never make up for the lost time and suffering suffered. I try to enjoy them and with them, to share moments just the three of us, to tell them over and over how much I love them and how much I regret not having been able to do otherwise. Their reactions were different, tormented, and even if it took some time, they now seem to continue the path of their adolescent life more serene and stronger than what they experienced with me. They are growing well and show great resilience. I’m very proud of them.

I would like this testimony to resonate, that if someone recognizes themselves through my words, they are convinced of it it’s not normal, it’s not her fault, no one has the right to steal what she is. I would like my words to provoke a reaction. I had everything to avoid this transit: I have a job, I am financially independent, I am aware of and committed to violence against women, I own my apartment, the children are mine… And yet. Which clearly shows how difficult it is to escape when the noose has tightened. We must no longer be ashamed, we must be able to talk about it.

* The name has been changed.