I have had some very strange platonic friendships throughout my life and at the time I was oblivious to the fact that I was being manipulated within these relationships. Romantically, my ex's have all been very different people yet nearly all of them have all had one thing in common, a need to control. Our society seems not to focus much on emotional or verbally abusive relationships and instead the emphasis is placed on physical abuse. Verbal, emotional, psychological (or whatever you want to call it) abuse is like brain washing in that it systematically wears away at its victims self confidence. Victims often blame themselves, question their judgement or their physical traits and believe that it is somehow their fault for upsetting their partner or making them jealous. Psychological abuse can be difficult to identify but the most common sign is manipulation and ostracising a partner from their own friends and family. This abuse can also include Ignoring or ridiculing a partner in order to create self doubt or criticising her behaviour, choice of clothing or skills and making false accusations or manipulating a person to influence her decision-making by employing guilt or some other method. This kind of abuse can be verbal or non verbal but the intention is to wear away at the victims confidence and independence in order to make them more compliant and less likely to leave.
I experienced some aspects of emotional abuse a few years back but I didn't realise what it was until I spoke to my psychologist about it and that's when everything became crystal clear. Tom* (not his real name) and I started talking via Facebook because he knew one of my relatives. At first it was friendly with no romantic pretext but after a few weeks he said that he wanted to take me on a date sometime soon as he had always thought I was attractive. I agreed but I did have my reservations because he had only just split up with his girlfriend and they were still living together. I kept putting it off as I was anxious about getting into another relationship but one night my parents and I were passing through his village and he suggested we all meet him for a drink. Weird, I hear you say but they knew him from years ago and it seemed less scary to have them with me as I didn't have much positive dating experience. It was a nice evening and my parents had one drink with us before leaving us on our own for an hour. I didn't notice anything strange but I noticed he was very different to my previous boyfriend in that he was a man's man and in comparison to the carefree boy I had been with a year ago he was very mature. This made me believe he was more stable than my previous boyfriend and would be far more understanding. I had wanted to take it slow but our relationship seemed to progress more rapidly than I had originally wanted it to. Tom knew that I didn't want to rush things and was scared of commitment yet he was talking about 'this time next year' and it scared me that he was so serious so quickly. Looking back I realise that at this time in my life I didn't have the emotional maturity or strength to deal with a relationship with a man five years older than me but Tom had been in a lot of relationships and I think he knew that I was quite vulnerable and struggling to cope. Things started to get a bit weird and I just assumed that it was my fault because I didn't know how to act within a relationship. However, I now know better but feel free to read on and judge for yourself.
I will start with the first incident three months in to our time together. We were walking down to my brothers house one night just before Christmas and it was a cold and breezy night. I was wearing a short skirt which was blowing in the wind but it was dark and nobody was around so it seemed pointless to keep holding it down particularly as one hand was in his hand as we walked along. 'My skirt keeps blowing up!' I laughed, my voice being carried away by the wind. 'Well hold it down then' he said looking around. 'There is no point' I replied giggling at the wind and finding the situation funny. He clearly didn't 'why?' he asked 'you keep telling me you are shy so it doesn't make sense. Why won't you hold it down, do you like people looking? are you hoping someone sees?'. I was taken aback by his response and explained that nobody was around so it didn't matter but his face looked stern. We didn't speak until we were almost at my brothers front door when I told him he had upset me but he acted like I was the one who was overreacting. Nothing more was said about this incident but it turned out to be the first of many strange incidents....
As you will know from reading from reading my other blog entries I have multiple health issues. Tom* was actually very understanding about my health and most of the time very caring when I was having bad days. However, one night after I had spent 48 hours with a tube that went up my nose and into my stomach taped to my face and neck we had an argument that sent alarm bells ringing in my mind. We were in his lounge, I kissed him then felt something itchy on my neck and asked him to see what it was for me. He replied 'a bruise I think, but it looks like a love bite' and I joked 'haha yeah right, did you do that when I wasn't paying attention ?!' And suddenly his facial expression changed from friendly to concerned. He had the kind of face that was totally transformed by negative expressions so I knew something was wrong. 'You know I didn't, where did you get it from?' He questioned . I laughed, trying to brush it off because I felt sure he couldn't seriously think it was something of a sexual nature. 'Its just where I have scratched, I have really sensitive skin' I replied. The atmosphere changed rapidly as he had started to look angry and it scared me a bit because at this point in my life I couldn't deal with confrontation and had avoided it ever since the bullying at school. 'It doesn't look like a scratch' he remarked, taking a second look. I went and sat on the sofa and tried to change the atmosphere between us by making small talk. He came over to join me, sitting on the other end. A few minutes passed until his voice pierced the silence. 'What is the name of that guy you were once seeing?' he asked. 'Kevin?'. I knew what he was implying and I was totally astounded at the unspoken accusation. 'Yeah, why?' I answered. 'I was just wondering' he murmured. There followed a long uncomfortable silence where I was literally unable to speak? I will never forget that feeling, it was like someone had removed my voice. I tried to open my mouth but the words would not come out, I have never experienced a suffocation like it. I retreated to the bathroom where I stayed for about ten minutes, sobbing silently into a tissue. When I returned to the sofa it was obvious that I had been crying and he asked me what was wrong, acting like the past twenty minutes hadn't happened. 'I can't talk I am too upset' was all I managed but he smiled and asked 'why?'. I didn't speak because I still couldn't so he asked me again. I told him in the fewest amount of words possible that I was upset he would even question something like that when I had been in hospital on and off for days and been with him. He said he had only asked what Kevin's name was and he had never thought I had a love bite or accused me of having one. I didn't say anything but silent tears were running down my face. 'Why aren't you talking?' he asked before snapping 'grow up, grow a backbone and learn to argue back'. I was totally astounded by the sudden nastiness and the shock stopped me from crying as a numbness started to spread through my body. My Dad was due to pick me up in half an hour so I killed time by visiting the bathroom once more and staring out the window. Rain was lashing down, bouncing off of the glass like mini bullets and the somber night outside reflected my introspective state of mind. We didn't speak until my Dad arrived when I just said a brief goodbye and he gave me a questioning look as though I was blowing stuff out of proportion. When I got home I only briefly told my Mum about the argument, making light of the situation so she didn't worry but I felt incredibly hurt by his accusations. We spoke on the phone later that night and I told him it had really upset me to think that after everything I had been through with men and how hard it had been for me to let him in my life and to be intimate with him he would think I could just randomly be unfaithful. After the days I had spent in hospital I don't know how he had the audacity to question my fidelity and I told him that but he said I was blowing it up out of proportions and that he never thought I was cheating but had to ask as he 'would have thought about it all night' if he hadn't. He thought it was 'ridiculous' that I had thought about ending the relationship because of such a 'small disagreement'. He honestly thought that he had done nothing wrong and that I was at fault for taking it so personally. He said that we would have to agree to disagree on the matter as 'that's what adults do'.
Tom and I lasted just over a year. I think I stayed in the relationship this long because he was so understanding about my illness and because he was self sufficient and able to look after himself as well as me. I also think it was because my self esteem was so low that I felt it was me who had to change not him and that the reason he talked to me so bad at times was because I was doing something wrong. The final straw was when we were out with his daughter. He made a joke about his own trainers and when I made a similar comment he told me 'you've taken the joke too far now, we'll talk about this when we get home'. I felt humiliated in front of her. It suddenly clicked in my head that he talked to me like I was a child. I was tired of him silencing me and by this time I had realised there was zero spark between us. I rang him and very tearfully explained that I couldn't be with him any more. Over the next few days he asked me to remove my single status on facebook (despite blocking me on there within ten minutes of our phone call) because it was offensive and like 'rubbing salt into the wound' and also asked me not to go down to my local pub for a while so he didn't have to see me. I agreed because I stupidly felt guilty for ending the relationship.
