This doesn’t happen to everyone. But it happened to me, toward the beginning of the most manipulative, emotionally abusive relationship I have ever had.
I left him a little over a year ago, after “thugging it out” as you put it, for over eight years. I’m still not right in the head from it all, my self esteem and my sense of self in general was all but obliterated by the time I took the scraps of myself that I had left and walked out. He never hit me, but I still have flashbacks to some of the worst things he put me through, and one of those things is very similar to what happened to you in your post.
In sharing bits of my story over the last year or so, I have had a few people question whether I was making it up. Really, that has shown me how completely unhealthy and dangerous the relationship was, because my reality was so bad that it was easier for people to think I was lying than to believe that things like that really happened. At first I would get hurt or angry when someone accused me of lying about my past, but over time, I got to where I was just able to tell myself that at least that person had lived a life that was sheltered from the kind of things I was talking about.
In my case, it was a bag of heroin during a traffic stop. We had only been together for a couple months, and I had no idea he was a heroin addict. I knew he had some trouble with substance use, but so did I at that point in my life. Some drug use was acceptable to me back then, but heroin was a bridge too far. I guess he knew that, so he lied about it and hid it.
He asked me to take him to a friends house to get something he left there and I stupidly agreed. A few minutes after we left, I was pulled over. As soon as the cops lights came on, he pulled out this bunch of tiny bags held together by rubber bands and threw them at me, saying “eat this. I’m not going down for it.”
I was in such shock with so little time, I just stuck it in my bra. I didn’t even know what it was, just that it definitely didn’t look like weed or cocaine, the only things I’d ever encountered up to that point.
My ex was pulled out of the car and searched, while I was questioned about my reasons for being at the house of a known drug dealer. I have never been a capable liar, as soon as somebody applies any pressure against my lie, I crumble and tell the truth. So in about two seconds, I broke down and told the cop how I came to have these random bags of god knows what tucked into my bra.
They arrested him, and let me go. When he got out, he gaslit and manipulated, acting like he couldn’t believe I would think he would do anything that would hurt me. He said I would not have been searched because I was a woman, and that he had known that when he “passed it off to me”, he was just trying to keep us both safe. I went from feeling righteous hurt and anger to feeling like I had done something wrong, like I should have done something differently.
I didn’t leave him. I stayed for years, going through things that, upon looking back, should have had me running away as fast as I could have ran. I stayed at first for the sake of “love”, then it was codependency and addiction, but eventually I stayed because I was so broken down and acclimated to the way things were with him that I had no idea how I would leave and get by on my own.
OP, just know that for whatever it’s worth, I believe you. And know that this is not normal. You are living in an abusive marriage, and there is no way, no thing that you can say or do to make him not be an abuser anymore.
Know that there is no prize at the end, no badge of honor for staying with him. Know that love is not enough, there has to be respect, and trust, and what you have now is none of that. Know that any good you get out of him that keeps you there holding onto hope for better is actually a part of the cycle of abuse. If they were monsters all the time, they’d be so easy to leave, would they not? And they know that too.
Know that, whatever it is that makes you feel like you’re not able to get out, or like you’re somehow deserving of this relationship instead of one where you’re treated well all of the time, you can leave, and it’s so worth it to be able to give yourself the opportunity to heal from all you’ve been through.
There’s a vast amount of help for women who are leaving abusive relationships, so if it’s a matter of not having the resources, then reach out for help. I am at the absolute bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, a fast food worker with major health issues. If I had just tried to hang on until I could do it on my own, I’d probably never have been able to leave. But when I reached out and asked for help, the amount of resources that I was able to get help from was beyond humbling. I went to one person in my community that I trusted and she sent me to a different person. That person got me help with one issue holding me back, and then she got me in touch with a different agency.
By the end of it, I worked with about six or seven different people/agencies, and had everything I needed to start over in a safe space with our child, and access to a peer support network to help me with the emotional side of things. I did eventually need to get a therapist to help me come to terms with some of the really heavy stuff.
It has not been an easy journey, between my health and financial struggles, and the bare honest fact that my still unresolved ptsd from the relationship has made it so that I still let him have too much power/presence in my life through our coparenting relationship.
But even on my worst days, when I am so stressed about trying to make ends meet, or when I wonder if I have gotten too old and damaged to ever be loved by anyone else, I am still so much better than I was when my entire life was spent on eggshells for the sake of him. Our son is happier now too, he has opened up a lot more and he has told me that he loves his dad but he is glad that we don’t live together anymore. I only regret not leaving sooner.
If you stuck with me through this enormous ass comment, OP, I will end it by saying that my dms are open for you, or any other person who is trying to get their spoons up for leaving an abusive relationship. I will help you hunt down local resources, or act as a sounding board if you just need to talk. You’re angry at him now, and you’re hearing from others that he’s abusing you. Hang onto that validation if it helps, and use it as momentum for lining up a plan and getting away.
