I find it really difficult writing
this story. I even find it difficult discussing about it. I first started
going out with my ex-boyfriend Henry when I was 22. We were together for
just over two years. At 22, I was naive, I was a romantic at heart, and
he was my first serious ‘adult’ relationship. We had an unconventional
beginning, which probably added to the romanticism, which made it all seem so
much more perfect in my head.
What I didn’t know when we first
started going out was that Henry was a compulsive liar, that in the following
two years he would make my head spin from the lies that he told me, and that at
the beginning I believed, and in the middle I didn’t know which lies to believe
or not, and by the end I knew that nothing he told me was the truth.
The first warning should have been
that I met him on a blind date he began showering me with affection and
attention, I didn't know what hit me. At first I refused to go on a date with
him, he wasn't really my type and had a reputation for having a bit of a
temper, so we struck up a deal: I needed a lift to the next town one day, so he
said he'd drive me there on condition that he could ask me out again at the end
of the journey.
When we eventually started dating, he
would phone me 50 times in a row, and if I didn't answer, he would report me
missing to the police. He began to stalk my friends – male and female. He
cloned the Facebook page of someone he'd found out I'd been on a date with
years before and started impersonating them online. We were about five months
in at this point.
He got and lost about two jobs during
this time. Mainly for not showing up (stalking is a time-consuming business),
but one he lost for punching his boss in the face at the office Christmas
party. He'd been allowed to bring a date (me), and when I went to toilet, he'd
assumed I was in there sleeping with someone else. “His boss”.
You might be wondering why I was still
with him at this point… But it was impossible to leave. He'd wait outside my
house for days or until someone else let him in. I also didn’t know that I was
going to be subjected to two years of emotional and on several occasions,
sexual, abuse from this man that I thought I loved. It’s funny how I
always said that if a guy hurt me, that would be it. But this guy hurt me
in ways that were so subtle that I didn’t even realize I was being hurt, so
it’s possible to be a victim without even realizing that you are a victim.
Anyway, this is the real gist;
Sex with Henry always began as
consensual. However on a number of occasions he initiated anal sex
without asking me, without any preparation. He kept going when I said
no. He kept going when I cried. He kept going when I tried to push
him off. He held me down and he kept going. What started off as
consensual turned in to rape. After that - and I can't explain why - I almost
forgot what had happened. It was so horrific that it didn't seem real.
The first time it happened, I tried to
pretend that my mind had made it up – but there was blood all over the
bedsheets, my thighs and the new underwear. The worst part was that he wasn't
the slightest bit sorry. He told me that he had cum inside me, so I was
probably pregnant. He'd tracked my menstrual cycle on his phone and figured out
which day I was most fertile, and had waited for that moment. He then dropped
an even bigger bombshell: he had herpes, and now, most probably so did I.
Luckily, the herpes turned out to be
untrue: he has abrasions on his penis from where he had tried cleaning it with
hand sanitiser and a loofah (did I mention he was an idiot?), which he had mistaken
for an STD. I went with him to the clinic and watched his examination so know
that much is true.
The menstrual cycle tracker part was
true, though thankfully his plan didn't work. Weeks later he apologized to me
and said he didn't realise how wrong he'd been until afterwards. He said that
he was scared that I'd leave him and he knew that if he 'damaged' me or got me
pregnant I would have to stay.
“Henry, I can remember how much it
hurt, how heavy you felt on top of me, how shocked and upset I was. I can
remember you comforting and apologizing to me, and how I believed that you made
a mistake and wouldn’t do it again but you did. Looking back at it now, I
feel sick. I feel like screaming at that sweet, innocent, and naive 24
year old that I was, I want to tell her to get out of that relationship, that
you will hurt her again and again, that you are toxic”.
I didn't ever tell anyone because I
didn't want to be a 'victim' or, even worse, a 'survivor'. I hate that term,
like half an hour of your life indelibly marks you forever. I didn't want
people to look at me differently, or to question my version of events.
But it has changed me. I don't think
I'll ever have a proper relationship again, I guess people say, you can never
really know someone. I'll only start relationships that I know have a sell-by
date, and end them before 8 months.
I can feel that a part of myself has
shut down. And for me, that's the worst thing about this story.
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