When you meet a new guy, the last thing you’re thinking about is him one day being abusive, controlling, possessive, manipulative or even a professional gaslighter. You’re too busy scheduling time to talk or choosing the perfect outfit for your date. Whether you’re just beginning to text or have gone on a few dates, his behavior patterns early on can actually tell you a lot about the type of person he is. Unfortunately, we can get caught up in the thrill of starting over and may choose to brush aside our intuition.
Honesty is not his best policy!
Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone was upfront and honest with you from encounter number one? Honesty from an abusive man would look a bit like this…
Hey, I’m Stan. Nice to meet you. I am a complete narcissist and will manipulate the life out of you then suck your soul dry with my gaslighting and abusive tactics to break you down. In a year you won’t recognize yourself. By the second year, you’ll be so addicted to my toxic behavior that your body and mind will crave a serotonin boost so you’ll wait for me to treat you respectfully and will fixate on that until you see a small (fake) dose of it again. During year three with me, you won’t even be able to picture a way out of this abusive mess, let alone find a way to stand on your own two feet and find a way out. By then I will make you stay at home, afraid to do anything that will lead to me harassing you and twisting the actual reason you left the house. Date me and you will be physically and mentally drained, all the while completely isolated from your family and friends. In fact, I’ll turn you against all of them and make you question your every move. I’d love to take you out to dinner this weekend if you’re free.
Oh, the time and trouble that would have saved me! Unfortunately, these abusive and manipulative men do nothing but lie upfront. They make you see yourself as if you were flawless and say everything you’ve even dreamed a man would tell you. They shine their facade upon you and you’re literally blinded by, and hooked upon, the deception! Everything he says is spot on with what you desire. Everything he does is out of a Nicholas Sparks romance novel. The man is showing you a side of him that he made up. It is all pretend. It is all part of the abuse process.
An abusive man might…
Since this is a strategic abusive tactic and plan to hurt you, you may not notice it is even happening. In fact, I can almost guarantee you won’t if this is your first experience with an abusive man like this. Read through the following not so hypothetical examples of what abuse looks like in real life. Notice any similarities you may be currently facing or have recently dealt with from your man. Know that what you’re experiencing is abuse.
When you are involved in an abusive relationship, the guy you saw at the beginning merely does not exist. He made this version of himself up in his sick twisted mind and he will use that creation against you once he gains your trust. Once you’re captivated and feel like you’re living out the fairy tale ending you have always dreamed of, he will begin to show his true self. Right before your first big event together, let’s say a wedding, he will start a fight with you on the way there. The groom is a friend of his. He knows you won’t know anyone. He will begin to stonewall you so you forget about his jerk behavior in the car ride there and begin to long for his support while meeting new people. Once he thinks you’ve forgiven or forgotten about the irrational fight in the car, he will have you go get drinks at the bar because the line is just too long for him to wait in. You’ll feel like you’re doing something great for him. He worked all week and wants to just sit and relax. You notice him talking to every single woman that passes by. Not just chatting, though. Each woman warrants a stand up hug and a kiss on the cheek. You’re distracted by this when someone comes up to you and says Oh my gosh, you’re Dave’s girlfriend! I work with him and have heard so much about you, Becky. As you turn to begin a conversation in the never ending line at the open bar, you want to appear polite and shift your focus to getting to know your new beau’s work friends. You are so amazed that this work friend knows your name. He mus talk about you often. This makes you feel like you over reacted to the fight in the car on the way there. He must love you if he’s told his colleagues all about you. You feel good again. You’re smart enough to order you both two drinks and are excited to get back to your man at the table. You’re met with what you will later know as his crazy eyes. Psychopath, if you will. He is so mad his nostrils are flaring. He asks if you met Dan. You are confused and answer yea and give him both drinks pointing out how his work friend Dan kept you company in the never ending open bar line that he sent you to. You neglect to mention all of the women you watched him flirt with while you were being polite to and making minimal conversation with his work friend. He turns his back on you as he asks if Dan gave you his number. You are now feeling like crap, yet again. The high of feeling important is gone. First the fight in the car on the way there, then watching him schmooze women all night long, now this. You are now being punished for being polite to your man’s colleague. The night goes on and you have to sit back watching your boyfriend flirt with and make sure to tell each woman who says hello how incredible, amazing or what rock star they are. You thought you were doing the right thing by getting two drinks for each of you to avoid wasting more of the night in the bar line so you can be by his side more, yet you’re completely stonewalled and reprimanded for being friendly. What the actual heck? Did he want you to be rude and ignore the guy? Why didn’t he just get the drinks, himself? He was too insecure to leave you at the table with other coworkers, yet he watched your every move and made up a story in his head that you actually exchanged numbers with the man he works so closely with.
The night is torturous. He is obsessing over the man in the bar line, yet fails to mention any of the women he touched, danced with, told how fabulous they are or gave his number to in front of you. He even went as far as putting down your entire profession in front of you and to others. Yet the man who was happy to meet you, he was genuinely happy for boyfriend’s sake, is the issue he hyper focused on.
Enter the manipulation.
You’re left confused beyond belief and doubting yourself when, the next day, he tells you how amazing you looked last night, how glad he was that you were by his side all night and how his life is complete now with you in it.. There it is. The high. The serotonin. You got a hit of the nice gentleman you fell for at the beginning. Phew. That dose of hell is over. Your body instantly relaxes and all feels right again. He must’ve just had too much to drink like he said. He didn’t mean to treat you like that. This guy? The man who complimented you constantly in the beginning, the one who made you feel seen and heard. Him? Hurt you intentionally? Never.
Imagine your daughter is sick. You take her to the doctor and tell him, ahead of time, that the pediatrician runs over an hour behind but is thorough and well worth the wait. Her knowledge far outweighs the long wait time. He watches you pack snacks, books and drinks for both of you. You’re prepared to be there for at least two hours from start to finish. He has your location. He sees you are, in fact, at the doctor’s office. Your phone dings non stop as the doctor is examining your daughter. Then it begins ringing. You answer and he’s on the other line screaming that you aren’t at the doctor with your child. He accuses you of being with someone else and lying to him. I’m sorry, what now? You remind him that he has your location. He accuses you of meeting someone there at the doctor’s office with your child. Umm, what the what? You say you have to go. By now the doctor has stopped examining your child and is asking you if everything is ok? You briefly catch her up on how things have been and she tells you to watch the movie Gaslight from the 40s.You write that in a note on your phone and literally un out of the office without even taking the visit summary because you know the wrath you will face if you take any longer to contact him. You immediately try texting and calling as soon as the appointment is finished. No answer. Sent straight to voicemail. Ignored. You’re being stonewalled, yet again. Punished for the messed up twisted scenario he created in his head and then went a psychotic step further and believed.
FYSA- There is a whole deeper level of mental illness within him which you will know all too well by the end of the relationship.
If you have experienced anything remotely close to the situations above, I’m sorry to tell you- you are with an abusive man. No matter how many times you think he will change, the harsh reality is that he won’t. Things will inevitably change but only ever for the worse.
You see, eventually he will slip up. His twisted story won’t match what he said the day before. Instead of questioning yourself, you’ll begin researching abusive relationships when others tell you things like You need to watch the movie Gaslight. You will begin to understand what a narcissist is and that you are being lied to constantly. You will understand how his actions shift your behavior. You will notice that you began altering your habits to avoid being harassed or obsessively questioned or irrationally accused by him. You will quickly begin to lose yourself. The one day you go to a gym in an effort to get a piece of yourself back, you’ll be woken up in the middle of the night by him telling you people cheat at the gym all the time. He will then send you countless articles about people cheating on their partners at the gym. How is this normal? The answer is it’s not. It’s abuse. I have gone to the gym, DAILY, my entire upper teen and adult life. Never have I ever gone out with a man I met at the gym. Never have I ever cheated on anyone, period. Yet he convinced himself and then believed that if I went to the gym I would end up with another man. Complete insanity. He had never even set foot in a gym but “knew” what happened within.
Once an avid gym goer, now avoiding the gym so as to not get accused of being hit on while working out. It is easier to avoid the gym rather than be woken up at night to him standing over your bed with seventeen articles he’s sending you of people cheating on their partners at the gym. Once a popular writer, now avoiding writing altogether because of the nine thousand reasons he tells you that you shouldn’t write or the fact that he can’t be associated with you if you write. This is the same man who boasted about your writing when you first began dating. He’s the one who encouraged and convinced you to start your own blog. He raved about every article of yours he ever read. What you didn’t know what he was using all of your personal information within your articles and posts against you in a sick and twisted way. He used your vulnerabilities to manipulate you.
If you experience anything remotely relatable to any of those situations, you need to run. Say a prayer, trust God and get out! Eventually, scenarios like these will happen d.a.i.l.y. You won’t know which way is up. Highs, if you will, such as him taking you out or buying you a gift will be thrown right in your face and used to put you down. He will play the victim to every situation he created and will use the nice dinner or weekend getaway as a tactic to make you feel bad for being mad at him for his abusive behavior. You eventually won’t even be able to get through that nice dinner without him yelling at you in front of the wait staff. Abusive men n.e.v.e.r. change. They only get worse. It will reach a level of danger no matter how hard you want him to change or or how badly you hope it won’t happen.
Your mental health will be depleted. Your physical health will deplete. You will be unrecognizable to yourself in the mirror. Thinking it won’t happen to you won’t change the inevitable. If this man has done anything relatable to the above examples, he is a pathological liar and will tell you anything you want to hear when you mention ending the relationship. He will offer to go to therapy and then never go. He will lie to your face and give you false hope such as, too bad you want to end it, I was planning on proposing by the Fall. or Let’s get a trip on the calendar so we have something to look forward to. The proposal will never come. There will always be another excuse. You will be the bad guy for even mentioning it when he has so much going on with work. In the event he books the trip because you keep reminding him of his offer and how nice it will be to get away and reconnect, if you go, you will be treated like garbage and abused on said trip.
Recognizing you are in an abusive relationship is more simple than we, as empathetic women, make it out to be. You must separate the facts and reality of his actions and forget about what he tells you or the potential man you think he could one day be. Stick to the facts. What is he showing you? Don’t focus on what he is telling you. An abuser’s actions will speak louder than their words. What is he showing you? The man you dated at the beginning doesn’t exist. The monster you’re sleeping with now does. If you have children, he will eventually be unable to hide his abuse from them. They, too, will become victims of his wrath.
One day you will decide to be done with his abuse. One day you will realize that this messed up reality will no longer be your life and you will make moves. It doesn’t matter what others will think about your breakup. Don’t even let that be a thought that crosses your mind. What matters is you need to get yourself together and get away from him. Once you realize you are in an abusive relationship, you will need to make a safety plan on how to escape your abuser.
Stay tuned for that…
xo
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