Survivor Story #4

I’ve always been drawn to guys who need support. I’m the kind of person that likes to fix people. This has led me to date men who are emotionally unavailable, have anger issues, alcoholic tendencies, and even violent tendencies. Today’s story looks back on a guy that I dated about two years ago.

Mid way through college I was busy being an independent spirit, making friends, drinking too much, and figuring out who I wanted to be for the rest of my life. I met a guy in the same major as me, and we quickly became friends. He was engaged at the time, but him and his fiancé suffered through a tragedy that would ultimately end their relationship. He then turned to me for solace. He was persistent in trying to impress me with lavish dates and physically changing his image. I was reluctant for months, but eventually I agreed to go out with him.

At first, our relationship was good, as they usually are in the beginning. We went on creative dates, hosted barbecues, and spent Saturdays cuddling on the couch. It was about 3 months in that things started to change. I lived in an apartment with three of my closest friends, and we often had people over to drink on the weekends. Most of the time when this happened, my boyfriend and I at the time would end up fighting about something and screaming at each other in my bed room until three in the morning. I didn’t think much of it at the time, I assumed most couples fought and that we were both just stubborn people and talking through it was healthy.

It was just past the three month mark in our relationship, and we were arguing again after a long night of drinking. I was ready for bed, wearing nothing but my underwear trying to get him to calm down. He was really upset about something and started calling me a slut and a whore in reference to guys I had been with way before we ever started dating. I made the mistake of hitting him out of frustration in an attempt to try to get him to refocus. He preceded to smack me across the face, whip a phone charger across my torso, and then throw the charger and other items he was holding at me from across the room. I apologized to try to get him to calm down with tears streaming down my face as he continued to scream at me. He insisted on driving home, which he was far too drunk to do.

I stood in front of my doorway trying to protect him from himself. He grabbed me and tried to remove me from his path, leaving bruises all down my arms from his hands. He then resorted to trying to jump out the second story window at which point I began yelling louder in an attempt to reason with him. My roommate knocks on the door and I tell him to come in as I sit bawling, practically naked and shivering. My other roommate comes to assist while I put clothes on. Someone rings the doorbell and I answer, all while still shaking in only a t-shirt and underwear now. The guy at the door happened to be an ex of mine who drunkenly begins talking to me. My current boyfriend at the time begins yelling more profanities at me and kicking things around our kitchen while my roommates restrain him. I eventually leave with one of my roommates girl friends as my friends follows my boyfriend outside to his car that he still insists on driving. We ultimately call the cops, and he is sent back inside with some of his other friends to sober up. Being the naive and forgiving person that I am, I allow him to come back to bed after a couple hours. Things were fine after this…. for awhile.

I was away on a trip overseas with many of my peers and we were celebrating the new year. I received some texts from my boyfriend indicating he was drunk. The time difference meant that I was receiving all of these texts at almost 7 in the morning. He continued calling me a slut and a whore- despite my efforts to get him to just go to bed, he was determined to insult me. I had to leave the hotel we were staying at, and had no wi-fi for several hours. I came back to my phone with several apologies from him when he woke up in the morning, and I decided to forgive him again. He had been working through issues from the previous trauma with his fiancé, and I took that as enough of a reason to insult me for no reason. This verbal abuse happened several more times, as well as him totaling his car and getting a DUI. I continued to date him for a total of a year and 3 months before he broke up with me. I was too caught up in trying to fix him, and trying to show him that things could be better to see that I deserved better. You always deserve better.