Behind Closed Doors

Zeb

Scatty

Otis

 What we present to the world is a relationship of love - how much I want to show I love my partner and share them with the world… but behind closed doors, it’s another story, one of lies, fear, violence and control.

Thats how it was for 12 years - 12 years I spent mostly either in denial or not knowing how to cope with the fact I was in an abusive relationship. I was in survival mode, trying to make it to be some kind of love story, because I thought I was the problem, and if I could maybe just love him enough, he would follow through on the promises of marriage and a family together… and that, like he told me, he really did love me. 

Obviously the red flags were there from the beginning before I ever got with him. He was a lodger in my home my Dad had taken in, and when I first met him there was a really weird sense of recognition. Looking back I understand this from a spiritual perspective to be a karmic thing from past lives, and, a story that apparently has followed me through many lifetimes - one in this one I hope has finally ended as he got what he wanted but of course shat all over it.

I’ll likely sound super dramatic a lot in this, but to be honest, a lot of karma drama occurred, and some stuff was pretty horrible. 

I am thankful I got out alive.

My 21st Birthday Bash

I didn’t really love HIM, I loved who I thought he was, who he pretended to be and who I wanted him to be. In retrospect, I have a lot of regrets, and I am still grieving and coming to terms with both the duration of that dynamic and the consequent years after learning the truth about narcissistic abuse and becoming more trauma informed - as well as dealing with my health issues that had been either triggered or caused by the abuse in that relationship. I have been diagnosed with PTSD specifically tied to it. 

Learning in past years I have Autism and ADHD also make a lot of sense of things in my own life, behaviours and things he would point out about me that made me uncomfortable. 

Don’t get me wrong, there were a few occasions I stood up for myself, but unfortunately I should have then followed that with walking away. 

I was 18 when I got together with him. I was 16 when I met him. A 15 year old friend of friends suddenly started visiting when he moved in and they became an item. Did I mention he was 30 at the time? Although he said he was 29 (like that makes any difference). As teens dating older guys seemed cool and like we were mature, and the concept of grooming wasn’t known to us. Despite her Dad wanting to break his legs initially eventually he accepted it. I really wish he had broken his legs, and got rid of him, it would have saved a lot of trauma all round. When they split 2 years later (he had moved out, and then came back to my Dads / mine to lodge with her when they got kicked out of a place, but then she moved out when money was stolen and we thought it was her - although now I think it could’ve been him) we got together, but kept it secret from her, because of how she may reacte. I wanted to be honest, but to be fair, I did try to tell her and then she flipped out so I said I was joking, to protect myself. As it turned out when she DID find out, she stalked me, went into my house, took things and showed other friends of mine who obviously told me. One day my Dad and I drove back hone to find her car in the driveway and she pulled out, and run her finger along her throat at me, in a threatening manner. When I found out she has been in my home, I went up the road to her parents where she had moved back to to confront her to tell her to stay away, or I would get the police involved. Her response was to punch me in the face and head 4 times, knocking me back down her driveway (which unfortunately was sloped so no chance of balancing myself) and slammed the door. A friend later told me they heard my screams from a couple roads away. 

It turned out C was AT her parents despite US being together, at a family BBQ and when I got myself home covered in blood, he shortly turned up in the bathroom where I was cleaning myself up to say “I suppose you want me to leave now?” - I just said no. He didn’t ask me if I was Okay or offer to take me to hospital. No one was available to take me, so it wasn’t until I could get a bus to the doctors some time after it happened, that I found out she had broken my nose and in fact, as the GP stated, “Your lucky she didn’t kill you the way she punched you, another couple of cms and she would’ve driven it up into your brain” (words pretty much that if not 100% ad verbatim.)

As a result I had my nose bridge reset and was given the option of a partial or full nose job. At this point I will point out I had been complaining about my nose since I was 14 saying I wanted a nose job. I will now say emphatically now I now about the Law of Attraction, is, be careful about what you wish for, because you may just get it…

Anyhoo, so I decided, fuck it lets go for the full whack, and I had a complete nose job. I also got the police involved for her assault, and got £2000 compensation from the victims comp scheme. However… I bought tools for C with a chunk of it. *Sigh*. 

     

At a bad taste fancy 
party with C

I got pregnant at age 18, the first time I had an absorption miscarriage… I still remember craving mayonnaise and marmalade together on toast for weeks. I think this was before all the stalking but the timeline now is fuzzy in places. A few months later, I got pregnant again, and my best friend also fell pregnant with her partner, and I was SO excited… until C sat me down giving me some running before we walk speech and influenced me into getting an abortion. I will be honest I sat myself through some horrific videos about abortion and what they do, but I still went through with it, because I was numb. I stuffed down my dreams, and went to the hospital, C met me just before I went in but was working so didn’t come in with me, and he said to me that he thought I wasn’t gonna go through with it, but … I did. I also turned down counselling as I thought I was fine. 

I was not fine. I remember some nights getting up at night, going out and walking around the back roads by myself feeling mentally not right about the situation… and he kept promising a future when “we were ready”.

We had cats and rats together, and I LOVED our cats. I don’t regret them, but I do regret it was through him I had come to them. I got a council place at 21 in the next estate from where I lived in the family home. I asked C to move in with me, and initially he said no, but then agreed. We eventually got a mortgage to buy it for our own. 

I met his family, befriended his niece who was with a friend of his for awhile and lived about 15mins drive away - I stayed with them during one of our break ups. 

I talked C into reconciliation with family he had fallen out with, and learnt about his background a bit. He told me things, but to be honest what was true and what was lies I probably will never know - things like him playing rugby and rowing for Bedford, the drama of his ex girlfriend who was the love of his life catching her in bed with his best friend (thinking it may have been the other way around now after what he told people about my leaving him!) and many other things. 

The best one was finding out he had (at least) 3 kids by 2 different women that I had to find out by *accident*. I never wanted a relationship with someone who already had kids, I wanted to be with someone who I could have kids with of our own. Call me greedy or territorial but that’s what I really wanted (and still do) in hindsight for me kids were a deal breaker. I was mortified to find out he had no contact, and basically had washed his hands of them. One was adopted as the mother was quite young and her family had talked her into the adoption. The other I found out lived close to us, and was only a few years older than me - I ended up meeting him and trying to get C to develop a relationship with him but he refused. Tbh now I know better his son was better off without him, he was a genuinely decent person it seemed from our conversation. The 3rd I found out through my Mum - who is into genealogy, somewhat miffed that she put C down on our family tree as my husband when we weren’t married and is still on there… but as a result, an ex girlfriend contacted my Mum to tell him he had a 13 year old daughter at the time. And wow the story behind it was shitty. 

My 21st birthday he invited the ex who punched me in the face, and when I found out I lost my shit, and basically told him to tell her she was uninvited, despite his protests because “she was helping out”, I didn’t back down, I didn’t want her help and was pissed they were still friends. I eventually however did start talking to her again, but I’m pretty sure they were cheating behind my back now. He cheated several times but I only found out in later years, at least 3 that I know of, gross. One, I shall name B, denied it initially until I told her it wasn’t her I had the issue with, it was him, and that if she were me, wouldn’t she want to know? She backed down and admitted they were, and to her horror realised he had lied saying we had split up and I was sleeping on the sofa, when in fact he was sleeping with her, and then coming home and then having sex with me. EWWWWWW. She showed me texts from him, and told me things they did, and I was like, yuk, I taught him those things, they were “our” things, and he had gone off and done them with her. I felt dirty. And to top it off he gave us both and STD, and when I went to the clinic, with him (at that point despite me having had broken up with him over it, weeks later I took him back believing his promises…) and she was also there!

It was really messed up, and age, wisdom, experience and maturity has me seeing things more clearly now. Knowledge is definitely power. It’s sad to think I recognised abuse in dynamics with friends when I was a teen and saved my best friend from an abusive dynamic, but then walked into one myself. I also feel kinda angry now that no one was straight up with me like I was with her.

I am going to be jumping around a bit as memories come up time wise, - like back to when I had the abortion C and I got into an argument and he grabbed me and threw me on the sofa (but protested he picked me up and “put” me on the sofa - like dude you don’t just grab someone regardless) 

Another time we got into an argument he threw me onto the bed and ripped off my jumper while yelling at me…

Oh … jumping back to BEFORE we were together I think or we were not together together as we were just seeing each other for 6 months before it was supposedly a definite relationship, I was with a friend on the bus from the bus station in Northampton, and he was there, and got on too, I think I may have had a falling out with him at this point as I was talking about him to my friend and we were taking the piss out of him like teens do. So we got off the bus at a shopping centre on the way home, thinking he was going back there, and I was laughing with my friend doing “dickhead” gestures to her about him, and he must have jumped off the bus and run after me, because the next thing I knew he had me pinned against the wall yelling at me threatening me. The fun part? There were TONS of people watching as there was bomb threat evacuation and NOBODY did anything to help me.

I don’t recall what happened after but pretty sure he just let me go, and walked off. 

It was scary though. And YET I STILL ENDED UP IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM FOR TWELVE YEARS. 

The time we got into an argument when we were living together at our flat… and he had a shit fit that I had spent £21 on salad stuff, because I wanted to eat better. His friend was outside the flat and heard the yelling. As C stormed out I yelled something at him because, I’ll be honest I can be a brat and don’t like being treated like shit for stuff, but then he came flying back in, I was using his laptop at the time sat on the sofa, and he SLAMMED the lid down on my fingers. He then grabbed my jaw yelling. (Unsurprisingly my jaws not been right since) I was so mad, I went for his stereo… only to be met with him putting his hand in front of my face and then my nose exploding blood. His response? “Get a towel don’t bleed on the carpet.” And basically saying it was my fault for going for his stereo… 

Every time something like that happened it was like right after I would forget it, and carry on as if it hadn’t occurred.

The time we got into an argument, and he told me to get out of the flat, and I said no. I went and sat in the bathroom, and he came in grabbed me and threw me over his shoulder to carry me out and literally throw me out the door, but as he did I got caught on a statue and I think caught his face and he threw me down against the wall in the hallway screaming at me I was attacking him back and did he want me to go at him in a fight (??!) and would not accept I had got caught on this statue and was just trying to get him to let go of me. 

Working at the BP Garage on the Welly Road

And… the worst time… when I got pregnant between depo-provera contraceptive jabs… positive pregnancy tests, went for scans  and nothing there. I had admittedly been giving him guilt trips about the situation, but was gutted when it turned out nothing was there, and the doctor was trying to tell me I was never pregnant - yet the next day I bled, and heavily, and had literally shown C the test result. 

Despite this when we got home he had a go at me, about making him feel guilty, and I gave him a look. In his words “ you looked at me like I was a piece of shit” and this apparently was enough to trigger him to attack me mid me chopping chicken up, grab me, throw me against the cupboard door, yelling at me and punching the door beside me (I think?) then throwing me on to the hard tiled floor, hitting the back of my head causing my nose to explode with blood. He THEN span me around and grabbed the knife off the side I had been chopping with, pinned me down, loomed over me holding the knife as if it stab me screaming “DO YOU WANT ME TO FUCKING KILL YOU??! DO YOU??!” 

I thought that was it, I was gonna be murdered right then and there… and i just squeaked out “I love you”…

Apparently this was enough to disarm me and he got off of me, I think he pulled me up, and he just stood there as I leant against the back of the sofa and said “I guess you’ll be leaving me now” 

I didn’t. I literally said “I know I should, but I don’t want to”.

How messed up is that.

So… I remember in 2009, Feb, sitting on my bed crying saying to “God” :

“If he isn’t the one, please bring me the man I am meant to be with and stop me from loving him”

Come I think it was Aug/Sept, C and friends were up the road at his garage playing with bikes and I was making them all drinks and toast, and taking it up on a tray, and as I walked up the road this weird feeling bubbles up inside me, and he sees my face and says “what’s up?!” And I say “nothing” and he’s like “no, what is it?!” And I say, “ Not now I’ll talk to you later” and walked off back to the flat. He followed me back through and confronted me  - nothing had triggered it it was a seemingly random thing that came from deep inside, but I just looked at him and told him I didn’t want to be with him anymore - I didn’t feel like I was loving myself. He looked white as a sheet. 

From the flat kitchen window

Somehow he managed to talk me into staying together casually until we sorted things out, but I was on his laptop a few weeks later and I went to copy paste something but it didn’t copy and pasted instead the last thing copied which was a website specifically for having affairs with married people… and to top it off he had made an account and was still signed in, and I saw graphic messages between him and another woman.

Needless to say I confronted him. We had agreed years ago if he ever cheated he would leave. So I told him to go. And of course, he refused, so I contacted my friend and went to stay with her for a couple of weeks. That didn’t work out and I went to stay with my Dad for a few days and then onto my Mum and stepdads. 

I unfortunately didn’t fully get him out of my life until 2014 and in 2011 we lost the flat to repossession leaving us with a massive debt because he refused to get it ready for sale despite promising to decorate it (he was a carpenter by trade!!!)

It took another few years before I learnt about narcissistic abuse and recognised WHY I hadn’t left, and that I was in survival mode from trauma for years. Not to mention the health issues I developed from being with him. 

Of course this isn’t everything but much of the main things I recall. 

This feels cathartic getting it off my chest. I know I have talked about some of the stuff on social media over the years but to get the main bulk out feels like I am not carrying it alone anymore. 

If anyone has read this, I appreciate you taking the time to listen.

Becki

xXx