Or so he said. And so I believed. For too long.
Over time it became evident that the relationship was all about Ray’s needs and never about me.
He’d throw my promises in my face if I got angry or impatient with him and twist my words up to make himself the victim. What happened back then was what I now know to be gaslighting. Ray tried to manipulate me from the beginning.
He gambles. He lies. He screws up all the time. Forgets appointments or interviews. Sleeps in. Gets fired. Loses money. Overspends. His temper feels like a ticking time bomb grenade, and anything can pull the pin. Illogical things even. He blows up over the slightest little thing, gets right in my face until I cower. And then he apologizes and begs me to forgive him. In the beginning, he’d beg me to give him another chance, beg me to be what I’d promised, not to ever, ever leave him, not to give up on him. In the beginning, it worked. He’d tug on my heart strings with excuses for his outbursts and I’d forgive him.
But over time, the bad moods became the norm. Threats almost always simmered below the surface. And he chipped away at my heart a little bit with each blow-up. I let myself become lost, became his emotional punching bag doormat.
On our second anniversary, we had a terrible argument over something stupid and I told him we needed a break, told him to leave and give me some space.
He looked me right in the eyes and told me he’d never leave.
“You made promises, Violet. Forever, you said. And forever it’s gonna be.”
The next day, he looked me dead in the eye and told me, “I had a dream that you tried to leave me. In the dream, I slit your throat and watched you bleed out. Not that I’d ever do that in a million years, but…yeah… weird dream. I know you’d never leave me.”
When I reacted by telling him he needed psychiatric help, he tackled me to the bed and held me for hours, pleading with me to love him, pleading with me to keep my promises, swearing he’d never ever hurt me.
I withdrew into myself and tried to figure out how to handle things. What to do next.
A week later, he went off on a random tangent while watching an old mobster movie about knowing people in the mafia from his old neighborhood who could kill someone without leaving a trace. Who could systematically destroy peoples’ livelihoods and lives.
The big fight a couple months ago when I snapped, telling him to go when he was screaming in my face, that was the last big one. He was losing it on me, in hysterics over the smell of our fabric softener giving him a headache, telling me that he told me a hundred times not to buy that one when he’d never complained about it even once, me crying out that enough was enough - I couldn’t take it anymore, telling him that he needed to go on medication for his mood swings, to leave me alone before he made me go crazy, too.
His reaction was to punch the wall beside my face and destroy something precious to me, the last gift I received from my deceased grandmother. When he destroyed that pretty antique china doll, it burnt what little feelings I had left for Ray to ash.
She gave me it for my twelfth birthday, the pretty doll in the purple dress. Purple for my name. I treasured it.
Seeing it broken on the floor, the doll’s face smashed, was a turning point, a twisting one. When he smashed it in a fit of rage and looked me right in the eye I demanded, “Go.”
He refused, so I tried to go. My world was rocked, and not in a good way, when my back was slammed into a wall, put there by his hand circling my throat. He told me in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t leaving.
“You made promises to me and you’re gonna keep ‘em. You leaving me, Vi? Only happens if I’m a rotting corpse. Or if you are.”
He then stared at me for ten seconds without blinking.
I didn’t look away. I didn’t cower. I looked at him with hate. I know I did.
His face changed. It crumbled.
“I’d never hit you, baby. Never. Never.” He cried into my hair.
I shriveled into myself.
“Vi, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m such an asshole. I don’t deserve you. I’ll get help. I promise. I promise I’ll get help fighting my demons. I promise, promise, promise.”
I stared at the broken china doll on the floor and while my eyes were locked on it he begged me to mean more to him than an object. I said nothing. It was too late.
I don’t think I’ve come back out of the shrivel. It’s been a couple months.
Three days later, he was tired of my ‘attitude’; he was angry I hadn’t snapped out of it yet.
“It’s because you threatened me that I acted like that. Don’t ever threaten me, Violet. You know that whole thing is on you.”
I didn’t threaten to leave, I told him to go and then I headed for the door myself and was stopped.
I didn’t bother to correct him; I had nothing more to say.
A few days after that, he leaned over me late at night, reeking of beer while I pretended to sleep and said, “Should I have knocked some sense into you instead of the wall? You act like I did. Should I do it next time, since I’m being treated like I did, anyway? Should I try to hurt you the way you keep hurting me?”
I did not reply.
He hasn’t gotten help. Though, even if he did, I know I’m done.
Instead of making a run for it as soon as his back was turned, I retreated even farther into myself, because… because why? I’ve asked myself that question repeatedly.
Do I feel trapped? Am I embarrassed about what I’ve allowed to happen? Am I just afraid of how ugly it’ll get to split with him? Of the things he might do to get revenge?
Am I simply broken, like my little china doll?
I’ve become like an inmate, trying to keep my head down. Just doing my time. But the ‘just doing my time’ mindset really isn’t a well-thought-out plan because I have no inkling of what my release date is. I should tuck enough money away to make an escape but there’s never any extra. Not enough, anyway. He has taken control over my money and he overspends. I have a hundred dollars in the bottom of my tea canister that I saved four months ago; that’s it.
I don’t know how my life became this; I feel just… hopeless.
Just go? Figure it out later? I don’t know why I can’t just make myself do that. Go to my parents? Call up old friends and ask if I can sleep on their couch?
I’ve got a decent job; do I just give that up and go into hiding? Start over in a new city, maybe? Leave everything and everyone just to get away from him? I don’t have anyone but him because I allowed it.
I’ve thought about it. All of it. I just don’t have any solutions yet.
What if I go and he sends those pictures to my parents or hurts someone I love to get back at me?
Ray said he lost his bank card and kept making excuses for why he couldn’t go in and get a new one. Instead, he carries mine and gives me cash for the bus and groceries. It’s no accident. He wants me reliant on him.
I have no real friends anymore; Ray has seen to that. I’m no longer close with my family, either.
Today is the third anniversary of the night we met. He hasn’t mentioned it, so it’s obvious he doesn’t remember. It’s not like I’d expect a gift. I haven’t bought him one. Though, in the past I did.
In my mind, we’re no longer in a relationship. I’m just stuck with him in my apartment, in my bed, and in my bank account until I figure out how to pull the cord on an escape hatch I haven’t found yet.