Dating After a Domestic Abuse

It’s been forever since I sat down and wrote a cathartic piece where I haven’t planned out what I’m going to say, where I just sit and write until I feel like I’ve said all I wanted to say. I’ve had points for this post in my head for the past few weeks and I knew I wanted to write it since I’ve shared all the highs and lows of the last four years on this blog. You’ve all come along with me on my recovery from my last relationship, I’ve shared points of the domestic abuse here that I’ve never ever said out loud to anyone, so I feel like I owe my blog the next chapter. Of course, realistically I know I don’t owe anyone anything, but I guess it’s nice to keep all my thoughts and feelings in one place, right?

Back in May I passed the four year mark since I escaped (because lets face it, you don’t ever walk away from a relationship like this) my ex with a 4 month old baby in tow. I had no job, no life, no self esteem.. I felt worthless, I felt like no one would ever want me again. I’d been reminded again and again how I was ruined, how I was nothing and this wasn’t something I was going to forget in a long time. So I shut down. I built this huge wall around myself and Little Miss so I could never find myself in the same situation twice. Yes, occasionally I would feel like I wanted to date again, I’d stick my head out over that wall before I would quickly decide it wasn’t worth the risk. I started to heal. I started to forgive myself for being so weak to let someone completely break me like he had. I focused everything on my daughter, to give her the best life possible so she would never feel for a second she was missing anything in her life. I surrounded her in magic, and in love. I felt like we didn’t need anything else. But I guess I just wanted to believe that because I didn’t want to take the risk that I could hit rock bottom again.

But all that changed back in March when a friend from my university years walked back into my life and after a bit of coaxing, I let him in enough for him to become my boyfriend. My first boyfriend in four years. And you know what? I’m crazy about him. But it’s not easy, and I know that no relationship is easy in the beginning. You have the teething problems as you adjust to the other person’s quirks and habits. However, we have a whole other set of problems to overcome, which make me think my other half is actually a saint. And these problems stem from the fact my last relationship wasn’t a relationship at all, but domestic abuse. He knows the full story, in fact he knows a lot more than most as telling him everything was the only way I could get him to understand why I would act a certain way to a situation.

I question everything he says. I can’t take any compliments or declarations of love or affections at face value. I can’t even imagine how frustrating that is for him. Every time he tells me I’m pretty or another similar word it’s met with an instant “no I’m not” because it’s much easier to believe that i’m not that chance the fact he genuinely might see me that way. It sounds backwards.. but that ability to trust anything a man says to be was so completely shattered last time around it’s going to be a long road to put it back together. I hate that my boyfriend has to deal with the damage caused by someone else on a daily basis.

He never gets angry at me when I cry at night because I don’t feel like I’m good enough to deserve someone to love me. Because I do. I get these bouts of upset where I just don’t feel good enough. That he deserves better because I’m nothing. The thing is, he has never made me feel like that even for a second. He treats me like a princess (i’m not even exaggerating) but yet at the back of my mind that nagging voice reminds me of all my bad points, the horrible thing is it’s my exes voice that’s so ingrained in my head telling me all these bad things. Things he literally beat into me over the months we were together. I want to silence that voice as I listen to all the wonderful things my boyfriend tells me about our future and about how happy I make him. It’s a constant screaming match between my head and my heart. My head telling me I should know better, that there is no way I deserve a man like him to love and care for me. So I come across distrusting and paranoid. Not attractive, but he stays with me and reassures me that this is what he wants, time and time again.

I can be argumentative, irrational and defensive because actually being nice would be showing weakness. And I don’t want to be weak again, for Little Miss’ sake I can’t be weak again. I’ve spent four years becoming the strongest I’ve ever been. Letting someone in again is causing my defences to crumble. And part of me worries that maybe this is a bad decision. This part of me makes me even more defensive. It makes things difficult for us when they don’t need to be. I constantly fight because I feel guilty for not fighting enough last time around. When I’m upset I shut down. I don’t want to cry in front of him. I don’t want talk. Half the time when I’m upset I fight even letting him touch me because I’m so afraid of history repeating. Last time crying was weakness and crying lead to violence. Teaching my brain that no all guys are going to hurt me like that is hard. Even though I know my boyfriend would never ever hurt me like that, the fear just won’t leave me be.

Although I know deep down my boyfriend would never hurt me intentionally. He doesn’t want to control my life in any way. He just wants to love me and support me, like I always thought a partner would. I do know this, I tell myself every day. I’m so grateful and blessed to have found someone who loves me like he does. He’s so patient even when I’m actually losing my shit over text, and I do this on a regular basis because I’m still so messed up with what happened in the past. The long distance makes it easier and harder. Easier in we do have short spurts where we don’t see each other at all, harder as in a lot of our relationship is over text. But I know deep down in the long run it’ll be worth it. Worth it if I can just fight all the damage my ex caused.

I’m broken. I say this to myself, to him and to the world so often but I try not to see it as an excuse because it really shouldn’t be. But we’re working so hard to fix me and this is something he wants to stick around for. I never thought anyone would ever want to stick around. But he does and it’s working. The improvements I’ve made in the last two months to my mentality and my thought process when it comes to dating is amazing. Even I can see the progress I’ve and that’s saying something. I can see the pieces of my broken self starting to pull back together and actually mend, not just be held together with tape. I don’t believe I need a man to see my worth, but I have needed someone to show me I’m still worth loving. As this was something I didn’t feel I was, because it was something I was told I wasn’t. And trying to get my head around that is probably the hardest thing of all.

You can read everything I’ve written on my domestic abuse story here.