Leaving Your Abuser Isn't as Easy as it Sounds

I was 19 when it finally ended.

I’d tried to leave so many times before, but he knew exactly how to pull me back in. And I felt so alone…it felt like everyone had given up on me.Spring of my freshman year in college we broke up. I tried to merge back in with my circle of friends, but there was a rift there, and we were all connected — all from the same small town. He was everywhere. The few friends who still supported me were skeptical. They didn’t believe it would last — that I would stay away — and they were right.But by the second week of summer break, we were back together — back at home we were in the “honeymoon” phase again. The emotional high he would create every time I “forgave” him was like a drug…and I wanted more. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I was addicted. The lows became lower and lower, so the highs felt all that much better even though they were increasingly rare and not nearly as “wonderful” as they had been. But I was hooked.It seemed like a lifetime, but looking back our entire relationship (addiction) lasted two and a half years. A month into summer break we were at a party with all our friends. I can’t remember all the details now, but I know there were whispers and sideways glances. I knew they were about us — about me. How can she be back with him? How stupid can she be? What’s the point in even talking to her?

The lows became lower and lower, so the highs felt all that much better even though they were increasingly rare and not nearly as “wonderful” as they had been. But I was hooked.

I heard it, saw it all, and the past two years came flooding back to me — the time he punched me at a party because he thought I was flirting with someone, the time he snapped in his bedroom and strangled me against the headboard, the time I tried to escape his truck while he was at a stoplight and he simultaneously slammed on the gas and pushed me out of the truck door, all the times he threatened to commit suicide… and more… and more…It all flooded my mind at once, almost knocking me back. I felt sick. I walked outside and he followed me. He saw my face and must have known what was coming. I started to talk and he put his hands up, already forming his first strategy. “I love you…we belong together…everyone is just jealous.” Then, the anger. “What did those fuckers say to you? I’ll kill them!” Then the pity, his last fallback that always drew me back in… “I can’t live without you. I’ll kill myself! I’ll go and get my gun right now and you’ll have my dead body on your conscience!”By that time, we had an audience. No one stepping in, but no one stepping away. This is what they’d been waiting for. How would the show end?I’ll be forever ashamed of this part, but I acted on instinct, abandoning all reason. I stormed around the front of the house and saw one of his friends leaving through the front door…he was headed out on a beer run. I asked if I could go with him. I needed some space.Somehow, we ended up at a secluded park bench, and I had sex with him. It might not have been the “right” thing to do or the “smart” thing, but it was a drastic enough action that it gave me something back… some level of control over what was happening to me.We returned to the party and he was still there. He asked to talk. We drove away from the party and parked at a parking lot off the highway. And I blurted it out I’d had sex with someone else. He went ballistic — never mind that he had been sleeping with other girls the entire time we were together. How dare I do the same?Looking back, I’m lucky he didn’t seriously hurt me that night. Instead, he went back to his favorite tactic and laid down in the middle of the highway. An officer appeared (like a gift!) and arrested him. It could have ended very differently. I know that now.I didn’t go back after that night. Somehow, in all that mess, I’d reclaimed a portion of myself. I was far from healed, but I didn’t go back.It’s been a long time, and I’m only beginning to heal after years of smothering the pain and shame under layers of anxiety and guilt. But, now I get to call myself a survivor…not a victim.