I was dating a violent, abusive, terrifying, alcoholic, Crossfitter.
He said all of the right things. He told me I was beautiful, smart, funny, and caring. He told me he would never hurt me. He told me that when he saw me in my friend’s room the day we first met, he knew he had found the girl he wanted to marry. All of that changed when he got drunk one night with his friends and pulled out a Ka-Bar at a party and told everyone he was going to kill me with it.
When I first met Him, I was a freshman in college; a transfer into everyone else’s second semester because I took a semester off between high school and college. I didn’t know anyone and I was “the new girl.” My school was small so everyone in my class knew I was coming in. I found out later that I was known as the girl from England… Not sure how everyone found out I was born there but everyone was disappointed when I didn’t have a British accent. Anyways, I got to college and met a group of people my first couple weeks there that ended up being my absolute best friends throughout my college experience. The Binford Kids. This group was known for their 5pm dinners in the cafeteria and group outings and generally just being loud and obnoxious in large numbers. But hey, I immediately fell in love with each and every one of them.
One day, while I was hanging out with The Binford Kids in my friend’s room, a group of guys walked by the door and immediately stopped, did a double take, and walked in. “You’re new here!,” one of them shouted to me. I told them my name and small talk began. Each of them began to introduce themselves and the last guy introduced himself and we locked eyes for a second. He blushed and turned away and his friend nudged him and said, “Awwww you’re blushing!” Things got more awkward and we ended up just hanging out in the room for awhile, all together. Once it was time for them to leave, the one that I had locked eyes with earlier approached me and said, “ Hey. So… I was wondering… Do you want to hang out sometime? I mean, I can give you my number and we can hang out. Since I know you’re new here and everything…” I said yes, we exchanged numbers, smiled, and went our separate ways.
Honestly, I don’t know how it happened but we became inseparable. He moved, I moved. We spent every moment that we weren’t in class together and everyone knew us as a single unit. I had never felt this way about someone before and it felt so right. My friends all knew him pre-Me so they warned me to be careful. I didn’t listen because the man I saw in front of me was not the man that they were describing. He was sweet, kind, quirky, funny, and muscular. They were describing a player, a man who cared only for himself, and someone who was very, very violent. I saw none of it until later.
The first time I saw his true colors was the first dance performance of my college career. I have been dancing since the age of six and it is a part of who I am. This performance meant the world to me; to be able to dance in front of all of my friends and my new boyfriend. The night of the performance, I was talking about it with my friends and He walked in. “Are you coming tonight?,” one of my friends asked. Expecting him to say, “Of course I am! Why would you even ask such a thing!” was too much of me to ask, I guess. “Yeah… I don’t think so. I was planning on having a guy’s night; smoking, Xbox, stuff.”
Excuse me? Did I hear you correctly? You’ve known about this for weeks and you would rather smoke weed and play videogames with your friends that you see EVERY DAY than see your girlfriend dance in front of an audience for the first time in years? I just stared at him in disbelief and all of my friends sat in silence. I didn’t argue and I didn’t push and he just left the room. I burst into tears because my picture perfect boyfriend wasn’t so perfect after all. To be clear, he did come to my performance. With all of his guy friends. Stoned off his ass. And I bet he doesn’t remember a goddamn thing.
After that incident, there were many like it. Missed dinner dates, missed celebrations, broken promises, and making it clear that everyone else came first and I was just there as a second, third, or fourth option. I made excuses for him and said that it was okay; that he was tired, he forgot, and he didn’t mean to hurt me. I was with this man for three years and until the very last day I saw him, I stood up for him. My friends continuously told me that I was making a mistake and he wasn’t good for me but like the stubborn little shit that I am, I didn’t listen. One of my best friends in college was the one that pointed out something after we had ended things. “Whenever I asked you why you were with him, the answer was never, ‘I love him’ or ‘Because he makes me happy.’ No. The answer was ALWAYS, ‘Because I lost my virginity to him.’” That invisible tie was something that kept me in that relationship for many, many months too long.
He became abusive and controlling; would get angry if I saw my friends too much, if I spent too much time away, if I talked back to him, if I even talked at all sometimes, and if I talked to other men. One of His friends had a friend visiting from out of town for a weekend and the first night he was there, the friend got handsy with me because he was drunk and I told Him. He stormed out of my apartment, me running behind him screaming at 2am, and ran to his friend’s apartment. He broke the door down, off the hinges, got on top of this man and started beating the living hell out of him while he was sleeping. I stood there in silence as the man that I loved was beating this poor man’s face because he was drunk and got handsy with me and I made the mistake of telling Him, knowing he would be upset. He broke bones and not once did I even flinch or make a sound. I just stood in the doorway as blood flew around the room and I listened to this man’s agony and his screams for mercy. I was a hollow shell.
Our sex became non-consensual and that is something I will never forgive. He was violent, controlling, and he raped me. Over and over and over again. Some people believe that you cannot be raped by your partner, that sex is always a yes if you are dating. That is absolutely and completely incorrect. I became his play thing and I became someone he could “fuck and chuck.” I mean, as long as he was getting off, right? He began to sleep around the school; so many women that I couldn’t even keep track. I know of three, one of them being multiple times, but I know there were more. All of these women knew of me and knew about our relationship and none of them seemed to care. One night, after having too much to drink, I confronted him about his affairs and that sent him into a blind rage. A rage that brought him outside my apartment, down the stairs, and into the parking lot. I pushed and I pushed and I pushed and all of a sudden, his fist was through a car window. He had been so angry and so blind with rage because I was confronting him that he sent his fist through a car window. A car window that belonged to my neighbor. A car window that was never fixed by him. A car window that was replaced and paid for by my roommates. I stood there and looked at the scene and realized that I was dating a monster. A monster that broke car windows, doors, pushed my friend through a wall in our apartment, a monster that broke tables, chairs, and sent me into the fetal position, hoping and praying that he wouldn’t break me. I was dating a violent, abusive, terrifying, alcoholic, Crossfitter.
The night that ended things was one of the most horrifying and life changing moments I have ever experienced. There was a rugby social, which meant that we would fight about something and he would get drunk and do terrible things. You know, the usual. We did fight and I ended up staying home that night with my friends and we were all watching some trashy reality TV show when one of my friends got a text from a guy on the rugby team, who was at the party. It read something like, “He has a knife and is coming to your apartment for ‘Her.’ He said he was going to kill her. Get her out. Now.” My friend looked at me and said, “Get your stuff. We are leaving.” I had no idea what the text said and I had no idea what was happening but the urgency in her voice told me to get my shit together and to do it fast. We drove to my friend’s house down the street, the only place that we knew he wouldn’t come looking for me, and we waited. I don’t know if he came to my apartment, I don’t know what happened within those two or so hours that I had been gone but we figured it was safe to go back.
It was safe for awhile until I received a call late at night and it was Him, drunkenly screaming on the phone that he was sorry and he was coming over. Shit. Shit. Shit. Fuck. Shit. I ran into the common room where my roommates were and said, “He’s coming over.” Immediately, everyone got up and started moving. I felt like I was in a tornado of worry, disappointment, and fear. His nickname was his name with the word “Scary” before it… We were screwed. A knock on the door. A drunken knock, followed by a, “Baby, please let me in. I need to talk to you about what happened earlier.” My phone rang. It was Him. I answered. “Go away. Go home and sober up. Go away.” I thought that if I said, “Go away” enough that he would listen and leave. Wrong again. “Open the door.” BANG BANG BANG. His fist sounded like it was going to come through the door. I was leaning with my back against the door, on the verge of tears, my body vibrating every time he slammed his fist against the wood. I was about to cry not because I was scared, not because I was worried that someone would hear him and call the police. I was about to cry because my exact thoughts were, “This is my fault. I shouldn’t have provoked him during our fight.” He had brainwashed me into thinking that this was okay. This is how normal couples behaved. This was my fault.
A voice brought me out of my haze. “911, we need help in Madison Woods. My roommate’s boyfriend is at the door and he is trying to come in and he might be armed.” Oh. The knife from earlier. He might have a knife on him. I completely forgot. However, my first thought was not about the knife. It was about my roommate calling the police on my boyfriend. I rushed into the kitchen and started screaming at her, telling her I could handle it and telling her she shouldn’t have called. Then, I lost control of my body, slumped to the floor, and I started to sob. I have never sobbed this way before or after this night; the sobs came from a place deep within my body and they ached. I sobbed because I had brought so many people into this mess and this was the worst it had ever been. This man who I called my partner was outside my door, drunk with rage, and possibly armed with a knife. He called again, I answered. This time, I could barely make out what he was saying but I did hear, “I fucking hate you, you goddamn whore.” And then, I saw police lights. So many police lights outside our window. Oh god, they’re here.
“GET DOWN ON THE GROUND WITH YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR.” I was listening through my cell phone, which was still connected to Him. I heard him tell the police that it was okay, he was just trying to talk to his girlfriend. “GET DOWN AND LET ME SEE YOUR HANDS.” Grunt, shove, push, gravel. He dropped his phone next to his face and only then did I realize that a police officer had pushed him to the ground and handcuffed him. He was screaming at me through the phone, which seemed so far away. “YOU FUCKING BITCH. YOU DID THIS TO ME. YOU FUCKING DID THIS. I TRUSTED YOU.” I have no idea what happened after that because in that moment, I blacked out. I do not remember what happened once I hung up the phone, I do not remember if I slept, I do not remember going into my room or how I got there, I do not remember a single thing. From that moment on, I do not remember anything until I found out that he was being kicked out of college for possessing a weapon with the intent to use it for bodily harm.
I defended him until he was removed from my college and left the state. I stood up for him in judicial meetings, to my friends, my family, the Dean of Students. I made it clear that he was just “too drunk and didn’t know what was happening.” No matter if he was going to the use the knife or not, joking about killing your girlfriend with a knife that is used by the military and is the size of an infant is not something to joke about. He got kicked out of my college and I never saw him again. Three years of abuse ended, just like that.
I worry I will see him someday and I worry what will happen. I worry that I will become the victim again and cower in a corner. I worry that his rage will scare me into silence. But then I remember that taking three years of abuse from him was a blessing in disguise. I am such a strong person because of him. I am outspoken, wise, understanding, and I will not take any more bullshit in my life. Sure, it took me three years to get myself out but I am out. I am free. I have been free for almost 5 years now. And freedom has never felt so good.
2087
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