Repeating Patterns
Maybe, I started to repeat my mom's pattern when I was younger. After all, I moved to another state with a guy I barely knew based on a momentary feeling that I assumed had to be how you "just knew". (I now know that it's a characteristic of his type that they are very intense. During the good phases, it will seem like they love you more than anyone possibly could.) Unlike my mom though, I didn't end up permanently stuck. I was able to move on with my life and learn to have better relationships.
For awhile though, it seemed like I might be. It's a long story. The short version is that when I first moved in with this guy, M., I believed it was of my own free will, but it soon turned into a hostage situation where I wasn't even allowed to leave the house. I had to get help to sneak out one day while he was at work. Aside from the threats he would make if he suspected I was even thinking of leaving, he kept me under control by keeping the last of the money I had in his own bank account and getting a place for us to live in a small town where cabs didn't even come to.
(You may be wondering why I would have ever let him do this. It started out innocently enough. I had just moved to a new state and didn't have my own account yet. When he suggested it, it just didn't seem reasonable to say that I was ready to move in with him, but couldn't trust him with that. At least, that reasoning made sense to me as a 21-year-old.)
This was 15 years ago and he has harassed me online off and on since then. On more than one occasion, he has written blogs to tell people "the truth" about me (using my full real name and emailing people I know to get them to look at it). He would contact me through email and on any site he found me until I would block him. He would be angry one day, sad the next. Sometimes, he would be apologetic. Sometimes, he would just drop me a casual note telling me what was going on in his life, like I was any friend he was still on speaking terms with. He did all of this while getting no replies from me, as if he was having a long argument inside his head.
In fact, he refused to acknowledge that we were even broken up. He would word emails as if we were still together and just having a spat. He even once asked if I had been with anyone else, because he "wouldn’t put it past me". Then, he went on to reassure me that he wasn’t cheating.
About 2 years into this, I thought that maybe I should reply to him once so he would know exactly where I stood, since I did, after all, leave him without a word. So, I sent him a detailed email explaining exactly why I left and telling him in no uncertain terms that I wanted him to leave me alone.
At first, he replies telling me that he’s sorry and he understands. The next day, he tells me that he’s realized our problem is we’re trying to work things out long-distance and I should let him move in with me for a few months. The next day, though he hasn’t heard from me, he starts to make a list of demands of what I have to do if I want to get back together or to just forget it. The next day, he writes to tell me what a cruel bitch I am. He says nothing could have hurt him more than when I wrote, "I want nothing more to do with you." (It wasn’t supposed to make him feel warm and fuzzy. Just stating facts.) After one attempt at explanation, I wasn’t going to write to him, again. I just kept ignoring him and it went back to the same cycle. I'm not hearing from him at the moment, but he's kind of like an infection where you think it's gone and then, it suddenly flares up again.
He is the one I mentioned in my intro post who found my last attempt to keep an anonymous blog. (So, I chose a more difficult screenname and even though I'm making most of this blog public, I will make any posts where I mention him friends-only to make it harder for him to find me this time.)
In his mind all this has been completely justified, because if I left I was breaking a promise to him. Turns out he took all my warm, fuzzy declarations of love to mean that I was promising to stay with him no matter what he did. I'd have to be out of my mind to make a promise like that. Why would I ever stay with someone if he did something bad enough for me to leave? And, why would he even need that promise? Only if he knew no one would stay with him of their own free will. (His mom encouraged him in this thinking, though last I knew, she was on her third husband.)
But, when you marry someone, technically you are supposed to be making that promise. It's a major issue I have with wedding vows that I hadn't really thought about until that situation. Sure. Everyone knows it tends to be a fake promise, that you're just as likely to end up divorced, but I'm not a fan of saying things I don't mean. I'm not interested in being a martyr for an institution. Though I will say that I think it's a good thing to not jump ship at the first sign of trouble, to make an attempt to work things out, but there are obviously some situations where you will never be happy. It's another thing I have to think about in deciding if marriage will ever be right for me (at least, not without some rewording of the vows).
For awhile though, it seemed like I might be. It's a long story. The short version is that when I first moved in with this guy, M., I believed it was of my own free will, but it soon turned into a hostage situation where I wasn't even allowed to leave the house. I had to get help to sneak out one day while he was at work. Aside from the threats he would make if he suspected I was even thinking of leaving, he kept me under control by keeping the last of the money I had in his own bank account and getting a place for us to live in a small town where cabs didn't even come to.
(You may be wondering why I would have ever let him do this. It started out innocently enough. I had just moved to a new state and didn't have my own account yet. When he suggested it, it just didn't seem reasonable to say that I was ready to move in with him, but couldn't trust him with that. At least, that reasoning made sense to me as a 21-year-old.)
This was 15 years ago and he has harassed me online off and on since then. On more than one occasion, he has written blogs to tell people "the truth" about me (using my full real name and emailing people I know to get them to look at it). He would contact me through email and on any site he found me until I would block him. He would be angry one day, sad the next. Sometimes, he would be apologetic. Sometimes, he would just drop me a casual note telling me what was going on in his life, like I was any friend he was still on speaking terms with. He did all of this while getting no replies from me, as if he was having a long argument inside his head.
In fact, he refused to acknowledge that we were even broken up. He would word emails as if we were still together and just having a spat. He even once asked if I had been with anyone else, because he "wouldn’t put it past me". Then, he went on to reassure me that he wasn’t cheating.
About 2 years into this, I thought that maybe I should reply to him once so he would know exactly where I stood, since I did, after all, leave him without a word. So, I sent him a detailed email explaining exactly why I left and telling him in no uncertain terms that I wanted him to leave me alone.
At first, he replies telling me that he’s sorry and he understands. The next day, he tells me that he’s realized our problem is we’re trying to work things out long-distance and I should let him move in with me for a few months. The next day, though he hasn’t heard from me, he starts to make a list of demands of what I have to do if I want to get back together or to just forget it. The next day, he writes to tell me what a cruel bitch I am. He says nothing could have hurt him more than when I wrote, "I want nothing more to do with you." (It wasn’t supposed to make him feel warm and fuzzy. Just stating facts.) After one attempt at explanation, I wasn’t going to write to him, again. I just kept ignoring him and it went back to the same cycle. I'm not hearing from him at the moment, but he's kind of like an infection where you think it's gone and then, it suddenly flares up again.
He is the one I mentioned in my intro post who found my last attempt to keep an anonymous blog. (So, I chose a more difficult screenname and even though I'm making most of this blog public, I will make any posts where I mention him friends-only to make it harder for him to find me this time.)
In his mind all this has been completely justified, because if I left I was breaking a promise to him. Turns out he took all my warm, fuzzy declarations of love to mean that I was promising to stay with him no matter what he did. I'd have to be out of my mind to make a promise like that. Why would I ever stay with someone if he did something bad enough for me to leave? And, why would he even need that promise? Only if he knew no one would stay with him of their own free will. (His mom encouraged him in this thinking, though last I knew, she was on her third husband.)
But, when you marry someone, technically you are supposed to be making that promise. It's a major issue I have with wedding vows that I hadn't really thought about until that situation. Sure. Everyone knows it tends to be a fake promise, that you're just as likely to end up divorced, but I'm not a fan of saying things I don't mean. I'm not interested in being a martyr for an institution. Though I will say that I think it's a good thing to not jump ship at the first sign of trouble, to make an attempt to work things out, but there are obviously some situations where you will never be happy. It's another thing I have to think about in deciding if marriage will ever be right for me (at least, not without some rewording of the vows).