NO! WOMEN DO NOT LIKE MEN WHO ARE MEAN TO US!
Women actually don't like men who are mean to us. This may surprise anyone who has ever heard a man say that the reason he is mean to his girlfriend is because she likes it. The first hint that this statement is inaccurate should be that the ONLY people I've ever heard make that comment are MEN, not women. However, the fact that something like that statement has been swirling around our collective conscious for all of my life, should be an indication of how silenced women's voices have been under the Patriarchy.
Given that there have been a couple of very public incidents of domestic violence in the mainstream media lately (one involving an NFL player and another involving an MMA fighter), I felt that it was time to tell my own story of finding myself in a relationship with a man who turned out to be quite controlling, unpredictable, and abusive. I hope that it helps other women heal from this, and also to let other women know the warning signs that show up with men like that. A lot of times we're taught that the behavior they exhibit which tends to be very aggressive towards the woman they are pursuing is actually romantic or a sign that he must really like you, as opposed to it being a sign that he could potentially be a very dangerous individual.
When I was a junior in college, I met someone who I initially did not like at all. I felt that there was just something about this guy that didn't resonate with me. He was really different from any guy I had ever dated and wasn't my type. By that I mean, I usually date guys who are kinda shy, and he was very arrogant and aggressive. He was the type that would put on a big show at a party, yes that guy. However, he managed to slip his way into my life in such a subtle way that at some point we started dating. Even looking back on it now, I'm not entirely sure how it happened, other than him being such a good con artist he managed to turn himself into my ideal man. In the sense that he was very smart, very attractive, and seemed charismatic. I thought he was interesting, and he seemed like the most perfect man on paper, but in real life there was something about him that despite those seemingly great qualities wasn't genuine.
Our first date wasn't even necessarily consensual. Rather I came home one day to find him sitting in our neighbors (we lived in the apartments on campus) family room waiting for me. He then said something about us going on a date, and even though I kept saying we would do that some other time, it became really clear he wasn't going to take no for an answer. So I eventually agreed to just go on a date with him at that moment, which ended up being us just walking around campus talking. It was definitely the worst date ever, and I had been bullied into it through being just completely caught off guard by the entire situation. From that point onward, it seemed like he was suddenly just always around me. Hanging out everywhere I was, around my friends, and at the time I didn't really think too much of it, but looking back on it now I can see how on his part it was all very calculated. Because he was just suddenly always around me, we just sort of started dating. I never got butterflies around him or felt particularly excited about him, but due to where I was at emotionally in my life (which wasn't in a good place), I was probably a really easy target, and men like that can sense that from a mile a way.
With that being said, everything in our relationship seemed perfect. It seemed so perfect that I remember thinking very early on that something was wrong, because it didn't feel like it should be so perfect. And also wondering if this is my ideal relationship why am I so unhappy? I guess I should add that he was a perfect gentleman for a long time, and it was so perfect it didn't feel real, and that's probably because it wasn't. The thing with abusive relationships is its not like you go out on your first date and when he's walking you back to your car, he brutally beats you. If that were the case then you would obviously call the police and he would go to prison. Instead, the abuser waits until after you are already emotionally connected to him. In my case he didn't say anything bad about me until almost 2 months into the relationship and when he did make his first degrading comment towards me, I remember brushing it off, because I thought well I'm sure that's not what he meant. Since he had never said anything like that to me before. From there, he started emotionally, mentally, and psychologically abusing me, but it was very subtle, just a comment here and there, almost so little that I was always able to give a great explanation of why he said that. It continued on like this, until it was eventually him being abusive towards me all the time. And by the time it had gotten that bad, I was so far into it I didn't even realize how bad it was, nor did I have any idea how to get out of it.
One thing abusive men like to do, is to mix insults with compliments. So he might be super nice to you and go way out of his way to do something that appears sincere and loving, and then come home and berate you. The things that appear sincere and loving are in fact not, it's just a game that they play to further manipulate you. If things were bad all the time you would probably leave, but if there's some perceived "good" mixed in then you can justify staying. Because after all he's normally such a nice guy, right? He also was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. When we were around our friends he would be a really nice guy, and then the second that we were alone it was like a switch was turned on and he would just become a monster. Because of that a lot of my friends had no idea what was going on, since they had never seen that side of him. With that being said, he did show his true colors to some fellow students that he was working on a project with, and they did not like him at all. I found this out through one of my friends who knew them, and he said that when one of the guys saw that I was with him, he made a comment about how it upset him, because I seemed like such a nice person, and my ex whom they had actually seen the side of him that he kept hidden from our friends wasn't.
With me he started to slowly separate me from my friends, as well as started regulating everything in my life. When I would protest it would cause such a massive argument that I finally just started doing what he said to avoid that. He definitely did not like the idea of me having any male friends, and would get angry at me when I would talk to them (big red flag, this is super common for abusive men!) There were definitely elements of sexual abuse in our relationship, most of which I didn't recognize until I started healing from our relationship a number of years later. One thing he would do is if I wore shorts or a skirt (keep in mind this was in san diego and we both lived by the beach) he would just go on and on about how I looked like a slut, and he couldn't believe I was wearing that. He would do this anytime I would try to leave the house dressed in anything other than jeans and would just go on and on berating me until I would eventually change my clothes. It got so bad that he started doing it even while I was in the house. Eventually, I was no longer allowed to wear shorts around my apartment, I guess in case a male person stopped by.
Why didn't I just leave? Well I did eventually, or I tried to. When I did leave him, he started stalking, harassing, and threatening me, and made me feel very strongly that my safety was in jeopardy. Abusive men, don't let women leave, which is why the woman usually ends up dead. They see you as their property and you have no right to walk away from them. I guess I also want to emphasis how gradual everything was. It didn't turn bad overnight, it happened very slowly, which is also a technique abusive men use. With them everything is very calculated, so the abuse escalates the longer you are with them, but it's so gradual that if you are in it you might not notice it. In a lot of cases men won't become abusive until after you marry them, because then they know you are basically stuck with them.
After I left him, he started stalking, harassing, and threatening me, which consisted of him sending me endless amounts of texts messages all day, as well as phone calls, him showing up at places where he knew I was, and other extreme behavior. Despite the fact I was in a new relationship, after months of him doing this, I eventually agreed to see him, in hopes that I could get him to stop. I hung out with him a few times one in which he took me to the beach, got down on one knee, and gave me a diamond ring, which I didn't accept. During that time, the guy I was seeing moved back home (he was from out of country) and I was so devastated and so tired from my ex still stalking me, I finally just got back together with him. I guess I felt like I didn't really have a choice, because I couldn't get rid of him. We were only together really briefly, before I left again. But during that time he gave me a diamond necklace, which I found out he had turned the ring in for. Thinking about that now, is still super creepy, it's like he knew he would force me to be with him. After I left the second time, I saw him once at a local bar, and the second he spotted me with a lot of my guy friends, he came up to me, got like an inch away from my face, accused me of cheating on him, all while berating me. He was so aggressive and angry towards me, I'm really surprised he didn't hit me that night. That was one thing he would do all the time after we broke up, is accuse me of cheating on him. (He also accused me of cheating throughout our entire relationship). It doesn't make any sense to a rational person, but they see you as their property so I guess in their mind it makes sense.
With that being said, I feel pretty certain that he was cheating on me throughout our entire relationship with women I knew. I also think he was cheating on me with prostitutes, because he would use certain language that I would later learn came from that world. I also remember that everytime we would walk down the stairs at his place, I would make sure he would go first, because I didn't trust him and I felt like at some point he would just push me down the stairs. There was also a time when I ran into him at a club, and the second he spotted me, he became so aggressive physically trying to grab me that a bouncer had to intervene and pull him off of me. This is just a little bit of all the stuff that happened while I was with him, some of it I don't feel comfortable sharing, and the rest would take a lot more space then just this blog.
I hope that by me telling my story, it helps another woman who might be seeing these signs with a man she's dating, and know that these are huge red flags, and to get help before you get in to deep. I think one of the biggest problems in our culture as women, is that we as women tend to be abused so much and so often that we don't tend to recognize abuse unless it's extreme. In a lot of rape cases the woman or girl isn't even aware she was raped, because our culture has ingrained in her so much that her body isn't her own, and men are allowed to do whatever they want with her, or that it's okay for them to bully, pressure, or coerce her into having sex with them (which is also rape). In cases of domestic violence, we are so used to being degraded by men in our intimate relationships, that we tend to figure if he isn't hitting us he's a pretty nice guy. However, most domestic violence in this country isn't physical or even sexual, it's emotional, mental, and psychological. A lot falls into the category of gaslighting, or him cutting you down here and there, not respecting your opinions, making you feel stupid and less than. Or him telling you that he loves you, all the while he allows you to live in a country in which you as a woman have little to no rights, and he doesn't do anything to change that! His silence says he agrees with it, and that is abuse!
***I wanted to add that after I broke up with him I was working with a Lawyer at the Women's Resource Center on my college campus. I felt very supported by all of them, and she was definitely doing everything in her power to help me. However, the problem was that the laws aren't in place to take violence against women seriously, or the laws that are in place aren't being enforced. Its great to have anti-stalking laws, but if there aren't going to be serious repercussions for the abuser, and a lot of love and support for the victim then the laws are really quite useless. With that being said I strongly encourage any woman to seek out help and support, to know your rights, and to find someone who can help you heal from all of this. Even if you are currently in an abusive relationship you can still start the healing process, which should give you more strength and make it easier to eventually leave.
