abuse

i’ve spent the better part of the past four years embroiled in a long distance and incredibly abusive relationship.

it started with a phone call that lasted all night and ended with four police officers in my bedroom at 3am. he was charged with 7 crimes the next day, in jail for a week, and then fled the country.

this blog post is not intended to spell out all the gory details (of which there are many), but instead explain how these things happen, and why.

like most girls, being with someone who is emotionally, verbally, and physically abusive was not on my bucket list.

but 9 months of lockdown, intense social isolation, and loneliness will cause a person to start getting involved in many things they wouldn’t have otherwise. some people started baking bread, others playing an instrument. i started taking daily calls from a very damaged and deranged alcoholic.

there is a popular book citing 5 kinds of “male monsters” that an innocent, well intentioned young woman may be attracted to—vampires, werewolves, billionaires, pirates, and surgeons. these dominant archetypes being the necessary first ingredient to fulfilling a “beauty and the beast” type fantasy, wherein the heroine falls for and subsequently civilizes/saves a man from his brutish nature. however, the authors were studying erotica, not actual relationships.

in the real world, i think the list would be something closer to men that are addicts, criminals, homeless, mentally ill, destitute, or orphans. the man i started speaking to managed to be all of the above. compelling, huh? not exactly checking the boxes on my “dream husband” wish list.

and yet here i was, taking daily (and nightly) calls from someone where there was a 50/50 chance of him being cruel or kind that evening.

talking about this stuff can be embarrassing, there seems to be more stigma against women who tolerate abusive relationships than the men who perpetuate them. the natural assumption is that women who get involved with men like this must have incredibly low self-esteem. but i know this isn’t true of myself. among an abundance of naïveté, compassion, faith, and forgiveness, my greatest fault is having too high an esteem of others.

this man wasn’t always like this. he had been successful and promising at one point. he had an extremely tragic childhood, which made overlooking his shortcomings easier. it’s very easy to excuse inexcusable behaviour when you can recognize what’s causing it. he was intelligent and charismatic—he always knew the right thing to say to win me back. and when you’re lonely with no way of meeting people normally, you accept the love that is offered to you.

there is also something very compelling about meeting someone who you rationally know is no good for you, who shows you nothing but red flags, and yet still manages to make your heart swell. this is a strange feeling that i doubt many people can relate to, but God is it powerful. spiritual connection and mutual understanding is a hell of a drug. the more irrational the attraction is the more meaningful it becomes—surely all this pain must be leading to something worthwhile!

it did not. it got to the point where i would joke with my friends that he couldn’t possibly do anything to hurt me further because he had already exhausted all of his options. lying? cheating? stealing? the sunk costs kept climbing and i was acting like an addict at a slot machine.

there have been studies on animals investigating intermittent reinforcement. if pushing a lever randomly gives a rat a treat, the rodent will start hitting that thing incessantly to the point that they stop caring for themselves. and love is no different. when someone oscillates between such degrees of compassion and cruelty, you keep coming back because you want more of what was good to make up for all that was bad.

there was also something almost rewarding about discovering my ability to take on abuse and continue to bounce back, unblemished. i discovered a seemingly unending well of love and compassion in my heart that continued to grow deeper the nastier he became. this capacity intrigued me. later i learned about the Buddhist practice of Tonglen—the process of taking in the suffering of others and transforming it into loving energy. without knowing it, this is exactly what i had been doing for years.

despite countless betrayals and nights of heartbreaking cruelty, i failed to “learn my lesson” and step back from the situation—i kept being misled into believing that he had learned his. i had invested so much into the relationship and trusted his promises that genuine reform was on its way. i believe in redemption. i believe that no soul is beyond hope or salvation, that it is within the power of every person to repent—to change their mind—and choose to become something better. in spite of everything, that conviction of mine remains enduring and unshakeable. but i didn’t get the happy ending i had hoped for.

instead, i learned a much more tragic truth; that turning the other cheek not only leaves you black and blue, but it can actively damage those you seek to forgive. we romanticize the ideal that loving someone, that showing them compassion and care and grace and forgiveness will inspire the same virtues in their own heart. but often this is not the case. sometimes your love will actively make a person worse. they will grow entitled, petulant, obsessive, controlling, bitter, resentful, angry… because they fear losing you. because some part of them knows that they are undeserving of your care. and you will bear the brunt of their hatred as a direct consequence of your kindness. if they cannot see the goodness in themselves then they will grow to despise you for believing in their capacity to actualize it. the burden of redemption is too great, and the cost of failure too high, so instead they will find ways to escape the relationship by destroying it and then blame you for all the pain that follows. you can’t even fault them for this. love may inspire a person to change, but loving them with the expectation that they will change invariably does more harm than good.

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