The Snapchat Add
By the time he added me on Snapchat, I wasn't exactly in the strongest place I'd ever been.
My marriage had collapsed.
I'd left the marital home.
I was trying to build a life in temporary accommodation.
My relationship with my oldest daughter had fallen apart.
Things with my sister were strained.
My family felt increasingly distant.
And the friend I'd come to trust was constantly telling me the same things.
My husband was poisonous.
He'd never change.
I'd been unhappy for years.
I deserved better.
I needed to stop thinking about everybody else.
I needed to start living.
I needed to have some fun.
And fuck me...
I wanted to.
Not because I was looking for another husband.
Jesus Christ, no.
I wasn't searching for some enormous love story.
I wanted to feel alive again.
I'd spent so much of my adult life being somebody's mum.
Somebody's partner.
Somebody's wife.
I'd spent years looking after everybody else's feelings.
Years forgiving people.
Years grieving.
Years feeling lonely while technically not being alone.
So when a man added me on Snapchat and seemed interested in me?
I replied.
Messages Became Video Calls
At first, there was absolutely nothing dramatic about it.
Messages.
Chatting.
Then video calls.
Then longer video calls.
And we got on really well.
He was attentive.
Interested.
He wanted to know what I was doing.
How my day had been.
He wanted to talk to me.
Constantly.
And after years of wanting somebody to notice me?
That felt fucking amazing.
I didn't look at constant contact and think:
Monitoring.
I didn't think:
Control.
I thought:
He really likes me.
And that's an important distinction.
Because things that would later terrify me initially felt like attention.
After years of feeling ignored, somebody wanting access to me all the time didn't immediately feel dangerous.
It felt like being wanted.
Eventually, he invited me down to see him.
He lived about four and a half hours away.
And my friend encouraged me.
Go.
Have fun.
Why not?
What was the worst that could happen?
Turns out that's a fucking dangerous question to ask in my life.
So I decided:
Fuck it. I'm going.
Four and a Half Hours
I'd been working.
I slept after my shift.
Then I got into the car and drove four and a half hours to meet a man I'd never actually met in person.
By the time I arrived, it was after one in the morning.
I phoned him.
“I'm outside.”
Then I waited.
He came out.
I got out of the car and stood beside it.
And I can still remember watching him walking towards me.
My first thought?
Wow.
Then he kissed me.
And Jesus Christ.
If my car hadn't been behind me, I genuinely think I'd have fallen over.
My legs practically went.
I melted.
And maybe that sounds ridiculous.
But I hadn't felt like that in years.
I'd spent so long craving affection.
Craving somebody choosing to kiss me because they actually wanted to kiss me.
Not because:
Well, you're my wife, so I suppose this is what we're meant to do.
This felt different.
Passionate.
Exciting.
Wanted.
And I remember thinking:
This.
This is what I've been missing.
I Was Excited About Shopping
We put my things in his room.
Went to get food.
Talked.
Laughed.
The next day, we went shopping.
And weirdly?
That felt special too.
Shopping.
Something completely fucking ordinary.
Walking around shops with somebody.
Getting food together.
Talking while we wandered about.
Normal couple things.
I'd spent so much of my marriage doing those things alone that suddenly having a man beside me made something as boring as shopping feel exciting.
I wasn't demanding yachts.
Diamonds.
Romantic weekends in Paris.
Apparently my emotional requirements had become:
Please come to fucking Tesco with me.
And somebody finally was.
For those few days, I got to forget about the chaos back home.
There were no labels.
No big declarations.
Nothing official.
It was supposed to be fun.
Then came Costa.
The Message in Costa
I had to drive home because I was working.
Before I left, we went to Costa.
He went to the toilet.
While he was gone, my phone went.
A message.
From him.
And it was beautiful.
It was about me.
Not what I did for him.
Not what I could give him.
Me.
Who I was.
How I made him feel.
The sort of words I'd wanted to hear for years.
I remember reading it and thinking:
Where the hell has this man been?
It felt like somebody actually saw me.
And almost immediately afterwards?
I saw the other side of him.
One Snapchat
We went back to collect my things.
We were sitting in my car.
A Snap came through.
I opened it.
And suddenly?
The lovely man disappeared.
He went fucking mental.
He took my phone.
Wanted my passcode.
And I gave it to him.
Again, look at what my instinct was.
Not:
Give me my fucking phone back.
My instinct was:
If I show him I've got nothing to hide, he'll calm down.
I was already trying to prove my innocence when I hadn't done anything wrong.
But he didn't calm down.
He got angrier.
And angrier.
Eventually, I told him to get out of my car.
He did.
He told me to leave.
Never speak to him again.
So I left.
Then he started messaging me.
Calling me a liar.
Accusing me of all sorts.
And I started trying to explain myself.
Trying to make him understand he'd got it wrong.
I even asked if I could come back so we could sit down and talk.
He said no.
So I drove home.
Four hours.
Upset.
Confused.
Thinking:
What the fuck just happened?
That should have been it.
One visit.
One enormous red flag.
Block him.
Delete him.
Story finished.
Except the following day?
He phoned.
We talked.
We made up.
And soon?
I went down again.
Constant Contact
Things were good again.
Really good.
We laughed.
Went for food.
Spent time together.
Then I came home because I had work.
Nightshifts.
Messages.
FaceTimes.
More FaceTimes.
Constant contact.
And again?
I didn't see anything sinister in it.
I thought it was nice.
I'd spent years wanting a man to actually want to speak to me.
Now one did.
So when he wanted to FaceTime all the time?
Part of me fucking loved it.
Until it started interfering with something much more important.
My Youngest Daughter Came to Stay
I had my youngest daughter for the day.
And overnight.
And I told him clearly:
I want time with her.
I'd speak to him later.
Simple enough.
My daughter was coming to spend time with her mum.
She deserved my attention.
Except somehow?
I still ended up on FaceTime with him for most of the day.
Trying to keep him reassured.
Trying to avoid an argument.
Trying to keep everybody happy.
And eventually?
My daughter went back to her dad's.
Because from her point of view, she'd come to spend time with me...
and I was spending my time on the phone to somebody else.
That hurts to admit.
Because I know what was happening inside my head.
I thought I was juggling things.
Spend time with her.
Keep him calm.
Reassure him.
Avoid an argument.
But my daughter couldn't see all of that.
She just saw:
Mum isn't giving me her time.
So she left.
And we were only weeks in.
Weeks.
Already this man was taking time away from somebody I loved.
I still didn't recognise it as control.
I thought he needed reassurance.
That distinction would cost me dearly later.
Meanwhile, My Husband Had His Own Story
Then I started hearing something else.
My husband was apparently telling people I'd been cheating on him for two years.
Apparently, he'd kicked me out because I'd been having an affair.
Except that wasn't what had happened.
And it wasn't just one person saying they'd heard it.
Several people told me the same thing.
I was furious.
I understand he was hurt.
Our marriage had collapsed.
But being hurt doesn't make a lie true.
And partly because I was angry, I had a bit of:
Fuck it. Everybody apparently thinks I've done something anyway.
So I went back down to Snapchat Guy.
Again.
We had fun.
Again.
We got on really well.
Nothing was official.
He was really into training and the gym.
He started teaching me things.
So jokingly, more than anything else?
I started calling him:
My personal trainer.
My PT.
My Husband Finally Admitted He'd Lied
My daughter came to stay with me.
One night I ended up on the phone to my husband.
And we had a massive argument.
I confronted him about what people had been telling me.
The supposed two-year affair.
Him apparently kicking me out because I'd cheated.
Eventually?
He admitted he'd lied.
He said he'd said it because he was hurt.
And I told him:
Fix it.
If he'd gone around telling people something about me that wasn't true, then he could go back and tell them it wasn't true.
Simple.
Around the same time?
I got hurt at work.
So I decided I'd go back down to see my so-called PT for a few days.
Then we were going to Glencoe.
And by that point, we'd only been doing this for about three weeks.
Three weeks.
Remember that number.
Because it matters.
Three Weeks
In around three weeks, I'd already started changing things about myself to keep him happy.
Snapchat?
Deleted.
Instagram?
Deleted.
Facebook?
Deleted.
Why?
To reassure him.
Because I thought:
If I've got nothing to hide, why should I care?
If deleting them makes him feel safer, what's the harm?
Looking back?
Plenty.
I was already changing my life to manage somebody else's jealousy.
And then came the morning where jealousy became something else entirely.
The Old Message
I was asleep in his room.
I woke up to him going off on one.
Accusing me of cheating.
Demanding to know who somebody was.
I'd literally just woken up.
I had no idea what the fuck he was talking about.
Eventually, he showed me.
An old message.
From a guy in work.
He'd messaged me weeks earlier to tell me "new number".
That was it.
I hadn't replied.
His number wasn't even saved.
Surely that would be enough?
No.
Instead?
My partner started messaging him.
Pretending to be me.
He had my phone.
He was sending messages as though they were coming from me.
I stood up.
Tried to talk to him.
Tried to explain.
And then everything changed.
The First Time He Became Violent
He flung me onto the bed.
My head hit the wall.
This wasn't somebody being a wee bit jealous anymore.
This wasn't insecurity.
This was violence.
He started packing my belongings.
Throwing them outside.
I tried to stop him.
Asked him to sit down.
Talk.
He told me to sit at the top of the stairs.
So I did.
We argued.
Then he grabbed me by the ankle.
And pulled.
I went down eleven stairs.
I tried desperately to grab the wall.
My arm got hurt.
My back hit the steps.
My head hit them.
Every step on the way down.
Then, after all that?
He told me to come back into the room so we could talk.
I sat at the bottom of the bed.
Crying.
And somehow?
It became my fault.
My messages.
My behaviour.
My supposed cheating.
The argument.
Everything.
Then?
He went for a shower.
Just like that.
As though dragging somebody down eleven stairs was an argument you could put on pause while you washed your fucking hair.
“Do Not Contact Me Again”
While he was in the shower, the guy he'd been messaging from my phone replied.
Remember:
This person had absolutely no idea what was happening.
He apparently replied with something along the lines of:
“Who do you think it is?”
And what did I do?
Did I tell him:
There's a man here who's just assaulted me and has been pretending to be me?
No.
I replied telling him:
Do not contact me again.
Then I deleted the message.
Think about that.
I'd done nothing wrong.
That guy had done nothing wrong.
The original message was weeks old.
But I was now cutting somebody off because I was trying to prevent another explosion.
Trying to remove the evidence of something that wasn't even evidence.
Trying to prove to a man who'd just dragged me down eleven stairs that I wasn't cheating.
And I still didn't fully understand what was happening to me.
Then Normal Him Came Back
He came back from the shower.
And suddenly?
The angry version disappeared.
Normal him was back.
Like somebody had flicked a switch.
We started packing.
Because we were still supposed to be going to my flat.
Then Glencoe.
And yes.
I still went.
I know exactly how that reads.
He'd just flung me onto a bed.
My head had hit the wall.
He'd thrown my belongings outside.
He'd dragged me down eleven stairs by my ankle.
And I went away with him.
Why?
Because the man standing in front of me wasn't screaming anymore.
He was back to being the man who'd kissed me beside my car.
The man who'd made my legs give way.
The man who'd sent me that beautiful message in Costa.
The man who stayed awake talking to me while I worked nights.
So I started making excuses.
He was insecure.
He'd been cheated on.
He'd had a terrible past.
He panicked.
It was an incident.
It wouldn't happen again.
I can see those excuses now.
At the time?
They felt like explanations.
And there is another reason I stayed.
I desperately wanted this not to be another disaster.
My marriage had collapsed.
My oldest daughter was angry with me.
Things with my family were strained.
I was lonely.
And I'd desperately wanted to believe I'd finally found somebody who wanted me.
So when the horrible version disappeared and the lovely one came back?
I chose to believe in the lovely one.
Three Fucking Weeks
Looking back, the speed of it is frightening.
We were around three weeks in.
Three.
Fucking.
Weeks.
And already:
I'd deleted my social media.
My youngest daughter had gone back to her dad because this man was demanding so much of my attention.
He'd taken my phone.
Demanded the passcode.
Messaged somebody pretending to be me.
I'd sent “do not contact me again” to somebody who'd done nothing wrong just to try to keep the peace.
He'd flung me onto a bed.
Dragged me down eleven stairs.
Thrown my belongings outside.
And somehow?
I still thought I was dealing with a damaged man who needed reassurance.
I didn't understand what was actually happening.
I thought I was proving my loyalty.
I was being trained to prove it.
And once proving my innocence became part of everyday life?
The door was open for everything that came next.
Because the stairs weren't the worst of it.
Not remotely.
And while I was becoming more and more focused on keeping this new man calm...
something else was happening.
The friend who'd encouraged me to drive four and a half hours to meet him was beginning to disappear from my life.
Then one day she messaged me asking where I'd been.
Apparently, she'd needed me.
And according to her?
There was somebody who'd been checking in on her more than I had.
My husband.
The same husband she'd spent months telling me was controlling.
Poisonous.
An arsehole.
The man she'd encouraged me to leave.
And while I was being pulled deeper into a relationship that was already becoming violent...
she was getting closer to him.
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