When the Good Days Made Me Doubt the Bad Ones

After he'd dragged me down eleven stairs, I still went away with him.

I know.

There are sentences in my own story that even I read back and think:

What the actual fuck?

But we went to Glencoe.

And do you know what makes everything that followed even more difficult to explain?

We had a brilliant time.

Glencoe

It was amazing.

I showed him the views.

He loved it.

We laughed.

We talked.

We had fun.

For those few days, the man who'd thrown me onto a bed and dragged me down a flight of stairs seemed to disappear.

The lovely one was back.

The funny one.

The affectionate one.

The man who'd kissed me beside my car and made my legs turn to jelly.

The man who'd sent me that beautiful message in Costa.

And every hour that was good made it easier for me to convince myself that the violence had been some horrible one-off.

A glitch.

An explosion.

Something caused by insecurity that would never happen again.

Because that's the confusing part.

If somebody treats you horribly every second of every day, eventually there's nothing left to hold onto.

But when somebody can terrify you one day and make you laugh until your stomach hurts the next?

Your brain starts trying to reconcile two completely different people.

And I kept choosing to believe the nice one was the real one.

After Glencoe, we went back to my flat.

We did a food shop.

Went to the gym.

Normal things.

Again.

And every normal thing seemed to push what had happened on those stairs a little further into the background.

Until he went for a bath.

The Deleted Messages Folder

When he came back out, he picked up my phone.

Again.

By this point, my phone was apparently no longer actually mine.

He started going through it.

And he found something I didn't even know existed.

The deleted-messages folder on an iPhone.

And there it was.

The message I'd deleted after he'd dragged me down the stairs.

Do not contact me again.

Remember what that message actually was.

He had taken my phone.

He had messaged a guy who worked with me pretending to be me.

That guy had no idea what was happening.

While my partner was in the shower, the guy had replied.

And I'd responded telling him not to contact me again.

Not because I'd been secretly talking to him.

Not because I'd cheated.

Not because there was anything going on.

I did it because the man I was with had just assaulted me over a message from weeks earlier, and I wanted to make absolutely fucking sure there could never be another message for him to find.

I'd cut off somebody who'd done nothing wrong to try to prevent another argument.

And somehow?

That became evidence against me.

In his head, the fact I'd sent:

Do not contact me again

apparently proved there must have been something going on.

And everything exploded.

Again. 

The Bed

He lifted the bottom of the bed.

And I went flying onto the floor.

The bed came down over me.

I hurt my elbow.

Hit my head.

Then he stood over me.

Screaming.

Right in my face.

I was terrified.

Three weeks.

We were roughly three fucking weeks in.

I'd already been dragged down eleven stairs.

Now I was on the floor with a bed coming down over me while he screamed accusations at me.

And still the argument was somehow about whether I could be trusted.

Then he threatened to kill himself.

And suddenly?

Instead of being the person who had just been hurt...

I became the person trying to manage him.

Again.

That's a pattern I wouldn't properly understand until much later.

He'd frighten me.

Hurt me.

Accuse me.

Then something would happen that made me start worrying about him.

And suddenly my fear got pushed aside.

The Rules Were Appearing

I didn't sit down one day and agree to a list of rules.

Nobody handed me a contract saying:

Congratulations on your new relationship. Here are all the things you're no longer allowed to do.

It happened gradually.

One thing at a time.

Snapchat disappeared.

Instagram disappeared.

Facebook disappeared.

My phone became something he could inspect.

My passcode became something he was entitled to know.

A random old message became an interrogation.

Somebody contacting me became my responsibility.

His jealousy became something I had to fix.

And even a message saying:

Do not contact me again

could be twisted into proof that I was cheating.

The truth stopped mattering.

His suspicion became the truth.

And then it became my job to disprove it.

Over.

And over.

And over again.

By three weeks in, I'd deleted social media, my youngest daughter had already gone back to her dad's because this man was taking so much of my attention, he'd taken my phone, pretended to be me, thrown me onto a bed, dragged me down eleven stairs, thrown my belongings outside, lifted a bed and sent me crashing onto the floor, screamed over me and threatened to kill himself.  

And yet?

I still didn't think:

I'm being controlled.

I thought:

He's damaged.

He's scared.

He's been cheated on before.

He needs reassurance.

I thought if I could just prove enough, eventually he'd trust me.

I didn't understand that there would never be enough proof.

Meanwhile, Something Else Was Changing

While I was becoming more and more consumed by this new relationship, my friendship with the football mum started changing too.

Remember her?

The person I'd been speaking to constantly.

The person who'd encouraged me to leave my husband.

The person who'd told me I deserved better.

Who'd encouraged me to get my own place.

Who'd encouraged me to go and meet this new man.

Who'd told me to go have some fun.

Suddenly?

We weren't talking the way we had before.

I was disappearing into this relationship.

And she was disappearing too.

Then came a conversation that stuck with me.

She needed me.

And I'd hardly been there.

Which, to be fair, was true.

My life was becoming consumed by this man.

Constant FaceTimes.

Constant messages.

Constant reassurance.

Constant fucking drama.

But apparently somebody else had been there for her.

Somebody had been checking in.

Talking to her.

Being supportive.

My husband.

My husband.

The man she'd spent months telling me was an arsehole.

The man she'd called controlling.

Poisonous.

The man she'd told me would never change.

The man she'd encouraged me to leave.

Apparently he had been there for her.

And at that stage?

I still didn't know what to make of it.

Because I didn't have all the pieces yet.

I didn't know what conversations were happening when I wasn't there.

I didn't know what she was saying to him.

I didn't know what he was saying to her.

And I certainly didn't yet know the things I'd find out much later — that while I believed she was supporting me, she was apparently also telling him things about me, encouraging him to get rid of my belongings and encouraging him not to speak to me.

I didn't know that then.

That's important.

At that point, I simply knew my friend seemed to be getting closer to my husband.

And I was becoming increasingly trapped by another man.

And the Timing Was Fucking Incredible

Think about where my life was.

My marriage hadn't ended with some neat, clean break.

When I first left, my husband and I had still spoken.

We'd discussed whether our problems could be solved.

We'd even talked about still going on the family holiday.

There had been at least some possibility that we might either repair things or end our marriage without completely destroying each other.

Meanwhile, the friend I'd trusted had been telling me:

Leave.

Detach.

Stop arguing.

Stop defending yourself.

Go on a date.

Have fun.

Meet the Snapchat guy.

And while I was doing exactly that?

She was becoming closer to the husband she'd spent months telling me to get away from.

I didn't know yet whether that meant anything.

But it felt strange.

And then there was still the holiday.

The Holiday Was Still Coming

The same holiday I'd originally invited her onto because she was my friend.

The holiday she'd booked with her children.

The holiday that had originally been my family holiday.

By then, after everything that had happened with my oldest daughter, I'd taken myself off it because she'd said she wouldn't go if I went.

My friend's booking apparently couldn't be changed.

So she was still going.

With her children.

My husband.

My children.

Without me.

And while all of that was happening?

I was being swallowed by this new relationship.

From the outside, I can imagine how it might have looked.

I'd left my husband.

I'd met another man.

I was disappearing.

My kids were angry.

My friend was around my family.

Maybe people thought:

She's made her choice.

But they couldn't see what was happening behind the closed door of my flat.

They didn't see my phone being checked.

They didn't see the accusations.

They didn't see me trying desperately to prove where I'd been.

They didn't see how quickly I'd learned that keeping him calm was easier than standing my ground.

And things were about to get much worse.

Because the man who'd already dragged me down eleven stairs wasn't going to suddenly become less controlling.

The rules were going to multiply.

The accusations were going to become constant.

My phone would become something I had to account for.

My whereabouts would become something I had to prove.

Eventually I would be taking photographs and videos simply to prove I was where I said I was.

And the violence?

That was only beginning.

I had thought being dragged down eleven stairs was rock bottom.

I hadn't even reached the basement yet.

Next: Prove Where You Are