But What Did I Ever Do Wrong to Deserve That?

So honestly, I have come to that point in my life where I wonder if there are any decent men out there who are kind, respectful, empathetic and capable of reciprocating love and consistency in relationships without absolutely ruining the women they are with.

I know what you're thinking, another bitter woman. But really, at this point, it's really not bitterness. It's genuine concern and sadness for women of DV despite my own experiences, because other then my own experiences, the number of women I know that have suffered at the hands of abusive and toxic men really makes me scared for the future for women; and even children who grow up in it only to end up with the same kind of men if they are little girls, and turn out like their abusive daddies if they are boys (as much as their poor mothers try to prevent it, god love those ladies). Not even because no one has tried to prevent such a thing, but just because they have observed it and without realising, have now unknowingly continued the toxic cycle in adulthood.

The only real way I feel I can reach out and be of any help is to talk about my own story, which for so long I kept to myself, and even when I did open up to men I thought loved me about it all, they would obviously not care all that deeply or try to understand because they would just put me through the same abuse again. All because I made the mistake of thinking I could trust them and be safe to be vulnerable and process trauma without judgement with them.

Honestly, I don't know where it all began. I grew up in abuse but always vowed I would never go for men like that or end up like my mother, who laid in bed riddled with depression and stress most days but still soldiered on for us kids when she could master the strength. I was young and never fully understood why she never left and why it was so hard, but since reaching adulthood, I get it and all I can think is: my poor beautiful mother, who was such a beautiful soul and a warrior at the same time and was never seen for her worth and strength or the amazing woman she truly was. She deserved better, much better than what happened to her. And I cry for her still, even now, after she's passed away (with her late partner at the time selfishly taking pretty much all her hard-earned money and assets for himself and acting like he loved her when he would verbally abuse her when she was alive and beat the shit out of her).

And now that I'm turning thirty next month, when I look back on my twenties, all I really have to remember is heartache, abuse and men who didn't appreciate me and took me for granted. Then, when I got what courage I had left after suicide attempts to drag myself out, they would still continue to try and abuse me and then have the audacity to make me out to be insane because they were incapable of facing their shit and stopping it because it made them feel too bad about themselves. Which one would think would be a pretty big red flag that you haven't been right and need to own up to it and fix it before you hurt another poor woman who is just trying to love you.

For me, I don't know when it started exactly, but I do know which particular men that I had dated it became obvious with, even if not at the time.

The first, we'll call Mickey. An obnoxious man who would lie about his height but turned out to be shorter then me at my 5' 3'' height and had little man syndrome to the point of getting angry at me for wearing heels because it just pointed out how short he was, something that I didn't care about because I thought he was a good man at the time.

At the time I was aspiring to get to university and he didn't like that because he had never gotten in and felt stupidly emasculated by something that should have had nothing to do with his self-image like that. So whenever I brought it up, he would cut me down and try to train me and groom me with manipulative ways to be the woman he wanted rather than love me for who I was.

He often out of nowhere used to grab at my hands and stomach and squeeze them in the most painful way until I was almost crying and begging him to stop, and then when he did (only when he wanted despite my pleas of pain), he would make it out like was just playing around and like I was overreacting. I probably should have realised he was only ever going to be abusive and didn't care about me really by the fact that he only ever used to get me to come to him on the weekends to visit. He would only walk me around the mall across the road from his house before taking me back to his for an hour where I had to watch whatever he wanted only, rather then something we both wanted to watch, and then I was dropped off at the train station at the end of the day, discarded like I didn't deserve better.

Or even the time he left me waiting for him to come pick me up from the train station (the trip was over an hour and a half to see him) for two hours because he didn't even think I was important enough to get out of bed despite fully knowing I was coming. It took me sending him a message saying I was getting on the next train and going home for him to finally get up (it was the afternoon) and come and get me. When I said something to his brother when we turned up to his house, his own brother looked at him in disbelief and said with just as much disbelief "What the fuck is wrong with you?" to him.

I eventually broke up with him when he would disappear and not talk to me for a month despite seeing he had read my messages. It was only when I sent that message saying it was over that he came back with some bullshit to excuse not saying a word to me to keep me around, only for him to try not talking to me for a month again, so I ended it and never looked back.

Then there was the next guy, we'll call him Shane. This is where it started getting really bad. This guy was all charisma and the perfect words to make you feel all loved up despite it not being genuine, I soon found. He pretty much got me to move in with him as quickly as he could at his parents' house so he could get me away from my family, which he then proceeded to try and disconnect me from. Every time I would talk to them he would have some issue because he didn't like them (probably because they saw through his facade) and kept me from talking to them for a year.

There were also the times he would lie to me and would be messaging and visiting exes of his. I once gave him some money to go and hang out with his friends since he wanted too and had none while I sat at home alone at his house only to find out he used that money to go and buy an ex flowers and had been trying to get her back while keeping me around, oblivious like he wanted. He even lied to me once about another ex who he went to go visit at her sister's and told me that it was a friend from university.

When I started telling him about knowing it all, he started getting verbally and psychologically abusive to punish me for finding out. He would try and keep me from leaving when I tried to get away from him. One particular time he locked me in the garage with him to try and force me to "sort it out" with him, and a friend of mine called the police because she was worried about my safety. He made me stay in the garage and keep quiet so he wouldn't be found out.

He got to the point of cruelty, telling me I would only ever end up with someone worse then him and that I didn't deserve better than him. I would be woken in the middle of the night for sex which was more like pestered (because he stayed up all night and I somehow was a bad girlfriend and neglected him for not staying up all night too, because I had university the next day and it was night, I was tired and wanted to sleep), and if I didn't want to, it made me a bad girlfriend that didn't care about him.

I would also get woken in the middle of the night or early morning when he would decide to go to bed to massage him to sleep (which he expected a minimum of an hour and would get angry and make me feel horrible if I didn't), often almost missing university because if I tried to stop and tell him I was going to be late he would get upset and say I cared more about university and that I didn't care for him.

It got to the point where I became so depressed, I just stayed in bed crying, like my mother, to his complete apathy and making out that I was that way because of myself, completely disregarding any responsibility of his own. I took myself to get help at the doctors which he wasn't happy about instead of even being slightly proud that I was trying to be strong enough to help myself. Probably because, realistically, he knew what he had been doing and didn't want anyone to know.

We ended up moving into our own place where it just got worse. I ended up so depressed there that I tried to commit suicide, and he just stood over me that time telling me to do it and that no one would care or miss me and spitting on me while I was being violently ill on the bathroom floor.

It took me to run for my life after another abusive fight because he was trying to manipulate me into getting rid of any social media I had so I had no contact with anyone and had been criticising me about university and what my plans were (which I was still in the process of figuring out, which wasn't bad of me, while he did nothing all day). So he tried locking me out and not letting me back in to get anything for myself to go down to my father's on the train, all while he just went to bed and didn't care, and then tried to call me in the morning and act all loving so he could try and suck me in again. After I left, he tried visiting family members of mine to try and get them to end up on his side and pressure me to stay with him. And since I've left him he has just went around lying to people about everything so he could make himself out to be the victim and tell everyone I abandoned him because of how I had no choice but to get away from his abuse.

Which brings me to my most recent ex. We will call him Aaron. This guy seemed so different in the beginning to any other guy I knew. He was sweet to me and we quickly made fond memories together. He seemed well spoken, patient and empathetic. I opened up to him about everything I had been through and he made me feel like it was okay and that I could even cry in front of him about it without judgement. Our first few months together seemed like heaven to me; we cruised around in his car and listened to music together. We did everything together and he seemed so genuine. I thought he sincerely loved me back. I often remember saying to him he seemed too good to be true, which he would reply that this was really him, but as I found out, he really was too good to be true after all.

The truth about him didn't start coming out until we moved into our own place together (by that point, we had been together for 6 months and he had been living with me and my family before we moved) when he got pulled up randomly one morning by the police and I had no idea where to find him all day, so obviously I was hysterical and worried about him. He had left his phone at home for me to use so I could get help. When I proceeded to go through his phone to find his best friend's number in order to call him for help, I came across all these messages from women he had been secretly messaging for what turned out to be the whole time we were together. Times when I had been at university and thought that he was just cruising around in his car and waiting for me to finish, even morning messages to women while he would have been laying in bed next to me in the morning... I was gutted.

If I'm honest, the first sign was when I overheard him on the phone with his sister when we were living with my family. He had been talking (which I now realise was flirting and who knows how deep it had went) to an ex who we will call Stephanie. He must have been talking to her some kind of way that was actually more then just talking because she went to his sister and had told her that they were working on getting back together and his sister obviously thought it was serious enough to call Aaron and ask him all confused because by this point, I had met his family and they knew Aaron and I were together and living together too.

I remember being upset about it and confronting him about what I heard, which he told me some bullshit story about how he had just been talking to Stephanie and she was just trying to cause issues because she had never gotten over him (which really made me wonder why he was even talking to her at all to even allow her a platform to cause issues if he knew that). I stupidly believed him because it was prior to the above incident when he had been pulled up by the police, which I stupidly forgave him for too.

That day when he got pulled up by the police and I had confronted him later, when I went to bail him out (which I was in two minds about because I was hurt), he told me another bullshit story about how he had been thinking about it all day in his cell (which I really don't believe he had ever been now) and that he had made a stupid mistake because he was scared about losing me and he needed to adjust to being in a relationship when all that happened, because he had been single for so long before me and at the time of that all happening, it had only been early days in the relationship. Since it seemed like the only big thing that had ever happened, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and trusted him, so I forgave him.

Time went on for a bit and things seemed okay, until eventually I would just catch him on dating sites pretending to be single and flirting with exes and women in his Facebook inbox. Every time I would bring it up, clearly and justifiably upset. Only for him to try and then groom me to be okay with it by making it out that he just talked to girls like that because he liked the rush and it didn't mean anything; he only loved me apparently, and it gave him a way to keep in touch with what worked flirting-wise these days (which really made me wonder why he even needed to know since he wasn't even single and we were meant to be in a serious committed relationship to each other). So he told me it was okay if I did the same as long as it was only ever words which just horrified me because I had never been that type and to me, if I wanted to go do something like that so badly, I would leave because it meant I didn't love him anymore.

So really, we started to drift apart because he started to withhold affection and love, which god knows who he was giving it too, and I will still never find the truth out about it (but honestly after everything, I don't think I even want to know anymore). It just became this sad game of me trying to get him to treat me with real love and respect because I stupidly thought he must love me for real if we are still together, right?

We then moved into his mother's house. It was a beautiful three-bedroom house that was one of those gorgeous olden style homes with pretty roofs with patterns all over them. Somewhere I hoped we would start getting serious, get engaged and start building our lives together and what I hoped would mean he would stop all that nonsense with other women and start to see my worth and the love I had for him and appreciate it, as well as reciprocate it back.

It seemed promising at first and I was willing to let the past go if it meant he would stop and pay attention to me again like he should have been the whole time. The way I was to him. He never took us or our relationship that seriously I soon found, as he eventually would just sit out with his friends who he had let move in and live there for free and became mean to me. Soon just yelling at me with most things I said and becoming more distant and cold.

I got to the point of retreating into myself and just keeping to myself because then it didn't seem to cause issues, but it sure gave me a lot of time to think. I started to realise how much this guy didn't actually love me as much as he said. I'm pretty sure he never really did at this point because I started to recognise how little we even had sex and majority of the time it was only on his terms, and any advances I ever made he would push away until I stopped all together because he made me feel like there was something wrong with me, simply for being attracted to my own boyfriend in such a manner (because thats crazy right?).

I once again noticed he was talking to another ex in secret who we will call Morgan. He had told me about her and how she had cheated on him when they were younger. This time I'm pretty sure he was having a secret relationship with her and she knew all about me and was in on it (I have always thought it was sick and twisted of women doing that kind of stuff to other women).

I would overhear him saying to his friends he was going to go visit her (which he would take his friends along) and tell me he was going to some shop to cover up the plans he had made. Even meeting her (or who knows? Probably some other women if not her or as well as her) at McDonalds down the road when he would say he was going to go buy milk at the shop in the morning; which I overheard ("Hurry up, I told her to wait for me" to his friends while I was still in bed).

I ended up sleeping alone every night and I went down into depression again. Every time I confronted him he would get angry at me and say it was all in my head and make me out to be crazy because apparently, I wasn't really hearing what I was hearing.

I tried to commit suicide again and all that's painfully imprinted in my mind about it is feeling so cold and shivering violently while I laid in the bedroom alone in and out of consciousness in excruciating pain and just remembering him sitting in the lounge room paying me no attention or any slight care he may lose me and playing his video games. When I came to in the middle of the night (alive still thankfully) still in pain, I noticed he had just passed out on the couch without a care in the world while I dragged myself on all fours, still in pain and shivering, and threw myself in the shower where I laid under the hot water for I don't even know how long.

It's after that I started to realise he wasn't worth this anymore. He obviously didn't love me and just thought of me as something to possess so he had something, without any thought that maybe I was a person that deserved to be with someone who genuinely valued me and loved me in a way that he clearly did not. So much so that he didn't even care that I could have died that night, not even a tear.

So from that point, I stayed to myself. I thought a lot on everything some more and what I should do. I was at a point where I realised anything was better then this. Why was I staying with him when I could go and get my head right and maybe in time find a man that might actually love me and value me for real? actually be happy in time? Why was I settling for this? For a man that didn't even care about my emotional well being and often expressed that he thought I was weak for hurting? Who cared more about women who really didn't actually love or care about him, over me, a woman who loved him fiercely despite all his flaws and the way he treated me to have him take me and the love I gave him for granted?

So a few weeks later. I left. I got up one morning after planning with a really good friend of mine to go stay at hers for the time being. I shied away from him and his half-assed attempts at crumbs of love just so he could keep me believing his bullshit about loving me.

It sounds like it was easy when I write it, but it wasn't and in ways I'm still overcoming it all. And really all this is a simplified version of everything i went through with these men, with so much more to the story that I haven't delved in here. The part of me that's fiercely loving and loyal wanted to believe that maybe somehow he would turn completely 160 degrees and really be who I had thought he was in the beginning. The man he pretended to be.

But I left anyway, because deep down, I knew that wasn't him and he had never taken me seriously or valued me at all. He never saw me as someone worthy of loving genuinely, which is why he left me with so little love while he went and gave it to other women. I was sick to death (literally—dark joke, I know) of not being appreciated or valued by men who would make me fall in love with them only to try and completely break me for being a damn good girlfriend and one day, wife, if they had ever been true back or genuine in the first place.

And so now I am here. A month after leaving. Still fragile and trying to get through it but I am free. And while there is a part of me that is scared about the future, there is a part of me that is hopeful that all this trauma and abuse from these men wasn't for nothing. That maybe I will still find genuine love and a man that values me and loves me back for real. That will show me why it never worked with all those men and that I will be able to unapologetically be me with and loved for it, and will appreciate and value the love I give and not take me for granted as well as reciprocate it back, and be consistent.

I hope that will be very soon, because I believe the universe rewards it's warriors. The women who are told they are weak but despite being told that and even feeling that, even in their lapses of defeat, always still drag themselves along. Like that saying: "They tried to bury us, They didn't know we were seeds."

Us women, we are those seeds.