Charmed and Chained

trigger warning: self-harm, suicidal ideation

I never thought it would happen to me. No one ever does. I was familiar with physical abuse, and understood that it's wrong for a man to use bodily strength and force to inflict damage upon a woman. But I had never heard of emotional abuse, psychological abuse, or financial abuse before. No one taught me about any of this, and these things are actually considered forms of domestic violence. I don't know about you, but when I thought of domestic violence, I used to imagine an irate man screaming obscenities at a woman, who is cowering in fear and awaiting the next blow. I didn't imagine a man that, by all accounts, seemed to be a nice guy. One who was charming, loving, and liked by most everyone he met. A scholar, a professional, a family man. One who made me laugh and smile, one who went on adventures with me. I definitely didn't imagine this man being my husband, my life partner.

The circumstances that led to me meeting C seemed like fate, destiny, whatever you want to call it. We met at a summer internship in his home state. The only reason I was even there that summer is because my dad was also from that state, and I was staying with family friends for the duration of the internship. C told me that he had tried to do that internship several times previously, but there was always some issue that resulted in him being unable to do it. It definitely seemed like a crazy coincidence that both of us were there at the same time. We didn't start dating until after the internship was over. By this time, I was in another state getting ready to start my final year of college, which meant we had to do long distance. Despite this obstacle, he seemed like the perfect boyfriend. We wrote each other love letters, had virtual movie dates on Skype, and shared details about our lives and our families. I remember that he had such a big family that I had to spend time memorizing all their names, and he would actually quiz me on who was who. On our first Valentine's Day as a couple, he sent me a large box filled with a sappy card and all my favorite candy. He drove 13 hours to come visit me on multiple occasions. When I did meet his family, they were very welcoming, though I was quite shy. His nieces latched on to me almost immediately. There didn't seem to be any red flags initially, but it's possible that they were there and I overlooked them. After all, I was young, naive, and essentially unaware of the fact that some people were not who they claimed to be. We moved in together after a year and a half of dating, and he proposed a couple months after that. Another year and a half later, we got married. I truly thought he was the man I would spend the rest of my life with.

I had never even considered the possibility that he was abusive. You may be wondering, how is that possible? Well, for starters, he never said anything negative about my physical appearance. He made it a point to tell me every single day that I was beautiful, and he always sent me sweet messages with expressions of love and admiration. Even when I gained a good bit of weight, he continued to sing my praises and tell me I was perfect just the way I was. And what girl doesn't love to be complimented? He was also very affectionate, both at home and in public. He was always hugging and kissing me, and wanting to cuddle, and he wasn't afraid to do any of this in front of his family. He seemed pretty family-minded. He was super involved with his nieces and nephews, acting as a father figure to them, and had close relationships with his parents and siblings. I thought it was admirable that family was so important to him, and I thought it just showed how good of a dad he would be to our own children (if and when we had any). He told me every day how much he loved me, how lucky he was to be married to me, how he was so thankful our paths crossed, how he couldn't do life without me, and how we were soulmates. He was calm and even-tempered, and never once laid a hand on me. By all accounts, I thought it was a perfect marriage.

But behind the nice guy facade was something more sinister. Of course, I didn't realize it at the time, nor did I realize the full extent of it until I left and started talking about my experience with my family, friends, and therapist. One of the things he did was slowly isolate me from my family. Over time, I saw them less and less. When the holidays rolled around, he told me he didn't want to visit my family. He said I could go by myself, that we could just spend the days with our respective families. I didn't like that at all. Weren't WE a family now? Why would any husband and wife spend the holidays apart, not by circumstances but by choice? Nonetheless, it was him I was married to, so I started to pull away from my family and integrate into his. I made excuses for why I would not be able to come home for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Eventually, we even moved to the same state as his family. This enabled me to develop close relationships with everyone but especially his mom, stepdad, little sister, little brother, and his (now our) nieces and nephews. Where it gets sinister is that he tried to convince me that my parents were toxic and controlling, that they didn't have my best interests in mind, and that they didn't love me unconditionally. He really didn't even like me talking to them, so I tried to make sure to call them when I was alone. He took legitimate issues and concerns I had about my family, and started exaggerating them for his own benefit. This is why I was able to buy into it - a lot of what he said had at least a tiny grain of truth to it.

Another thing that he did was keep tabs on my whereabouts. He wanted to know when I got to work, when I left work, why I was running 15 minutes late coming home. When I went out and about, I had to be available to answer the constant stream of texts and/or calls. If I missed one, he would question me as to why. He was always talking about how there are perverts and rapists and murderers out there, and he wanted to make sure I didn't end up being their next victim. He played these behaviors off as being concerned for my safety, and once again, I believed it. I actually thought it was sweet that my husband cared so much about my well-being.

I mentioned earlier that I hadn't heard of financial abuse. Maybe you haven't either. When we got married, we decided to keep our separate bank accounts rather than open a joint one, which I thought was more common among younger couples. He handled all the bills, and convinced me that it was best for me to transfer my paycheck over to him on payday so that he could take care of everything. However, not one time did I see his bank account, or our savings account, or the credit card bills that he constantly accused me of racking up. I was only allowed to keep a small amount in my own account. He didn't like it when I bought anything for myself, but he was always getting new fishing supplies or video games and justifying why he "needed" them. Overall, I trusted him with our money and truly thought he was being responsible with it.

One of the biggest things was that he was constantly accusing me of cheating, even though I wasn't and had done nothing to warrant that level of suspicion. Almost every single man I knew personally -the neighbor, all of my male coworkers of various ages - he accused me of cheating with. He thought it was suspicious if I talked about a coworker too much, but also thought the same thing if I didn't talk about them at all. Even when I went to the library to browse around, he would say that I spent too long there and that he was worried about me meeting a man. Once, I had a coworker text me at 11pm about a work meeting that following morning. He saw it, and insisted the time of the message was suspicious. It got to the point where day after day I was defending myself against baseless accusations. I started deleting all of my texts with male coworkers before I got home - not because I was hiding anything, but because he would question me about every little thing. It even got so bad that I actually considered falsely confessing just to get him off my back. I didn't, but how crazy is that?! Now I know what it's like for the people that are wrongly imprisoned for false confessions. They are literally interrogated and bullied into a bogus admission of guilt. I'm really not sure why I put up with it. The only thing I can think of to explain it is that it was my first serious relationship, and I really didn't know what behaviors were normal and what were not.

His double standards also irritated me. It wasn't okay for me to hang out with male coworkers (though I didn't want to anyway), but it was okay for him to hang out with a female coworker - the one that he actually WAS cheating with. When I asked him to set boundaries with her, he said I was being controlling. I had to account for the money I spent, even if it was only $10 on fast food, but he could spend whatever he wanted and I had no way of knowing. He didn't want me traveling out of state for a work conference, but it was okay for him to go to one. He wanted me to hang up from my mom to talk to him when he called, but he didn't do the same for me. He told me I was on my phone too much, when he was on his just as much - if not more. He expected me to tell him when I was on my way home from work, but he didn't give me the same courtesy. And of course, if I did point any of this out, he had a justification that seemed to make sense.

There were other things too. He always had to be right when we got into arguments. I was constantly apologizing for things that weren't my fault. Somehow, I even ended up comforting HIM after he cheated on ME. Poor him, suffering from the consequences of his own actions. Towards the end of the relationship, he claimed I was mentally unstable, paranoid, and crazy. That he needed to have me committed. He would say things that made absolutely no sense to me, such as "the great and almighty Hannah can do no wrong." Looking back now, my body was trying to tell me something was wrong. I had mood swings and anger issues when I'd never had them before, I developed night terrors, became clumsy and was constantly running into things and ending up with bruises that I had no idea how I got. I took less and less care of myself; sometimes I went days without brushing my teeth. I was mentally and physically drained. My self-esteem plummeted, and I stopped doing the things I previously loved to do - like writing. I coped by emotional eating. I self-harmed on several occasions - another thing I had never done before - and even struggled with suicidal thoughts. I became a shell of myself. I lost my sparkle and smiled less and less. But again, because of all the positives I mentioned earlier, I thought that whatever was wrong was wrong with ME. I never considered that it could be something else.

According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, the definition of domestic violence is "a pattern of behaviors used by one partner to maintain power and control over another partner in an intimate relationship." And that is exactly what C did to me. He had the power and the control in the marriage, while I had essentially none. He gradually and subtly manipulated me into becoming subservient, into questioning my own sanity, into trusting him with my finances, my emotions, and even my life. I truly believe I would have remained stuck in this situation for years if he had not cheated on me, if I hadn't found out about his infidelity. This man would have been the father of my children. And while I can't predict what would have happened had I stayed, I believe it is highly possible that my life would have been cut short, potentially by my own hand.

Once I left everything - our home, our relationship, him - I started to improve drastically. My emotions stabilized, and I no longer struggled with bouts of anger. I stopped emotional eating and self-harming. I slowly started doing the things I loved to do again. I had forgotten how much joy they brought me and didn't know why I had ever stopped. I still struggle with night terrors currently, but they are a lot less frequent. I no longer clumsily run into things or end up with unexplained bruises. This might not make sense to you, but I felt like a literal weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I felt like myself again, which was interesting because I hadn't even realized I had lost myself in the first place. I'm still recovering, still finding my way, but for the first time in years, I feel safe. I can go out with a girlfriend and not check my phone for 2 hours. I don't have to spend my time refuting false allegations of cheating. I can control my own finances. I am reconnecting with my family and making new friends, too. I can breathe easy and live the life I want to live. That's one of the reasons I started this blog - I wanted to combine my passion for writing with my newfound desire to encourage & support other women affected by betrayal, loss, divorce, and domestic violence. I'm not glad that I had to go through what I did, but I AM glad that it's led me to where I am now. And hopefully, you're glad too.