I’ve been avoiding writing about this for years. Sometimes it feels like it’s been many, other times it feels like it just happened.
In dating, I know that you learn about yourself, especially as you age, and you become wiser in your decisions to have certain people interfere and engage in your life experience. All of us have made bad decisions (i.e., poor choices of those whom surround us) and some we may have handled quicker than others and released that negativity early, while other endings may have been far overdue; however, – and I’m speaking for myself – some of my bad decisions I find very, very difficult to shake and forgive myself for creating. One of them in particular: my ex-fiancé.
For anonymity (even though I want to say his name to warn other women), I’ll refer to him throughout this piece as “Dick”.
I met Dick while online dating and we hit it off very well, especially in conversation. He was smart and just as intellectually curious as I was about the world. We even had the exact same political and religious beliefs, which I found very comforting. Best of all, he seemed to fit what my family wanted for me: someone who had a full-time job and made decent money, someone who came from a nice family and a good neighborhood, and someone who had no criminal background. Although my family’s feelings are always considered and probably weigh on me more than I recognize, their desired standards for whom I date, especially now as I look back, seem so minute to the overall agenda of love in my life. I should have trusted my own standards and gone with my instincts, but I didn’t, and I didn’t because of my past.
Most of my life I dated “bad boys”. This isn’t exactly something I’m proud of, but it is what it is. As life would put it, I began to get tired of the “bad boy” behavior. I wanted to find someone that I could settle down with, someone that had their shit together. I didn’t want to “fix” anyone anymore. I wanted someone who could help me grow and help me be better, not vice-versa. Granted, many of these “bad boys” have given me meaningful, wonderful memories. Those relationships, although young and immature, were not perfect (obviously) but they weren’t anything truly regretful either. They all, even though considered stereotypically “bad”-behaved, treated me better than my ex-fiancé did. Nonetheless, considering my past gravitation towards the unruly, I decided to put my love life into the opinions of others (hence: my family), which is why I continued to date Dick, even though he probably would have never been someone whom I would have authentically found myself encompassing.
My whole life I have been told that I am loud and obnoxious and have an attitude problem. These are all true. Now, when dating, having this self-knowledge and trying to find a partner was a bit difficult. I knew I needed a man who didn’t fear a vocally assertive female but yet was not submissive either. I wanted a man that could show me different ways of handling life; basically, someone I could learn from while still embracing my fire.
Despite me being vocally indomitable, I wasn’t aware of how victim I could be to mental manipulation. I don’t think I was prepared to be, either, which is probably why I was engulfed so deeply. In college, an advisor told me that sometimes we don’t know the questions to ask, therefore we don’t get the answers we need. That’s how I reflect on his manipulation. I wasn’t guarded because I didn’t know I needed to be.
The First Sign
It was only a few weeks into our relationship. My best friend was graduating with her master’s degree in psychology and she invited my mother and I to come to the ceremony. Unfortunately, due to my mom’s schedule at the time, it was looking doubtful she’d be able to accompany me. Dick was aware of this and offered to take her place. My friend said that’d be fine and my mom thanked him. In expressing her gratitude to Dick, it was very obvious that my mother was saddened she wouldn’t make the event. She explained how she had known Christine for over 15 years and viewed her as a second daughter, someone she loved and was very proud of.
About a week later my mother came into the kitchen excited and happy, with a big smile on her face. This was the face of good news – and good it was. My mom began to tell me how she was able to reschedule some things and was now able to go to Christine’s graduation. We both screamed and laughed and called Christine to share the news. She, too, joined in our happiness and it was a beautiful moment. After the giddiness subsided, I realized I had to break the news to Dick. I thought, if anything, he’d probably be relieved since he had never met Christine’s family and had only met Christine once. I was wrong. He was livid.
“How DARE you DISINVITE me!!!” he screamed. I had to pull the phone away from my ear because his shrills were so shrieking – and so angry. I tried to explain to him that I knew it wasn’t the best of circumstances but that he was aware of how much my mother wanted to go, and how much more appropriate it would be if she attended rather than he. His behavior seemed insane and selfish and I was in shock at just how pissed he was. I remember being appalled by his ego. I must have been in such disbelief that I was distracted from my own good judgement.
I should have known that phone call was just the tip of the iceberg – the anger iceberg - but I didn’t, and I chalked it up to him being a hot-head. I believed him when he apologized and indicated that he was just “really hurt” because he wanted “to be a part of my life, with the people in my life”. Again, another iceberg; this being the one of manipulation.
The Second Sign
A few months into our relationship, Dick took me to a family party to meet his extended family members. I was overjoyed to meet everyone and felt gleeful that we were moving forward in our relationship. Along with my delight, I was also feeling nervous. Dick aforementioned how his family liked to drink and dance whenever they got together, and I knew he was informing me of this because I don’t usually drink; at most, I might have a glass or two of something fruity once or twice a year. From the tone of his voice, this wasn’t an intention of forewarning me to ease my nerves; it was his passive-aggressive way of telling me not to embarrass him. He didn’t want me to “be uptight”. He wanted me to “fit in”.
I processed those words as him viewing my lack of interest in drinking as something shameful, thus making me a disappointment to him. When I entered the party, I noticed the drinking and dancing and it wasn’t overbearing at all. I felt a lot of love in that room. His family welcomed me with open arms, giving me food – and yes, drinks – and some wonderful conversation, too. No one made me feel judged when I turned down a shot or a cocktail; no one except Dick. Everyone at that party was happy and content, enjoying the vibe; but Dick kept instigating confrontational conversations and intentionally trying to bring people’s spirits down, and it eventually worked – on me.
I didn’t like how he was talking to me in front of everyone. I began leaving him to be by myself in another room or I’d go outside just to get away from him. I’d rather conversed with a stranger than continue to get stuck in a room with the sole person I was familiar with. I was avoiding him, and when he realized that, he became angry. He began trying to corner me and block me from entering other rooms. He was using his anger (drunken anger by that point) to control me through fear.
I called my mom and asked her to pick me up. When I told Dick that my mother was coming to get me, he was infuriated. He tried grabbing my phone out of my hands and continued to corner me. He was whispering, harshly and threateningly, to conceal from his family members that we were arguing. “Call her back right now, Maria!”, he demanded. “Call her back and tell her no! You are NOT leaving!” I refused. I ran out of the house and began walking home, hoping my mom would drive up soon so I could hop in, safe from Dick. I then felt a hard pull backward and before I could react, Dick had grabbed me and forced his arms around and over both of my arms, under my shoulders. He kept screaming that I was going to get hit by a car and that I was drunk. He was trying to make it look like I was inebriated so that his family would see him as a savior. He wouldn’t get off of me until my mom finally arrived. I jumped in and was crying and in complete shock. I didn’t want to believe the person that seemed to fit everyone’s expectations of what I deserved behaved like this. He may have appeared to be an upstanding man, but it was all a facade.
Like before, he apologized and assured me that he normally didn’t behave that way, that the liquor he was drinking just hadn’t sat right with him. I forgave him and made him promise me to never drink that type of alcohol again; but it wasn’t the alcohol, I’d later learn; it was him.
The Third Sign
My mom always said to watch how a man treats his mother. She’s always advocated that although there may be some exceptions, for the most part, how a man treats his mother can show you how he ultimately views women. Foolishly, again, I ignored my instincts and began telling myself that Dick and his mother’s tainted relationship was one of the “exceptions” my mom had mentioned.
Dick’s mom struggled with drug addiction, which in turn, caused his childhood – and now adulthood- to be chaotic. I understood his discomfort and antipathy because I, too, was all too familiar with the poisons of addiction. Alcoholism runs in my family, and although neither one of my parents have fallen victim to its destruction, I watched it steal the lives of my grandfather, my uncle, and many cousins. I recognized the strength addiction was capable of having over someone’s soul. My heart ached for Dick; I wanted to help he and his mother regain some form of companionship – something they had lost many years ago. But I realized, after witnessing his interactions with her, that I wasn’t dealing with someone who was hurt and understandably uncomfortable and angry; I was handling someone with extreme resentment and rage. This wasn’t the justifiable type of anger that comes attached to someone who has to deal with an addict’s erratic, compulsive, devious behavior. I know that anger; I understand that emotional struggle. But what Dick had buried inside his soul wasn’t something I could comprehend. It was pure hatred. He disregarded his mother as a being and treated her with utter disgust, and this was on a good day. Most of the time he would proceed around the house as if she weren’t there. He’d avoid eye contact and wouldn’t glance her direction. She’d cautiously try to create small talk with him and he wouldn’t even flinch. It was like she was a ghost, like she was nothing.
The first time I observed this, I assumed it was due to something currently. I thought, “Maybe they had a fight… Maybe she’s high and I just don’t know it… Maybe he’s just having a bad day.” I figured there was good reason as to why he was behaving so horribly. Perhaps he wanted to hurt her as she had hurt him. It sounds atrocious, but this was actually something I understood due to my own conflicted feelings of addiction.
But Dick’s behavior wasn’t situational. It was constant. Each time he was around his mother, I could feel evil ejecting from his body. His aura would twist to deep emptiness, as if his soul consumed blackness and was left with nothing but detest.
It scared me to witness his lack of human compassion. He would repeatedly tell me how much he hated her and that he wished she would die. “Maybe he wants her to pass because she’d be free of her addiction… Maybe he wants her to go because it’d let him finally stop worrying…”, I’d think. But no; he wanted her dead because her addiction was an inconvenience to his life. His hatred for her wasn’t out of anything I could comprehend as rightfully deserved. He hated her because he was content, and comfortable, with and in his hatred.
My gut told me that this kind of antagonism was not normal. It wasn’t right; it wasn’t healthy. I informed him that it made me very weary of our future together and that I couldn’t be with someone who held such hatred, especially since that hatred would frequently surface in our relationship. Dick vowed to see a therapist, but then when the appointment time would arrive, he always had an excuse as to why he couldn’t go — and he never did.
His unresolved anger and lack of trying to overcome it is what made me end our engagement. He didn’t view his hatred as anything serious enough to actually change it. What this showed me was that he didn’t truly think he had a problem. He was in immense denial. Nothing was his error. Nothing was ever his fault. It was everyone, including me, that just wasn’t up to par per his approval.
There were many other issues in our relationship that led to its wonderful demise, but I felt it very important to acknowledge that the universe had clearly given me signs. I was warned, over and over again, of whom I was connecting myself to. Instead of believing what I was experiencing, I ignored it for the acceptance of what I thought everyone else wanted. At the base of it all was a problem at my core: I didn’t have enough love and trust for myself.
Over the years, Oprah has had many beautiful, intelligent conversations with the literary goddess Maya Angelou. In one particular discussion, Maya said, “when someone shows you who they are, believe them.” This extraordinary quote rings true to my experience with Dick. I may have previously dated “bad boys” and “men I was too good for,” but I was never wrong in my instincts of someone’s organic soul. I had always surrounded myself with good people, ones whom may have made mistakes and had poor judgment, but ones that internally want happiness in the world. When I lost my confidence in my instincts and self-trust, I became vulnerable to brainwashing. With Dick, I kept subconsciously and consciously reminding myself that I was the one with the problems, that I was the one who needed to be fixed. Dick perpetuated those beliefs by constantly twisting everything that was wrong with our relationship into results of my faults — not his.
Although saddened that he broke down my soul, I still struggle the most to dispose of the disappointment I feel towards myself. His attendance in my life has caused me many sleepless nights where I’m up wondering how, if I’m so smart, did I become so brainwashed? How could I have let others’ opinions outweigh those of my own? I continue to emotionally battle this bad decision, but when the nights are exceptionally difficult, and the memories invade, I remind myself that, at the forefront of it all, I was never blind. Nothing was sudden and nothing was invisible; everything was shown to me just as it was — I just didn’t have the power within me to abide by my own perception.
