Take a walk in my shoes
There was the time he didn't talk to me for two days after a huge argument about the fact that I'd had a spray tan about two years before we met. I think the issue he had taken was that I had to get naked for it but hell who knows.
There was the time he went mental because some guy working in a sweet-shop took my photo after he cajoled me into trying a really sour sweet.
There was the countless arguments about my clothes, how this item was inappropriate or how that top looked almost see through if you stood under bright lights and someone really stared or how that vest top was considered low cut because anyone taller than me could see down it.
The way I was quizzed coming home from work about who I'd eaten lunch with and who I sat beside. The time we had an all out argument because I'd accepted a friend request from one of the guys in work.
The fact that he used to moo at me whenever I ate junk food just for 'the laugh' except I wasn't really laughing.
He made me feel small and he made me feel stupid and he made me work for his attention and affection, implying that I was fat or a whore all because he felt threatened by me, by our age difference, by my past.
It's only now I realize that part of the reason he acted this way is because he knew something I didn't. He knew that I was better than him and his petty bullshit. He knew that I was smarter than he was and one day I was going to wake up to this fact and leave so he did everything in his power to make me feel like I couldn't.
I think all of this behavior boils down to two things control and jealousy and really jealousy is all about control. He didn't want me to be confident because he couldn't control me and all of the stuff that happened during that time was really working towards that goal even if he wasn't consciously aware of this.
The thing about this is that for every woman who looks at me like these stories are the insanest thing they have ever heard of, there are at least two more nodding their heads saying that sounds familiar or my ex did something similar and quite possibly one or two saying nothing because the resemblance to their boyfriend/husband/partner is close enough for my stories to cut close to the bone.
The thing about bad relationships is you can never tell by looking who has survived one. I know some strong women who outwardly project an air of confidence who have at some point in time or another allowed themselves to be controlled.
The thing that scares me most about it, Is what if I found myself in that sort of place again, would I have the strength to walk away. I'd like to think so. What I'm really saying is that don't judge a woman who been where I've been unless you've been there too.
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