He demanded absolute loyalty, but he would switch up depending on his mood for the day, or the person(s) he was around and the level he wanted to impress them. He wanted to know that I belonged to him, but never acted like he belonged to me, unless we were in public and another man was present, then he was all over me, dancing with me slowly and acting so sweet.

He would talk to anyone he wanted, inappropriately, in secret, and in my face, but he wanted me to speak to no one, male or female, related or not. He once told me not to talk when we went to pick up his drugs, I absolutely stayed true to myself, and spoke casual conversation; the guy instantly liked me, as almost all people who cross my path do. I got in trouble in the car, and it was a fight for the hour drive back, and into the night.

He would throw a fit asking that I kept my promises to him, but he broke every promise to me, which made me deliberately not keep the promises I made to him. He would never acknowledge or discuss the promises he made and blatantly broke, but he would go over my promises, detail by detail, as if he had them memorized.

He would complain about me leaving, but would never stop the behaviours that were making me run out the door. I gave him my conditions, and my demands, he continued to do the same things over and over again. So thoughtless, so careless, so confident I would stay and take it forever. I told him I would take it as long as I could, then I would leave, and that’s precisely what I did.

He would get caught doing a thousand wrongs, but he would make up things about me that were worse than what was proven against him. So the fight would be turned into me sleeping with his friends, brothers, and neighbors, men I literally did not know, or just knew of, and hated each one. Forget the tangible proof against him, I was the whore, and that was the topic. I never left the house, that didn’t matter. I remember one time I came from the restroom and he said to me, where did you come from. I sarcastically said “the club”. I had just gotten out of bed, walked to the next door over, then back to bed. It was 5 in the morning, I had just been asleep next to him, yet I had to convince him I had not left anywhere but the restroom, I was pregnant at the time, and it was normal for me to get up, because I couldn’t sleep with a big baby resting in my low belly.

He would provoke me, and taunt me relentlessly, but then he would sit back so calm, telling me “what’s wrong with you”, and “you need help”, and “you make things up in your head”. I always told him that his style was, wind it up, put your hands in the air, and watch it go. He never understood that I was always REACTING to him and his inconsiderate and hurtful behaviours. I was never the one who started anything, I was the one reacting. The lack of tranquility in the home, and in the relationship, became intolerable.

He would leave when he wanted without saying a word, but he got large screws and drilled them at an angle so the doors couldn’t open, so it was absolutely certain that I wasn’t going anywhere unless I had somehow gotten my pregnant body out of the windows which basically sit nearest the floor, and not the middle of the wall.

I, was not going anywhere, without him letting me out. There was a different set of rules for him, than there was for me.

He would tell me to leave him alone, stop harassing him, then when I would go, he would call and text literally a thousand times demanding me to go home. He would tell me I was with his friends, who I always chose to keep strangers to me because I don’t associate with dysfunctional addicts. I had to defend myself for hours, against purely made-up accusations.

He would give meanness, and ugliness, but he expected love and magic. The meaner he was to me, the nicer he expected me to be to him. He would yell, and scream, and accuse me, and leave, and have his phone going off all hours of the night, people coming to the window all hours of the night. The more he did, and didn’t do, the more I began falling out of love with him. I didn’t want him near me, let alone, inside me.

He would tell me how he was raised to never put hands on a woman, even going so far as to tell me a story of a karate tournament he lost because his opponent was a girl, and he just got beat because he was always told not to hit a woman. He would tell me he couldn’t hit me, but, he hit me, in many different ways, all the time. He slapped me and made my nose bleed. He slapped me on the side of my head and my ear had a ringing noise for two or three days.

He would tell me he was sober, but his pupils would be pinpoints from heroin, or silver dollar size from methamphetamine. He would lock himself in the bathroom for hours. I could smell which drug he was using. I would find pieces of straws and foil with black tracks from the heroin. I would find glass meth pipes, I would find big bags of crystal methamphetamine. He began getting abscesses from shooting up, he had track marks down his arm, and I would find tourniquets he made from household items. I found all these things day after day, always told, “it’s old”. He would contaminate the drug tests I made him take, to make it appear as though he were clean. Once I figured out that’s what he was doing, I literally watched him hold his penis in a cup I gave him, just to make sure he couldn’t alter the results.

He would tell me he had to have me, he had to marry me, and he couldn’t see me with anyone else. He would watch me as I did things like cook, clean, prepare things for my students, get myself pretty with things I love like make-up and painting my toes and fingers, decorate, read to the kids, and prepare our bubble bath with lights, and candles, and little special things, to make everything constantly comfortable, beautiful, and out of the ordinary. He would watch me do things, and would follow me around just to observe me. He would stare at me and tell me I wasn’t going anywhere, I was his.

It was a constant up and down , sideways, backwards, confusing relationship. It was made up of endless violent bawls, mixed with intense making up. I wanted to believe him when he cried on his knees, I wanted to believe that he really was sorry and it really was about the drugs, and no such sort of betrayals. I didn’t want to believe that this hell, was life. It was all so dramatic. It was all so real, there was no getting away from any of it. It was like a huge entity. It felt like actual darkness and it felt like it could fill up the entire room. The air became stagnant in the room whenever he was in it.

What he said and what he did never matched nine times out of ten. I couldn’t make sense of it then, I can barely make sense of it now. I will never understand how someone who said he loved me “more than anything he ever loved in his life” could treat me in such unbelievable ways. How he would wipe my tears away, after he is what made the tears drip down my face in the first place. I loved him so much, in between hating him, so much. I couldn’t keep going under those harmful conditions. It was either hate me all the way, or love me all the way, there was going to be no more of both, because my body began reacting in such a way.

I began having allergic reactions to him. My face would go numb, I began stuttering, I became very clumsy, and forgetful. The top of my chest would itch, where your adrenaline builds up. My body would no longer allow me near him and his negativity. I didn’t want him anymore. I fell so out of love with him, that I don’t even like him as a friend.

The fighting still continues, even though I moved out in November. He still calls me and messages me hundreds and hundreds of times each day. He sends me pictures of him crying. He send me links to love songs. He puts flowers all over my car, he writes me little notes, and when I don’t respond the way he wants by going back with him, the fight starts all over again.

I’m standing my ground, because all the chances I gave, only hurt me and the baby in the end. No matter how much he promises, no matter how much he begs, I won’t ever be with him ever again.

I mean what I say, and I say what I mean.