Getting cheated on was the best thing that ever happened to me.
Look, I’ve been pretty susceptible to abuse and controlling relationships before. I grew up in chaos, then in neglect in my teen years and found myself appreciating someone “caring” about me.
I told myself after my first abusive relationship that I would never let that happen to me again.
3 years later, though, I ignored every dog whistle I had studied and practiced in preparation for the next person ready to take my independence away.
There is something so chilling about the way some people seek out the particularly independent women to crush them down for entertainment - for control, I should say.
There he was, though, a half inch gap in his teeth that I used to jokingly pretend to put coins through (very early in our relationship). He was charming, funny, smart. He liked to tell me about psychology.
It started with him talking an overview about a new condition he was learning in college. It grew and grew until it was “Flora, I’m learning about this disorder, and you have it… textbook signs.”
I told him no, no, I don’t, you’re mistaking my OCD for something that its not.
“Well no, I don’t think you have OCD, it was a misdiagnosis. You have autism, Bipolar (whatever else he felt like throwing in, BPD, sometimes a fake one like MPDGD-manic pixie dream girl disorder). I have never once seen you do a routine or have to repeat something, and you’ve never kept me waiting for you to do something OCD-like.”
Then he added in his jealousy. I was, as previously decided, crazy, and also cold. This meant I can’t be trusted alone.
I remember my college orientation (he was a year older than me and we met in my senior year of high school). I had to spend a night at my college. Every hour he was texting, asking what I was doing.
To preface this next part, I am attending an engineering school with a primarily male population. I had one other girl in my orientation group, she had a huge hibiscus print on her shirt and her nails, that she told me she had carefully coordinated for the occasion. The occasion was sitting in a circle on the quad and sharing our name, major and one fact about ourselves. We didn’t have much in common.
I had fallen into a group within my orientation group with three guys, we all liked Modest Mouse and Black Country, New Road. I kept their genders a mystery to my ex, keeping it vague and saying things like “my new friends …” or “they are …”. He knew. He said not to come back with a new boyfriend.
I watched a movie with them in one of the dorms. There was no furniture, I had my finger on the trigger of my pepper spray the entire time. One of the boys touched my leg and I left. I didn’t tell my ex, Maru. I shared with him that I had an early night: I watched Spirited Away and went to sleep in the loft bed of my double.
I stayed up that whole night filled with guilt, I called my mom for guidance. She didn’t seem to believe me because my level of guilt didn’t match what I said happened.
The next morning I was calling my best friend when Maru started to spam-call me, not giving up and whining that I don’t have time for him anymore on the account of my brand new college boyfriend. I added him to the call and he immediately started accusing me of having a hickey on my neck and calling me a slut in front of my friend.
We talked it over later that day and I apologized for getting upset at him and making him jealous. It wasn’t his fault, after all, nothing ever was.
He told me I was too detached from my emotions and thats why I’m not feeling guilty enough about what I did.
I remember he would get this terrifying look in his eyes when I did something wrong.
I was always tensed and ready for him to hit me.
Three months after that orientation, I finally connected the dots on why he had been spending so much time with his coworker, Elizabeth, instead of me. He would blow me off for her, compare us and bring her up right after we had sex. I was jealous, of course I was, who wouldn’t be. I still was accused on the daily of seeing someone new and my past failures of loyalty (e.g. the orientation) were constantly splattered in my face. The final straw was that he wouldnt let me meet her. We “just wouldn’t get along”.
I dumped him the day that they got matching piercings together when it was supposed to be our date night. He told me I was jealous, insecure, and crazy. I called him every Friday night for months afterward, leaving voicemails begging to try again.
Looking back though, all I can think about is just how grateful I am that he cheated on me. The demeaning, the jealousy, the controlling, none of it was enough for me to end it, but the cheating was, and for that, I am so glad.
I don’t know where I would be now if I didn’t end things. Sometimes its so scary to think about, I can’t breathe. I loved him endlessly, and I would bend to his will in an instant. But understanding now that he never truly loved me, instead got joy out of bending me, scares me that I was so easily able to fall right back into abuse.
Although he never hit me, he never went through my phone or watched me shower, he did weaponize my secrets. He read my diary while I wasn’t around and shamed me for it. I fell right back into the palm of an abuser’s hand and I wasn’t going to leave until he cheated. So at least he did.
