Why did I nurture my toxic relationship for so long?
I started dating him at the young and impressionable age of 19. He was a year older than me. I had just started school, a new and scary world, and immediately found someone that I thought would provide some shield, something to hide behind. I was incredibly anxious about facing large, unknown crowds. But with him acting as a blanket of security, I did not have to worry so much about social anxieties. At least I had one person with me to face the brutal world.
It would have been impossible to predict then that it was the beginning of a years-long affair of tumultuous highs and lows, of deep dives into a mental health crisis, of trying to figure out my partner, and slowly discovering the facades of modern-day excuses by men to remain unaccountable.
I say this now, with retrospect to my advantage, but while it was happening to me, I could not have guessed for a moment the mental abuse I was being subjected to.
It started innocently enough. Within the first few weeks of being with each other, the mixed messages started. "We don't have to label this, do we?" he would ask. I immediately agreed to the offer because, what did I have to lose? Young and free, I was fine with the idea of a romantic relationship that was not particularly exclusive (not that I was seeing other men). No sooner had I gotten comfortable with that idea than he proposed we make our partnership exclusive. I agreed to that too. From the get-go, I was subjected to a barrage of mixed signals. There were the days when he could not stay a moment away from me and painted rosy pictures of a future together. But he would not let me get comfortable with any scenario. Only he could dream for the both of us. As soon as I participated in our shared dream, he would change it up. "No, I don't want to get married. Marriage ruins everything. We should just stay this way because I don't want to hate you ever," he would say on some days.
I would readily agree, mostly because I didn't have the energy to fight him, and he had me convinced that he loved me so much that he couldn't let marriage ruin it.
I very callously avoided seeing the signals of subtle domination. He would state intent first, then subtly nudge me into agreement. I had no tools in my repertoire to recognise the slow grooming. He was mellow, introverted and apparently a total momma's boy.
To me, these were harmless traits, indicators of a "good boy". I wanted to be with a "good boy" who would protect me. For I had grown up in a home where my parents shared an extremely toxic relationship and there was often physical violence—my marker for abuse. When my significant other started his slow mental abuse, I refused to see or acknowledge that as a form of trauma. The bar for abuse had been set very high—physical battering.
And after all, my partner's poor behaviour was just "boys being boys".
He would also hide basic day-to-day details about his life from me, providing me no reason for those actions. The basic level at which he would withhold information was laying the groundwork for hiding bigger details of his life. The relationship was not devoid of intimacy though (or what I thought was intimacy). In the first stages of dating, he was always very agreeable and kind with periodic mood swings (periods where he detached from me and would be extremely dismissive and rude). He would return from these swings extremely kind and apologetic, asking me to forgive him for his mistakes. He never really clarified what those mistakes were.
There was also jealousy. The unhealthy kind, I can now see. When we both joined the same field of work, mainly dominated by men, he was at first proud of me, but soon enough resentful of any recognition I got. So resentful that it made me switch. I was constantly subjected to personal taunts from him where he would say things like "Of course, you will be successful working in this field. There are no other girls here and you are trying to score in an empty field."
It was slow, his effect on me. In due time, from working on the field, I decided to become more desk-based, because I was convinced (by him) that trying to score in an empty field is shameful.
He was also subtly critical of my style, often resorting to terms like "khet", "too bling", etc. to describe me. He made fun of my weight, but at least he didn't beat me up. Until years later, I realised he had beaten me up all along. It was mental torture that showed up in physical symptoms—psychosomatic pain.
In his presence, I ended up distancing myself from old friends. I was too busy walking on eggshells, too tired from planning out each and every conversation so that he didn't get too upset with me. Upset enough for me to receive the dreaded silent treatment.
It took nearly a decade of such poor behaviour, zero accountability, terrible communication, and a string of affairs on his side for me to finally walk out.
To cover up his many affairs, he would be extra nice to me. So nice that I worried if I spoke out loud of my suspicion that he was cheating on me, he would leave.
Why did I not want a cheater to leave? Why did I stay with someone who was not even willing to do the bare minimum? Who was lauded by society and parents for doing the bare minimum?
In retrospect, it's hard to tell why we stay in toxic relationships. But be part of one and you will find all sorts of excuses to stay in the partnership (a partnership that you will find over time heavily imbalanced when it comes to power structures).
Men, it seems, have a new tool at their disposal. From being the bad guy up front, men like my ex-partner have come across a golden formula.
They play the soft-boy gimmick, they don't physically batter you, but they mentally control you. You get groomed over time to do, behave, say as they please. Because, upsetting them is not an option, after all they are "soft boys" who get very upset if you don't do what they want.
My former partner showed me many new ways in which women are controlled in the 21st century.
Some men have moved on from physical battering to mental battering. Us women, meanwhile, have only very recently started to learn, gain power over years of subjugation by men. The world still makes excuses for men. They still want us to adjust and accommodate men and their poor behaviour. Because my former partner did not scream or shout and show anger in the traditional way, I was unable to recognise or even call out the toxic behaviour.
I am no expert on toxic relationships but here's my two takas' worth on the matter and what I think stopped me.
When I realised just how ill I had gotten through the years of my relationship, the messages/pleas of my friends and family finally fell on my ears. I spoke to friends, strong female friends, who finally told me that I COULD leave this man, even though we had been together for years and our families knew. They told me I should try and forget the social stigma of a failed relationship, which often puts the blame on a woman. I learned to recognise toxic patterns, of the years-long manipulation that had held me tight in the grip of that man. I also started therapy where I learned that I had the power to walk away but I would need a strong support system for that. There are many women—who I know or whose stories I have heard—that could not walk away from such poor relationships because their families did not support them. Because their wedding venue was fixed. Because this was the one man they had been with. Or because, they thought they could SALVAGE or FIX a dying relationship.
We are not taught from the get-go that we can demand better, that we deserve better, and that we should learn to say no and be cool with it when a boy throws a hissy fit because he didn't get what he wanted. We let our boys go and even laud them for doing the bare minimum.
While a woman is expected to just do things, men are shown appreciation for doing the same things. For example, being nice and taking care of each other.
In the end, I think it's a matter of asking better for ourselves but it's also about men being more accountable. They need to do better. And we need to walk away more.
The writer is a journalist who chose not to disclose her identity because of the personal nature of the article.
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