It is very common in abusive and drug-related relationships for this to happen.
A person does not have the power to change another person, and it’s wasted energy to even try.
He always tells me I’m the only one who’s ever been able to help him.
But… has he changed at all?
Deep down, I know the answer.
But Margaux—a person, YOU—have the power to changeyourselfwhich in turn changes the way you think and feel, which in turn changes your outlook and experiences in real life.
Her words feel like a guiding star, reminding me I do have agency—reminding me of who I used to be, and who I still am at my core.
I imagine that you have few true supportive people left in your life right now.
I imagine Timmy did a spectacular job of mistreating those friends, acting antisocially and abusively in front of them and showing disrespect to you and mistreating you in front of these friends and supportive people in your life.
I wince. She’s not wrong. I’ve been careful about who I tell about the reality of our relationship, partly out of embarrassment and partly because I know Timmy’s behavior is indefensible.
Thank god for Alice and Jo and Stacey, and a select few others who I can trust.
He’s actually pretty good at being charming around people I introduce him to—or is he? Maybe that’s just a narrative I’ve created in my head.
He certainly wasn’t charming when he kidnapped my friend’s son.
He’s been cordial to Paulo over the phone, but I also get the sense he’s scared of him.
His behavior toward Jo was beyond vile.
Alice won’t be buying him a BFF necklace any time soon, although thankfully he’s made no attempt to contact her.
And he hasn’t really met anyone else.
He hasn’t charmed anyone lately.
Rebecca and Jetson tolerated him for a while, but he’s made a fool of himself in front of them too, and now neither of them wants anything to do with him.
Darren and Steve—his supposed best friends—have even distanced themselves.
Hmmm… maybe she has a point.
So basically Timmy was successful in his purpose, to control you, to alienate you from people who care about you, and to intimidate you to do what he wants.
He did isolate me. He convinced me to move to this side of the island, where I knew no one.
Every time I mention seeing Rebecca, his jealousy flares, so I’ve stopped bringing it up.
Would I be correct in assuming that this is not the first abusive, controlling relationship you have been in, that there may have been many.
I mean, therewasthe guy I married when I was sixteen.
He’d control me by threatening to kill himself if I left him.
He hated me because I was better at physics than him in high school, and now he’s a physicist.
Then, when I returned to New Zealand, the guy I was with was physically abusive andextremelyemotionally abusive. Tried to smother me with a pillow one day. Told me he was going to put me in a hospital. Called me ugly and fat and dumb and made me feel like the most hideous person on the planet.
There was the one guy I dated who I worked with who would run up to me and scream things like ‘suck my balls, bitch!’A real charmer, that one.