It’s a dizzying, maddening cycle of praise and degradation.
And I’m not just losing myself emotionally—I’m losing myself in every way.
I’m yelling.
I’m swearing.
I’m calling names.
Things I’ve never done before.
The person I’ve become around him is foreign to me.
With anyone else, I’m calm. Measured. Thoughtful.
But around him, I’m frantic, defensive, sharp-edged.
It’s like he’s unlocked a version of me I didn’t know existed.
A version I don’t like.
And so all the stuff that happened before is ignored, and I’m identified—by him and his father—as the problem.
It’s just me, the crazy abusive fiancée, the terrible person who’s ruining Timmy’s life.
When it’s really the fact that his three hours of toxic, abusive behavior finally got to me and I had a human response.
I’m not a violent person.
I’m not an argumentative person.
I get excited about things, but in a controlled way.
Yet the relationship with Timmy is changing me.
But only with him.
He pokes and pokes at me, screaming and raging.
Swearing at me.
Calling me a stupid cunt.
Telling me all sorts of things that simply aren’t true.
If I try to bring up his behavior, he’ll scoff, “I’m just defending myself. You’re always attacking me.”
If his dad hears about it, I’m the villain.
I’m ‘crazy’, ‘unstable,’ the ‘problem.’
I think about past relationships. There have been abusive ones, but even then, the abusers were never this…methodical.
One ex tried to smother me with a pillow, and tried to systematically break me down with words every day—he just wasn’t very good at it.
Another threatened to break my jaw but didn’t chip away at my self-worth so relentlessly.
Timmy’s cruelty is in a league of its own.