I didn’t realize until after the assault, but he’d been really emotionally abusive and disrespectful of my consent throughout the entire relationship.
But I had been convinced our dynamic was good. I feel like I’m incapable of discerning gold from shit right now. Do you have any tips for avoiding abusive sociopaths?
First, cut yourself some slack, kid. I don’t know how experienced you were at the start, but plenty of worldly girls have been undone by a man with the right scam. It’s very easy to be led astray by someone who knows how to pound your buttons to a mesmerizing beat.
Second, you’re overstating your limitations. It’s not a “gold from shit” situation. Instead, think of yourself as color-blind. You can see shitty men as well as other girls can, but you have to learn to see them differently. Some things that look red to other girls will seem green to you, and knowing that, you can learn to look deeper into the green for the outlines and shadows and telltale signs of something hiding just beyond your senses. It’s a slower process, but it’ll save you a lot of heartache.
(Also: find a friend who sees a shade of red you can understand and trust her thoughtful judgement implicitly.)
Third, just ‘cause we’re talking about you —because you’re the most important thing here— and how you can learn from this, it doesn’t change the fact that you were wronged. Don’t let anything I say suggest otherwise. I hope you’re taking care of yourself, and have more than a random asshole on Tumblr to lean on.
Fourth: tips…
- Once you’re intimate, he should talk about his exes in depth. His narrative should portray them as complete, multifaceted, complicated humans, not crazy bitches who just couldn’t be helped. If he trots out 1,001 Tales of This One Dumb Bitch I Knew, you can be confident you’re soon to be 1,002.
- He should be comfortable being wrong. Confidence is trust placed in one’s well-honed instincts, and a readiness to keep them sharp… it is most definitely not a sense of infallibility. Even if your dynamic says that you are always somehow wrong, that doesn’t mean he’s always right. Grown-ups grow.
- You know that bullshit thing coaches and teachers always say about how they learned more from their kids than they taught? It’s not bullshit. Is he absorbing you? I don’t mean filing away facts for future regurgitation… I mean, is he taking in the raw data of your life and from it constructing a model of You? Is he using that model to show you a view of yourself that you’ve never had? Is he listening for keywords as you speak, or is he set on being the single leading authority in the august field of You, You Silly Girl?
- When he makes you laugh, is it because he said something funny, or because you knew what was expected?
- Is he angry a lot? Does he go from 0 to 60 over the slightest thing? That’s not an expression of exacting, uncompromising dominance, sweetie… that’s a man-child with a tenuous grip on his under-explored emotions.