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Shve

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Viewing 13 posts - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
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  • #418856
    Shve
    Participant

    Hi David,

    From what you’ve written, you seem like a wonderful human being for being so considerate towards your relationship and as to how your actions could affect your girlfriend. Some of us do not pause to think about these things. The state you are in now speaks volumes about your character and integrity. Sometimes events like this teach us a lot about ourselves. As for your feelings about missing out on things in life .. I guess the grass always seems greener on the other side. I do wish and hope that going forward, this incident will always remind you of what’s most important to you.

    Regards,

    #401546
    Shve
    Participant

    Thank you Anita for checking, I’m pretty much the same, how are you doing?

    I’ve been trying to reflect on the issues I’ve spoken about in this thread. Just going round and round in my head .. feel like I have no solution to them. Some days are better than others. On some days I wonder why is there no Karma … I pull up my phone and start searching on other people’s karma experiences, sometimes it make me think ah well, people are so lucky to have seen karma … at other times I get very agitated. Sometimes when I’m alone, I enact that I am confronting him for all the pain he caused me. I enact the whole scenario. If someone saw me, they would’a thought I’m crazy. I know.. this is very negative and self-defeating talk, but I’m just sick and tired of hearing “Move on”, “it gets better with time”, ” these things happen” and something that he told me at that time – “so many people are suffering all over the world ” – to mean my suffering was nothing compared to them. Just can’t come to terms with the audacity of it all and why was I accepting of all that behaviour.

    I also realise that sometimes I feel more peaceful if I ignore this problem, but then all of a sudden out of nowhere, the memories come back … and I get agitated thinking about the injustice of it all. Infact when I wrote about many things in this thread here.. looking back.. I realised on those days I was highly agitated with no peace at all. May be the realization of many things hit me when I wrote about those things and read everyone’s replies about it. But I’m grateful to have also seen empathy from the answers. I don’t know where this road leads to .. all of this self-defeating talk .. and negative thinking. I’ve started feeling aversion to meeting people especially those who I think I should have confronted for perceived wrongs, but I did not. I guess my way is that of not speaking up even if something bothers me and then that festers inside of me and then I start to hate them and want to have nothing to do with them. I think I’m passive aggressive. I hate going outside now and this pandemic made me realise how peaceful it is to just stay at home and not have to deal directly with people.

    #398120
    Shve
    Participant

    Dear Anita,

    Sorry about the late reply. I have been thinking about what you all have shared on this topic for the last few days. It’s like I have lot’s to say, but don’t know what to type.

    I am so sorry that you had to go through all what you described with your mother. And after all these years to clearly describe what you felt, it must have cut so deep through you to be able to remember such details clearly. Only things that hurt us deeply can leave such long lasting effects.

    This might be silly, but can I ask how to detect abuse while its happening? Sometimes I am not able to distinguish between the small voice at the back of my head that says ‘no this is wrong’ and in trying to be forgiving in my association with others. It’s like others can clearly see from my general attitude, behavior and talk that I am someone who can be taken advantage of or be bossed over. I guess I don’t know how to be assertive. What happens is when I try to be assertive, I try to be empathetic too and then it leads to blurring of my boundaries. I guess I am also scared of confrontation, of fighting with someone I am close to, of losing them, of making them think I am ‘bad’. I also sometimes think that I am not made for this world where people just want to take advantage of others.

    I do wish you well and hope that you find your peace.

    Regards,

    Shve

    #396513
    Shve
    Participant

    Dear Anita,

    Thank you for responding.

    you were not aware that you were abused; it was impossible for you to form the intent to prevent or fight abuse that you were not aware of. Even for sometime after the fact I did not realise I was abused. I knew something was wrong, but could not put a finger to it. Because he acted as if he had done everything right and everything was going right for him in his life, so I thought there must be something wrong with me. May be I should have stopped coming like he said. I started reading articles online day and night trying to figure out what was going on. I was able to relate to stories of people who had been abused and I could also relate to articles that mentioned about signs of being abused. And so, after many months I could understand I was abused. When this realization hit me, I suffered even more. I wondered how I could be so foolish. I knew this would not work out, so why did I continue. I also had to put with seeing his happy pictures with his wife at the same time that this realization hit me. And see him at work celebrating with colleagues. I tortured myself by looking at his social media pictures, it used to give me anxiety attacks.

    I looked up to other people/ almost anyone and everyone, to know better than me, what is really happening and whether it is right or wrong. Thank you, this is something true of me. I just realized it reading your lines here. I relate so much to this, but I’ve never thought of it as clearly as you put it. Sometimes I don’t even know how to express what I think is wrong, this is one of those times. Depending on another person to do right by us, take decisions etc can work out sometimes for us positively, but most times they have their own personal agendas to achieve through us. I’ve also been told by many that I don’t know how to take decisions independent of others and have a lot of dependency on others.

    You too looked up to him to do what was right for you. Very much, I thought he cannot do wrong to me because I trusted him after a certain point of time because of his words. I realise now that he could never do right for me neither as a partner, friend nor human being. I’ve also come to realise this about myself in other relationships that I have, professional or personal. I look to someone else to take decisions or do the right thing for me as opposed to me taking charge of my life. Do you have tips to overcome this?

    I think that the answer is that conservative fathers want to conserve male dominance and superiority inside their home, therefore, they discourage their daughters to assert boundaries inside the home. Not just fathers, mothers too. Atleast at my home it was like that. I remember clearly in my teens if I spoke something which seemed clever, my mother discouraged such things or said you’re being oversmart.

    The consequence of discouraging daughters from asserting boundaries in the home is that we don’t assert boundaries outside the home either. I am sure that most fathers, if not all, don’t want their daughters to be taken advantage of by men… but it’s either something they prefer to not think about, or it is a price they are willing to pay, so to conserve male dominance. Yes right, exactly! I wish I was taught how to assert myself when needed. It’s a skill that everyone needs to learn. I was not taught that, neither did I have any role model for that. Just the opposite, I learnt how to be docile and subservient even if others do whatever they want. Seeing the interactions of my parents, I learnt many wrong things, but we don’t realise it as children. My father would be heartbroken to know this. May be they don’t think it would happen to their daughters.

    Regards,

    Shve

    #396512
    Shve
    Participant

    Dear HoneyBlossom,

    Thank you for the suggestions, I’ve tried out most of these things over the years. But have realised that they are only distractions for a certain amount of time especially when we have been hurt very deeply. Though it does help me to a certain level, the pain never goes off and comes back. Let’s hope I can get better.

    Regards,

    Shve

    #396400
    Shve
    Participant

    Dear HoneyBlossom,

    Thank you for taking time to read about my story.

    I have been on my own for over 2 years now, and I feel much more emotionally stable than I ever did in relationships with men.  I haven’t gone out of my way to meet anyone, let alone a type of selection process.  I just have a very small number of close to friends, and I really like where I live.  I’m pretty much a home body and I’m in a nice part of the world. Nice to hear about all this and I’m so happy for you. This is exactly what I’ve been over the last 5 years or so. I just feel peaceful about being alone and just have to talk to only very few people. But thoughts come up every now and then about the abuse. Recently it has been troubling me a lot that it gives me sleepless nights and I tend to oversleep the next morning. I get thoughts of the injustice I faced, the shame I faced and being helpless and not doing anything about it.

    Yes, Indian dating and marriage scene is very different and sometimes its hard for someone who has not seen this to understand where I am coming from. My parents did try to arrange a marriage for me, but somehow (thank God!) it did not work out. I was not ready and I’m not sure if I will be anytime soon unless I get some peace about this incident. It still haunts me.

    Regards,

    Shve

    #396391
    Shve
    Participant

    Dear Helcat,
    I’ve been following your thread. I found that trauma therapy was extremely helpful for moving past a similar experience. Would that be a possibility? Thank you for suggesting this, I think I need some therapy in this regard. I will see how this can be achieved.

    You have learned the reality of the situation and it is terrifying. But it doesn’t mean that there aren’t good people out there. I realized this over the years, and almost everyone I met after this experience has been a comparatively good experience for me. But I never ventured into romantic relationships. I tried to learn about how human beings work especially men. Initially I did not want to meet anyone or talk to anyone, but I did find happiness being with others and talking to them. Infact, I experienced such deep happiness whenever any man was respectful of me even in general conversations.

    It’s horrible that he shattered your dreams and it’s understandable to grieve that loss, but in time you may have new dreams. I do have new dreams, but something from this experience is holding me where I am. It does not allow me to move forward.

    Whilst this betrayal has hurt you deeply, and made you feel afraid. I have hope that you will learn to protect yourself from people such as him in the future because of this experience. Yes, I am afraid of situations and people. I can’t trust anyone anymore especially men. I see I still have lot of work to do it identify such people and situations and protect myself from it. At the beginning of my interactions with him, I was vigilant and careful but I doubted myself and my intuition and paid a heavy price.
    He blamed you for his actions saying that you should have stopped coming. But if you were with someone who was safe, you would never have been harmed. He is 100% responsible for the abuse. He refused to take any blame for whatever happened. Because things in life were going good for him. In such situations, people usually do not have empathy for others. I tried to explain to him why it was wrong, he would either put it back on me or remain silent. Even when I tried my best to stop and start walking away, he would call my phone and say come I’m waiting for you. He would persuade me. Once he apologized by saying sorry and immediately proceeded to touch my underarms because he wanted to feel me.

    I will however suggest that the reasons why you went are very important. The first time, you didn’t know what would happen. You trusted him, it wasn’t your fault. But and I say this with love and kindness, you were responsible for repeatedly putting yourself in danger. Once you understand the reasons why and overcome them, you will be able to protect yourself in the future. It is very important for you not to blame yourself, only understand the reasons why you repeatedly allowed yourself to be subjected to his abusive behaviour. Thank you for being kind when saying this. I have thought about this a million times in all these years about why I continued to go after the first time. I think it was lust or some kind of unstoppable force so to say. Even today when I think if I could turn the clock back and go to that moment, could I have just walked away? the answer is no. I remember being very aware of how strong those feelings were. It was the first time I was experiencing all these feelings in my body coupled with the situation of him atleast paying me some attention after he rejected me. When my body experienced these physical feelings, it felt so good. But a few minutes after that when I realize that he was using me, I felt dirty. I did hold out hope that he would change his mind about me. I’m also a people pleaser and with people I am close to, they can easily convince or persuade me to do something for them. We did infact stop talking about 3-4 months of this abuse and then after 1 month of very less talking, he came back saying he wanted to be with me. I was happy, but again, it was only to touch me. This cycle only stopped when his family found his wife for him.

    From my own experience, even people we trust can betray us. But not everyone will do that. The main thing we can do is look out for “warning signs” of bad behaviour. For example, when he chased you and you weren’t interested. That is a warning sign because he didn’t respect your lack of interest. Proposing when you weren’t ready, was manipulative and has the effect of suggesting that the relationship is closer than it is. His comments about other women and on your weight are also warning signs.  Agree with you on all of these. I did not realize any of these until many years after the fact. I infact took his efforts to be his “love”. So many warning signs but I did not realize this is how people can be especially those who do not have integrity.

    If someone displays warning signs, take great care not to be alone with them. So true, life is lived backwards.

    I would pay very close attention to what your parents say about partners in the future. They suggested that it wouldn’t be a good fit. Did they explain why? Did you ask? Loved ones are often afraid of pushing us away by being critical of partners. The only thing they said at the time was he is very different from us. (with regards to religion and background). But now when I look back, I think they were waiting to see if I truly liked him and was sure about it or was it just a fleeting thing. But before long time could pass, all of the abuse happened. This whole story happened in about 1 year, out of which 7 months were him abusing me. Actually the whole thing was abuse.

    Another thing that is important, is building strong boundaries and practicing assertiveness. People like your ex target victims based on how they respond to their boundaries being breached. You didn’t maintain your boundaries when you said that you weren’t interested in dating him. You didn’t maintain your boundaries when you said that you weren’t ready to marry him. To him he would have thought great, I can do whatever I want with this woman. She will say no at first, but then I’ll be able to convince her to do it. I am trying to work on boundaries and assertiveness. I did not even know what boundaries meant and did not realise we have to have boundaries even in such associations. I just thought he would take care of me since he said he would keep me very happy. I then started reading about what boundaries are and how many people try to encroach our boundaries if we don’t stop them. I also realized that he was very good at enforcing his assertiveness and boundaries but did not respect it in others. You are right in saying I did not maintain my boundaries and also realized that I give up whatever boundary I have by a little persuasion from the other person. I tried working on this from the last few years but hear my voice crack or become nervous or start shivering when I try to assert boundaries especially in close relationships (friends, family). I’m not used to having boundaries.

    Another danger, is that some people don’t like to be told no. Some may pretend to accept it initially, then retaliate in the future. It really is key to never be alone with people who aren’t worthy of trust. He was one of them who did not like to be told no. And so by hook or crook, they make us agree, does not matter what the aftermath is. Agreed, it’s never a good idea to be alone with those who we cannot trust.

    The sad truth is even if you follow my advice, bad things can still happen. But it is my opinion that I can’t live in fear anymore. I would miss out on all the good things in life. All we can do is our best to move on and build a new life for ourselves, do our best to protect ourselves and pray that nothing of the sort happens again. I want to live my life openly too without any fear. To be open to good relationships, people and experiences. I’ve realized that some of these may be negative too and that’s okay, but to stay away from ones that could turn abusive.

    I have also realized that my upbringing has had a profound effect on the way I deal with others especially men. My parents have a very traditional relationship which my father being dominant over my mother in most instances. I grew up seeing this. Seeing my mother being forgiving of him even if he did/ said something she did not like. She is also not an assertive person with very less/no boundaries. I grew up thinking that is how I am supposed to be. And in recent years, I started to notice that in my interactions with men. That they were superior in some way to women. All of this is somehow entangled with the situation I went through 10 years back, I might have been my mother and he my father. And like you said, men can easily detect these things in women and behave accordingly or take advantage.
    Regards,

    Shve

    • This reply was modified 2 years ago by Shve.
    #396379
    Shve
    Participant

    Dear Anitha,

    Thank you for responding! I believe too it was an abuse of power, in the sense, I was vulnerable at that point and he abused the power he had over me at that time. Truth be told, I did not even realize I was being abused when it was happening. Just that something bad was happening, the body and mind feels it, but I just kept going because I am a people pleaser. I used to feel tired mentally after talking to him during those times because I was being abused with words (never profanity, but more the psychological one).

    Sorry, not to offend you, but I laughed out loud reading your suggestions to get justice :). Thank you for trying to help me.

    1) In the U.S., for as long as not too much time has passed (statute of limitation), a woman in your position could sue him in civil court, asking for monetary compensation for damages, I don’t want to pursue a legal route and there is no proof of all of this.

    (2) You could contact his wife and tell her about what happened, hoping that she will give him trouble for what he’s done, and/ or you could gossip about him to people who know him, hoping to damage his reputation this way, I did think of this in the 6-7 months leading up to his marriage and even after he got married. But then I also thought his wife is also a woman just like me.. one with dreams about her life and marriage. I know how it feels to have dreams shattered. I could not think of doing that to another woman, though a very tempting opportunity to me at that time. Gossiping about him might backfire and make me look bad in front of others since the mindset of people here is also “why did she get involved with him, this is what happens to such women” when you think you will be invalidated by sharing something with others, I think it’s best not to share such traumatic experiences.

    (3) You could arrange to meet him in-person and proceed to physically hurt him in such a way that he will live with chronic pain and/ or disability, this was the funniest for me 😊. May be you wrote this jokingly. But honestly I did think of doing this at that time, because of all the stuffed up anger inside of me. I can’t think of doing this now.

     (4) You can get involved in a justice-seeking movement, or start your own, educating teenage girls and young women about the practice of sexual subjugation of women/ abuse of power by men against women, so to prevent other women from suffering the injustice you suffered for so long. I try to do this and support and empathize with women who have undergone such experiences. I also try to share with women about such experiences so that they don’t have to suffer.

    I did meet many men (not for romantic reasons, but just happened to meet over the years), I have never met anyone who has been so disgusting and abusive towards me. Or may be I did not get close enough to anyone to experience that again.

    Regards,

    Shve

    #396351
    Shve
    Participant

    I miss Inky’s posts too! :(. Does anyone know why she does not post here anymore? I wish she’s back soon on here!

    #396350
    Shve
    Participant

    Hi Anita,

    Thank you would be an understatement for your reply, to spend your time and effort for a stranger online. Your efforts are commendable, I came across this site back in 2013 when I was searching for peace from this situation. I see you have been regularly posting over the years. I do thank you for patiently reading through it and analyzing whatever I said and responding to with your thoughts. It really helps me to see from another person’s perspective of what happened to me and also to validate some of my understanding.  I read through your post a few times, much of what you said resonated with me especially about men like this not bothered about hurting others feelings or thoughts. I read about narcissists online and lot of what is said about them seems to be true of him.

    I need to re-read it few more times I guess. Some of the points are what I already know but I wish I could erase from my life. I have so much regret that I’m unable to come to terms with this even now and it has affected the quality of my life in a very big way especially because he faced no consequences of this in fact just the opposite, he’s doing very well in life.

    I guess somewhere in my mind I keep thinking he will face consequences, but since it never happens, it puts me into a downward spiral mentally. I also think that he has all the luck in this world to not face consequences, flaunt his new life and family, do well in his career, not have to apologize and just walk around like nothing happened. Do you or anyone here have any thoughts on how I can make peace with this situation especially because I see first hand that he has no consequences?

    #396224
    Shve
    Participant

    Dear Anita,

    Thank you for responding. I was thinking about your question about parents not teaching us when we are younger. I don’t know the answer to that honestly. I guess because it’s taboo, or they think their children would never be involved with a guy the way I did or may be they think we know about such things or that it can only happen to others. I’m not really sure, may be I need to think about it some more. I did think to myself during the aftermath of this, why did I not have anyone to tell me he was not good for me.

    When I confronted him about what he did during the time he was abusing me, he just said I loved you at that time so I said that, now I don’t so I’m saying that. He also said I have anger issues so he could never be with someone like that. I infact did bring up this topic before I spoke to my parents about him and he said I can manage all that, he din’t have any problem with that. For a long time I did think that I had anger issues, because I was angry at everyone else for small things. But when things became clearer over the years, I realised my anger was not fully wrong. Most of the anger during the time with him was because of his behaviour in relation to other women when we were talking. He would tell directly to me that some colleague looked hot, or among our circle of friends a friend lost weight, he would tell her did you transfer your weight to her(me). He even said another girl was the most beautiful among our circle of friends. Hearing these things made me jealous, but I did not know how to handle that jealousy, I tried to hide it and suppress it to maintain peace. May be my anger was probably misplaced by it coming out at other times and this made him think I have anger issues. But I know I was not to blame fully for that anger.

    He also did mention to me once that in our office the talk was that I was a girl that men could not ‘get hold of’. May be in his male brain this became a challenge and he finally felt proud he ‘achieved’ it. Realising this made me feel very ashamed and dirty. I don’t know how to move forward from this. I did think that time would heal it, but off late these thoughts trouble me very much and does not let me do anything else. How can I move forward knowing that someone is out there enjoying their life after destroying my dreams? I also dreamt during my teens that only the person I get married to would touch me and I had made this clear to him too, but he destroyed those dreams. And his only reply was ‘ why did you come’. I can still hear that ringing in my ears :(.

    #396216
    Shve
    Participant

    Hi Anita,

    why don’t they teach her about what so many men out there are doing, lying to a woman, luring her in, and then… moving on without a second thought, why don’t they warn us???

    I agree with you. I think if they had known how far I was in it, they probably would have. I did not tell them details about it, just that there is a person who wants to marry me. I did not expect him to break my trust and me ending up like this. They did not know I was continually in contact with him. May be they thought he was decent enough. He did come over home once with my friends. He is very good at keeping appearances in front of others to seem like the perfect guy. Had I not gone through this experience I would never have thought he was like this. That’s what seems so mind blowing, looking at him from outside I never would have realised how disgusting he really is. The only thing that mattered to him was ‘are my current needs getting satisfied’ irrespective of what happens to another person or what I promised before.

    Even when he said I will talk to your parents about us during our talking days, I said I will talk and convince my parents, I was so foolish. I realised my foolishness at every step of this so called relationship only long after it was all over. My intuition did warn me this was not good, but I did not listen to it, did not understand it. My feelings of shame and disgust are still strong even though it has been 10 years now. I’m now 37, I can’t think of getting into a relationship for the fear of being used again. I also fear that any man who knows about this incident will want to have nothing to do with me.

    #396214
    Shve
    Participant

    Hi Anita,

    Thank you for taking time to read so much and replying. I had tears reading your reply, thank you for empathizing. I’m so sorry you had a negative experience yourself, my prayers and good wishes to you.
    I’ve shared about this to 2 friends of mine, one just said these things happen, it was very invalidating.  I could never share my story to my family due to the immense shame I feel even thinking of talking about it. I do want them to know what happened to me, but I could not find the courage to tell them about it. I spend many sleepless nights just thinking that I betrayed my parents but could not bring myself to tell them about this. Tried so many times, but could not. I prayed to God to show me a way, but I could not, failed every single time. I even thought of ending my life, but I can’t imagine my family going through that horror.
    Yes, the person was cruel. He took advantage of my vulnerability, when I was at the lowest point in my life. But when such a long time goes by and nothing happened to him, I think may be he’s not cruel, may be I deserved this. He seems quite happy with his family too. But deep in my heart I know he did wrong, I did not deserve this. It has created in me a deep distrust of men and people in general.

    Hope to hear from you, if you have any more thoughts.

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