I want to write it down before my self-doubt creeps in Anita and I start doubting even these thoughts. I’d immediately seen your post and have thought for good 2-3 hours about it. Sorry this has ended up being a little too long, I’ll await your reply.

I’ll start by saying Anita that thank you so much. I genuinely wish that all the good things that you’re doing here come back to you in bigger and brighter ways. You may not know how much of a help your advice has been to me. Today was my most productive day at my office (well my work from home, crazy pandemic days) just because I had a clearer head from all your and Peter’s advice. Your mental clarity and capacity to empathize is astounding. Thanks so much.

Coming to your observations, gosh this really made me think and I feel I’ve figured a lot of things out and have a clearer idea about why I’m still stuck on him even after 1 year and why I still doubt his abusive tendencies.

1. I think it’s the exact opposite of my parents having any hostility between them. The nasty fights I talked about were mostly about mom being upset about something and talking about it for maybe 2-3 days but dad always being there and then them sorting it out and they were very few and I never saw them raise their voice.  The fact is (and I swear I’m not idealizing since it’s my parents) that they have one of the most beautiful relationships that I have ever seen. So they are childhood sweethearts, each others’ first and only loves both emotionally and physically and are now together for around more than 30 years. Mom is very loving but dad frankly is absolutely next level amazing. Unbelievably good and respectful to mom.  And I feel in a twisted way that is my problem. Gosh it’s so clear now Anita. I have always idealized their relationship. Mom would often tell me, when we were in high school we’d do this, we’d do that and I have always found their love very pure and the fact that they have been each others’ only partners really special and have wanted the same always. I remember feeling really smug in school telling my friends that my parents have been together since forever and that they’ve a really cinematic love story. I remember telling my mom (shit why did I not see all this before) when I was in high school that I want a similar thing, I remember categorically telling her that I don’t want to have multiple partners in life, I just want to have my one and only relationship and then tell my grandkids about it. I might sound very narrow minded while saying this but I’ve felt for the longest time that marriages that are maybe mediated by family or 2^nd or 3^rd relationships don’t have the spark and innocence and the passionate cinematic element that high school first loves have. And that is what I wanted. So when I got together with R, I was 21, it was my first emotional and physical love and I remember telling him that he is my own fairytale. I would love going down the memory lane of our relationship and discuss our initial days together, and now I know why. He would sometimes joke that we didn’t exactly meet during high school but since he was my very first, I would be like no, you’re my high-school love. So basically now that I think about it, I think one of the reasons why I was so obsessed with sticking to him and am obsessed with not letting it go is because I feel like my fairytale is slipping away. I think that is why I want to keep a part of it alive within me and can’t bring myself to let go because it’s like symbolizing pure puppy true love for me, despite the abuse. I literally told my mom over the phone a week ago that I’m open to dating other men but I don’t think it’ll be as untainted and pure as what I had with him and now I know why I think that. Because despite all the abuse and tears, it was after all my first relation and the fairytale that I’d wanted since I was old enough to understand romance. Oh my god Anita, thank you so much for making me think about this. This is why I have become so cynical to love again, because I feel it won’t be as pure because I have seen my parent’s love as purer than the other relatives of their generation and I attached it to them being first loves and high school sweethearts. My mom questioned me that how can I call my relation with him pure and why I think my next relation with a better man won’t be pure and I just said I don’t know but now I think I know why. I have idealized the concept of first love (which I think maybe we all do to some extent, correct me if I’m wrong), come to think of it, I’ve grown up watching sappy romantic movies and reading Jane Austen novels and  my parents’ real life example just made it feel possible in real life and, despite all the bad things between R and me, I saw it as my own fairytale, my own first and only love as whatever comes after him, even if the most loving relation, won’t just be my first, won’t just be my fairytale, it will be preceded by another love. So I took the abuse because I couldn’t see my first love dream fail.

2. So my father is like super respectful to mom. I remember his friend telling my mom, I was present too, that he is the best husband he’s seen. Now I remember often gushing over how nice dad is and very closely observing and appreciating his attitude towards mom, telling her I want R to treat me like dad does. I remember one day mom telling me to stop doing that (this was before I told her about his abuse). She told me to not set dad as my only parameter. She told she was afraid that if I become too fixed on finding a partner who treats me exactly as dad treats mom, I may not appreciate my partner for what he brings to the table if it’s different from what dad does, even if just as good. I think that is the reason that I argued Anita. I think I framed my previous post wrong, I wasn’t submissive since the beginning, I would take a stand from the beginning but eventually felt so inferior with his gas lighting that ended up crying and begging. We had arguments since the very beginning, as soon as he left the city because I was always used to seeing very respectful behavior from dad towards mom, I was very sensitive to his lack of respect and time towards me. Dad gives mom a lot of time till now, and I remember thinking when R would be like I’m busy with work all the time, that everyone is busy, dad is also busy but he has a minute for mom when she calls. I think I have seen respectful behavior at home and that’s why was unhappy with R’s conduct towards me. I remember I told the friend that I talked about in the last post, about R not letting me go to the washroom stuff and he was like, you’re being too sensitive, you could have said you have to go once again. But I felt bad as I immediately thought of my dad and compared. I remember when I was smaller and we would even be running late for a movie at the theatres, even in that situation when I’d be like dad I have to use the loo, he would always wait for me. So I think that is why I thought he was rude, that is why I didn’t like he didn’t give me time. I think that is why I felt something was wrong, the problem was that instead of seeing him as wrong, I saw myself as wrong. And why I did that, is the third point.

3. Coming to why I took it all. This is where I would love some guidance Anita. I think there were the following reasons:

• First was obviously the first love obsession that I talked about in my first point.
• Secondly, I would say what I saw around. So I see my friends in ‘friends with benefits’ relations, I see friends who are like we don’t talk daily, my cousins who are okay with husbands not answering calls even once when they are out, and just people in general who are in all sorts of relations. This frankly makes me doubt myself and feel that maybe I am expecting too much. So on one hand I kept feeling bad because I am used to seeing a super loving husband in my dad but on the other hand I stay because I see all kinds of relations around and feel that maybe the way I want to be treated is not possible in my generation. A friend of mine literally told me that why do you want him to talk to you daily and I just didn’t know how to explain it to her. I end up feeling maybe he is normal, maybe all people are like this and I have unbelievably high expectations of good conduct from him. I think he’ll get a chilled out girl with normal expectations and I’ll end up being the unrealistic one. Now I know that he was abusive by any standard but back then this is what I thought. I would be lying if I didn’t say that a part of me even after reading all about abusive tendencies still fears that what if he has a better relation with another girl who will give him more space, what if his abuse was a result of my high expectations but then my better sense says that what I am expecting is not too much, it is basic and people who are in such relations don’t see what I am seeing.
• Thirdly, and this is the biggest one but the most difficult one for me to accept so I’m saying this last: my abysmally low self-esteem and this is where I do put a little bit of blame on my mom. So as a child whenever mom would be upset with me, she’d say the following politely but firmly: she’d compare me to other kids, look at Elise, will she ever argue back with her mother, all children are so disciplined, plus she had this one exact line if I’d not agree to what she was saying when she was scolding me: ‘Improve your nature Jenny, I am your mother so I take it but if you don’t change it, your friends and partner won’t take it’, she’d also say this one exact line, ‘you are just behaving like xyz, this is how she used to behave’ (xyz is my cousin sister who unfortunately had a very unfortunate life and strained relations with family and separation from her husband) and that Anita, that bore into my head like one big nail. I don’t even need to introspect for this, I know this. I am very confident on the outside, I give my opinion, I argue when I feel somebody is wronging me but deep down, I believe that I have the most pathetic nature in the world, and if I don’t change it, I’ll have as miserable a life as xyz, if my mother herself said this who loves me the most, then it has to be true. When I realized this a couple of years back, I went and told mom and she apologized and said that she didn’t mean any of it and said it in anger and ever since then she’s done more than enough to make it up, she’s expressed umpteen times how I’m the best daughter and has never repeated that ever but it doesn’t budge, now I see everything from that prism. I’m like I still have bad nature but she’s saying all this because she doesn’t want to hurt me and that is exactly why I took all that R gave me. I saw it as my fault because I was a bad gf and I have bad nature and he is abusive because I am irritating him with my bad nature, when he gets a better-natured girl, he’ll be okay. His telling me that I cause that abuse, don’t understand etc etc further reinforced that and by and by I began feeling so inferior and low that from fights and arguments, I went to pleading and begging. That is why despite identifying him as rude even before getting together with him, I stayed with him, because I saw myself as causing everything and he said the same thing. But today I definitely know better.

This is it Anita. I’m literally crying with relief right now because I feel I’ve literally poured out the most core issues of my life and have gained clarity.

It all comes down to my very low self-esteem Anita. I mean imagine, even after mom told me he is abusive, a couple friends a few times said his behavior is wrong, I read up so much on narcissism and found him to be similar, you so clearly said he is abusive, I still feel, in some corner of my heart that still maybe I made him abusive, maybe I unreasonable, maybe I am not telling people the things rightly, maybe I was the abusive one and not him, maybe I am not as good as my mom was to dad and don’t deserve that respect, maybe mom just lucked out as most relations around are okay only and even the so called abusive people end up with a gf and wife so how bad can it be, it’s an endless pit, one endless pit. I am feeling embarrassed saying this as you may also think how can I still feel this but that is just how low my self-esteem is. I feel a little proud that I’ve done some work on myself in the last one year that now at least one part of me can see his abuse and call him out on it and not fall back into his attempts to come back, that I have built some esteem. What has even helped is another friend of mine, so he developed feelings for me that unfortunately I don’t have for him and we’re just friends now but the kind of love and respect and appreciation he showed towards me Anita is exactly what I want and that made me think that no I am not wrong, and undeserving of love and that the way I want to be loved is not unrealistic.

But my biggest fear is that tomorrow I’ll see him have a perfect life with another girl and it will reiterate that I was the one who was at fault. I literally dread that day and so thinking that he’ll be as narcissistic to whosoever he ends up with feels comforting.

I will work on my self-esteem. And I will let go of him Anita. Somehow all this makes it clear that there’s a reason to me feeling that I am wrong and that reason is not me actually being wrong but my childhood hurt. I now believe that I know how to respect my partner and so I do deserve the same respect. I’m sorry I’m overwhelming you with very long posts.

Also, Anita, apart from the last text conversation that I am utterly confused about and have no idea what it meant, this is what I gleaned from his calls and talks over the last 9 months. Let me know if I’m misunderstanding something.

– He wanted me back, but he wanted me back on his own terms.
– He was also angry with me just like I was angry with him about how the relation turned out to be, plus he was also angry that I haven’t been answering his calls, or chasing after him. In one conversation, I don’t remember exactly which of the 4, when he started shouting at me and calling me mean, I replied that why are you calling mean, what have I done, you left without any explanation once again after so many years together, still I am not saying anything mean to you, I am silent only, he had replied to that ‘I don’t like this silence’.

Gosh Anita, I can’t tell you how therapeutic this is being. I’m literally feeling as if my head was filled with clouds which are slowly giving way to bright sunshine. I will forever be indebted to this site and your patience. Now I really must sleep haha and start bettering myself from tomorrow.

I’ll await your reply.