Getting Over It: Hard Lessons

“When are you going to get over it? It’s been a while now.”

They were right. It has been a while now… and honestly, I’ve been wondering the same thing myself. The statement was made out of love, believe it or not, by a person who didn't want to see me in pain (but doesn’t always word things the best way). I usually get over things rather quickly. If I can’t solve it, can’t fix it, can’t move it, which is rare, I simply get over it because there’s no point in stressing one’s self over a thing you can’t change. Not this time. This time, I let it haunt me and replay in my mind to the point where it keeps me awake and night, and when I dare to sleep, it plagues my dreams. I flashback when something reminds me about it and I’m there again. However, since that person questioned me, I realized I needed to make a more conscious decision to come back to myself — to get over it.

The first step I needed to take in releasing myself from its hold was to be honest with myself about why I’ve allowed it to take hold of me for so long. So, in a final effort to “get over it,” I’m going to tell the truth and lock the memory in this essay, releasing it from my spirit.

*

To my family and friends who know about my breakup, it’s been nearly two years since I walked out of my relationship, which they did not know was emotionally abusive until its sudden end. The general belief is that I’ve been holding onto the hurt this person caused me toward the end of the relationship, but the truth is that I've actually been holding onto the harm this person caused me 6 years ago, before our “official” relationship ever began — when he sexually assaulted me.

Every day for the entirety of our relationship, it plagued me. I knew if I told my story, I would have questions to answer questions that I was not prepared to speak on. Questions like, "If he assaulted you, why did you ever date him?" I know the answer. Confusion, shame, and naivete mainly. We met our senior year at college and he spent that year gaslighting and manipulating me both mentally and sexually. I was inexperienced with both sex and relationships and, being undiagnosed with a neuro divergence, I was also not socially aware. However, there is an added layer as to why I stayed with him, and even delved deeper into the relationship, that I’ve truly kept hidden. At the time, I did not believe in premarital sex, so, I thought that if I stayed with him that the "sex" wouldn’t count. I honestly believed that we could eventually just get married and it would be okay with God that I had sinned for not protesting my assault. I never told anyone that because I didn’t want to be seen as some sort of zealot.

One reason I wasn’t able to get over the assault is that I was too obsessed with finding a “why” that made sense. Why would someone, who I never slighted, do this awful thing to me? What I didn’t know was that there was no singular reason that would satiate me. Learning the answer would never make me feel better or give me closure. Still, I considered the possibilities and finally understood some of the reasons why he did it. The main reason being that he wanted to. He wanted sex and he wanted it from me; so he devised a plan to wear me down throughout the year and make me allow him to have sex with me — not a mutual event, since me and my desires didn’t actually matter in the sex, rather it was his personal gratification that mattered. He didn’t care for us to have sex with each other; he wanted me to let him have sex with me. And because I wouldn’t, his plan was failing. So, because he was not able to wear me down through charm (what he started with) nor manipulation and prude-shaming (what it quickly devolved into throughout the year), during his last few days at the university, post-graduation, he decided he deserved sex from me and that he would not be going back to his home town without it.

That was my first time having sex. At least, at the time, I thought it was sex. I now realize that if it is not consensual, it is not sex — it’s rape, a term I avoided for years. I would have never had sex with him had I been given the ability to choose, and he knew that — given the fact that for the 10 months, we had known each other, I made it clear that I had never had sex before and that I did not intend to have sex with him or anybody else before marriage.

It stands to reason that he realized what he had done a few days later, after flying back to his state, and that’s why he decided to text me to make sure we were still cool, without mentioning the encounter. Though I made a vain attempt to cut the relationship off via this text conversation, telling him that he had been mistreating me all year, he ended up taking accountability and apologizing for all he had done to me. No mention of the assault. He said that he had been mistreating me on purpose, that he was wrong, and that he wanted to remain friends - which further confused me as a 21-year-old who had never really been in a relationship (save for a few months as a teenager), let alone an emotionally abusive one.

Years into our relationship, as I sat with his family at dinner, which he forced me to do every week, his youngest sister said matter-of-factly, “Dad and Nic expect the world to bend for them — and it does.” They all laughed. I looked at her in shock and some horror, firstly because I thought I was the only one who noticed, and secondly, because she had no idea that I was actively part of the world that was being forced to bend for her brother. She did not elaborate, nor did I ask her to. I understood what she meant. I was constantly hearing him tell stories about how someone had agitated him, and I always received the brunt of the verbal violence when I told him that he was in the wrong and not the other person. I watched him become angry when someone did not let him disregard rules and saw how he would explode when he encountered the consequences of his own actions. And I experienced firsthand how he would react if he wasn’t simply given what he wanted when, after a year of unsuccessful coercive tactics, he entered me from behind during a movie night, without me even knowing what was happening.

After about 3 years of dating, his personality became worse and the gaslighting more insidious. It stirred up those not-so-dormant feelings in me about the assault. I had not forgotten, I was just quiet. I had convinced myself the assault was a mistake, a misunderstanding of some sort — but he became meaner and more manipulative. I finally realized that he was the cruel man who had raped me when I checked his text messages one day and saw him coerce a woman into taking a Plan B morning-after pill that she clearly did not want to take (as indicated by her responses). For context, we were in a one-sided open relationship due to us being long-distance at the time. We had staunch agreements, all of which he broke during the course of our relationship, including condomless sex with that woman (or several women, I will never know, nor do I seek to).

That incident opened my eyes. For the entirety of our relationship up until that point, I was under the assumption that I had been his only victim, but seeing the texts of him forcing that young woman to take a Plan B is what made me realize otherwise. He wasn’t my abuser; he was an abuser of any woman he sought sex from — which was any woman he found even somewhat attractive.

I still stayed. A year after that revelation, I forced us to take a two-week break to reconsider our relationship because I was tired of him misdirecting his anger at me constantly. He cried and said he was afraid I would leave him. It confused me and I ended up trying to console him, telling him I did not want to leave him, I just wanted him to be better. But I did want to leave him. For the last 2 years of our relationship, I wanted to leave him. Though hazy, I was getting a clearer vision of who he was.

During the two-week no-contact break, I felt at ease at not having to speak to him or be stressed by him constantly. At one point in our relationship, he caused me so much stress I developed gallstones and had to have my gallbladder removed, I was bedridden for months from the sickness. "Over what?" one might ask; because he wanted me to take an unpaid week off of work to visit him at a time that coincided with his vacation. Still, my brain was flooded with the thoughts of that night in 2017. I knew that I could not proceed with our relationship until I gained some clarity on why what happened happened.

I wrote him a letter (below) and sent it via email on the last day of our break. When we got on the phone the next day I asked if he read it and if he had any thoughts. His reply was “What do you want me to say? Let’s talk about the time I raped you?” Rape. That was the first time that word was used. He said it, not me. I asked why he did what he did and all he said was that he was sorry and that he didn’t remember that night at all. It hurt. A night that changed my life and caused me this deep wound, a night that I still have bad dreams about to this day, he did not recall at all. Or so he said. I’ll never know — nor do I seek to.

What I seek to do is, as that person who loves me said, get over it. So this is it. The time for stories about my “abusive ex” to end. Time to stop comparing my situation to every girl who talks about experiencing abuse. It's over. It’s gone. I have to realize that the girl who I was died when she was assaulted. The girl who was abused for four years thereafter is dead as well. I’m a different woman now. It’s time to mourn, but in the way a funeral procession does — while moving forward. In truth, I’m not sure there is a simple means of getting “over,” but making the conscious decision to get through it has helped tremendously. I forgive myself for not getting when the getting was good and I'm proud of myself for finally leaving. I love the woman that I am too much to weigh her down with past lives long dead. I’m sorry to those girls who were lost, you deserved better and I intend to live better on your behalf. Cheers to new lives.

*

End note: It took years for me to recognize that the God I serve is not some sort of genie. I cannot trick Him and He is not endeavoring to trick me with semantics. He is a God of love, grace, and justice. He is kind.

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The following has not been edited or modified; as it was never meant to be shared or essayized. It is me attempting to make lemonade with rancid lemons. It is difficult to read. I suggest not reading it.

January 25, 2021

Hi Nic. The following is a really long "letter" about something that’s been haunting me a little. Please do not assume I’m trying to end it (though I don’t know if you intend on ending it today). I just need to get this off my heart and mind before anything else. It might hurt you, which is not my intention, but it feels dishonest to keep holding on to these thoughts without letting you know in detail. Originally I was just going to tell you on the phone, but it got to be so long there’s way no I could remember all of what I wanted to say. Excuse the grammatical errors.

• the first time we had sex, which was my first time ever having sex, was not consensual. I did not want to have sex (especially without a condom) and I don’t know why you thought I did when we had never done that before [I think I need an answer for this]. That same night, before this happened, your roommate asked if we still hadn’t had sex — I’m not sure why I’ve written that but it helps me remember that I had drawn a clear boundary of how far I wanted to go. It was also embarrassing. I, to this day, don’t know if you told them afterward that you finally had sex with me & if, at that time, that’s what it was all about.

• When it started happening, I couldn’t tell you stop because I froze and I couldn’t speak and I couldn’t really process what was happening. At one point you asked if you should stop, I said no. I think my brain was trying to make the situation consensual and I wanted to feel like I was a participant. Then I changed my mind; you asked if I wanted you to stop again and I said yes (or maybe I nodded my head), I don’t think you understood me because you asked me to turn over and you kept going. I strongly believe that was a miscommunication; I have to believe that. I think what made you stop is that I offered to give you head instead. Then, instead of sleeping, you decided we should stay up until nearly morning watching a movie. In the morning you were acting weird (aloof?) as if you didn’t want me there. I asked if you wanted me to leave and you shrugged. So I got dressed while you got dressed to go get food and when we got downstairs I said goodbye and walked out. I walked home in a daze and my roommate knew something was wrong with me immediately.

• The next day you sent me the video we had taken the previous night of me giving you head. I was angry and hurt and confused as to why you were doing this to me. You texted later that night and asked to come over, for some reason I said yes but that I didn’t want to do anything sexual. You came over and initiated the normal sexual things we used to do anyway. I was hurt that you came over under false pretenses (again) but I decided that night to have sex because I thought it might undo the previous night. In the morning, you told me that we would hang out before you left to go back to Illinois (which was in a few days). But I didn’t hear from you again until either the day you were leaving or the night before, and that’s because I texted you to remind you that you forgot about me. I thought (and hoped) that that would be the last time I ever spoke to you, but to my surprise, you texted me the next day to tell me how bad your flight was. We ended up having a conversation about how you treated me and you said something like “I tried to play you and ended up playing myself” and you sent a gif. I screenshot the message and sent it to my friend in a rage. Until you said that, I didn’t know that you were intentionally trying to play me and act cool. I kind of thought I was out of my mind. For you to act caring at first and then treat me coldly for months, I thought I had been imagining it. Not to mention, no one else could grasp what I was saying when i would tell them how you were treating me, I’d get the same response “you’re talking about Nic??”. It also let me know that you had been letting your friends treat me like garbage on purpose and that you were telling them one thing but treating me a whole different way. [I was so miserable senior year and turned down many advances and even stopped talking to a boy because you said he was not a nice guy (which turned out to be a lie because you were jealous) — all because I liked you. Meanwhile, you were having sex with any girl who would have sex with you — which I didn’t learn until later after I left Philly.]

• Anyway, because of that singular moment, I’ve tried to warp my actual religious beliefs that I’ve always had... so that I wouldn’t feel like I was going to hell for sinning. I didn’t believe in sex before marriage, and you knew that from the beginning. You didn’t agree and you tried to change my mind about sex several times. And I think it’s caused me some mental anguish to know that you can’t even remember that night, but my life was totally altered.

• Now, I’m finally trying to grow and have some of the experiences that I didn’t get to have, without the guilt and feelings of judgment (mainly from myself). I didn’t get a “first time.” I try to escape these memories and these feelings in a new way all the time, but until I get it off my chest, I don’t think anything will work. I even tried “resetting my body count” for the new year and pretending I was a virgin (January 2020) so that I could have a real (and consensual) first time. It obviously didn’t help because I was fooling myself. You thought it was stupid because you couldn’t possibly understand why I would be doing that.

• I’ve literally beat my head trying to avoid these memories because I don’t want to make you upset, but this one won’t go away. Every time you talk about your friends, it’s a bitter irony to me, because you’ve treated me in similar ways that you feign disgust for when they do it.

• I can see why you have the friends that you do because you’re a little bit like them. Men who haven’t always fully understood consent, men who have tricked women, men who pretend they don’t have a past that involves harming women. Yes, you pretend; you have to. You acknowledge you’ve done me wrong, but no one else knows (to my knowledge). I deal with it by myself. This is not to say you need to have a sit down with your friends and family, I DO NOT think that at all. But to hear you call the kettle black sometimes makes me feel like you put yourself in a separate category than those men.

• And when I think about you with other women, I worry sometimes that you will have an issue not understanding consent. When I read your texts to that girl (a year ago? Two? idr) and saw you pressure her into taking a plan b that she didn’t want to take and shouldn’t have had to take, I felt rage for her. Not just for myself. And some of the things you’ve done make me look at you and think that I don’t know you. And neither does anyone else because everyone gets a different face from Nic, and sometimes a different story. This is part of the reason I feel so much anger when you omit details from me (no matter how insignificant it may seem) — it brings back all these thoughts and feelings about how you have deceived me (and others) in the past and how you are forced to deceive people in the present by hiding a part of your personality.

This is not the only thing I’ve thought about this break and I do not only think bad things About you. Despite what was said above, I think mostly good things about you and I like you a good deal. This letter is just about one singular situation that I cannot get free of [I know i mentioned a few things, but they’re all interconnected]. What I said here was written without vitriol and it has no bearing on how we should go forward. I just know that I’m not going to forget this until I send it. It’s been almost four years and I don’t want it haunting our relationship anymore. I’ve tried the ways that don’t involve you, but now, I think telling you might be the best way. I don’t know if you can process this in a few hours or if you need another day, let me know.

I don’t need an apology, I know that you’re sorry because I know that you’re a good person. And writing that sentence made me feel like I shouldn’t send this letter or talk about it, and spare you the details... but I’ve tried that so many times and it just comes back to me again, more viscously. So I have to do it, though I feel incredibly bad about it all. You don’t need to reply to this via email (because I hope to speak to you later — not about this, really), just please let me know when you’ve read it and spare me the anxiety of having to ask.

I think it’s important for you to know, no matter what conclusions you drew during this break [and I hope you don’t change your mind because of this letter — whether good or bad] that I love you because I want to, which is far greater than obligatory love.