It would be funny . . . If it wasn’t so toxic

I have never been lucky in love. I never dated in high school, and never had a meaningful relationship until I was in my mid-twenties. Growing up, I struggled with weight which didn’t make me the most popular girl to date, rather, I was the girl that the guys were buddies with. I had extremely low self-esteem which made my weight problem even worse.

When I was in my early twenties, I took weight loss seriously and both me and my sister Abby started working out regularly and we both lost significant weight. It was then that men started to pay attention to me, not because of my sparkling personality (which it is) but for the wrong reasons.

I was in my mid-twenties when I met the man I would eventually marry. After dating for a few weeks, I knew he was the wrong person for me and tried to break up with him, but he would play on my sympathy and convince me to give him another chance. This happened more than once.

Did I love him . . . I’m not sure, but I felt sorry for him and for that reason, I stayed.

The first couple of years we were together, he would never let me meet his family. He would tell me of a variety of issues with his family including alcoholism, physical abuse, and mental illness (not depression but actually F’n crazy). When I finally met his family, the disfunction and crazy factor were clearly present, and he would use this to gain sympathy from me.

Years later he announced that we had been together long enough, and we should get married. There was no proposal, just an announcement. We had been together about 5 years, life was comfortable enough, so I thought this was just the next step.

Over the next few months, he decided that we should elope, that he didn’t want his family at our wedding, which also meant that my family would not be at our wedding. Reluctantly I agreed. Every so often, he would say “let’s get married this weekend” and I would usually find a reason to delay. I kept thinking to myself “how do I get out of this?” but I just didn’t have the self-confidence and resolve to walk away and eventually, I ran out of reasons to delay.

We went to Jasper, Alberta to elope, it is a beautiful mountain town, and the scenery is majestic, and it should have been a magical moment. The only moment that stands out to me about our wedding is the words he said right after the Justice of the Peace announced we were ‘man and wife,’ my now husband said, “I can’t believe you actually married me.” My stomach twisted in knots and all I could think was “what did I just do.” Needless to say, things only got worse from there.

My now husband used to like referring to me as ‘bought and paid for,’ which is typical of a controlling person. First, they like to alienate you from your friends, then your family until you have no support system left. Once we were married, he liked to keep complete control over me, he had to know every movement I made, “where I was going, what I was doing, who was I talking to and when would I be back?”

Over the years, his alcoholism got worse, he was more abusive in his words and more controlling over my movements. He would berate me any chance he could, never in public, which would reflect poorly on him but in private, that was a different story. In the early years, he would apologize for his behavior but after a couple of years, he would tell me that I deserved it and after a while you start to believe it. Over the years, the weight I had lost all came back and more, this is what years of being made to feel like you are nothing, can do to a person.

We had been married for 10 years when he was doing home renos for a friend of mine from work. After the work was done, my friend took me out for lunch and told me that I needed to get out of my marriage, that I deserved better than that. That was the first time anyone told me I deserved better.

It was not long after that when my ex was on my case over something, and he casually threw out the words that maybe I would be happier if we were divorced and I said, “maybe I would be” and that was all it took to end it. Of course, there were repercussions, but I held my ground and we got divorced. The last thing he ever said to me was "nobody will ever want you the way you look". I haven’t talked to him in 14 years but there is still damage to my soul that I don’t think will ever be healed.

Don’t feel sorry for me, I am not a victim, nor am I a survivor, it is just my story, and it has changed me.

I have learned to be acutely aware of toxic people now and how they can be soul sucking if you let them. I see shut down behavior and the lies so clearly now and it is like a light switch within me, I shut down and try to cut those people out of life. I can still be nice and polite, but I will never be tricked into feeling sorry for them ever again.