Looking back, looking forward

Retrospect. It’s a strange thing really. If only we could see now what we will only be able to see tomorrow. It’s only when we look back on today will we see options in situations that seem set in stone today.

Or maybe that’s because sometimes we don’t want to look at things differently. In all honesty, that was probably true in my case. Either way, it’s often hard to see beyond your current situation.

See, looking back I can clearly see that what I thought was the love of my life, was actually a destructive, abusive relationship. But at the time I couldn’t see that. People would tell me all the time, ‘You have to leave him’. But I was convinced it was ok. I new that all relationships had ups and downs, and just thought that what I had was normal. He’d throw me down the stairs in the heat of an argument one day and the next day it was all smiles and apologies.

I believed I brought it on myself, if I smiled at a bloke in a bar, he’d tell me I was acting like I didn’t want him. If I spoke to a bloke, then I was flirting which meant I didn’t respect our relationship and I didn’t deserve him. Eventually I wouldn’t leave the house without him, in case I made a mistake and he’d leave me. I felt lucky he loved me, and became paranoid about losing him.

Even when I started to see things were wrong I couldn’t leave. My self esteem had dropped so low I thought I was totally unlovable and no one else would set eyes on me if he left. I had become so dependant on him to feel ‘alive’ that I had more or less died inside and was so scared of what life might be like without him that I didn’t want to look outside my situation.

It took a few really nasty situations to jolt me back to reality; a ‘fall’ off a third story balcony, an accident with a hot iron, an accidental back injury caused by a cricket bat. The hospital suspected what was going on and offered to help but at first I couldn’t accept what had happened and so I declined the offers. But it started to happen more and more frequently and it became impossible to deny it, even to myself.

I tried to leave, but the world was scary without him. And for nearly a year I bounced around, one minute relieved to be free, the next back on his doorstep begging for him to take me back.

And then fate came to my rescue; he ended up in jail. Suddenly I really was free. And that’s when reality really kicked in. Looking back I could see that I had become his prisoner emotionally. I could see that I should have walked away years before.

But retrospect has its blessing. It gives us the opportunity to think about how things could have been different, and learn from that. A horrible thing had happened to me, and I could easily have remained bitter and angry and let it ruin my life. But I chose to look back and see how I should have acted, and learn from that. I promised myself I would never let myself live like that again and decided to move on.

And I have moved on.

For more info on how to cope in an abusive relationship, check out a couple more links on ReachOut...

• Helping a friend who is in a sexually abusive relationship(Fact sheet)
• An abusive relationship (Fact sheet)
• When a relationship is ending(Fact sheet)