To think that many women have had a ‘lucky escape’?

[Sweetlikejollof]

I’ve been thinking about this recently - have you ever broken up with someone and thought ‘that was a lucky escape’?

Years ago, I dated this guy for about a month/six weeks. Extremely wealthy, recently divorced, older (late twenties v mid thirties). He was very full on, doing what I now recognise as love bombing, but at the time was very flattering. Dozens of roses sent to my office after our first date, etc.

He was incredibly controlling, to the extent he tried to order for me at restaurants a few times (I demurred), once tried to tell me what to wear on a date (I demurred), and complained when I changed my hairstyle ‘without discussing it’.

He loved to ‘debate’ me, and would come up with the most ludicrous hypothetical arguments to bait me, then congratulate me for ‘standing up for myself’ and being ‘possibly even smarter than him’.

He wanted me to meet his five year old daughter almost immediately (I refused, point blank), and referred to his ex wife in extremely uncomplimentary terms. I once saw a picture and we were extremely similar in appearance- I was just a decade younger.

He made weird jokes about how he could track me/read my messages if he wanted (he worked in tech), but wouldn’t because he trusted me.

There’s much much more, but you get the picture! He was gorgeous and I was very flattered by him, and being swept off to dinner at a Michelin starred restaurant or tea at the Ritz is pretty fun. I felt like I was in a film.

However, even with all that, I cannot believe that I dated someone so awful for more than a month. I finally came to my senses and dumped him - and I have never felt such relief. It’s insane, but as soon as I sent the ‘we’re done, it’s not me, it’s you’ text (yes, I dumped him over text and have zero regrets), I felt like a weight had been lifted. It was only a few weeks, but he was this weird oppressive presence and - knowing what I now know about abusive behaviour - I’m extremely certain that my life would have turned out horribly if I’d stayed with him. I have no doubt that he’s honed his tactics and is currently making someone else utterly miserable.

Have any of you had similar lucky escapes?

@BoudecaBains

" lucky escape ! " : I don't think that is exclsive to women .

Of course not, but it's a site populated mostly by women so it's geared towards them. I'm sure sites populated by men have nothing at all about how women have failed to please them...

Unfortunately too many women will put up with a lot of shit if a guy is good looking or is a "charmer" or has a bit of cash to throw around, and ignore the red flags.

@FoofOfTheWalkingDead

I argued with him for over an hour that we didn't have a connection and I didn't want to meet him.

Why on earth did you spend more than 30 seconds on the call?

Never had a lucky escape as in "dated someone for a while before realising they were abusive".

However, had plenty of really creepy males stalking me when I was younger and not emotionally equipped to say no (non-existent boundaries as a result of growing up in a household plagued with emotional abuse and coercive control)
In particular, my 17 year old self had a very lucky escape from a bloke who started to chat me up then pat me up (!!!) as I was waiting alone for a bus late at night. Thankfully an actual friend of mine turned up just in the time and the creep ran off. Not sure I'd be there to tell the tale otherwise. I completely froze at the time. I was shaking all over and entirely unable to defend myself.

I still feel... sad, thinking about it. People often don't realise how vulnerable young adults can be following childhood trauma. If anything had happened to me, pretty sure nobody would have linked it to the fact my father was abusive (nobody knew about that... still a buried family secret even nowadays...)

@inmyslippers Respond to being dumped, you mean? He was fairly furious and basically astounded that I’d had the cheek. Not in a dangerous ‘I’m going to stalk you’ way, more in a ‘how dare you, you stupid woman, you should be glad of my attentions’ way. I blocked him, as I wasn’t interested in dealing with it all.

He recently found and followed me on LinkedIn (which might be why this is on my mind).

@RobotValkyrie That makes me incredibly sad, as well.

Some of these stories are genuinely scary 🙈

@NameChanger54321

God, yes. When I look back now, I think, what was wrong with me? How did I allow myself to be treated so terribly?

He was awful. He was very, very intelligent in terms of being book smart, but his emotional intelligence was way off. He was most put out that I didn't go to university and earned a higher salary than him and had bought my own house quite young, despite the fact he had a PhD and said her had a much higher earning potential than me, and had to make sure he was better than me at everything else.

He'd watch the tv with subtitles on and whenever he saw a long word, he pause the TV and asked me what it meant. If I didn't know, he'd make me Google it, then a week later he'd ask me again what it meant and if I'd forgotten, he'd tell me he just wasn't sure I was smart enough to mother his children.

He had a female friend who he somehow managed to make me believe it was okay for him to sleep at her house once a week because he liked to go there for a smoke and didn't want to go home - of course now with more self respect I can see he was cheating on me.

He was very controlling and a cock lodger, too. He'd want me to travel to his place (HMO) most nights to stay, despite me having my own place where we could be alone and he'd always ask me to pick up food alone. Financially, I was crippled. I was just earning enough to pay a mortgage alone, bills etc, fuel for work. Then having to pay to feed him most nights was just so hard. I understood feeding him when he was at mine, but the fact he'd want me to buy food for his place too was just utter cheek.

He expected everything for free. He had a gym membership that allowed him access to two gyms and he'd always cheat the system by changing his second gym to a different one so he could go elsewhere. Once, he changed it to my gym but the change didn't compute in time. We arrived at the gym at 6am and he was so, so rude to the PT who let him in. He then needed a code to get into the toilets and again, was so rude. "For fuck sake man, you know I'd need a code so why let me get all of the way to the changing rooms to have to come back to get you to let me in?" I apologised profusely to the PT. I was so embarrassed.

We went on holiday and he said to me, I'm just not sure I only want to have sex with you for the rest of my life. I love you so much and want to stay with you but I think I want sex with other people, so I want you to know that I will begin to have sex outside of the relationship. That was the start of the end for me. I just had to pluck up the courage to end it. Luckily, he did it for me. When we got home from holiday, we were at his place and we're mid-episode of a series. He said to me can you go and make dinner now? I said not yet, I'm enjoying this, let's watch this episode. And he got up, went downstairs, cooked himself some food and came back upstairs and sat eating it next to me. I said have you really just made yourself food and not me? He said what the fuck is wrong with you? You're illogical. You just said you didn't want food yet, you wanted to watch tv, so why would I make you food if you didn't want food? I'd brought us both two chocolate bars each. He finished the food and ate his two chocolate bars. Then said he wanted more, he said can you pass me a chocolate bar from over there (at this point I didn't realise he had eaten his two). I said, I can't see yours, would you like one of mine instead? And he flipped. "One of mine? What the fuck is wrong with you? Why are you so possessive of a chocolate bar? Why are you trying to make out that I am greedy and have to make a point of letting me know it's your chocolate bar I'm eating?" Then he threw it at me, full force and told me to get the fuck out and it was over.

I count myself lucky because I clearly didn't have the self respect to end it myself, so it was a blessing that he ended it.

I'm very happy to say that six years later, I'm very happily settled with a little boy and my lovely partner who just so happens to be that lovely PT I had to apologise to profusely.

What a beautiful ending for you and the PT! 💐

@HollowTalk
I thought that by talking to him rationally it would bring the phone call to an amicable close. I was only in my 20s and naively assumed that most people were sane.
I'm in my 40s now and if that happened today I would laugh and kick him to the kerb (metaphorically speaking) within minutes, if not sooner.

[quote Sweetlikejollof]@icedcoffees That honestly hadn’t occurred to me, but you’re probably right. Do you think I should ask for it to be taken down? We’re mostly talking about things that happened a long time ago, though and mostly being fairly circumspect, so hopefully it’ll be fine?[/quote]
No I think you're fine - I mean, nobody is being made to respond

I'm just saying it might explain the reluctance some people have to share their stories. Unfortunately the internet is not a safe space.

[quote Sweetlikejollof]@TurnUpTurnip Not quite what I’m asking, but okay.[/quote]
I’m wanting to bang my head against the desk here! What was the point of them even typing that out?!

Ooh my first wrong thread!

Ignore me!

Yes - my ex was a very abusive man, my self confidence was completely destroyed and I was thinking this kind of bad relationship was all that life would have to offer me. I was also desperate to become a mother.
I didn’t escape the relationship in the beginning, as I should have, but I do thank my past self that she had enough sense to escape before I was trapped, with a baby. In that sense, I definitely had a lucky escape, I have absolutely nothing to do with this horrible man anymore and could start over with a clean slate completely.

[quote FoofOfTheWalkingDead]@HollowTalk
I thought that by talking to him rationally it would bring the phone call to an amicable close. I was only in my 20s and naively assumed that most people were sane.
I'm in my 40s now and if that happened today I would laugh and kick him to the kerb (metaphorically speaking) within minutes, if not sooner.[/quote]
I think we’ve all had experiences when we invested time and energy in explaining ourselves to people we should have just told to jog on. I certainly have! Spent most of my 20’s attempting justify myself to idiots. Completely get it.

@icedcoffees Yes, it’s a shame, but I agree.

Some of these experiences were really quite awful. Really puts my six week dalliance with a twat in perspective! I’m so sorry any of you went through this, and delighted that you came out the other side and all seem to be thriving.

Yes definitely had a lucky escape. Was with an abusive boyfriend for 4 years. We got together at 15, 3 months after my dad died and I think he sensed my vulnerability. He used to beat me and was emotionally abusive. When I was 19, the fog started to lift and I was thinking about dumping him, he could sense it and kept trying to convince me to have a baby with him. If I hadn’t been thinking clearly for the first time in years my life could have been so different now, and not in a good way!

I dated a guy casually for about 6 weeks when I was 20 and he was 28. He was a bit full on/needy. Wouldn’t leave me alone m, constant messages, getting friends to check up on me etc. took me ages to shake him when I stopped seeing him.

Years later he would be ‘hunted’ by one of those groups who catch people online grooming children. I watched it all unfold over FB. He was proved to have been grooming teenage girls and is now in prison. Makes me feel sick thinking about it