Hiya, I'm a long-term lurker, occasional poster, and I just wanted to say how much this board and its wonderful, wise, no-nonsense posters have helped me. Without me even having to ask :)
Brief story: about 5 months ago, I met (via OLD) a man, and we started seeing each other. There were a few niggles, but I though 'hey, no one's perfect'. After Christmas we had a great (overnight) date, and the next day we spent the whole day together, talking and ahem other stuff. That evening I had arranged to meet a friend, and he seemed fine with that. We parted with affection and plans to meet again.
An hour later, he called me, ragingly, blindingly angry. He was almost incoherent, but it seemed that he felt that, by arranging to meet someone else, I was 'treating him like shit' and 'being incredibly selfish'. He said he never wanted to see me again, called me all sorts of things and said that I was "lucky we weren't having this conversation face to face".
I was blindsided. I couldn't work out why this was happening, and I just wanted everything back the way it was. To my shame, I wrote a long, self-flagellating email, apologising for hurting him, begging him to talk to me so we could work it out and promising to be better in future. 24 hours passed, and he sent me a terse email, acknowledging my apology and saying he did want to see me after all.
I was massively relieved. This was a blip and we could pretend it never happened. And then a little voice sounded in my head, warning me that I was scared of him. He hadn't apologised for the way he spoke to me, so I sent a careful email, asking him why he had reacted that way, if he could assure me it wouldn't happen again, and what exactly he had meant by the "face to face" comment. He didn't like that, angry emails and calls followed, and the upshot is, I'm never going to see or speak to him again (my choice).
So thank you mumsnet, for:
Teaching me about red flags
For warning me that, when someone shows you what they're like, you should listen the first time
That all abusive relationships start out nice, then gradually escalate
That if I accepted this, it would be worse next time
That you should never, ever spend time with someone who frightens you.
That there can be many, many good bits about a person, but some things are just dealbreakers.
I hadn't anticipated how hard it would be to walk away, and how much I would miss him and think stupid stuff about 'if I could just show him how a real relationship works, we could be happy together' or even 'well, if he does it again, then I'll DEFINITELY leave next time'. But I thought about a few other little things he'd said and done, that I'd either let go at the time, or dismissed as a joke, and about what you beautiful nest of vipers would say, and decided to just LTB.
Sorry, but of an essay! But just -- thanks :)