After escaping recently from a 2 year hell of abusive relationships, I have been trying to analyse my past behaviour so i can change and stop attracting abusive men in the future.
One of the things I've realised is that i was so codependent, i couldn't actually recognise abusive behaviour in front of me when it was so clear to everyone else i was being abused.
The one relationship that I can't quite figure out is the only man who I believe treated me well but then there's so many doubts to this too. I can see things so clearly now in other people and posts on MN but it's still so hard for me to see things in my own life so I need some perspective on this.
I met him when working abroad and dated for 3 weeks when I fell seriously ill. The first few days of illness my exP (who was a final year medical student) had to take me to A&E but they just thought I had a tropical illness that can be mild and theres no treatment so I was sent home. My exP had arranged a weekend on a resort the week before this and I felt so bad for ruining his weekend he'd paid for that I agreed to still go despite being ill.
On the bus journey to the resort, I really started to deteriorate and was having rigors (shaking uncontrollably due to very high fever). The whole bus journey he debated whether to take me back into hospital but we were quite remote so we agreed I'd go to the hotel and see the dr at the hotel.
When we got there, the hotel dr wasn't there and I didnt want to travel hours again as at this point my body was shutting down and I needed to sleep. I know it sounds nuts that I didnt go straight to hospital but I was in a poorly developed foreign country and I'd been told it was this mild viral illness and there was nothing they could do so I thought that resting in an air conditioned room for 48 hours before we travelled back to the capital would be better. I was also having periods where I stopped feeling nautious enough to eat and the fever would break for a few hours so I kept thinking I was getting better. My ex decided to get drunk and high the entire weekend while I was really suffering in the room. He kept encouraging me to eat etc but I could sense his resentment that I'd ruined the weekend and he didnt let it ruin his fun.
One night he came back to the room drunk and had sex with me after just feeling my head and saying how hot I was. I was pretty delirious and very weak and I just didnt have the energy to stop his advances. I cried afterwards and recognised it felt wrong but then I didnt exactly scream and shout or push him off either so it still feels quite 'grey' about whether this was rape.
I have a vague memory that he apologised the next day but then I think I've blocked alot of this out. What's sad is that I dated him for over a year after this and in every other way, I believed he was 'perfect' and always regretted breaking up with him. When we finally got back to the capital, I was admitted into hospital straight away and had to be given IV's for severe infection and dehydration and was in hospital for 5 days.
My ex visited me every day but I could sense his embarrassment about being seen by his hospital colleagues being associated with me. I guess I can understand he maybe felt unprofessional and didnt want his colleagues to know about his private life but it's also quite callous as he refused to come into A&E with me and waited outside when I had no one else there with me. He did ultimately look after me and cleaned up my sick etc. when I came out of hospital. Maybe he did all this out of guilt? I think I very much trauma bonded with him and because of that, he always felt like 'the one' who I broke up with.