Men Suffer As Well

When I met my ex, I thought she was perfect. I mean too perfect! She had a perfect figure, tan and long sun bleached blonde hair. Her sex drive was ferocious. She was all too aware of her powerful sex appeal, as well as how it could use it too her advantage.

I met her on an outing to the beach when I was 20. I was alone, and she caught me admiring her, she came over to say hi, and we spent the next 4 years together. A very passionate, but ultimately destructive and soul destroying 4 years.

She had me heart & soul. Within 12 weeks of meeting her we were engaged. There was no real hint of trouble for maybe the first 6 months. It was just constant excitement, romance and erotic bliss.

A few months after our engagement subtle hints emerged that her temper was on a scale that I had never encounted before. At first it was only verbal, and triggered by the most trivial of circumstances.

 Over time her rages at me increased in intensity. I was accused of working too long, neglecting her, looking at other women etc, etc. All of which were totally untrue. One day out of the blue she punched me so hard in the face that she knocked me off my feet. I was stunned beyond belief. How was I supposed to react? I can yell back with the best of them, but I was bought up to always turn the other cheek where physical violence was concerned. I was also taught that there is no means at all where it is acceptable to raise a hand towards a woman, even, as it appeared, in self defence.

After this episode there was a very passionate apology, and for awhile it seemed as this was an isolated incident. Wether it was love, lust, or insecurity. I was convinced it was a one off.

The verbal abuse soon got worse. It wasn`t just screaming at me over imagined indiscretions anymore. She was now taunting me sexually, looking for any means by which I may be vulnerable. A means to hurt me.

Pretty soon I had a very heavy ashtray thrown at me. The scar I still have just above my eye more than 20 years later. I was punched again just as heavily, and had a chunk of hair ripped from my scalp. But it was always the same. I just stood there and took it, and she would apologise with the most earth-shattering sex imagineable.

Soon enough the violence became a regular feature of our domestic life. I considered leaving, but my self worth was so low that I couldn`t imagine anyone else wanting me. Being bashed by my fiance ruined my sense of being masculine in any way.

One night my sister joined us to see a band at our local pub. The atmosphere was tense from the start, especially as my fiance was downing neat vodka at a frantic rate. I remember standing at the bar ordering a beer, chatting with one of my sisters friends, when I felt my lady kick me swiftly up the backside. She screamed something vile in my face and stormed out of the venue.

I caught up with her running into the night and tried to get to the bottom of what had occured. She accused me of flirting with my sisters friends, of being incestuous with my sister, and that I had apparantly been paying her no attention all night.

My sister came out to see what was going on, at which moment my fiance dramatically removed her engagement ring and tossed it into the gutter. I forget what exactly she said after that, but it was maniacal and mocking. As I went to retrieve the ring I felt the full force of her foot as it connected with my mouth, a second kick to the ribs knocked the wind right out of me. My sister quickly tore her off me, and having no such qualms about hitting a lady gave her a good hard slap.

My sister patched me up, and as she did so I broke down and told her what had been happening. This time I left for a couple of days. I stayed with my sister and ignored my fiance`s phone calls, and pleas to return. Then one day her mother called round, and explained that my fiance had a lot of phsychiatric issues that I was unaware of. She also told me that as much as she liked me as a person, she was against us getting together because she could see the relationship coming to this. In short I felt guilt to go with my shame and my physical pain.

My sister did her best to talk me out of going back, but after about 3 days, thats what I did.

There was no more violence for maybe a year after that. We tried a few different counsellors and shrinks, and some times were good, despite the dark cloud that kind of stood over us.

Slowly the emotional taunting returned. She would tell me she was having affairs, when in fact I knew she was just trying to hurt me. One day she announced that I had just eaten cat food after our evening meal, and still she was jealous of who I might meet during the course of my working day. I was miserable! For the first time in my life I became overweight, I was smoking heavily, and drinking, which made matters worse.

Then, the last straw fell. We were due to meet up with a friend of mine I hadn`t seen since I got engaged. She was anxious, bitchy and volatile on the drive over. I can`t remember what was said, or how it went down, but as I was driving she grabbed my hair and smashed my face into the steering wheel of the car as hard as she could. She then chided me for being a wimp.

That was it! I turned the car around, told her I was taking her home, and that I never wanted to see her horrible face ever again. She just smirked at me and told me that I would never leave her because I could never find anyone who could suck my **** as good as she could. I couldn`t believe what just came out of her mouth, and then it really hit home! This was all she really had to offer. There was no support, love, friendship, tenderness. There was nothing but sex and violence.

After she uttered those words, I just told her that I felt sorry for her that this was all she could offer in a relationship, and continued towards home. She knew her grip on me was now severed, and frantically pleaded with me to reconsider, when that didn`t work she threatened to jump from the moving vehicle. So I stopped the car left her on the side of the road and went to see my friend, who I moved in with from that night until a year later when I met the woman who is now my wife.

How she got home that night I don`t know. For months afterwards my parents and my sister got frantic calls from her asking where I could be found, but they never did give me away. I also changed jobs so that I didn`t have my boss giving me grief over the phone calls my workmates were having to deflect.

Finally I was free.