At one point years ago I was adrift, depressed—and flattered that a fairy-tale-handsome guy I met at a club one night was into me. Like, really into me. He set up an adorable picnic for our first date. He bought me a fancy cocktail dress for our third. And a few weeks later, he told me he loved me.
I remember my best friend complaining, “Why do you always get the good ones?” But I hadn’t told her that he had pressured me into sex. That he refused to wear condoms. That he once sent me to the bathroom to take out my diaphragm because he could “feel” it. Now, a healthy marriage and two kids later, I can see that he was trying to get me pregnant so I couldn’t leave him—a commonly used tactic in abusive relationships, a form of reproductive coercion.
Financial manipulation is another way to leverage power in a relationship. Mr. Fairy Tale, for example, urged me to sell my “unsafe” old VW Beetle and offered to lease me a newer car. He also said he’d pay me if I quit my evening job, so he wouldn’t have to worry about me being out alone at night. I declined both offers—and broke up with him soon after, as his controlling and sexually coercive behavior worsened.
“Oftentimes you’ll hear abusive partners say, ‘I don’t want anyone to hurt you, and that’s why I check your social media,’ or ‘I’m just trying to take care of you, and that’s why you have to be home at 5,’ ” says Ruth M. Glenn, president and CEO of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. “But we help women understand that this is evidence of the partner’s desire to maintain power over them. It’s not just love, or worry, or jealousy—it’s unhealthy.
To be clear, “This doesn’t mean that a ‘pushy’ partner who texts you a lot, or someone who is jealous and insecure about one particular person, place, or thing is an ‘abuser,’ ” says Stanizai. “Abuse is part of a pattern of controlling and manipulative behaviors that cause fear or intimidation in a partner, not an isolated incident or one touchy subject.”
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