What are the early signs of an abusive relationship?

Answered Dec 25, 2018

A couple of signs appeared very early.

First, asking sexual questions before any agreement to any sexual involvement. As in, “Do you enjoy (certain type of sex act)?”

I thought the question was kind of excessive at the time. But I stupidly glossed over it, not realising that, the idiot’s entire concept of socialising and meeting new people revolved around finding people to use for sex (and certain related fixations). And they assumed that, everyone else socialises for the sole purpose of being used.

It also later turned out that, the idiot was obsessed with said sex act, assumed that everyone else is obsessed with it, and didn’t comprehend the concept of consent.

The red flag escalated to getting physical very rapidly after meeting. I stupidly went along with this. I think I didn’t quite understand that, the idiot would just make advances at anyone and everyone who had certain characteristics (which I won’t go into here). And didn’t see people as individuals, and didn’t want to get to know them as such.

The second red flag was micromanaging.

It started with my hair, and telling me that, a certain other hairstyle would be preferable to the one I had. I refused, because it’s my hair, and I am the only person with authority to decide how I get it cut.

The idiot had the idea that pestering and pestering and pestering, and criticizing and criticizing and criticizing would coerce me into getting the demanded hairstyle, just to get the conflict to stop.

The micromanaging then moved on to my clothing. With demands to hypersexualise, and put myself on public display. The idiot insisted that, jeans, t-shirt, and comfortable shoes constituted a bizarre, freaky-looking outfit, that would make strangers stare at me on the street. I refused, because it is my clothing, and I am the only authority in choosing it.

I eventually just said, “If my clothing bothers you so much, just don’t call me anymore. Then, I won’t come over to your home, and won’t pollute your space or visual field with my allegedly inadequate/inappropriate clothing.” This didn’t work, and the idiot continued with a fantasy that, maybe this time, I would finally show up with the demanded clothing/shoes/hairstyle.

The micromanaging escalated further and further, piling on detail after detail after detail. Including physical flesh-and-blood body features. Towards the end, the idiot seriously demanded that I “must” find a way to grow larger breasts, and did escalating anger and silent-treatment over it.

After five months of escalation, demands, arguments, attempts to drag me into their fantasy world, the idiot directly stated the intent to sexually assault me, by forceably doing the originally mentioned sex act. Knowing very clearly that I didn’t consent (because I had just that minute said directly that I would never consent, for about the fiftieth time).

The idiot had believed right from the beginning that, I was “the one” who could be totally micromanaged, and relentlessly pestered/criticized into becoming some kind of idealised fetish object. And that, I would just eventually break down, and lose the ability to ever say “no” to anything.

The idiot was surprised that I terminated the relationshit right then and there, to prevent the impending assault. And insisted that, I was the dysfunctional one.

I try to forgive myself, since I was fairly young at the time. And was still assuming a certain level of rationality from average people. I now understand that, sex is a major focal point of utterly delusional senses of entitlement for the vast majority of the population. (The other focal point being money.)

A last thing that comes to mind was that age issue, with the idiot being significantly older (42 vs. 25). Although much later in life I had a genuine attraction to a much younger person, I was decent enough, and realistic enough to understand that it was inappropriate. Many, many older people are quite eager to exploit younger people, due to lacking that decency or realism.

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