LOVE CRAZE

ABUSE

I love a man who owns and oozes confidence and that is what attracted me to this guy. I could not get my eyes off him and he could tell. He had on a blue-fitting suit, a well-built body, tall, confident, and sexy with a radiant smile. I think he is what you would call love at first sight....or was it lust? I was sprung from the moment I saw him and his confidence made my knees weak. I could go on and on about him but you get the gist. At first encounter, I stared at him for some time before his voice brought me back to reality.

Introductions happened and he gave me his business card. He wrote his personal number on the back of the card and told me to call him. The audacity! He left us to enjoy our meal but I was very distracted. He had made an impact and I couldn't stop fantasizing. I wasn't sure how long I had snapped out of reality, but it was enough to make my cousin angry and leave.

As if aware of his effect on me, I texted the guy soon after my cousin left and that was the beginning of my stupid second relationship. No first dates, no proposals, nothing...mere assumptions and acceptance. I wanted this to be different and boy was it. He was my biggest hurt to this day and writing this piece makes my inner self ache. My description of him has been growing vague, because of what you're about to read.

Contrary to Guy 1, Guy 2 was very different. He was ever so present in the relationship that I was literally choking. He craved attention and would call me almost every two hours. He would ask me who I was with, what I was doing and needed an update on my every move. He would even calculate the time it took for me to get home from work.

Despite all those strangling moments, I loved how he made me feel, the attention I received and how he treated me. We would go on weekend getaways almost every weekend and he would try to meet me during the week, just to see and spend time with me. All this while, I didn't know he was being possessive and controlling.

Emotional abuse and manipulation are worse than physical, not that I'm advocating for it. He had me under him and every time he would tell me what to do, who to talk to, what to wear, how to carry myself. I would find myself with little to no savings, having overspent to please him and make him happy. He would guilt trip me into sending him cash, all in the name of paying me back once his contacts went through. Contracts which to this day, I still can't tell what he claimed to do for a living.

It became more alarming when I couldn't pay my friends and had massive loans all in the name of pleasing and mothering a boy. My friends started reaching out and had to even confiscate my phone away to make sure I was completely done with him.  He had become my drug and I was unable to let go.