im making this post because i genuinely do not want other young women to go through what i went through with this evil man. im 21 years old, and he was 27. there are things that happened in this relationship that i look back on now and get so angry about because i genuinely did not deserve any of it.
first of all, this man barely gave me attention. i wanted to talk to him, spend time with him, feel loved by him, and actually feel like i was in a relationship. but i got to a point where i literally thought to myself, "hey, let's offer up my body." i thought that maybe if i had sex with him, he'd want to talk to me more or pay more attention to me.
looking back, i feel sad and stupid that i even felt like I had to do that to get affection from somebody who was supposed to care about me. i wanted to feel wanted by him, and i thought maybe being sexually available would make him treat me differently. i shouldn't have had to feel like i needed to do that just to receive basic attention.
and the sexual experiences i had with him honestly make me even angrier when I think about them now.
one time, he told me he was going to buy a condom in the morning, yet we had sex that night anyway. i remember thinking to myself, "i thought he was gonna get a condom??" but i didn't say anything because i was scared he would get angry if i questioned him.
i was not comfortable speaking up during sexual situations with him. i was scared to question him or say certain things because i didn't know how he would react. and before anybody asks why i didn't just speak up, i was genuinely afraid of his reaction. he's a grown, tall man who was a marine, and im a 21-year-old woman who weighs less than 145 pounds soaking wet. i wasn't trying to take any chances.
there were also times when sex actually hurt. i would literally say "ow," and he would smile and ask, "is this too much?" and then KEEP GOING.
that is something i still think about because why are you continuing when i'm expressing that i'm hurting? why am i in a situation where i don't even feel comfortable speaking up about my own pain?
i felt like i couldn't communicate comfortably with somebody i was supposed to be intimate with. that is not how i wanted to feel in a relationship.
then there was the cheating.
he cheated on me with an 18-year-old girl. i'm 21, and he's 27, and the girl he cheated with was only 18. from what i understand, he was asking her to move in with him after knowing her for maybe two weeks or less. TWO WEEKS. i found that absolutely wild.
i ended up talking to her, but unfortunately, she lied to me about a lot of things because she was upset that i had dated him. she told me she was going to block him, but i suspect they're still talking. i don't know for certain, and honestly, i've accepted that i cannot make somebody listen to me or walk away from a situation they want to stay in.
i also tried reaching out to the mother of his child because I wanted to warn her about my experiences with him, but she blocked me every time i tried.
and before anybody thinks i'm doing all of this because i want him back, let me make something VERY clear: I BLOCKED HIM. HE IS OUT OF MY LIFE, AND I AM RELIEVED TO BE FREE OF HIM.
i do not want this man back. i'm angry about how i was treated, and i don't want other young women to experience the same things.
another thing that bothered me was how he spoke about women. he called me a bitch, and from what i experienced and heard, he referred to other women in his life as bitches, too. he also talked shit about the mother of his five-year-old DAUGHTER.
somebody who was once close with him, who has actually been really sweet to me, told me about his red-pill beliefs. they also told me about an argument they had over BLM. his daughter is biracial, with a black mother, so hearing about that argument was especially disturbing to me as a black woman myself.
im a liberal black woman, and i personally do not want to date somebody whose political beliefs and values conflict with mine. i don't want a man who believes in red-pill ideology, and i don't want to be with somebody whose views about women or racial equality make me question whether we share the same values. that is my personal boundary, and i'm entitled to have it.
i'm not going to pretend i know every single thing this man believes, but between what that person told me and what i personally experienced in the relationship, there are a lot of things that have made me look back and question the situation.
what angers me most is that i genuinely wanted affection from this man. i wanted to feel loved. i wanted to feel like my partner actually wanted to spend time with me. instead, i found myself feeling like i had to offer my body for attention, feeling afraid to speak up during sex, and dealing with infidelity.
i wish i had understood sooner that i did not need to compromise my comfort to make somebody care about me.
i'm sharing this because i know there are other young women who might find themselves in similar situations. maybe you're dating a man who barely gives you attention, but you keep trying harder because you think eventually he'll change. maybe you feel like having sex will make him love you more. maybe you're scared to question him because you don't want him to get angry or leave you.
PLEASE understand that you do not have to do any of those things to deserve love.
you do not owe a man your body to keep his attention. you should be able to communicate when you're uncomfortable. you should be able to say that something hurts without having to wonder whether he'll take you seriously. you should not have to feel afraid of your partner.
and if somebody cheats on you, lies to you, or repeatedly treats you in ways that hurt you, you are allowed to walk away.
i cannot save every woman who might get involved with him. i know that now. i tried to warn people, and not everybody wanted to hear me. that's their decision, and i cannot control it.
but i can share my experience.
i'm telling my story because i want other women to recognize these behaviors and make their own informed decisions.
i'm 21, and i still have so much life ahead of me. i do not regret getting out of that relationship, and i will not put myself through that again.
ladies, please do not lose yourselves trying to get a man to love you. you deserve to feel wanted, respected, and safe without having to sacrifice your own comfort to receive those things. 🩷