One of those stories came via email from a Mum whose teenage daughter had fallen into a relationship that was changing her.
With permission, and with names and some details removed to protect their identity, I'm sharing that email and story here. It's heartbreaking, but also so uplifting. Thank you for getting in touch, all of you, it means the world to me to know that what I wrote has helped someone.
Eliza,
I honestly can't thank you enough for sharing your domestic abuse post, and want to tell you why.
My 14 year old daughter has been going out with a boy (a year older) for the past 7 months. I have been observing closely and thought it was rather more intense than I think it should be at their age.
Over the past seven months, I have watched as her friends have disappeared one by one, she spends less time with them because he wants to spend time with just her - so they don't bother with her any more because she doesn't have time for them.
I've tried to prevent it by getting her to invite friends round, giving her money so she can go on shopping trips with them, telling her she can't go to his house because she has homework/chores/I need her to help me with something, so it's *my* fault she doesn't see him.
He has suggested he doesn't like her being friends with this person, or that boy, after all why is she friends with that boy? Something must be going on, which it of course isn't, but she ends up crying and apologises for upsetting him.
She invites him round to our house for dinner or just to hang out, but he only wants her to visit at his house. I insisted that the only times she visited were when his mother was at home with them (and I checked).
She told him she is starting guitar lessons at school, but told her she wouldn't be able to do it because it's far too difficult. He told her he didn't like her going to youth club during the week because he couldn't be there with her and didn't know why she wanted to go anyway.
He calls & texts her constantly, to the point where I told him to stop calling after 9pm, and he was interrupting her homework, as she's in year 10 it was starting to interfere with her education and distract her.
Yesterday she came home from school and went straight to bed. Her brother woke her up at dinnertime, and she sat and looked exhausted and sad. After dinner I asked her to come and help me fold laundry on the landing, and I sat with her and we talked about school and her friends and for the recent gossip.
Her phone rang while we were there and she ignored the call, I asked who it was and she sighed and said it was him. I asked why she didn't answer it, and she looked 'guilty' and said she didn't want to speak to him.
Rather than launch into the 'I don't want you going out with that boy' (because that doesn't work and would probably have the opposite effect) I simply said "If you don't want to go out with him any more, you don't have to". At which point she burst into tears and said that she didn't want to upset him and that she didn't know how to do it, and that she just feels sad all the time. I honestly thought my heart was going to break in two.
I have known all along that he was like that, from the first time she said that he had got upset over her being friends with this person or that, and every time I have told her 'That's not okay' and she makes an excuse.
I knew there was no point banning her from seeing him because he used to meet her off the bus at school every day and there was nothing I could do about it and I didn't want to push her towards him by my not liking him. So I have watched and waited for her to start seeing it for herself.
As it happened, I had seen and retweeted your post earlier yesterday, and when we had this conversation I gave her my phone and told her to click your link and to read it. She got to the end and started sobbing uncontrollably and told me that she knew she was feeling sad but she didn't realise it was because of him and that he does a lot of the things you talked about.
She insists he has never hit her and I do believe her, I think that's the saving grace because her Dad would probably end up in jail.
I told her that anyone who makes her feel like anything she says, feels, likes, loves, enjoys, wants isn't important, is not somebody who loves her in the right way and that all of those things are important if they're important to her.
So last night I sat with her and told her that I knew what I thought was for the best, but I couldn't make that decision for her. She said she wants to break up with him.
She composed a very long but very nice message and sent it to him. Cue the next few hours being bombarded with messages and calls from him and his friends (who asked why she had finished with him without giving him a reason, when I read for myself the reason she gave him, and obviously he has omitted that information).
I told her to turn her phone off, that she has done what she thinks is best and to leave him to it. Her Dad and I put the younger three to bed and then watched a movie all snuggled together.
Today she has woken up in a bright mood, got dressed and caught the train to see her cousin whose birthday is today (and who fortunately lives a good 40 minutes away) and they are going shopping and having a sleepover.
I hope that she stands her ground and doesn't agree to get back together with him because she feels guilty or he begs her, I hope that being with a friend will give her courage to know that she has made the right decision.
Thank you for helping her to see. I couldn't do it by myself.
(https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSo5RVJ30FxZZAeVv8aCdjLAz8UAVeigXErKIgYgupkZHSvrPqE2w)
Thank you for emailing, and thank you for showing your daughter my post - knowing that it helped her to understand that what was happening was wrong.
I hope that the experience gives her a strength inside to avoid ever falling into a similar relationship, and that it helps him to learn what is and isn't healthy in a relationship. I hope they both find happier relationships elsewhere.
Most of all I'm glad that she has a Mum who understands, is careful and loving and gentle with her feelings, and who helped her to see for herself what was happening.
Thank you so much for contacting me.
Hi, Just to say it's really good to read a positive end to that. So glad she has decided to cut ties and become her own person again. It's so easy to gradually slip into that kind of relationship, I have seen others go down the same route. Well done for raising the issue. x
ReplyDeleteThank you - I agree it's easy to fall into that pattern, and to then feel overwhelmed by it and not know how to get out. It's so difficult, particularly when you have so many contradicting feelings, and particularly for younger people who are finding everything so conflicting anyway.
DeleteThank you for commenting x