9781529032178

an opinion. He interrupted the speaker: “Hey, listen up, my ‘genius’
girlfriend wants to say something.” Another time, at the beach, I asked him
for a towel and he shouted, “Dry yourself in the sun!” in front of everyone.
These were just two instances. There were many, many others. I kept asking
him not to speak to me that way, but eventually I gave up.
The one aspect of our relationship that made things bearable—and
allowed me to stay with him for so long—was that, despite his words, Craig
was very affectionate. We hugged a lot and would fall asleep cuddling. The
affection allowed me to pretend I was satisfied with our sex life. Craig was
the least sexual boyfriend I ever had, and the comfort of the cuddling would
reduce the pain of feeling rejected.
In my mind, I tried to compensate, but as time went on my thinking
became more and more distorted. I’d say to myself, “No one has a perfect
relationship, you have to compromise on something—if that’s the case, I
might as well be with Craig.” Since we’d been together for several years, I
“reasoned” that I should stop wasting time and get married. Even after the
terribly inappropriate comments he made when I suggested the idea to him,
including, “But that means I’ll never sleep with a woman in her twenties
again!” I still wanted to marry him.
Marriage was the one decision that I pressured Craig into. As soon as he
agreed, I knew it was a mistake. That was evident from the word “go.” The
ring he bought was unimpressive and the stones kept falling out. What more
of an omen did I need?
Our honeymoon in Paris was awful. We were together all the time and I
felt literally shackled to Craig. We had plenty of time to enjoy ourselves,
but Craig turned everything into a problem. He complained about the
service at the hotel and went ballistic when I accidentally got us on the
wrong metro line. That was a white-light moment for me. When Craig
started swearing at me, I realized that I was powerless to change him. When
we finally got home and my family asked me about the honeymoon, I didn’t
have the courage to tell them it was a disaster. I said, “It was nice,” in a
pathetically feeble tone. What a miserable way to describe one’s
honeymoon.
Though I felt trapped, I still couldn’t extract myself from the nightmare.
Time after time when I mustered the courage to leave, Craig would
convince me to stay. I began to fantasize that he would fall in love with