Metabolising my ex

I remember vividly, straight after I met Mike, I started to wake up with a terribly awful feeling in my body. An agonising, painful feeling - tightening in my chest, sinking in my stomach. And I couldn't figure out why. Is it because I'm not waking up with him? I thought. It must be that. A weird aching feeling that comes with true love.

I'd first come across him on Tinder, where we soon matched and chatted briefly. He was non-committal and soon heading to Thailand in any case, but we made loose plans to catch up when he was back. Neither of us followed up on this, until we ran into each other at a bar event the night he arrived back to town. I don't remember much of that night. I was there actually, to 'run into' a guy I had quickly become attached to. A guy who had said he didn't want a relationship, and yet I couldn't let him go. When that guy didn't go with me that night, trying to stay true to the boundary I'd set with him that I couldn't be with him if it wasn't serious, I went with Mike.

I'd spent the evening intermittently with Mike and the small group of mutual friends we were with. I vaguely remember being in the pub bathroom watching the others snorting some substance, and the rest is a blur to me. So when it came to home time, by then I knew Mike was a bad boy and that it would be no challenge to go with him. I should have known though what was to come, as from the moment I met Mike, I took a step away from him. My body. I should have followed my body. Of course, I've since told myself multiple times that step back was probably because I was in awe of Mike, because he was my destined lover I'd been waiting to meet again, but it wasn't that. It was fear. But maybe I liked that feeling of fear. Maybe I liked that I was feeling something, rather than the emptiness that was there. At least the fear gave me something to focus on.

Within a number of weeks of us meeting, Mike was heading back home to Ireland. He told me first he was going for a couple of weeks, but could never confirm how long. Within two weeks of meeting, he asked me if we would be exclusive together, saying 'I usually prefer just to date one person at a time'. One night, he came over to mine after a gathering with friends. He was stressing out and saying that his ex was at the event, and upon seeing him abruptly left, her friends also indicating to Mike that he was not welcome. He said to me he didn't want us to get so close and fall in love before he left, for people to get their feelings hurt. Because that's what happened with his ex.

As time went on, Mike kept being unclear about how long he was going for. He spoke about his exes as 'crazy' and obsessed with him. He said that it was always very difficult for him to leave the relationships, and with his most recent ex (the one from the event), he'd used going home to Ireland as an excuse to break up. He said he was so surprised how she'd reacted with such anger, as she was such a sweet person. He said he didn't know what was wrong with her that she couldn't understand it and let him go. He'd mentioned another girl he'd loosely dated since, who'd visited him in town to stay with him for a month, and her - he described as fully crazy. He said she just wouldn't leave - he couldn't get rid of her. She'd written poems about him and suggested she might be pregnant by him. Months into our relationship, I found a bag of Mike's stuff containing a massive pink rope and a huge pink bow. I'd asked him what it was, and he said it belonged to this girl. When I asked why he had it, he said he didn't know, and that he was going to throw it out.

When Mike finally left for that Ireland trip in the beginning, I was not myself. I'd already tried to end things with him weeks before. I could feel myself slipping - I'd been so calm and steady and rapidly felt like I was losing control of my life. I didn't like how uncertain his plans were and how uneasy his general attitude made me feel. But he was so exciting and dangerous, and had me under some intoxicating spell. I only made it a few days before I called him and we reconciled. During those middle days I agonised, called to the universe for an answer. Not understanding what was happening to me or how to get out of it. I finally rested on calling him at least to apologise for how abrupt I'd been in ending things, but of course, once talking to him - his smooth, melodic voice and disarming way of talking - I was his once again.

Mike's Ireland trip was seven weeks. About the time we'd known each other before he left. As he was leaving, I told myself I'd focus on me and it would be great. I'd get back into my routine, get around friends more, do my thing. He encouraged this and said great. But I was worried. I was now exclusive with this person I didn't really know, and he had some hold on me I couldn't describe. "I'll be watching you" he said to me with a haunting voice before he left.

I continued on with work, and was even offered a promotion during the time he was gone. It was everything I'd dreamed of, and yet, I was utterly overcome with stress. While work was starting to feel very steady before I met Mike, since we'd been together, I felt myself slipping away. Doubting everything about me. Mike had a way of commenting, shaming everything about me that was so effortless and seemed like he was just being a jokester, but left me feeling exposed and disgusting. But part of me wanted to be exposed like that. Part of me felt I needed to have his gorgeous light shine on me, so I could finally fix all the things I knew were broken.

Mike was well liked by his friends. He was always confident and ready to talk to anyone. He commented about events and funny things he came across every day. He spoke with such self-belief that I was in awe. In those early intimate conversations, where I'd opened up about my past and sought to explore his - all he could talk about was his crazy exes. He'd reiterated again and again he'd had a most blessed childhood, and really had no skeletons or traumas to complain about. 'Wow', I thought. This man must be truly magic. He carries himself so well, he knows so much how to have a good time, he's always talking about music and art and he's always reading some type of enlightening book.

From the first official date we had when we were sitting on Mike's couch talking, I realised how much he talked about his mum. Anything I brought up, whether it was things I liked, or ideas I had about things, he'd interject declaring his 'mam' was into that thing, or his mam had said X about that thing. It began to irritate me, and felt like he didn't actually care about getting to know me. Rather, it was about asserting his mam, or himself. I told myself it was the former, that he was a sweet son who loved his mum so much he was always thinking of her. But before I could help it, I resented the woman. And I felt the constant need to brag about myself, my ideas, my interests - only to get him to listen to me and value me.

While Mike was in Ireland during that first seven-week trip, he attended Berlin with his notorious sex-club frequenting buddy. The two had a backhistory of going to sex clubs and losing themselves for days on end. Mike told me it was purely the music and ecstasy he enjoyed, and I did my best to fit this under my understanding of him. But as it led up to that time and while he was there, I became a nutter. I lost myself completely. Within a week of getting there, Mike said his mum had offered to fly me out there to visit. I can't do that without any notice, I told him. It also felt like - why didn't you invite me the many weeks earlier? You have been telling me all this time this trip is important for you and I need to be cool with us being apart, if I'm to be in a 'healthy relationship'.

As I should have expected, Mike was difficult to communicate with during his trip. We'd been seeing each other and talking most days while he was in town, but when he was there, with the time difference I'd be lucky to get a few words every couple days. I felt a nuisance on him, but as Mike had reiterated many times before leaving for his "couple-week" adventure, a healthy relationship is one where the couple is able to go and do their own thing, and be cool about it.

When he returned from his trip, I was numb. He'd found a place to housesit for a while, but we were like strangers. When I asked him how he was and if things were okay, he emphasised things were fine. I was smoking then, and very stressed. I was outside smoking all the time while Mike was home, wondering what to do with my life. Feeling the shame, the confusion. I'd already invested so much into Mike by this point, waiting for him while he was away, that I had to keep holding on to see why. I had been so excited to see him, but being in his company felt the loneliest thing. I felt like I was constantly in trouble without him telling me so, and that I always had to be alert to him to make sure he was happy with me. Mike had this way of talking about his life that made it and him seem other-worldly, and me just a lucky little speck of dust who at the most, got to hear such tales.

When we were intimate, he approached me like he was devouring me. He shouted over me and handled my body like an aggressor. He would shove his tongue down my throat when he kissed me and the same with my ears - down to the drums. He made me feel like every part of me belonged to him, and reiterated this by constantly saying 'good girl'. I was never in pleasure during our intimate times, but I have to acknowledge that some part of me felt that this is how it should be. That this is what my body deserved. This is what winning women's lives are like. Lying empty, giving themselves to the person they get to call theirs. The shiny, attractive, charismatic man who any other woman would be jealous of. And they were. I knew very well that not just the ones who lost Mike, but those who came across him, were subject to his spell all the same. And a part of me, a very strong part, felt that it was extremely important I was the one who got to keep him. I was the one who wouldn't fuck up like the others did and be crazy. I'd be sane and calm and cool, and prove that women could do it all.

Mostly, my mission was to convince Mike he loved me, in the way I truly needed to be loved. The deeper I got with him, the harsher this battle became. Because I'd invested so much from the beginning - and might I add, I was manipulated into yielding so much - the longer I was with him, I couldn't tell you what I'd given of myself. And this vicious cycle meant I felt more and more entitled to see his love. Because in so many ways, he promised it to me. He talked about how we were it - how he wanted to travel Australia with me, live in Europe, settle on his farm in Ireland. He even asked me to draw up my ideas for how he might renovate a barn on the property, which he shared with his brother-in-law and their building friend. He said he had money saved from his job in Australia and what he got paid to run the farm in Ireland, and he was thinking to use that money to renovate the barn.

He told me he was wanting to leave the town we were in when he met me, but that he'd decided to stay, essentially so we could be together. We kept making plans to leave and even though I wasn't sure if I was ready, as I'd only just gotten to that town compared with him and had spent most of my time there feeling pretty miserable and lonely (I met him a month into arriving), I felt I hadn't properly achieved what I dreamed I would when I moved there. After a year and a half, we were seriously making plans to leave. A few months before, we were almost about to go until he told me he needed to stay for visa requirements, and so we stayed a while longer, waiting and waiting for him to hear of a permanent residency offer. He was stressed, I was stressed. It was miserable. And yet, he constantly told me that he thought we were a very healthy couple, and got along very well.

At some point, I got tired of us waiting to make a move, and I put in my resignation at work. I'd asked Mike the day before if I resigned tomorrow, would you mind? He told me not at all. One of us was waiting for the other to make the move, or so that what we kept talking about. When I told him I'd resigned, he berated me for it, saying that he can't believe I did this, why did I do this, why was I so abrupt with ending this etc. I told him that he literally told me yesterday I should resign. By the end of the working week, my employer had offered for me to instead go on extended leave, and decide while I was abroad if I wanted to come back after a few months. I was surprised and relieved, knowing that Mike would be happy with this. When I told him about it, he berated me, and said that I was being flaky and not committing, teasing me that I will never ever leave the town we were in, that I would end up settling down and living there forever.

I could not understand this man, or what he wanted from me. He seemed so in control, but he was extremely inconsistent, and seemingly had no fucking clue what he wanted. By this point, we weren't having sex, and we were fighting a lot. I'd often left in my car and driven around town, pulling up on the side of the road and contemplating sleeping where I was. The town we lived was extremely unsafe at night, and so I always returned to him, climbing back into bed. Where he was yelling at me telling me to leave before, he was now talking sweet to me as I returned by his side.

The fighting became too much, and as we were making plans to leave town and 'elope' together travelling and starting a new life, I became more nervous of how this would work. I said to him one morning that we never have sex, and are fighting all the time. He denied it and said he's been tired, and had health conditions (he found out he had thirteen kidney stones and his ballsack was in agony for months, then he had lower back pain, then he had a toothache), and that at other times it was me who was tired. He said this was normal in a relationship, not to have sex sometimes. I told him it's unusual, because we are both sexual people. I said we should talk to someone, a therapist. He shouted over me that he's not fooken talking to a therapist. When the fight was over, he came up to me and made an over-sexualised joke that humiliated me, and reminded me that he was the boss.

I'd been busy at work during our relationship. I was visiting schools all around the area giving presentations. I loved it and I got good feedback too. When I came home to Mike and told him about it, he said I wasn't making any difference. When I became upset, he told me its okay, none of the work any of us do in this town makes a difference. He told me that he hated my workplace and always teased me about it. He said to me that he wanted to go into my work, which was filled with women, and make a very loud, misogynistic joke. I told him he should, because nobody there would give a fuck about him.

My mum started questioning me on my plans with Mike. She asked me why we were leaving town at different times, him a few weeks after me. She said, if you're starting an adventure together, shouldn't you be going together? I became angry at my mum, complaining she was always bringing me down and bringing fear into my life situations. I told Mike about her questioning and he went off at me, the first thing he said was 'are you going to end up like that?' He said his mam would never ask any questions like that, and that he was tired of my mum coming between us.

When we fought at home, I would take to another corner of whatever space we were in, to sleep by myself there. Mike would come over and strip me of whatever blanket, pillow and even towel I had to cover myself. He shouted and shouted at me until I came back to bed with him. I had no choice but to return, as it was freezing cold. This happened until I realised I could get in my car and drive.

I felt I had nobody to go to, or else I would have gone straight to a friend. I'd isolated myself from everyone - all the few people I knew in that town. I'd worked so hard to distinguish myself from anyone Mike cast a bad finger on, and therefore, I was deserted from anyone that I could trust to stand with me. Because Mike and I had been together for so long by this point, I'd really cultivated deep justifications for his behaviour, and maintained a charade to the outer world of what our relationship entailed, and what Mike was like. It therefore felt like an exhausting unravelling process for me to rock up and seek solace, having to explain the truth of everything. Really, I don't think I was ready. Still now, I don't think I'm ready, if I'm honest. Months after the grave, he haunts me, and his whispers ring bells in my brain. I still doubt if I can trust the people closest to me, as I've been writing about in my most recent blogs.

It reached my last week of work, and I knew that I had to hold on until my final day was done. Mike and I were fighting so much that I knew I had to leave this man, but I wasn't prepared to deal with all of that while I still had much to do in concluding my work role. However, I was caught unawares by my colleague Katie, while I was chatting with her in her office. She asked me about my plans for travel with Mike, and in her innocent but determinative curiosity, continued to ask me a series of questions that had me realise I had absolutely no idea what was coming for me with the next months. Before long, I broke down to Katie and started telling her all the things Mike was doing. All the ways I had started to realise he was actually extremely abusive and dangerous. Katie remained calm but reiterated to me that this was not an okay way for a partner to treat me, and that there are lots of people out there who would treat me much better than this. Katie asked me what I was going to do, and I said I was at least going to wait the work week before I figured out a plan. Katie said that I could come to her house if I needed, and I thanked her and said that I might take her up on this.

Katie was the only person I told then, until my last day of work happened. That evening after work, I decided to watch Requiem for a Dream. I was chasing fucked movies that would make me feel something the past weeks, and tonight was the absolute kicker. I sat at the edge of my bed watching with my mouth spread as far as it could go in horror. This was very unlike me to respond to a film in such a way. I could feel the terror rushing through my body, the fear that the themes of what were happening were exactly the way I'd been allowing myself to behave. Like an addict who didn't care what other people did to her, as long as she got her fix. I jumped up and with the adrenaline, started to pack my bag. I was terrified of Mike coming home, but also punching for it, feeling the fearlessness in me at this time like a lightning bolt. It was only the moment I was packed that he arrived home, jolly and coyly asking me what I was doing with my bag packed.

I said I was done, and I went out to my car, which was parked alone in our shared driveway beneath the dark, star-lit sky. Mike refused to let me go before I explained, and I said to him that he simply has to let me go. He sat in the driver's seat. I shouted at him to get out and let me go. He held back and let me go. I drove for a while gathering myself, until I text Katie asking if I could stay at her place. She told me that was fine, and before long I was settling into my sleeping bag in Katie's spare room, with a cup of tea next to me.