It Happened to Me
One woman's journey into - and out of - an abusive relationship.
As far as I was concerned, domestic violence was something that happened to other people. But I woke up to the fact that it was happening to me when I found myself, at the age of 24, looking in the mirror one morning at bruises running up and down my arms and legs, my torso. There were deep purple marks from a doorknob and the corner of a table. I had come in late the night before. My boyfriend was sitting on the couch, drinking beer and reading my journal. I remembered his pulling my glasses off my face, and the crack of my head against the living room floor.
That was then. We live in different cities now. I got away, but the question that plagues me is: How did I get there?
Truth is, it was a slow, insidious process. We met overseas, Americans working together in a foreign city, both on six-month visas. He was an artist. I was a writer. The night we first kissed, he talked about the death of his stepfather and about his grieving little sister. I inched closer to him on the sofa. We spent hours together every day, and soon most nights, too.
One night, I watched as he stood in front of his closet, pulling down shirts and shoes and flinging them angrily across the room. I was scared, but he had reasons to be angry, I figured, and his rage wasn't directed at me. When things were good, they were really good - passionate and exciting. We spent a week exploring Copenhagen. I imagined further adventures together traced in colorful paths across the map. I fantasized about an uncommon life with him.
After a few months, though, he began to withdraw from me. Unexpectedly, he would go cold and distant, then refuse to speak for days. I worried. A year into our relationship, back in the States, we moved in together in his hometown, far from any of my family and friends. He wasn't working, money was tight, and his family obligations were constant. He even got involved in a lawsuit. We fought daily - about anything. I kept telling myself that the situation was temporary, that I needed to be supportive, that things would get better.
I didn't call or write home very often. I was also busy and tired from working two jobs. On weekends, I applied to graduate schools, with the hope we could start over. Again.
My boyfriend had become my emotional point of reference, and I started accepting behavior that now seems wildly out of line: his refusing to let me drive, his locking me out of the apartment. I lacked the energy to resist his criticism and manipulation. I started to believe it when he said that he was the only artist in our relationship.
Then acceptance letters started to arrive - from all five of the programs I had applied to. One day, I noticed I looked awfully skinny. It made me wonder if I had missed anything else. At the same time, my boyfriend was alternately despondent, angry, and bored. I would try to anticipate his moods, hoping to prevent anything too bad from happening.
That morning, looking in the mirror, I pushed at the bruises on my arms. It felt as though they belonged to someone else. It was surreal, dislocating. I was numb. I didn't leave him that day or the next. But I did decide to move, to attend graduate school, and to set up a life nearer my own family and network of friends. I started writing again. Still, when my boyfriend decided to move as well, I couldn't see an alternative to our signing a lease together.
One night, after three months in this new city, we had a fight. I wound up lying on an air mattress in our living room, listening to him throwing things in the bedroom. I wanted more than anything to get back in bed, to fall asleep nestled against his chest. But I knew I needed to leave. I could no longer believe that anything would change.
It took me three weeks to find an apartment, while I was supposed to be running errands. I moved my things one morning when he was out. My new roommates were two women who had offered me a down comforter and cheap rent. They let me paint my bedroom pink.
As I was painting, I paused to assess my progress and stepped on the edge of the paint tray, splattering pink across the hardwood floors. It was funny, somehow, after everything, especially when I sat down in the middle of the mess, coating my legs. I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror that was propped against my desk. Finally, I was laughing.
Andrea Calabretta lives in Jamaica Plain and teaches writing at Emerson College and Berklee College of Music. E-mail coupling@globe.com. 