Girl Talk

{A} it’s about time you and I had a chat. There are a number of things I wish I could ask you, like: was it my Fire Stick or the vape that tipped you off? Were you in the car when he came here? What happened Juneteenth? Did you really trust him and go home and file for divorce just to find out he never broke up with me? What happened July 4th? What did he tell you was going on? Did he go to the hospital? What about when I sent the video—what did he tell you then?

Did he ever get drunk and say “fuck you, cunt” to you? That’s how we said I love you to each other. He mixed us up.

What did he tell you? Who was I when he talked about me? You were a Mexican real estate agent from Utah who had only had sex with 4 men. And when you texted, you were an old friend from Vermont with an autistic child, and you were going through a divorce he was helping you with. He told me everything about you. When your husband told me you are diabetic, I threw my phone across the room because {D} had already told me. I’d love to know what you know about me.

Anyways, first things first. I want you to know I have been truthful in everything I have written here. I know from your husband that you met on FetLife and were involved in the BDSM community in White River Junction, and that he fought some other guy for ownership of you.

See, with me, he just traded me—like chattel—with another guy, with a handshake, telling him, “I’m taking her home with me and I’m keeping her.” That’s how we ended up together.

I only found out about the BDSM later—like, much later. He was, of course, talking about you and how pain was the only thing you could feel. That conversation was the first I heard about him being into that.

I think on our first date, way back in 2018, he tied my breasts up. Then he wanted to hit me with his dad’s police baton, and I noped the fuck out because I really don’t do pain. I am a whiny bitch about pain in general. It’s not something I like. And I told him that in 2018.

Pain and BDSM were never part of our relationship. We had no agreements or provisions. So as much as you want to see that video as just {D}’s kink, that isn’t what it was for me. I didn’t have a say in it like you do.

That was real and devastating to me. I think you know that, and you are forgiving him for it. You know as well as I do how he is and what he is. You know it was rape. You know I didn’t consent. And it doesn’t shock you about him.

I’m mainly pissed off at you for supporting him financially through this.

The thing he told me was that we were both a very different kind of “love” for him. That I believe. I’m not saying any of this to be a bitch to you, by the way—just because I want to say it.

This is also not to say he loved me, because what he did to me—and to you, actually—that isn’t what love looks like. That isn’t what love feels like. That is trauma bonding and manipulation at its finest. {D} is good at being that predator. That’s what makes him truly dangerous. Well, that and the drinking until he has no control.

I was different. I drove him a little crazy. I was the therapy girlfriend. I was intuitively connected to his emotions. I could read him. I dissected him psychologically and looked for the soft spots—what happened and what made him tick.

I was too close for comfort a lot, and he would stop me and say, “You’re doing the psychology thing to me again.” I’m really good at that, and that is why, even now, I can read him. I think he told me things no one else ever knew. I think he trusted me with that information.

I think in your relationship he was expected, or is expected, to be hard, and I brought out the other side.

I came to the conclusion that he probably did need us both at one point, when we were talking about everything after the apocalypse. He wasn’t comfortable with who he was with me. It was a completely different type of person. But he is very much who he is with you. That’s the part I was afraid of.

He was teaching me how to box one day, and I punched him in the face and busted his lip. Now you need to understand: I’m 5’7”, a little taller than him, and I leg press 400 lbs.

I cannot tell you—the look on that man’s face when I punched him was insane. It was that true psychotic look. He enjoyed it way too much. It freaked me the fuck out. That dude is scary. I never wanted to see him. I wanted the other guy.

I would come there every night. I would make him his drinks. I would rub his neck and talk to him about his day and just listen and engage in conversation about him. It was all about him with me.

We would talk for hours. Then we would sit and watch the Food Network or old movies, and I would either rub his feet or lay my head on his lap. I was constantly fawning over him

My trick, so to speak, with men is to make them feel like men—powerful, important, in charge, smarter, and absolute gods in bed. I also make them feel safe and heard. I hang on every possible word. I build them up.

I don’t know if you’ve been through the spirals at night. You seem to have a schedule difference for bedtime, but I was with him every night until bed. Those spirals—that man is hurting. I tried to care for him.

When he came here that day to break up with me and didn’t, I asked him why. He said I sent too many text messages the night before. Then he said, “You were so good to me,” and his voice broke. I thought he was going to cry.

I said, “{D}, if there isn’t someone else, why are you doing this? Why? We love each other, and we can get through anything as long as we love each other.” That’s how and why he changed his mind.

So that is what I think I was giving him—my patience, my affection, and my listening. I’m special in that way. I know I seem like a bitch, but I am, or at least I was before what he did to me, the most caring and loving person you would ever know.

Every time he was with you, he would turn on me. On the New York trip, he told me I was love-bombing him and that he didn’t love me that much. Perhaps I should have known, given that he told me he loved me for the first time while he was raping me.

I’m sure he never told you about Phoenix. When he came back with the hickey—oh my God—I was upset. I sobbed. He was allowed to have a hookup with a random when out of town, but when we had sex, my face would be shoved into that spot.

I realized he just fucked me exactly like every other woman. And that fucking hickey took forever to go away. I do, however, like to believe we had one thing in bed that was just us, and that was looking into each other’s eyes. But I don’t know if that’s even true.

He and I did have a real connection there. We could look at each other and know what the other was thinking. We could just see it. That’s the only thing I miss. We were like that from the start, way back when.

It’s funny—your husband said, “You know they’ve been together like ten years, right?” This was after I found out everything, and I just stopped and said, “Yeah. I was there for six of them.”

I walked away from him more than once. He would always find me again. Every damn time he would hit up Tinder and find me. Then I would have to chase him. That was the game.

When that man told me he loved me, it was all I had wanted for six years. I couldn’t figure out why he had to keep finding me again. The last time, he tailored his Tinder profile to me. He kept bringing me back.

It was that yo-yo he played with me. I’m not sure when he fell in love with me. I’m really not. There are a few points in time I can see it. But it was six years.

I never realized I was the other woman. I always felt I was taking second place to someone, but he would never tell me or admit it. When we were finally together, I didn’t realize. I thought you were the other woman. Not me.

I told him I didn’t want to date unless I was the only one. I told him I wasn’t going to compete, because with him I always lost. I couldn’t do it. I asked, and he lied every damn time.

I blame myself for falling for it. I recognize the trauma bonding involved and the skill with which he plays his predatory games. I’m so glad to be out of it. He destroyed me. He really did take all the good and love out of me.

I understand the logic and science of what he did and how he did it, and the abusive nature of the whole fucking thing. It’s been a lot of therapy and a lot of work on my part. But I’m finally there. I’ve broken the trauma bond. It has changed me as a person.

I know it wasn’t love, but I do miss that intensity of feeling. That will never happen again. It would kill me if it did.

Okay, the gifts. I’m sure you’re dying to know what came from me, so you make him get rid of it. I’m a shopper. I obsessively shop for everyone and bring random gifts to people.

The valet trays? Me. The boxing and Casablanca wall hangings? Me. The Berkeley boxing book? Me. The pepper shirt? Me. (Years ago we were eating chile relleno burritos from Roberto’s, and he picked the seeds out with his fingers, didn’t wash his hands, and put his fingers inside me. That burned, so he was always a hot pepper emoji on my phone.)

The cantina and motorcycle shop shirt? Me. (I designed it and had it made for him because he said he wanted to be a motorcycle mechanic if he wasn’t a lawyer, so I guess he’s looking into that now.) The “I’m a lawyer, not a fucking magician” glass? Me. The wedding band? Me. (He was supposed to wear it when picking up women out of town so they knew he was attached. He agreed and made me get down on one knee. I said, “{D}, will you do me the honor of not losing this in some random bitch’s vagina?”)

There is one more thing I’m not going to tell you about because it’s innocuous and you’ll never figure it out anyway. But I know for a fact he has it. Don’t make him get rid of the Berkeley book. That shit was expensive.

I do have one question: why did you go from your husband to him? I’ve talked to your husband—a lot. We got into an argument at one point, and I asked if he was cognitively impaired and told him I understood why you left him. His peace-and-love, nonviolence shit?

These men are so fucking opposite of each other. {D} talks a big game, but he is really a bitch deep down. I’m assuming you have the real control. But don’t trust him. He falls in love with them, even if you think he won’t. Be careful. Don’t let him hurt you.

Please go to counseling. I know what this does to women, and I am concerned about you. I know what he likes to do at night when he is drunk and doesn’t remember. That shit isn’t okay.

Like I told him, with the nighttime pinning-me-down stuff, it wasn’t my first rodeo. But it’s still rape. If someone isn’t consenting, it is rape. If someone isn’t consenting, it’s not okay for him to do.

I also find it telling when you come and check my blog at a certain time of night. With me, some nights I was okay with when he rolled over on top of me. But I’m talking about the nights I wasn’t—when I specifically told him no, and the times he overwhelmed me and I tried to get him off me.

In the end, I do want to say that I think I was changing him and making him process some of his own feelings. I was a good influence on him in most ways.

That last week we were together, one night he got on top of me. I thought it was the drunken sex thing and sighed and said, “Fine.” But what he did was lay his head on my chest and just stay there. I asked him why, and he said, “Because it felt good.”

I don’t know if I’ll ever understand that. But that’s the only thing that makes me think maybe he did love me in some strange way. He bought me a necklace for my birthday that didn’t arrive until after everything went down. He told me he was connecting. It was different between him and me.

I don’t want to believe he ever wanted to hurt me. That wasn’t what I was there for. That wasn’t who I was to him. That wasn’t our relationship.

Ours was emotional and caring. I listened to him. I asked him about his feelings, his guilt, and the pain he was in. He was okay being vulnerable around me, and I didn’t expect him to be the stereotypical man who doesn’t feel. He could be emotional with me, and I think that was the draw.

I told him in the Epic Text that I knew he was scared. I didn’t know what he was scared of then. I know now. I was more his therapist than anything else. He was making progress. He was learning. I’m sad about that.

He didn’t have to hide behind the façade with me. I saw right through it. I saw him, and I accepted him as just him.

At first, I underestimated his jealousy and insecurity. I said something flippant about {S}. He and {S} both got their own Epic Text one night. {S} cried and told me he wasn’t ready. He sobbed in my arms.

That text changed everything. {D} told me he loved me, and {S} started getting jealous. They were jealous of each other. I was caught in this fairytale moment where the two men I had been in love with for six years both wanted me.

I said to {D}, without thinking, “That would be my luck—{S} will profess his love too, and I won’t know which to pick.” That hurt {D}, the idea that he might not be the one I chose.

I will never forget one day we were at lunch and {D} looked at me and said, in astonishment, “We’re really good together.” And I said, “Yeah, I know.”

When we were good, we were very good. When we were bad, I was in physical danger. I wax poetic about it at times, but I have to remember how dangerous, destructive, and knowingly hurtful he is.

I want to remember the good. But it was never real.

I’m not reaching out to argue, compare stories, or pull you into anything. That's not true I want the stories and there is some morbid curiosity involved  

I’m saying this because I know how this looks from the inside, and I know how easy it is to normalize things that shouldn’t be normalized.

If at any point you feel unsafe, confused, or like something isn’t right—especially at night or when alcohol is involved—you’re not imagining it. You don’t have to minimize it, and you don’t have to handle it alone.

You don’t owe me a response. I won’t push. I just wanted you to know I see you, and if you ever need help finding safety, I’m here.