Today I want to talk about a tough-to-understand topic: what happens/what can you do when the abusive partner tries to reconnect with you?
When I talk about abuse in my life I typically reference my upbringing, my marriage and a past relationship - and this story is about the past relationship. And while I think abuse is abuse, sometimes it is different when you are married - and in my case - have kids. The healing looks different. Anyway, our relationship ended 8 months ago and healing was very hard. Quickly after the relationship he was hanging out with friends, had a new workout plan, was eating açaí bowls and telling me how much lighter he feels. He didn’t seem upset. I am sure there were parts of him who missed me, but on the outside, he was fine. He would tell people he hasn’t had time to think about the breakup, but also wasn’t taking any. We had a few conversations after the break up where he told me that he isn’t up at night missing me - instead, he was up at night wondering how I can act like I am mother Theresa - something that was incredibly triggering for me. So I decided that I needed to accept that he was processing in his own way. While I, on the other hand, was a disaster. I was in a really tough place emotionally from the moment the relationship ended. I was trauma bonded to him. I felt addicted. I thought about him constantly. I couldn’t block him if my life depended on it. I would fight with him in my head. I would have friends say things like “THANK GOD THIS IS OVER” to me and I would agree, and then go home and think about how badly I missed him. It was really hard. Healing took a really long time. I was constantly second guessing myself. I thought I was crazy. I was rationalizing poor behavior because I wanted HIM. It felt chemical. It felt addictive. I was in so much shame over it.
Until one day, about 3 months later, after a disagreement with him that went from 0 to 60 so fast that I couldn’t not-see it, I was done. To be clear, I was “done” (in air quotes) many times before, but this time, I felt like I could not do it anymore. I had tried to set a boundary with him about something - I asked for time, and for space, after he lashed out over me and apologized a few days later. I had done so much work on myself that asking for this boundary was very hard but I did it. I said “I need some time, I have so much on my plate, I can’t discuss this again right now. Please give me a few days”.
He knew me, he knew I would be back within a day and be able to talk about it, but he couldn’t even give me that. He went on to ask me a few “clarifying questions” that were not clarifying at all - they were leading questions that were meant to make me feel crazy. When I noted that I felt he was pushing when I asked for space, I was told I was deflecting and defensive.
And this is an important point: when you finally set a boundary, which will be very hard, they will push against it. They are not used to it. They are used to your boundaries being flexible. This was the case here. He pushed, and I acted like rubber. I flexed back but I didn’t stay strong. I responded when I shouldn’t have. I felt shame and guilt immediately. I felt bad for staying true to myself. But I HAD to remind myself I wasn’t used to watching out for myself.
As he pushed, and told me how unfair I am, I explained to him that the issue we were arguing over went on for months at this point, and I was exhausted. It wasn’t THIS incident, it was all of the incidents combined. He did not accept that answer — but for the first time, I did.
When I say it took everything out of me to set a boundary, I mean it. I remember crying that night knowing I NEEDED to hold myself to it - but it didn’t stop me from checking his WhatsApp status and seeing if he responded. A few days later, after he found a way to turn it around on me, I asked why he felt he could just ignore me - and he told me he was doing too much work on himself. Hypoctritical right? Well that was it. He reached out a month later, on Christmas, and I was not happy about it at all.
Flash forward to 3 months later. It was the week of my birthday. I am not someone who likes my birthday. Long story short, I grew up in an abusive home where I wasn’t celebrated and my birthday was a chore to everyone. I have lived my whole life trying to pretend it didn’t exist - and he knew this - but just like a lot of parts of me, including the part of me that has a complicated relationship to Christmas, he chose to forget that, and chose to reach out to me the week of my birthday.
When I saw the email come in, I knew what was happening: he was feeling guilt around my birthday so he was reaching out. This wasn’t about me. This was about him.
He sent an email that felt like a used car salesman wrote it:
Hello Miss,
How is everyone doing? I am hoping good.
Wondering if you had any time today/tonight to talk for a few minutes?
I promise to not take too much of your time.
Hope you have a good day today.
Best,
NAME
I saw the email come in in between client sessions and went into full panic. What the fuck? What could he possibly want? We never did resolve the issue that led to us finally not talking, so what could he want now? Is he going to try to take my dog? What is happening? I froze. The email had no detail - no clarity - which sent my body into fight or flight almost instantly. I was feeling both feelings at the same time. I wanted to reply WHAT THE FUCK and I also wanted to ignore it. The mistake I made though…was not allowing myself time to process. I tried to hard to “not let him take up any of my energy” that I didn’t let myself calm down. I didn’t regulate. And I didn’t realize that until much later on in the day….
So before I continue, I want you to know, that when this happens to you, I suggest you give yourself time. Take a deep breath. Close down your email and respond when you feel like it, if you feel like it. If your situation is anything like mine, you are feeling what it felt like every time you got into a disagreement with that person in this moment and not even realizing it. You deserve some time to calm down. This is not them “taking your energy” or “ruining your day” - this is you actually showing up for you. This is another stage in the healing.
So what did I do? I decided to respond to the email and ask what he wanted to talk to me about.
I glossed over this part of the story earlier and it is actually really important: on Christmas, when he reached out, it was all about him: he wished me a merry Christmas, and told me he is hoping I was having a good day. This came a month after screaming at me, leading to my boundary, leading to him getting the final word and me just, letting it go. I was not having a good Christmas and he knew it - he knew this was the first holiday I was alone without my daughter, who was with her dad. It was a hard day for me. This felt very “him” - I was set up to fail. If I replied that I was not having a good day, and validated myself, he would have wondered why I couldn’t just be happy. If I just shoved how I felt aside and said “Merry Christmas” I would have abandoned myself. Of course I could have ignored it, but I didn’t, I responded that I was frustrated that he sent a silly message when he knew I was suffering because I felt like I could not respond authentically. He never responded. He sent me a video message the next day saying that he can’t show up for me or anyone, and I heard from someone in his family that he was mad I couldn’t just “pretend” and be happy on Christmas. So him reaching out now, asking how I am, 3 months later, after we finally hit no contact, after I finally was able to block him by phone, felt very selfish.
I sat with his answer for a few hours - still activated. Still trying to push away my feelings instead of allowing myself to just process and regulate.
But the overwhelming feeling inside was NO - it was like my insides were screaming at me. NO. No. Do not let him back in. Do not go backwards. The NO has never been that powerful before. I never thought it COULD be that powerful. I had to listen to it.
I also could not imagine telling my coach, my friends, or the guy I was dating, that I wanted to hear him out. But more than that, I couldn’t imagine letting myself do it…it was a feeling I didn’t know I could feel. It was a feeling I used to daydream feeling. And now it was here and I wasn’t going to abandon myself - for possibly the first time.
I messaged a friend and he reminded me that everything this guy did was for him - so if I took this in that context, I needed to see and remember that anything that he had to say would be to benefit him, not me.
I messaged back saying basically:
Thanks for checking in. I don't feel like it would be in my best interest to talk or see you right now. I don’t want the concert tickets. The airline points are yours. Please don’t give me a birthday gift.
That night I was so anxious, and ended up letting myself have a meltdown. I felt like this was the last step in my healing - almost a test….and I learned a lot. I learned that I can hold my boundaries. I learned that I can be there for myself. And I learned that I am allowed to take space, if I need to, and I should, when I need to regulate.
Two days later, he left a gift in the vestibule of my apartment. I didn’t reach out.
Two weeks later, I left my apartment to walk the dog at 7:30am to see everything he had of mine left in bags in the vestibule - including gifts, stocking stuffers, cleaning supplies I had left there or given him, and silly gifts. I had asked him to throw my stuff out because I took what I wanted - I never wanted to see this stuff again - let alone 8 months later. It was just all there, in bags, that looked like trash, with my name on it.
I didn’t want to contact him so I reached out to his mom, who has checked in with me a few times since the break up. I told her I was very angry and disappointed and didn’t know what he was thinking. She understood, but once I got out my disappointment, I realized that I was barking up the wrong tree. But I was mad - I was so mad. I felt like my privacy was violated.
So I emailed him and told him it was inappropriate and that opened the floodgates. When he responded a few days later, he told me he was not reading my email (in reply to my email) because he has come too far in his healing — but then lashed out, claiming I was suggesting he had bad intentions, telling me he missed me and it hurt when I didn’t want to talk to him, and then telling me how inappropriate I was for messaging his mom.
In other words:
He did not respect my feelings when I needed space
He also claimed to not read them
He was mad because now he wanted something and there was a wall up
And he was focused on his perception - his intentions - not how I FELT or even my words…
His intentions did not matter. If you didn’t intend to set your house on fire and it sets on fire, its still on fire…the action still causes a result…
Just because someone doesn’t intend to hurt you, but you express the hurt or displeasure, doesn’t mean the hurt just goes away…
I didn’t bite the bullet, I didn’t defend myself…and what came following was more blame on me, claiming that I was the abusive one screenshooting a caption from my own instagram account, telling me how much stuff he did to work on himself and all the apologies I never will get, and when I blocked him, he emailed me from another email address…
So how do I see that?
He was upset because he was hurt and did not just express that to himself. He still did not see the consequences of his actions.
He found ways to blame me in every email.
He believed he changed. In multiple emails, he wrote how much he changed, but he didn’t.
He could have apologized.
And instead of saying how many apologies he had, he could have just…apologized. I could have received them in email.
And he had to have the last word. He had to email me from a different email address.
Throughout the relationship, there were a lot of things that I saw clearly - gaslighting, blame, outbursts, the turnaround game…
But this was the first time I ever really set a boundary, kept it, and felt okay. The more he messaged, the more distant I felt. The more I realized that all of the work I did to move past this had an impact, even if it didn’t feel that way at the time.