B.Løvetann

When I Look Back
When I look back at how things were—and how they turned out—I feel a deep sadness. A mixture of grief and shame.
I had been warned. The signs were obvious. The red flags were already waving before we even got together.
And yet, I went all in.
I fought for this love, both inside and outside the relationship, while at the same time fighting not to erase myself completely.
After his relationship with that woman, everything just went downhill.
I lost a drastic amount of weight. He was still gone most of the time. He would come home occasionally—when he needed to wash his clothes or wanted somewhere to rest before disappearing again.
He sank deeper into addiction.
By then, he was injecting drugs.
He used everything.
His explanation was simple:
He used drugs because he didn’t have his children.
But the truth was just as simple:
He didn’t have his children because he used drugs.
One time when he came home, I had become so thin that I looked ill. When we went to bed, we held hands.
Suddenly, he said:
“You’re so thin that it doesn’t even feel nice to hold your hand anymore. You need to eat.”
I told him I couldn’t.
The latest betrayal, the affair, and everything else that had happened had taken its toll on me.
He became angry.
He told me I was disgusting.
I was hurt. I already knew I looked awful.
I felt ugly.
The next day, I couldn’t take it anymore. I went into the bedroom to cry and to be alone.
He followed me.
He asked what was wrong and tried to touch me.
I screamed at him not to touch me.
He stopped, but he didn’t understand.
“What is going on?” he asked.
I reminded him of what he had said the night before.
He told me that wasn’t how he had meant it. He said he was only worried because I had become so thin.
I remember very little from the last six months we were together.
In fact, I barely remember much of that entire year.
But he became increasingly violent—both psychologically and physically.
After an argument, he once slammed a door into my arm so hard that my entire upper arm turned blue. I don’t remember whether it hurt. I only remember the bruises.
I took pictures of them.
He sat planning a meeting with one of the prostitutes he had been with the previous Christmas while I watched the messages unfold.
He threatened to beat me in a family group chat simply because I had said I was afraid of him.
He told everyone I was crazy.
That I was the difficult one.
He told people that I was always happy until he entered the room—and that the moment he appeared, I became quiet and withdrawn.
I was labelled the one who psychologically abused him.
I was the one who “spent all his money.”
He told people that he was helping me pay off my loan.
The truth was that I was, in reality, paying off his drug debt.
Whenever I asked him about the money, he became evasive.
Once, he answered me directly:
“You’ll leave as soon as that debt is paid off anyway.”
A mutual friend once told me that he had said he wanted to start arguments between us—just to make sure I became upset enough to stay home.
That way, he had control.
The Last Night
The last night we were together, we had a loud argument.
One of the few times he managed to make me truly angry.
He left to go to a friend’s house, but later wanted me to pick him up.
So I did.
Afterwards, I went to bed.
The next morning, I woke up to the sound of something breaking.
When I went upstairs, he was in great spirits.
High.
And he hadn’t slept.
He had been going through my belongings, looking for drugs he claimed I was hiding from him.
I became so angry that I grabbed his bag, turned it upside down, and emptied everything onto the floor.
He exploded.
“Now I’m going to give you a reason to be afraid of me,” he said as he walked towards me.
I backed away until I was trapped in a corner.
There was nowhere left to go.
He put one hand behind my neck.
The other around my throat.
I tried to tear myself free, but I couldn’t get away.
He squeezed.
The only thing I could think was:
He’ll let go soon.
He’ll let go soon.
And then—
darkness.
I remember the hardness of the sofa as I slowly regained consciousness.
In the background, I could hear his voice.
He was yelling at me.
Telling me it was my fault.
That it had happened because of the way I had behaved.
That if I had just left him alone, none of it would ever have happened.
And then it hit me.
I understood what had just happened.
He had strangled me until I lost consciousness.
And I had been lying on the floor.
I got up in shock and disbelief.
My mind was completely silent.
And yet, somehow, there was still chaos.
I couldn’t speak.
I still couldn’t fully understand what had just happened.
I stood there for a few minutes.
Then I went into the bathroom to see whether I had any marks.
I noticed that part of one of my teeth was missing.
My lip was swollen.
My first thought was:
Take a picture.
I asked him when he was leaving.
He said he was trying to find someone to pick him up.
Then, suddenly, he told me to unlock the chest in the bedroom.
I refused.
So he fetched a hammer and smashed it open.
Pieces of wood flew across the room.
He took everything that was inside.
The coffee maker—the one I had been given—he took with him.
The vacuum cleaner—the one he had given me—he took that too.
I stood there terrified while he moved through the entire house, packing his things.
I took the house keys hanging in the hallway and hid them.
While he was downstairs, he smashed the glass pot belonging to the coffee maker.
Shards of glass scattered across the floor.
I bent down and picked them up, one by one.
I put them in his bag.
When he saw what I was doing, he became angry again.
He grabbed both of my upper arms, pinched them hard, and shoved me into the hallway.
I thought:
Now he’s going to beat me.
He stomped on me.
I screamed in pain.
Then he let go.
Eventually, his ride arrived.
The vacuum cleaner he had taken had to be brought back inside because there wasn’t enough room in the car.
Those hours were the longest hours I have ever lived through.
When he finally left, I locked the door.
I sat down on the sofa.
In shock.
In silence.
With one overwhelming feeling:
It’s over now.
I’m finally done.
I blocked him.
Everywhere.
He would never reach me again.
But He Did
He became desperate to contact me.
He sent messages through payment apps.
He called me from other people’s phones.
He threatened to kill himself.
He even borrowed the phone of a mutual friend just to reach me.
Eventually, he was admitted to an emergency addiction unit.
I don’t even remember how we got back in touch after that.
I only remember that, somehow, I saw him again.
He was broken.
He apologised.
I allowed him to stay at my house while he waited for addiction treatment—as long as he stayed sober.
His addiction counsellor even came to my home to hold meetings with him.
He wanted us to get back together.
But I made myself clear.
If there was ever going to be even the slightest possibility of that happening, he had to stay sober, pay his debt, and cut ties with everything—including his friends from the drug scene.
Helping him came at my expense.
I was constantly tense.
My PTSD had become severe.
The entire situation became an ordeal that slowly consumed my mental health.
One time, while staying at my house, he tried to tell me that it was my fault he had strangled me.
I answered:
“You’re a coward. You’re twice my size. You’ve been kidnapped, and you’re angry at the people who have betrayed and hurt you. But I’m the one you attack. I’m the one you used violence against.
“And remember one thing: you were the one desperate to get back in touch with me. If I was really so horrible to you, why are you here? What are you doing here?
“I wanted nothing to do with you. I was happy to be rid of you.
“So why are you here?”
He hadn’t expected that response.
He went silent.
My Final Goodbye
He was accepted into an addiction treatment programme and left soon after applying.
Finally, I could breathe.
We stayed in contact during the year he was there, but I rarely visited him.
He was disappointed by that.
But I had no intention of letting him back into my life the way he had been before.
I had already made my decision:
If he got sober, we would separate completely.
He just had to become strong enough to handle it first.
I couldn’t do it anymore.
I was struggling with nightmares and panic attacks.
It was impossible.
Maybe that sounds cruel.
But to me, it was my way of keeping my promise—to stand by him one final time.
One last goodbye.
The following summer, we went abroad for two weeks.
He was angry for most of the holiday.
Sometimes I wonder if he had already started using drugs again.
But I had made up my mind.
He was not going to ruin that trip for me and my children.
After the holiday, he told me that he had no intention of paying his debt.
I told him that was fine.
But then the condition for me to even consider being with him was gone too.
This was manipulation.
My manipulation.
I knew this was my chance.
An opening I could use.
And I took it.
Then came the messages.
The threats.
He wrote that he was going to destroy me.
I never replied.
Finally, when I had paid back the money I supposedly “owed” him, I deleted him.
I blocked him everywhere.
Completely.
Since that day, I have never spoken to him again.