…

Years ago I told him that if he ever hit me again, then I was going to report it to the police. He had given the usual spiel — big emotions, loss of control, deeply regretful — and I was left feeling like I had to forgive. However, I did not want it happening again.

And it didn’t happen again.

But then about two years ago it came out that he had spent those years resenting me. He had considered my words to be a threat, that I had been controlling and dominating him, purely because I didn’t want to live with physical violence. He believed that it was his inherent right as a man to discipline me however he wished, and I had invoked the Corrupted System against him.

Sometimes it still haunts me.

He never hit me again because he didn’t want the legal consequences, not because he thought that I was a human being with a basic right to safety. Which means that he hadn’t lost control and he wasn’t deeply regretful — he just didn’t want me going to the police right at that moment and was manipulating me out of it. Then, when it all came to an end, I was the one who paid legally for not reporting the violence to the police.

It haunts me that he wanted to do more.

It haunts me that he resented me for not wanting to endure it.

It haunts me to wonder what he would do now if he ever got the opportunity.

I think that knowing that he resented me is scarier than what physically happened and didn’t happen. For years I lived alongside someone who wanted to hurt me and I had no idea.