I couldn't find a flair for nsfw content so I put it in the title, I hope that's okay! Also I'll try not to get too graphic.
TW: Aassault/abuse, potential coercion and sexual assault/sexual abuse, child abuse, verbal abuse, emotional and mild physical abuse, mental illness.
So I'm not sure if this is exactly the right community for this. It doesn't seem to be against the rules but idk if this community is exactly the right fit. So apologies if this is out of of place.
Okay so I know the title might look a little alarming but I couldn't think of a better way to phrase this that was appropriately concise. Let me get into it.
This largely concerns my first real relationship, when I was 15-16 and he was 16-17, mostly over the summer before and then during the school year when I was a sophomore and he was a junior in high school. I'd had a couple of "dates" or "boyfriends" before, but nothing that lasted over about a month or was motivated by anything more than "I think you're cute, you think I'm cute, I guess maybe that's enough of a basis for a relationship?"
We both had similar interests and we'd been in the same friend group, but we didn't know each other super well. For clarity I'll just call my ex "Ex".
So this relationship started with us fooling around. It kinda came out of nowhere. The first time it happened we were at a friends house. We were sitting on the couch and the other friend was in a big armchair off to the side but sort of in front of us, so he couldn't see unless he turned all the way around. Ex ended up putting his arm around me and I just went along with it because honestly our whole crew was super physically affectionate and even though it made me uncomfortable I'd just accepted it by that point. Eventually he ended up putting his hands down my pants and touching me. At this point I totally froze up. I didn't know how to react, so I sort of didn't until it was over. It was also my first experience of this type including anything solo so I was overwhelmed. I didn't say anything about it at all, he just eventually stopped. We exchanged numbers after that.
After that we started hanging out and it was pretty physical. I kind of liked it even though I wasn't attracted to him but mostly I was just confused and I figured the best way to figure out how I felt about the sexual stuff was to do more of it. That being said, for the first couple of weeks I was adamant that I wasn't ready to sleep with him. He started out just bringing it up every time we were alone and it got at all physical, and eventually I figured the easier thing to do would be to just let it happen. This was probably like 3 weeks after the first thing. So eventually after our usual routine at that point of getting into it, he said it would be fine and we should just go for it and I would be more comfortable if I did (I was a hormonal teen and I did get uncomfortably aroused sometimes). So I said okay and we did. It really hurt and I made him stop. To his credit, he totally did, so it's not like he sexually assaulted me or anything. But it was still a horrible experience. After that I told him I didn't want to sleep with him again. He kept bringing it up, just gently asking me if I was sure every time we got into it and I seemed really worked up, so it was probably only a couple of week later and we started sleeping together regularly. It was never really bad after the first time but it was never really good either. There were also a couple of times where I asked him to stop and he did, but then he would talk about how painful or uncomfortable it was if he didn't get to finish so I would say okay you can keep going, and eventually I stopped speaking up. There were parts of foreplay I really liked, so sometimes I even initiated, and then when I got to sex I would feel like I had gotten him to that point so it was unfair to say I just wanted to stop. It wasn't always bad, but it was never really good for me.
So I don't know if it's extreme to call it abuse but it was definitely bad for me, and something that caused me a ton of stress and anxiety over our relationship. Though I also get I never really put my foot down, and idk if it's fair to blame me for me changing my mind in the middle of things.
The other thing was his temper. One of the things we bonded on over the course of our relationship was the parental abuse we had both suffered in the past. When I was a kid my dad would get very angry and do things like yell, throw and break dishes. And sometimes grab up by the shoulders and shake us really hard. He never hit us, so I was confused about it for a long time, and my ex was the one who helped me truly understand that I has suffered abuse as a child. His mom was still very verbally abusive and insulted him a lot, even going to far to say in front of me that he was worthless and I should leave him, and passive aggressively apologize to me for things he had done that I wasn't even mad about. But because of the trauma of his abusive mother, he had some minor anger managenent problems. He never lashed out at me, but sometimes he would do thing like yell, rip things up and hit walls, ect. around me while venting about here which I found super triggering and would usually send me into a panic attack. He was always super sweet and apologetic afterwards, and I didn't think it was fair to judge him for something that was a reaction to the same type of trauma I had experienced.
Even though this relationship was eight years ago, I still think it has a huge impact on me. I still look back and I don't know exactly which parts were abuse, if any, and which ones weren't. Sometimes things just… happen, and sometimes those things happen to be abuse and you can't piece it together. I think this relationship was abusive but I second guess myself a lot. I think that's normal and I guess to anyone else second guessing yourself, that's normal too? Abuse and trauma can be two different things, and sometimes it can be hard to piece them apart. Give yourself time and love and remember you don't have to decide how you feel about something so confusing. I still don't know and I'm just trying to be okay with being confused.
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