About Abusive Relationships..

When you’re in an abusive relationship — rather, when you are me in an abusive relationship — specialness is a prerequisite. I was fortunate enough to not take violence as a given in my life; my father spanked me one time when I was 5 and my mother made him take parenting classes. Abuse was never my default. The route for abuse to take hold in my brain had to be different, then — an exception."My unwavering belief in that was what kept our relationship alive far past its natural breaking point. Far past the first time he threatened to come over to my apartment with a baseball bat, far past the first time he threw our Valentine’s Day cake in my face, far past the first time he threw me to the ground, and far, far past the first time someone asked me if he’d ever hit me and the first thought I had was not yet."

"It was a shame, he reported, that “some guys” — he never specified who — would pass up a woman who looked like me in favor of someone thinner, or clearer-skinned, or with fewer split ends. I was just as pretty as the girls those “some guys” would chase, he assured me, but because of the things that kept me from being conventionally beautiful, “some guys” would never know that. He spoke of me as though I were a bargain-basement find, one that only he was persistent enough, patient enough, special enough to spot for the bargain it was."

"......he never said anything negative about my body. Not once.
He considered it and decided not to. I know this because on one of Those Nights — those post-midnight battles, dreaded but at least pulsing enough with life to be in clear focus, which is more than I can say for the rest of my world at that time — he started a new tirade that began with: “And your body—” But then he abruptly stopped, and never picked it up again. Then, his refusal to cross that line looked to me like love. Today, I see it as calculation. He knew what his trump card was.

"My ex relied on our shared knowledge — that bodies like mine weren’t considered ideal — to remind me that I was lucky to have him. It would have been easier, lazier, to criticize my body directly, but he knew the risk of backfiring was too large; he was skilled in calibrating the precise push-pull rhythm that ensured I wouldn’t leave. Instead, he used the cultural power of women’s bodies against me. He never had to say an unkind word about my body in order to wield it as a tool against me. We, as a society, had done that particular work for him."

"It has been nearly 10 years since we’ve talked, and I don’t spend much time envisioning what it would be like to see my ex again. But when I do, our imaginary meeting goes something like this: I am walking down the street, and he sees me, and says my name. I am surprised but gracious, taking the high road, asking and answering the what-are-you-up-tos with genteel dignity.

In the Hollywood version of this scene, he would see that I am thinner, ergo prettier, ergo better, and as I walk away he would understand what he has lost due to the error of his ways. That is not my revenge fantasy, though. After all, neither of us ever believed that thinness actually makes a woman more valuable. Rather, he invoked other people’s beliefs about my body to fabricate the specialness that bonded me to him. And so my fantasy is not Hollywood-petty but merciless: As he watches me walk away, slimmer than I used to be, he thinks, I am no longer special.

In truth, I still don't know if he ever was."

By: Autumn Whitefield-Madrano
'How My Boyfriend Used My Weight To Keep Me With Him: An abusive ex convinced me he was special because he celebrated my not-thin body. When I lost weight, he lost his leverage over me.