Tell Your Daughters This Story
I had been dating He Who Shall Not Be Named (known for the rest of this essay as HWSNBN) since I was 15. If there is ever a precautionary tale of why teen girls shouldn’t be allowed to date, this is it.
It started off cool at first. I was very shy and he was too. A mutual friend introduced us.
As time went on, we spent more time together, mostly spending time together just hanging out at his place because he had no money, no car. Then as things got a little hotter and heavier, drama started.
He had a temper like out of this world. He could scream on me for anything, especially when I was trying to help. I told myself that it was because he had no father figure in his life.
He only hit me once. I say “only” because I was scared every day that he would. We had such a volatile relationship – break up, make up, break up, make up. Once we broke up and he demanded that I bring over his sunglasses that he left in my car. I knew he didn’t care about those $5 glasses, but that he was looking for an excuse to see me. Something in his voice scared me. I knew he had access to a gun, and he was just crazy enough to use it.
I told him I wasn’t making the 30-minute drive just to give him some funky glasses and hung up. But he kept hounding me. Without telling him I was coming, I drove over to his house, put the glasses on his front porch, ran back to the car and sped off. I was too scared to see him. When we would break up, he would call me crying, talking about how he wanted to kill himself – why couldn’t I see that I was making him crazy, he’d say.
This abuse continued for another year. The day I knew I absolutely had to leave?
He got caught up in a case with his friends, and needed to appear in court to state that he wasn’t involved. He asked me to drive him (again, he had no money or no car) to the justice center downtown. I had to work that day, so I told my supervisor I would be late. As we’re driving away from his apartment complex, he starts yelling at me for something. I honestly don’t remember what it was – I think I was telling him I still had to go to work – but I was so scared that I pulled over at a gas station so at least there would be witnesses if anything went down. I told him to get out my car and he REALLY exploded. I didn’t have a cell phone so I called a guy I knew that lived around the corner to ask him to come by. When HWSNBN heard I was on the phone with another guy, he FLIPPED. Started cussing me out, calling me names, basically just putting on me the worst verbal abuse I had ever heard in my life.
“You calling another @$@^^#$%? What a dumb b@%#$. You think you special? You think you’re a @$#$$% queen? You ain’t no queen.”
If we hadn’t been in public, I’m scared to think what would have happened.
When I finally ended things, it was in the most passive aggressive way possible. I simply told him, “It’s over” during one of his tirades over the phone and then didn’t answer his calls or texts for more than two months. There was nothing he could do or say. I had finally had enough.
For all of you reading this, note that yes, I came from a two-parent home. I had a great relationship with my dad. They honestly had no clue he acted like that. I kept it from them because I was embarrassed that it had gotten so out of control. I thought I could handle it. But I came out of that relationship a broken, emotionally drained young woman.
I didn’t know how to act around men like my husband, who never raised their voice and didn’t see the point in being confrontational. It took me years to learn that my husband wasn’t being “weak” by retreating during arguments, but in fact, he was being strong. I almost lost him because I was determined to bring the drama, convinced that a drama-free relationship wasn’t worth having.
For all you who say, “Oh, it’s just puppy love,” think again. Teenage relationships can be brutal. Share this story with your daughters (and sons!) so it can spark a dialogue about what’s appropriate and what’s not. I hope this lesson helps someone.
Tara Pringle Jefferson is a freelance writer living in Ohio with her husband and two children. Visit her blog, www.theyoungmommylife.com, to read more of her keen observations about life, motherhood and love.
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