Where did my consent even begin and where would it ever wind up?
I grapple everyday and often in the night with the shame and the trauma of having accepted Ted’s agenda and Ted’s bullying.
Mostly, when I talk to others, they ask me why I stayed?
They don’t seem to wonder if abuse became a comfortable posture or if I was posturing to stay comfortable in spite of the abuse?
They wonder how I ever consented to Ted’s never ending games of hurdles and hedges and barriers, calls to perform, as well as obstacles to confine me into actions which were not my own. Never were. With people I’d never wanted to meet, doing things I didn’t want to do, in places I’d never wanted to go.
Consent had become, by then, as vast and undefinable as a horizon or as tightly entangled as a boundless ball of yarn. Where did it begin and where would it ever wind up?
Where does one partner’s liberty emanate and the other’s end?
How did his desires suddenly turn into a house of mirrors that kept me entangled into performing tricks trying to keep him happy in spite of myself?
Is consent a verbal communication or is it a shared and felt experience?
If you’re down for something once, does that mean each time?
Does the instigator have a responsibility for your sensitivity?
Must he have your limits in mind too?
What if he knows you don’t want it, but does it anyway?
What if he knows you’re saying yes for him, even though you really don’t like it?
When does forcing his choices down your throat and threatening you if you don’t swallow, become abuse?
How did I smile and laugh through it all? How did I pretended I was happy? That it was all okay? Does someone who’s abused ever feel free or are they forever confined to conceding?
Looking back, it’s hard for me to imagine. It’s very unclear how I thought, during all those years, that accepting Ted’s demands and commands, as well as Ted’s moods and his cruelty… could ever smooth things over or make things right.
I’d somehow convinced myself that it was all worth it though. Which had seemed so obvious then. Because, really, wasn’t Ted so generous? And didn’t I live in his beautiful home? And wasn’t he funny? Most of the time?
Even if he did have those occasional freak outs? But those threats and that silent treatment weren’t like hitting me… really? Those didn’t constitute actual abuse? Or did they?
Ted didn’t need to pound my head against the wall, because, by the end, I was doing it to myself… in frustration of our incomprehension and in confusion about Ted’s insane control.
He would say that he was just getting what he wanted. That I could have left at any moment. But didn’t. So who was to blame? Ted or me?
Ted had just wanted more. And he’d made it my role to get it all for him. Because, he said, he worked too hard otherwise doing paid legal work. So he’d charged me with the responsibility for his happiness… only without discussing what « his happiness » even meant.
Until I couldn’t anymore. Until Ted had ground me down, whittled my free will to fit his. Until Ted had silenced my own personal desires completely. Until I’d become utterly terrified of Ted’s angry reactions. Until I’d made myself unconscious in order to avoid them…
Consent must be conscious though, like everyone knows.
I’d consented to dating my lawyer? I’d consented to living with Ted. But had I really consented to doing everything else Ted wanted…
Where was the fine line between my volition and his?
Did he think they’d become one? Or did he just not care?
