One of my followers has confided in me what her greatest fear is.
I won’t name her, but I thought it was a good subject to talk about. It’s probably a secret fear a lot of you have. This fear was mine as well.
She tells me she left a physically violent man and after that, he had a series of girlfriends. But, the latest woman he’s with is someone she sort of knows through friends of friends.
She contacted this woman, to try to warn her, because she too had recently left an abusive partner. She even left her children, to move in with my follower’s ex.
So, she tried to warn her about his violent past.
The woman’s response was it was the combination of the two of them. ‘It’s going to be different with me’, she said.
The violence was only particular to that relationship and it’s not going to happen in this new one.
My follower went on to say that she feels much better away from this relationship. But she fears she’s going to be alone and never find love again.
But, her greatest fear is: what if this woman is right?
[bctt tweet=”Why I want my ex to abuse his new girlfriend ” username=”vivian_mcgrath”]
She secretly wants her ex to abuse that new woman. Because, if that pattern doesn’t repeat then perhaps she is to blame for the violence in that relationship?
Wow. Thank you so much for your honesty and trusting me with this. A lot of us have a similar concern.
Firstly, I don’t want another woman to suffer abuse at his hands. But, I will say thank God you are away from him and his violence.
Secondly, there is no way that someone who is violent in a relationship, as he was, is not going to repeat this pattern in another one. Violence doesn’t come as an isolated incident.
Somebody who is violent has had this pattern of abusive behaviour instilled in them as a child. Their parents didn’t meet their emotional needs as a child and they have low self-esteem.
He has the need to control another person through physical force. That behaviour is not something that is going to happen randomly out of the blue and it will repeat.
The reason your relationship broke down is you finally had the courage to go to the police. You finally had the courage to leave. So, he could no longer control you.
He then went on to a series of new relationships very, very quickly. Moving from one woman to the next and now settled in with someone new.
After leaving an abusive relationship, whether they break up with us, or we leave them. We see them on Social Media, parading a new relationship and looking loved up and happy.
We have this fear. That they are happier now without us. So, it must be us. We are to blame.
Narcissistic types love a good smear campaign, where they make out it’s you, not them, that’s the crazy one. That it was you that made them the victim.
One way to do this is to show off their new relationship to the world: ‘Look it’s not me, it’s her. I’m the victim. But look at how happy I am now!’
I don’t believe for one minute that poor woman is not going to become his next victim, even if she isn’t now. And she’s going to do everything that you did in your power to save that relationship.
She’s already thinking: ‘I can save him, I can rescue him, I’m going to be different from his ex before me’. She’s even said so to you.
I thought that. We all think that. We see this damaged, broken person. Believing we can rescue them. We can fix them.
And then what we start to do when the bad behaviour starts to appear is we start to change our behaviour. She will do this too.
We think: ‘Maybe if I change what I do, then they won’t be so angry. Maybe if I do this instead, then they won’t abuse me’. We don’t hold them accountable for their actions.
This woman also has a track record. Look at her past. She’s also left an abusive relationship and gone into this potentially new one with your ex. She has form and she has baggage. And her baggage matches his.
I hadn’t come from an abusive relationship before and I didn’t grow up in an abusive family. But, women or men who go into relationships with abusive partners all have the same baggage in common with them.
The narcissist is lacking self-esteem, so they have this inflated sense of ego. They need to feed off others to make them feel good about themselves.
The ones they attract are those who also lack self-esteem. Or who have had similarly bad relationships.
They’re also the types who are more likely to put others before themselves. Women who will see the narcissist as someone they can rescue and save from themselves.
Who put all their needs and wellbeing first and above their own.
That’s probably what she is doing already. She’s thinking: ‘Here’s a guy that needs me. I can look after him. I’m not like the ones who came before. I can rescue him’.
Which also means: I don’t have to focus on the fact that I’ve had an abusive relationship in the past. Or that my self-esteem is very low.
It’s all going to look wonderful for a while. Because at the moment, he can control her while she’s doing that. But, I can promise you that pattern of abuse will start to repeat.
He will start to show her his nasty side. He will start to test her boundaries and eventually that violence will appear. These patterns are ones that repeat.
Many women repeat the pattern and go into abusive relationships over and over again. This is what it sounds like to me she is doing.
And he will repeat the pattern of abuse. He’s chosen someone who is more likely to allow him to get away with that behaviour.
The most important thing – as you’ve said yourself – is that you feel good to be free of him. But, you’re still focusing all your attention on him and his new partner.
While you’re doing that, you’re ignoring your own needs. You need to focus on you now to heal.
When we leave abusive relationships we need to look at ourselves. In part, we’re in those relationships because of we are low in self-esteem.
We unwittingly allowed them to push our boundaries. We accepted bad behaviour. The cycle of abuse started to spin and then it got worse.
I’m not saying you are to blame for it, but the fact remains. We did not walk away when the red flags or first signs of violence appeared. So, first and foremost, you need to work on your self-esteem.
While you’re focussing on him and obsessing with the fact – ‘this girl is different and maybe I am to blame for the violence’ – then you’re not going to heal.
You’re not going to look at what you need to do which is to work on yourself.
Take your focus off that toxic relationship. Let go of what may or may not be happening within his new relationship. Otherwise, you’re still tied to him and you’re still his victim.
Take your focus away from them. It’s not good for your wellbeing. Put it back where it belongs. Onto You.
Now is the time to work on you and now is the time more than ever to get help and support. Whether that’s from a support group – I’ve listed domestic violence resources here.
Or one of the free Facebook groups where people like you can gather. I have my own: Unbeatable. It’s a private place where you can share with others who’ve been through what you have.
Who all want to work towards healing and recovering from an abusive relationship, in a positive way.
In regards to your other fear. That it’s too late for you and you’ll never find love again. It’s never too late!
You will find love again. I did.
But I will give you a word of warning: if you keep focusing your attention on your ex and how you’re to blame for what happened in the past.
The danger is you will start to feel lonely and you’ll go into another relationship. You’ll repeat the pattern, just like that woman is probably doing with your ex. You’ll go into another abusive relationship.
Before you think about dating, or finding love again, you need to find the greatest love of all. As Whitney Houston said. The one inside you.
You need to find self-love and really build that sense of self-esteem and self-worth. Because only when you do that can you set strong, healthy boundaries.
So, when you do start dating again, you are aware of the red flags and warning signs. The ones that would have been there when you were dating your ex and you ignored.
You will start to see them and you will say: ‘No that’s not good enough for me. I can see where this is going to lead. This is not going to be a healthy relationship’.
So, I hope this has helped?
I know your greatest fear is one a lot of us have – secretly wanting our exes’ next relationship to be an abusive one. Or we’ll be shown up as the one who caused it, the one whose to blame.
You are not to blame for violence. Even if he doesn’t go on to be violent with that girl. His relationship with her is irrelevant to you.
No one is to blame for emotional abuse or violence in a relationship. I am just so glad you are out of that relationship now because no-one deserves that.
Thankfully, you’re free. Their partners kill 2-3 women per week. You could have been one of them.
Stay strong. Focus on you. Let go of him and worrying about him. Take care of you. Now is your time to heal.
Do you have this secret fear too? Let me know in the comments below.
I’m trying to find information on what it means if your abuser had normal relationships before you. He told me he had never hit a woman before, never behaved the way he did towards me (jealousy, controlling) with other women. This could have easily been him trying to manipulate me so I privately reached out to his ex, they were together 3 years about 7 years before him and I met, and she said they had had a normal relationship. So, why did it start with me?
Hi Amber, I don’t believe this. What is a ‘normal’ relationship to her? You have no idea if perhaps he was coercively controlling her and she was in denial of it. I was unaware emotional abuse was happening to me at first and many others write to me with no idea if they are on the receiving end of it or not. These patterns don’t usually come out of the blue and the abuse will get worse over time, so perhaps it’s just escalating now. The main point here is that simply by saying this to you is a) a means to manipulate you and b) a way to blame you for his actions. Therefore not taking responsibility for his behaviour or being accountable for it. You are not to blame for any abuse. You did not cause or provoke it. Please don’t take this blame and shame on your shoulders. This is how they strip our self-esteem away. So is gaslighting: https://www.vivianmcgrath.com/gaslighting-in-relationships-2/ I would also consider getting help and support to free yourself for any abusive relationship before it’s too late. The longer you are exposed to this manipulation the more you’ll lose self-esteem and the worse the abuse will get. You can’t change him. If this is how he is then this is what your relationship will be, unless he takes full responsibility for his actions and works hard with therapy to deal with it. But you can change you and you deserve better.
I can’t even express how much this article has spoken my thoughts and feelings to a T. The examples you gave, everything is what I am living through right now. I didn’t fully understand until after my recent ex discarded me completely this last time, that I was in an emotionally abusive relationship that almost became physical. For two years he cheated on me multiple times, left me for one of those women, came back to me, and I stupidly let him back. I the. caught him cheating this last time with a woman he claimed as his “real girlfriend” of 4 months…this second time around we were together for 7 months. She ended up leaving him and I was berated and degraded and belittled and told I’m a bitch, and he never wanted me or loved, and blamed me for his indiscretions, and he was “happy” with her and I ruined his life. He has not once come to me to show remorse or empathy or accountability for everything he put me through. The only times I have heard from him since I caught him with her, was when I “forced” him to talk on the phone, which ended in him continuing to blame me and yell at me, and when he reached out twice to scold me and threaten me. During our time together he manipulated/pressured me into an abortion that I had to do alone (and this was after grieving the loss of my brother whom he barely supported me through). He never let us have pictures together and the ones we did have I could not post. Over two years of manipulation…to the point it has completely broken down my self worth, has caused me physical issues, increased my depression and anxiety, and I feel completely hopeless most days…I can feel the trauma that has incurred. Not even 3 weeks after he blocked me and changed all his contact information, he began seeing a new girl. I reached out to her out of feeling honestly fear for her; but I also can’t help but feel he will treat her better than me. He’s still friends with all his exes but me, and he’s told me I am the only one he’s ever had “fights” with or yelled at. The woman I reached out to responded kindly, but shared she was previously in a verbally abusive marriage, so she takes this personally. She basically said she can read flags now and puts herself first, and she will continue with dating him and told me we probably just weren’t the best match, and if he wanted to make amends he would have.
I now know I can never allow myself to be with kind of person…but I still can’t help but feel like this is a slap in my face and fear it was all me and he’ll treat this next one with the respect and love I fought so hard for and gave up so much for. I feel so hopeless in finding any future relationship because of his emotional abuse and this trauma bond with him.
This was one of the best articles I have read so far that has depicted so much of my feelings and spoke the truth that I know needs to happen to move forward. Thank you for that. Even though I’m still struggling to believe it fully.
I’m sorry for what you have been through. This pattern will repeat, trust me. The fact she has been in abusive relationships before confirms this for me too as there is the tendency to repeat this pattern. Often women think the next guy is different but they turn out to be the same. I urge you to take your focus away from him and put it where it belongs. Onto healing you. Take care of yourself first.