Potentially abusive or just toxic?

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-23-2004
Potentially abusive or just toxic?
5
Wed, 03-09-2005 - 7:52pm
Hi, I started reading posts here after following a link from the Toxic Relationships board. The stories are so heart-wrenching, and I wish you all the best of luck and send you as much good energy as possible.
I am not in an abusive situation right now, but I have a question about someone I dated some years ago. I often feel all creepy crawly when I think about him, and wonder if I didn't narrowly escape getting into a bad situation with him.
His name is Jim, and I met him at a party at my mom's house. My mom went to school with his brother Ben, and she and Ben were friends, so Ben brought his little brother with him to the party.
I wound up spending the whole night talking to Jim. He was really good-looking in kind of a thin broody way, with curly brown hair and sad intense eyes.
He had been a drummer in a fairly famous band for a while, but when I met him, he was 36, unemployed, and living with his retired parents. he had no plans to move out, get a job or any further education at the time.
Our first date was amazing. I was very attracted to him, and he couldn't seem to say enough right things. Our second date was great also.
But by our third date, I started getting red flags.
He seemed to have no friends except Ben. He was very negative and down on himself, as in "I'm not very smart," and "I'm no Don Juan," (this after he kissed me) "I'd better hang up now because I'm afraid I'm going to run out of interesting things to say".
He would compliment me constantly, telling me how sweet, smart and "responsible" I was, "you're the responsible one" but at the same time, he would criticize me.
I write for a media outlet, but he said he thought it wasn't a good company and I should be a novelist. He subtly put down my apartment, pointing out problem areas (it's an old building) and housekeeping flaws (I work 60 hours a week and can't always dust perfectly) and he put down my neighborhood, giving me a canister of Mace on our first date and telling me he was worried about my safety.
He left his junk all over my apartment, including magazines, clothes, etc.
He made me feel weird about wearing a short skirt in public, like I was being slutty or something.
I got tickets for a show, hoping to double with my best friend and her husband, but he said he didn't want to go, and seemed upset that I still wanted to, and that I wanted to spend time with friends without him.
We only knew each other a couple of weeks, but it all felt so speeded up and intense, and I walked around dazed, like I had been hit in the head with a brick.
He would say things like how much we needed each other, how I was the best thing to have happened to him, and how he had never felt so strongly about one person, and that if we stopped seeing each other he would be devastated because he had "abandonment issues."
Then, on our fourth date, we spent the night together. Nothing much happened, mostly because he wasn't able to perform (well, he didn't want to try anything else, either). But it was enough to wake me up to the fact that I felt rushed and wasn't comfortable in this situation. Then, the day after our night together, he called me and said he loved me.
I realized then I had to put the brakes on, and I called him to tell him. He didn't take it well, and was pretty nasty.
I expected that, though not what came next. He called several times, pleading that we "talk things out." I didn't respond. He sent me a letter, saying he wanted to share my life, not "control you."
I didn't respond.
Then, he called my mother, asking her to help him get me back! Bless her, she told him there was nothing she could do. But that really upset me. Thankfully, that was the end.
But here, at last, is my question: is someone like him -- defeatist, critical, passive, quiet -- a potential abuser? Or are abusers more the charming, flashy, macho type?
Thanks for reading, and for any potential insight.
--Fran
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-12-2003
Wed, 03-09-2005 - 8:07pm

Hi Fran, welcome -


All I have to say is YIPES.

CL-Blueliner4

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-23-2004
Wed, 03-09-2005 - 9:55pm
Wow. I guess I was lucky I listened to my gut and got out quickly. Even reading some of the checklists, I never thought he had so many classic traits. Thanks for the insight!
--Fran
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-24-2004
Wed, 03-09-2005 - 10:25pm
Isolation, critical, speeding a relationship along-these are all signs of an abuser.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-15-2004
Wed, 03-09-2005 - 10:26pm
Although i think YOUR descrioption is of someone who is a potential abuser ... i dont think they fit one patter. But the poor self esteem, the no drive to better themselves, the jeoulousy ... ALL HUGE red flags. Glad you are OUT! :)

Photobucket

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-23-2004
Thu, 03-10-2005 - 12:17pm
Thanks to all of you for your comments. It's both scary and fascinating to realize how many types of abusive people there are out there. The supposedly quiet and mild-mannered should be considered as much as the loud, hotheaded types.
I never felt physically threatened by Jim, though we only spent a short time together, so that may have changed.
But by the end, he made me feel smothered. I kept feeling like the best thing I could do was get into my car and drive to Mexico without stopping.
I have always been the curious type, wanting to get out and see things and do things, and he kept saying he was scared, or didn't have the money for it, or it was stupid, or whatever. Wherever I saw roads, he saw walls.
Ugh.
Well, again, thanks for helping me understand this better. It's been haunting me. It's nice to know I wasn't crazy for wondering. And to all the women here struggling to get out, you have my support!
--Fran