
Image: iStock.
When Ryan first brought his girlfriend of two months, Eve, to a casual gathering over a year and a half ago, my heart filled with happiness.
She was perfect. Chatty, gorgeous, down to earth and fun. As his best friend since pre-school, I’d watched Ryan get burned over and over again in relationships with women who didn’t value him. Finally, it looked as though he’d met his soulmate.
Eve didn’t seem to have a problem with Ryan having a female best friend – as so many other girlfriends had – and I loved her self-confidence.
But after the pair had been dating for almost one year, I started to sense something wasn’t quite right with the anecdotes and snippets of her life Eve was letting me in on.
The uneasy feeling crept up on me when a big group of us caught up for drinks and Eve and I fell into conversation together. Somehow the topic got onto grandparents and she spoke of how she grew up barely knowing hers as they lived in a different state. A cold shiver went down my spine as I realised what had just happened.
I recalled a conversation we’d had months earlier, a really in-depth, heartfelt conversation where Eve had recounted her emotionally abusive relationship with her grandmother who was unkind to her throughout her childhood. I was so moved by it at the time that I distinctly remembered it on this occasion. (Post continues after gallery.)