
I wanted to see his life fall apart, but instead, I saw him being happy.
After escaping from my abusive relationship, I would occasionally use social media to check up on my ex.
It wasn’t because I missed him or wanted him back, but because when someone has beaten you down for three years, sexually abused and assaulted you, part of you wants to see their life in ruins.
I was extremely bitter following the breakup. This man had taken everything I had, broken me as a human being, and then, as a final insult, had raped me in my own home. I wanted to see his life fall apart. I wanted to see his misfortune. But what I saw instead, were photos of him smiling with another woman.
Relationships break down for a number of reasons, and naturally, there will be feelings attached when seeing an ex with a new love. I had experienced some of those feelings before; the twinge of jealousy, the reflective ‘what ifs’, the inevitable comparisons between myself and the new partner. But this time the feelings were different than anything I’d felt before.
I hadn’t expected to feel angry. After all, I had escaped. Granted, it was with a crippling depression and PTSD symptoms, but I was alive. The relief of that completely disappeared when I saw him with this new woman.
I was furious because they were happy. It wasn’t fair that he was allowed to move on and be happy while I was going to weekly therapy sessions to deal with what he did to me. I was angry because, from the outside, it didn’t look like he was treating her how he had treated me. It made me feel like something was wrong with me – like I was so weak and meant so little that I was easy to manipulate and abuse.