Love as a Battlefield

Hi all. My name is Anamaria, I am 27, and I moved to the Netherlands a few years ago. 

I just got out of a toxic relationship, with what I believe (because I can only say from my experience of the pattern) to have been a Narcissist. This experience of emotional, psychological and physical abuse has left me with PTSD, among many others.

My story: How It All Began

I met him at work. When I joined the company, some of my colleagues mentioned that he had a reputation for being quite flirtatious and having very specific standards when it came to dating. Some people advised me to be careful. He had strong preferences, something that should have been a "red flag", but I didn’t see it at the time, nor would I have thought it will be this serious. First friday drinks come, and we all have a drink on the terrace. I finally meet him, and his personality in an instance comes up to show. Girls from a different company pass by, and he immediately chases them inside the bar. Later that evening, he tries to kiss me, but I refused. He asks me on a future date and that’s how it begins.

From the start, he mentioned that he preferred being with someone who was local to help him learn the language, and he said “I didn’t expect to be with an expat”, which made me feel like my background was a disadvantage, especially because he kept complaining how he doesn’t speak the language anymore since he’s in a relationship with me. At first, came the love-bombing stage. He said how in love he is with me, that he’s going to be the perfect husband, that he’s going to offer me everything that I want.

But in the early months of our relationship, he constantly idealized his ex-girlfriends. He would speak of them frequently, about their relationship, how he chased them after they broke-up, how he would show up in places where they used to go hoping to meet them, giving a lot of insights and intimate details. Then, he started making subtle comparisons, by frequently mentioning their professions and how he was advantaged in different contexts. He would even show me pictures of them, saying: “See? Wasn’t she gorgeous?” which made me feel inferior. I tried to brush it off, thinking it was just part of getting to know someone’s past. But then he made me feel like I was competing for his approval, as if these other women were the gold standard, and I was always just a bit less.

It started with comments that seemed harmless at first. He’d mention his ex often in our first months together, casually pointing out that she had “the most gorgeous body” while adding that my skinny frame wasn’t his type and that it was “unattractive”. Then came suggestions—subtle at first—that I should go to the gym because physical attraction mattered to him. He even mentioned his best friend, who struggled to find his wife attractive after she gained weight.

One day, he grabbed my stomach and said, “You can see that you love food.” I laughed it off in the moment, but something shifted inside me. Another time, when I was sitting in bed, he pointed out to my glutes and said how I should work on the lower part as well. I started watching what I ate, counting every calorie until it became an obsession. That was the beginning of my eating disorder.

Then came constant criticism. My oversized coat didn’t suit me. My hair had too much volume on one side. When I wanted to post a picture, he would criticize it and I would end up not posting. If I posted a picture in shorts he asked me to take it down from my profile. He was joking how he would want to “put me in a burqa”. My eyebrows were too thick. My teeth had a problem. My skin had a problem.

Even the way I dressed became a problem. Skinny jeans, he said, didn’t flatter me because they made my butt look small. But when I switched to gym shorts designed to enhance my curves, he made me change and policed my looks, saying they were too revealing, and that “I don’t understand how it feels when other men look at me.”

It wasn’t just words. There were moments that left deep scars. On a date, he pointed out a girl in a short skirt and asked if I felt threatened. I said, “I didn’t know I had to.”

Another time, after a gym session, he called and casually mentioned, “There were so many hot people, I had to look down.”

At the spa, where everyone was naked, he said, “Oh my god, there’s a bunch of ladies coming up—I have to behave.” Each comment seemed small on its own, but together, they built a constant feeling that I was never enough.

It felt like I couldn’t win. Moreover, I was always being dismissed or ignored when I tried to express that it was bothering me.

Even when he went to see a doctor, he started to say how she was a “young student” and how they had a nice conversation, and then proceeded to say that there’s something else he needs to tell me, but he doesn’t feel like sharing. He then proceeded to say how she needs to check him. I was confused so I asked “ok…and?”, to which he replied “Well, I’ll have to be naked”.

Before he left his old company, he had a tense relationship with management. During a promotion interview, he told me that someone questioned his professionalism: “What tells me you’re not going to go after the next secretary?”. An old colleague of mine mentioned that he flirted with the new assistant in his team, which didn’t surprise me given his past behaviour. He also couldn’t stand authority from women – he confessed – when a woman got the role he applied for he frequently had conflicts with her.

Another time, I told him I wanted to make a change to my hair, maybe go blonde, he said: “Do it, you know that’s my type.” After saying in many instances that my hair is very dark and that my eyebrows are dark. I ended up bleaching my hair and my eyebrows.

It wasn’t just his words. There were actions that cut even deeper.

I remember our first Christmas together. I put so much effort into making it special—buying gifts for both of us, including thoughtful presents for his entire family. We even spent hours searching for clothes for his brother, trying to make sure everything was perfect. Yet, from him, I didn’t receive anything. Not a gift, not a gesture, nothing. Then, when my birthday came around, he acted as if it didn’t matter. He wanted to leave me alone, and when I brought it up, he suggested that I should consider we celebrated my birthday on Valentine’s Day, where he brought me a rose he received from the gym (because he forgot), because he had an exam coming up in two weeks. I was crushed. It felt like my special moments didn’t matter at all to him.

It wasn’t until I told him I was planning to go out with some friends that he suddenly decided to organize something, but only because he was mad that there were male friends involved. I was heartbroken. The fact that he didn’t even want to give me an hour of his time, but was so quick to spend time with others, was a painful reminder of how little I meant to him. But when his friends needed him, he was always there. For me? Never.

One phrase stuck with me during the first months of our dating, among many others: “I wonder how far I can go before you break.”

I later found out he had been in contact with his ex for six months. He said it was because of her father’s illness, but their conversations went beyond that. I would have never questioned it, but their talks were always about something more. He was always asking her how she is, if she ate, saying she should eat for both..showing care and interest consistently beyond the main reason. Not only that, but he was paying her compliments, even texting her when we were on a sailing trip together. I confronted him after finding out, because I did not understand his need to be so interested in every area of her life, especially since she had her husband to take care of her, she wasn’t his responsibility anymore. Never had an answer.

Another time, I caught him messaging a different ex who was at a naturist camp. He asked for pictures and she mentioned she’d already taken her clothes off. He first said, “Oh, never mind,” but then followed up with, “I’m kidding—still send me pictures.” This happened just a week before our anniversary. He also went into details asking if there’s the place where he took her for a date and the conversation got intimate.

I stayed. I tried to communicate calmly at first, telling him how his words and actions hurt me. But the episodes kept coming. I’d find myself crying, begging him to understand that I didn’t feel safe in the relationship. We had so many talks where I tried to explain how I don’t want these things from my partner, that his actions and words hurt me, as a woman and especially as his girlfriend.

I voiced out how I had concerns and fears of introducing him to my girl friends, because I didn’t want him to look at them in the wrong way, because of his past statements and behaviors. I remember I introduced him to my best friend, and what he said was shocking, he made a comment that she is gorgeous, but then proceeded to say that she is “very big” (weight wise). I was in complete shock and disappointment. I had real concerns about him around women, once he told me how he wanted to have a “cute Ukrainian” (when the war started and some people invited them to stay at their homes) or how he believes that it’s OK to pursue a girl if she’s 16 because “you can’t tell and some of them dress very revealing”.

Over time, my emotions became harder to control. My tears turned into shouting from the pain because I was drowning in hurt that had no outlet. I wanted to leave so many times but somehow never did, he always had a way to bring me back. Instead, I developed what’s called hypervigillance. Whenever we walked into a room, I would scan it to see if there could be a potential “threat,” if there’s a woman he will consider attractive, and I would be so afraid that he would notice her. Him scanning the room for other women was (as he confessed) a present issue in his former relationship as well. He often mentioned how he and his ex used to have fights where she also used to scream at him, once so bad that the neighbors called the police.

The triggers seemed never-ending. After a major trigger from him, even the smallest things would set me off for days. I found myself crying for hours, unable to control the anger and pain that had built up inside me. The frustration once overwhelmed me in public. I remember kicking my bike because I couldn’t hold it in anymore. It happened after I remembered how he secretly texted his married ex to compliment her on how “gracefully” she moored a boat, even sending her a picture while we were out sailing together. Yet that day, he told me I was “shit” at biking. It was moments like these that stayed with me, simmering beneath the surface until I couldn’t take it anymore. Even during holidays—times meant for relaxation and happiness—we would end up in conflicts over the smallest things because I couldn’t stand being around him anymore. The pain, frustration, and resentment never seemed to fade, no matter how much I tried to move on from the past.

Our conflicts were never solved, because of my “difficulty” in moving past certain issues, though these were always dismissed and weren’t acknowledged. Every time we discussed a certain issue, all I was being told was “You’re inventing things”, “Oh my god, you can’t even remember what actually happened”, “That’s not how things were” , “You’re always bringing up the past”. “I can’t just stop talking”.

His behavior continued after apologizing. The apologies didn’t feel like they led to real change, but rather seemed to keep me from leaving.

He said he didn’t know what else to do. But he insisted I go to therapy saying I’m the one who needs it. He acted like I was being difficult for having completely normal reactions to repeated emotional harm. But he never decided to go to therapy for himself, to discover where it could’ve come from.

He also discussed how he wanted to use the psychologist as a means to break up with me.

Then came the night that changed everything. We were on holiday, sitting on the hotel terrace. An argument escalated, and in a moment of hurt, I insulted his ex. His reaction was instant and hard—he hit me. I was in complete shock from the pain.

The next day, we had another argument. This time because I found out he invited some girls at his tennis club for drinks, which I didn’t even know about, because he always told me he was playing tennis with his male friends. I felt betrayed again, I felt like him hiding things from me never ended. Consumed by pain and heartbreak, I said I will tell his friends and the people at his work who he really was.

I called my dad: “If you knew what he did to me, you would kill him.” I left the hotel, took a taxi, and said things I never thought I’d say—things like kissing or sleeping with someone else. They were words spoken from a place of deep, raw hurt and shock over the event of the night before.

Transcript of the conversation with my dad: “Please tell me what happened. If you don’t feel safe, please take the taxi and go to the airport to a hotel. Or call to see what we can do. Did he physically aggress you? Did he rape you? Did he hit you?"

Later, when I tried to talk about what had happened, he dismissed it. “But were you bruised? No.” Those words echoed in my mind, as if the absence of a visible mark somehow erased the fact or made it normal.

Every time I brought it up, he tried to shift the blame. “Are you going to mention that? Are you going to use that to justify YOUR reaction?” It made me hesitate. It made me second-guess myself. Was I wrong for bringing it up? Was I the problem?

And there comes the hardest part. He forced me to deny the physical abuse.

Two weeks after the incident and after the gaslighting – making me feel guilty for having the reaction, when he came to my place, he asked me to write a message saying he needs protect himself and that he feels his security is at risk:

“Hi. I am sorry about the evening episode on the 19th of September. It was a stupid fight and I was so angry. I regret it terribly. I just wanted you to know I didn’t mean anything of it. I’m sorry I lied about such a serious thing as you hitting me. I should have never said such horrible things. I was incapable of controlling my emotions. In hindsight I realised how grave it was. I am writing you this message to serve as proof that I regret it and that it meant nothing and that nothing from what I said was true. I hope you will forgive me and that this episode will only be a matter of the past. I hope it can be forgotten once and for all. I love you.”

The physical abuse didn’t manifest itself just then. I realized later how he was “playing” with using it. The times he would pull my hair hard to do/not to do something. Once, he snatched my phone and ran away with it, and tried to hide in the bathroom to see what I was doing. My arm was caught between the door and the wall, causing pain, and despite me begging for him to stop, he continued to prevent me from entering. Needless to say my hand was swollen for two weeks, which he also dismissed. My parents were the first to notice it, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell them what actually happened.

We had so many incidents where I left his apartment crying after such episodes. Once I desperately called my dad because he made me have a panic attack, and my dad got so scared and wanted to call the ambulance. He even texted him to say that if he doesn’t stay with me until he arrives he will call the police. That’s the stage I was in. I was desperately going to therapists as a way to understand what was happening to me, because he made me feel like I had a problem.

I kept messaging my best friends throught this period, confiding in them about these episodes and letting know how slowly – but surely – my mental health was degrading.

Transcript: “I wasn’t so well, honestly. I had a very bad depression, now I’m going to therapy. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t have the energy. I have barely spoken to my parents in the last 6 months. I used to go home, lock myself in the room. I was so exhausted I even made mistakes as work. Because of everything, but mostly because of the relationship and because of everything he did to me. I was extremely insecure, I had an eating disorder.”

Fast forward to our 2nd Christmas together. We have another conflict about the fact that he wanted to go salsa dancing. See, in the beginning of the relationship, this is a subject he brought up. He said that in that environment there’s a lot of single people, that go there in the hope to meet someone, that women wear clothes that highlight their bodies, and that this is a compromise he wants to make (although I didn’t ask him to at the time) because he knows how it would make me feel, as he also would feel that way seeing his girlfriend dance with someone else, because him and his ex-fiance only danced together. Later in our relationship, after the image of him and the place has already been painted, he brought up wanting to go there, and when I voiced that it doesn’t make me comfortable given what he said to me and that I have concerns with regards to his intentions, he called me controlling. At that moment I was feeling numb. I couldn’t understand why he tried to push onto me all of a sudden a subject he initiated a compromise on and after painting that picture of it and of himself. Was it to hurt me again? I couldn’t stand him anymore so I voiced out loud my biggest fear: “I don’t think I want to marry you, nor to have children with you. I can’t imagine myself being pregnant and having panic attacks over what you’re doing when you go out and living in this fear and insecurity”.

I often felt like he used the salsa dancing subject to manipulate me into not doing things. Whenever I wanted to go out with friends, because he didn’t like it, he would say: “If you go, then I go dancing”. And I would stay home. Or he would make the plan one day before, so I wouldn’t have time to meet any of my friends on such short notice because he knew if I’d be home alone I would have anxiety and panic attacks at the thought of what he’s doing when I’m not around.

We had a long holiday ahead. We made up – because we were supposed to attend the wedding of some common friends. We were afraid of other arguments. However, they started the moment we landed. In the airport, I caught him in front of me turning his head twice after a girl that passed us by. I called him out and he threatened me that “I am paving the way for him to break up with me when we get back home”. We got over it, forcing myself once again to swallow up the pain inside me. Three weeks after, the wedding was approaching. We managed to get by without any incidents. We sit in our hotel room, knowing that tomorrow we fly towards the wedding. I see him on instagram – which he said he didn’t use because he was not agreeing with social media. He wants to show me something, but as he opens it, his feed is filled with women. I jokingly ask about it, and he says that the algorithm pushed it because he didn’t use instagram in a long time. But then he comes back to the subject. While he criticized me for spending time on Instagram and dismissed people chasing “the perfect body” as superficial, he admitted he was watching OnlyFans models. His excuse? “It’s just because you were on your period, and we couldn’t have sex.” Somehow, my natural body cycle became the reason for his wandering eyes. He was watching the exact type of women he forbade me to be. I wasn’t allowed to dress revealing, saying I dress like a “slut”. I wasn’t allowed to wear gym shorts – ” You’re not going to wear that are you? Take it off, I don’t want to have these discussions”. I wasn’t allowed to dress in any way because I don’t how how difficult it is for him when other men look at me. All while he was part of those men.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I said don’t touch me, leave me alone, I am going to book another flight back home. He contacted my mom, saying he is scared of another “episode”. Although there was no shouting involved, I went to the balcony to calm myself down and then I cried in my pillow because I couldn’t believe what was happening to me – again.

We come back home, and the next day after we landed he decides to take me to my place and ask for a break. I was shocked – being left again before my birthday which was in a few days and before starting a new job. Here it was messy – we agreed on couples therapy. He said he doesn’t want to give me the closure of a breakup because he doesn’t want to see me with another man. I left back home, because I couldn’t stand the break alone in the Netherlands. He tried to reassure me that “we’re going to fix this”, even took me to the airport and said he loved me.

But after the first session, he called me, frustrated because the therapist suggested that certain aspects of his behavior might need reflection. During the session, he said: “I know where this is going and I don’t like it.”

My birthday was coming. He said how he wanted to book a flight and come and see me. But then all of a sudden – after a night where he went out, the breakup message came. He says how now he now he is putting himself back together and that he thought that he could handle the couples therapy, but that it’s too much for him. The sudden change didn’t make sense at all.

He said he couldn’t handle the arguments, the stress of me crying and leaving his apartment. He said he feared for his well-being after that night on holiday and that he doesn’t believe in the relationship anymore. But I had fears too. I feared his words, his wandering eyes, the way I always felt compared to other women. I feared not being enough. I feared I would be hit again. I feared my phone would be thrown across the room again if I dared to talk to a guy. But most of all, I feared losing myself completely. I did voice these fears to him, though—every single one. And each time, he denied being that person, told me I was imagining things. Yet, every time I tried to leave, he begged me to come back, promising things would change. But nothing ever did.

Three days after we broke up, I learned that he was already on Bumble. The realization was crushing. I questioned whether he truly valued me in the way he had portrayed, especially given how things ended.

His last words were: “Nothing I did should have deserved your reactions.” I felt like he was dismissing the impact and shifting blame. I was also accused of “cherry picking” moments in order to justify my reactions.

Not only that, but after every argument, the next day he would act so distant, which made me feel bad. That I was the one in the wrong, and he said how he can’t move on from the way I reacted. But what caused the reaction didn’t matter anymore, and I would end up apologizing in the end. I used to beg to be forgiven for my reactions. Because all along, he made me feel like I was the problem.

I was being told how to dress – I always had to ask for permission to wear something, how to look, how to behave, who I can talk to: “You talk too much with your parents, leave the phone now”. “You smoked already too much, don’t light up another cigarette” (And the amount of times he would snatch my packages and throw them away). I was even told when to eat “It’s too late, don’t eat now”, “I don’t want you to cook now”, after we bought something from the store if I was hungry he told me to not “consume it all”, when to go to bed (because I always had to adjust to his schedule even if I had no sleep because I would wake him up), I wasn’t allowed to cry anymore, I was basically a prisoner living according to him. And all of this while holding a different set of rules for himself. I never dared tell him what to do or not do.

It became a pattern where I felt less confident in myself and this has shown in my personal life as well – at work, in day to day activities – I became fearful and doubtful no matter what I did. My self confidence was completely gone. I was feeling unhappy and I didn’t understand what was happening to me, why I can’t move on, why the pain is so intense, I felt guilty – thinking it’s my fault for reacting like this, for feeling like this.

When I started therapy, he was questioning me on what I am saying in the sessions, he was telling me what to say, he said "I am worried that if you tell these things to yourself you will actually start believing them", it's you, you always see the worst in me etc.

And when I went out with one common friend, I was trying to ask for help (after he hit me), and they met later that evening, and he questioned her to see what I told her and what I said about him.

It was very bad, but yes, this is my story.

Thank you for reading!