Things That Will Happen When You Meet an Abusive Dominant

You’ll meet him at a kink event. He will be everything you’ve ever wanted, so one fine Sunday morning, you’ll tack your dynamic together with agreements and sellotape. That conversation will not mention safe words. It will not mention limits, but a dominant without a list of requirements is hardly a dom at all, is he?

Later that day you’ll go out shopping for some lace and perfume. Remember that shopping trip. It will be the last time you buy anything without his permission.

It will be the last time you leave home without his consent.

He'll break your body in a thousand different ways. He’ll obliterate your psyche and then demand you behave like an unbroken person. One morning at 3 am, you’ll sneak out of bed and cry silently behind the bathroom door.

You’ll tell yourself he was abused as a child, so it isn’t his fault.
You'll tell yourself he’s sorry, so he’ll change.
You'll tell yourself it will all be okay because he’s promised to get therapy.

He never will.

He’ll blame your inferior submission and infernal dignity, and you’ll believe him because he’s been a community leader for 30 years...

... or so he'll say.

Still, you will stay because you’re sure you’re strong enough to cope; but you aren’t. His attacks will erode the very core of your being. Your skin will turn grey. Your eyes will become drawn. The deadness in your features will be a pale reflection of the sickness you feel inside. Eventually, you’ll forget what it felt like to be whole. You’ll forget so thoroughly that you’ll think you’re still whole.

You’ll leave, at last, because you want to die, but then your self-hatred will lead you back to him. You’ll leave again because it’s that or a psych ward, but he’ll swear to change. He’ll swear it on his life.

He won’t change, and you'll find a thousand ways to blame yourself for that.

If you try harder, maybe he won't leave. But he will leave. He’ll leave just as he left all his other partners. He’ll leave because you will stop being a challenge; because he’s grown bored with his own game; because the only way to harm you more than he has already is to discard you in the most noxious way possible. You’ll beg him to stay. Broken people need people, even the cruel ones.

You’ll think you’ve reached the end of this story, but you’ll be wrong. He'll charge past your social media blocks. He’ll demolish your reputation. He’ll post revenge porn. Your burgeoning loneliness will remind you of how much better it was when he was destroying you from inside your relationship. At least then you were not alone.

Eventually, you’ll go to therapy.

You'll know that you’ll never recover, but you’ll wake up one day and realise you’ve not thought of him for a week.
You’ll wake up one day and realise you’ve not thought of him all year.
You’ll wake up one day and realise it has nothing to do with him at all.

You’ll wake up one morning before dawn, and the sun will rise to find you whole. You’ll get yourself the first new dress you’ve bought in years. After months of psychologist visits, you’ll realise you’ll never be the same as you were before you met.

You will be right.

You will become more than you were before him. You'll become more powerful than you've ever been.

One bright day, a new man will attract your interest. He won’t mention safe words or limits, so you’ll reject him because there are dresses to buy. There is dignity to nurture. There is the blue, blue sky.