[SideCrow]

Earlier this month I wrote about breaking up and how I have been trying to embrace the negative emotion instead of fight it. Yoga has flushed much of the pain and the fact that we were at peace with each other instead of a big blow out fight was an amazing revelation. Sure, I have missed him, but our lives don't blend well.
Last night a texted him a photo of my dog's skin, asking his opinion if he needed to see the vet. His response was that he couldn't tell by the photo but he was in the neighborhood and could stop by. Initially I said no, fearing it would be too hard to see him, but eventually I said ok.
Long story short, you know where this is going. He wnted to sleep with me and he kissed me. Again I said no. I didn't mind his kiss, but when I pulled away, he did something odd, that I can't figure out.
Let me first explain that I am around 115 lbs, he is 220. Powerful. He put one hand on my jaw and just pulled it ...it didn't hurt, but he just pulled my face back by gripping my jaw. I was surprised, but as I said, it didn't hurt. We talked some more, and when I resisted him, he then put his hand around my throat, not painfully, but strong. That happened a few times. I think I was just surprised, and I was sure he would not hurt me so I was not sure if this was some kind of Alpha thing...He gripped my throat again, but the last time, he began squeezing, and I felt pressure in my face building and ultimately it was tight enough that either I couldn't breathe or was seeing stars. All I could do was look at his eyes, and it was so odd. He picked me up and started toward my bedroom but I held on to the doorframe and said, no, please don't....so he ultimately took me back and said he wouldn't make me, but that he *wanted to make me*. He was not mean or angry or loud or threatening. It was very confusing for me because after all of that he was very gentle and normal and sweet. And I am wracked with anxiety today because I gave in and he spent the night. What the hell happened?

That is a sign that you should leave him posthaste. You mentioned that you've already ended the relationship, but consider also changing your locks and never answering his calls again.

[SideCrow]

That seems obvious, doesn't it? And I can't figure out why my brain does not automatically realize that. Why my brain says "No, he never would hurt you. He let go." My wants to rationalize and think of only good things. What a lemming I am. His visit really set me back.

[hamster-bamster]

You should not start interactions with him then.

He is not the only person in the world to consult with about the dog's need to go to a vet.

It is actually better to take the dog to a vet without a good cause and waste some money on it - and challenge the poor dog's patience - than to go through what you went through.

Please do not initiate transactions with him.

[Perna]

I think it was confusing for you because he showed a part of himself (perhaps liking rough sex, being the alpha male, etc.) that you had not seen that is very close to the line with abuse. That what he did did not hurt and that he turned around when you said no and said he would not force you, I think you let the confusion take you away in letting him stay if you did not want him to stay. It's kind of like being an alcoholic and friends come over and bring liquor and you think you can resist but then decide, "what the heck, it's here, I'll go for it" and start again tomorrow.

I think you have to decide what you want and how you feel about things and then go for that at all times instead of letting him kiss you or "play" with your neck/chin, etc. You cannot have it both ways.

[Laina M.]

I think it's confusing because it's really hard to face sometimes that people we know well, whom we trust and think are good people, who would never do that, are capable of abuse and violence towards us. That's not a fault of yours. You are not a "lemming" for being confused by that and please don't blame yourself for any of this!!! It's not your fault someone you loved and trusted betrayed that trust.

I am definitely echoing the other commentators here in saying please stay away from him and cut off contact. He hurt you, he crossed your boundaries, and he pressured you to have sex when you did not want to. Even if he's never showed that behaviour before, it's abusive, and it could happen again or escalate. Don't feel bad for cutting him off and doing what you need to do to ensure your own safety!

[SideCrow]

Thank you for the further input everyone. I regret to say that I'm jut still not sure. I told my neighbor [a woman and registered nurse] and she said that I was reading into it too deeply and if he wanted to hurt me he would have and could have and that he has been very supportive of me in the past [going with me for a surgery] and he probably was just 'horny' when he came over and was into pushing limits sexually but that there was no harm done by my own admission. She said, I should make it work for me...if that's what *I* want meaning, if I want to see him, then I should do it on my own terms, but shut him down if I don't. Adding that he is a law enforcement officer, I do not in any way want to end up on his **** list.

[SideCrow]

Hamster, you have a point. I will explain why I called him with regard to the dog. He is my dog's trainer, and since he has many police K9s he has a close relationship with a vet who I don't know. He was the one who took my dog in for surgery, and I could not remember who the vet was. I felt that for the purpose of continuing care, my dog should see the same vet who did the surgery since there was a problem with the stitches. But yes, ultimately, worst case scenario, he could have seen my regular vet.

[SideCrow]

Here's the equation: A few moments of anxiety
+ some happiness at seeing him again
+ surprise and shock at his behavior
+ some kind of addiction to him
-trust
- a bonafide relationship
= not feeling good and not getting what I need at the endof the day.



=

[Confusedinomicon]

Have you tried no-contact for a month(or longer) before establishing new rules for a friendship?

If its too close to the breakup he could have thought you were using the dog as a way to see him again.

[SideCrow]

Originally Posted by Confusedinomicon

Have you tried no-contact for a month(or longer) before establishing new rules for a friendship?

If its too close to the breakup he could have thought you were using the dog as a way to see him again.

I have not tried that. But he works walking distance from my apt. It would have been easy to 'accidentally' run into him if I wanted to. And when I asked him about the dog, I sent a photo, and he was the one who said I really can't tell by the photo, I'll just come over." But I get what you are saying. I'm pretty sure he wants a 'friends with benefits' deal.
I just don't need this obsessive wondering about where this is going. I feel like I have some addiction to him and I don't feel good about how we interact. There's too many mind games. Too much hot and cold. I know that if I really needed him in an emergency, he would likely drop what he was doing and help me. But I can't keep feeling tethered to him and unable to make a clean break. If he said to me tonight "I want you back" I would be soooo under his spell. But i think that's because I don't know what a normal relationship feels like.

Regarding your RN neighbor, she's wrong. I've had my fair share of strange relationships, dominance play, and BDSM ****. None of it involved having any desire whatsoever to force someone to have sex. And none of it ever should.

Originally Posted by SideCrow

I feel like I have some addiction to him and I don't feel good about how we interact. There's too many mind games. Too much hot and cold. I know that if I really needed him in an emergency, he would likely drop what he was doing and help me. But I can't keep feeling tethered to him and unable to make a clean break. If he said to me tonight "I want you back" I would be soooo under his spell. But i think that's because I don't know what a normal relationship feels like.

I recommend you move. At least to a different state.

[sabby]

SideCrow,

I can understand why it's confusing for you to consider that this man is a danger to you. But, let me ask you this....if you felt that nothing was wrong, you would not have posted about this correct? Evidently, there is something within you screaming at you that this situation was wrong and that you needed some support to give you the strength to make the best decision possible and that would be to stay very very far away from this guy.

He is a well versed manipulator and abuser. He KNOWS exactly what he is doing as compared to you having very little knowledge about what he's doing or at the very least, refusing to let yourself believe the worst about him, and I will bet dollars to donuts, you refuse to listen to your own gut feelings about him as well.

He has done this many times to other women. I guarantee this as he has perfected his manipulation and it worked on you. Please do not kick yourself for this, he knows how to pick the women who will question themselves instead of questioning him.

I am not saying all this to hurt you or your feelings. I am really concerned for YOU and don't want to see you become another statistic. If this was a match made in heaven, there would be no question and no confusion about what happened. This is anything but a match made in heaven hon.

Please do what is best for yourself and keep yourself safe and abuse free from this guy. Think calmly and listen to your inner self/your gut and take measures to insure that this won't happen again. You owe it to yourself and those who love you to take care of yourself. Anyone worth having is worth waiting for! He's just not it hon.

[SideCrow]

[quote=Michael D.;3133033]Regarding your RN neighbor, she's wrong. I've had my fair share of strange relationships, dominance play, and BDSM ****. None of it involved having any desire whatsoever to force someone to have sex. And none of it ever should.

Really?

[SideCrow]

Originally Posted by sabby

SideCrow,

I can understand why it's confusing for you to consider that this man is a danger to you. But, let me ask you this....if you felt that nothing was wrong, you would not have posted about this correct? Evidently, there is something within you screaming at you that this situation was wrong and that you needed some support to give you the strength to make the best decision possible and that would be to stay very very far away from this guy.

He is a well versed manipulator and abuser. He KNOWS exactly what he is doing as compared to you having very little knowledge about what he's doing or at the very least, refusing to let yourself believe the worst about him, and I will bet dollars to donuts, you refuse to listen to your own gut feelings about him as well.

He has done this many times to other women. I guarantee this as he has perfected his manipulation and it worked on you. Please do not kick yourself for this, he knows how to pick the women who will question themselves instead of questioning him.

I am not saying all this to hurt you or your feelings. I am really concerned for YOU and don't want to see you become another statistic. If this was a match made in heaven, there would be no question and no confusion about what happened. This is anything but a match made in heaven hon.

Please do what is best for yourself and keep yourself safe and abuse free from this guy. Think calmly and listen to your inner self/your gut and take measures to insure that this won't happen again. You owe it to yourself and those who love you to take care of yourself. Anyone worth having is worth waiting for! He's just not it hon.

Thank you for this kind reply. It made more sense to me. I mean, Yes, I understood other responses, but only insofar as "this isn't good" and what I need to know is a clear explanation, as in, "this means he is a sexual sadist" or "this means he might have a problem controlling an urge to choke you out" or even "this means he is on the border of thinking what it would be like to see your life drift away." You know what I mean? But yes, you are right, without those concrete answers, all I have is the Thing tugging and biting at me saying it's a little bit scary and I feel absolutely controlled. You are correct. In fact, the first time I said "No" to him [months ago], he told me outright, "I've never had this problem before. Nobody has ever said 'no' or given me this trouble like you are."
Yes...it's true...you are right. Even before we split, I found myself with anxiety about when he would come through the door, even though I wanted to see him. At one point I hid my car so he would not think I was home and then I bolted the door and jammed the bottom lock hoping that his key would not go in and he would not be able to enter. But as I said, he is a law enforcement officer, and he found my car and opened my locks using something, he told me later it was a credit card. We were not fighting...as I remember I just asked for a little space. But I could not understand why I was so shakey and anxious for him to come here when we weren't even fighting. I just felt afraid and I didn't know why. It was long before he put his hand around my throat.
After the locks failed, I started anchoring a chair in front of the door if I didn't want him to come here. But then we would have perfectly fine, loving days, too.
Sometimes I think I just want someone to tell me that I am over reacting and everything is fine.

[SideCrow]

Sabby, I keep reading your post. Thank you.

[SideCrow]

In regard to Michael's suggestion for moving to another state, that is unrealistic in this situation. I have no family, zero, zilch and the only support, the little I have, is here. Not to mention a complicated court civil court case.

Originally Posted by SideCrow

Really?

... Really. Why do you say "Really?"

[SideCrow]

Michael, because your answer is interesting. I have never talked to anyone who was in that kind of relationship where you are "allowed" to do those things.

[quote=Michael D.;3133033]Regarding your RN neighbor, she's wrong. I've had my fair share of strange relationships, dominance play, and BDSM ****. None of it involved having any desire whatsoever to force someone to have sex. And none of it ever should.

Really?

Yes darling, really.

If, by example, during one's early years, one found any pleasure (need not be sexual) or comfort or affection or even escape in being mistreated or maltreated, or if one felt like one deserved to be.There are a dozen reasons why. Some have to do with power, some with powerless-ness, some with perceiving worth or lack thereof, some with wanting to be needed (or wanted). Most often these desires are the result of having experienced sexual congress with an adult in ones early years. As an adult one may go looking for that reckoning, that happening, that velocity, that violence, that whatever. In some cases, even verbal communication is almost wholly unnecessary between two such persons (or for that matter, between "victims and perpetrators") . But that's because these all belong to the same sub-set of the population. Persons who have never experienced such things (victimization and the ultimate output of the same) have no clear notion of what "this" even is...other than reading it in a book and viewing it like a barnacle on a ship (rather than as an inextricable part of someone) is to them...like you reading about someone forced to cut their arm off to survive in the desert or mountains. If one cannot palpably understand something - can only understand it intellectually - it becomes a "totem," an isolated thing, seemingly extricable from the human being to whom it happened. It is very much, therefore, like a child who has had no sexual experience whatever trying to imagine sex. They develop all sorts of ideas about it, further fueled and misguided by other children's musing (from children who ALSO haven't had sex). Sabina Naftulovna Spielrein, a Russian (I think) Jewish woman. Her thing was that she had serious symptoms (neurosis then called "hysteria" or "conversion disorder") behind her father beating her and she enjoying it (sexually). She became one of the first women psychoanalysts. Sabina Spielrein - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Her research was in the destruction of the ego, primarily through what amounted to BDSM. Not radically different, in some respects, from Otto Rank, Oswald Schwartz, and Wilhelm Reich. Her work "Destruction as the Cause of Coming Into Being" is a classic example of destruction of ego to make ego. "In my work with sexual problems one question has especially interested me: why this most powerful drive, the drive of reproduction [Fortpflanzungstrieb], houses within itself, next to the a priori expected positive feelings, negative ones like anxiety and disgust, the latter of which really has to be overcome so that one can get to the positive activity. The negative attitude of the individual toward sexual activity [Sexualbetätigung] is, of course, especially evident in neurotics..." In such a power dynamic, such play....it can be healing when the heavens open and you see the "man behind the curtain" "The person in the mirror" [come to know yourself via such exchange] and you recognize yourself therein. For, it is most assuredly a mirror.

An exchange. Not an act committed against another.

In any event I find this discourse fantastical, and luring

[SideCrow]

Originally Posted by sabby

SideCrow,

I can understand why it's confusing for you to consider that this man is a danger to you. But, let me ask you this....if you felt that nothing was wrong, you would not have posted about this correct? Evidently, there is something within you screaming at you that this situation was wrong and that you needed some support to give you the strength to make the best decision possible and that would be to stay very very far away from this guy.

He is a well versed manipulator and abuser. He KNOWS exactly what he is doing as compared to you having very little knowledge about what he's doing or at the very least, refusing to let yourself believe the worst about him, and I will bet dollars to donuts, you refuse to listen to your own gut feelings about him as well.

He has done this many times to other women. I guarantee this as he has perfected his manipulation and it worked on you. Please do not kick yourself for this, he knows how to pick the women who will question themselves instead of questioning him.

I am not saying all this to hurt you or your feelings. I am really concerned for YOU and don't want to see you become another statistic. If this was a match made in heaven, there would be no question and no confusion about what happened. This is anything but a match made in heaven hon.

Please do what is best for yourself and keep yourself safe and abuse free from this guy. Think calmly and listen to your inner self/your gut and take measures to insure that this won't happen again. You owe it to yourself and those who love you to take care of yourself. Anyone worth having is worth waiting for! He's just not it hon.

[quote=Lux_et_spes;3134309]

Originally Posted by Michael D.

Regarding your RN neighbor, she's wrong. I've had my fair share of strange relationships, dominance play, and BDSM ****. None of it involved having any desire whatsoever to force someone to have sex. And none of it ever should.

Really?

Yes darling, really.

If, by example, during one's early years, one found any pleasure (need not be sexual) or comfort or affection or even escape in being mistreated or maltreated, or if one felt like one deserved to be.There are a dozen reasons why. Some have to do with power, some with powerless-ness, some with perceiving worth or lack thereof, some with wanting to be needed (or wanted). Most often these desires are the result of having experienced sexual congress with an adult in ones early years. As an adult one may go looking for that reckoning, that happening, that velocity, that violence, that whatever. In some cases, even verbal communication is almost wholly unnecessary between two such persons (or for that matter, between "victims and perpetrators") . But that's because these all belong to the same sub-set of the population. Persons who have never experienced such things (victimization and the ultimate output of the same) have no clear notion of what "this" even is...other than reading it in a book and viewing it like a barnacle on a ship (rather than as an inextricable part of someone) is to them...like you reading about someone forced to cut their arm off to survive in the desert or mountains. If one cannot palpably understand something - can only understand it intellectually - it becomes a "totem," an isolated thing, seemingly extricable from the human being to whom it happened. It is very much, therefore, like a child who has had no sexual experience whatever trying to imagine sex. They develop all sorts of ideas about it, further fueled and misguided by other children's musing (from children who ALSO haven't had sex). Sabina Naftulovna Spielrein, a Russian (I think) Jewish woman. Her thing was that she had serious symptoms (neurosis then called "hysteria" or "conversion disorder") behind her father beating her and she enjoying it (sexually). She became one of the first women psychoanalysts. Sabina Spielrein - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Her research was in the destruction of the ego, primarily through what amounted to BDSM. Not radically different, in some respects, from Otto Rank, Oswald Schwartz, and Wilhelm Reich. Her work "Destruction as the Cause of Coming Into Being" is a classic example of destruction of ego to make ego. "In my work with sexual problems one question has especially interested me: why this most powerful drive, the drive of reproduction [Fortpflanzungstrieb], houses within itself, next to the a priori expected positive feelings, negative ones like anxiety and disgust, the latter of which really has to be overcome so that one can get to the positive activity. The negative attitude of the individual toward sexual activity [Sexualbetätigung] is, of course, especially evident in neurotics..." In such a power dynamic, such play....it can be healing when the heavens open and you see the "man behind the curtain" "The person in the mirror" [come to know yourself via such exchange] and you recognize yourself therein. For, it is most assuredly a mirror.

An exchange. Not an act committed against another.

In any event I find this discourse fantastical, and luring

Oh my gosh. I think I might be jacked up. How disgust and beatings and humiliation and force can amount to arousal, I have no idea. I don't know how they meet. I know I had an early identification with "prettiness" and being "alluring" as well as very, very submissive. I was a runaway as a teenager and homeless from time to time and depended very much on my physical appearance to secure shelter. My face was broken, knife held to my throat, beatings here and there, but bed was comfort. Rest. Delicious relief from terror, even when going to bed together hurt, the sacrifice was my valor. Going to bed was the reward for enduring. But I longed for the person who was not there, a father figure, who would go back in time and tell me right from wrong, someone strong and protective, not the one I ran away from. And the stronger nd more possessive, the better - because if my own father didn't care where I was here was someone to do his job. And the two identities of male partner and father figure fused. *shudder*

As I said...fantastical. Luring...and the bait isn't the proper bait. Time to move on. Be well.

[SideCrow]

I miss him.

[hamster-bamster]

journal-write-blog-draw-paint-? something to sort of sublimate it into/through?

[SideCrow]

Thank you, Hamster. I guess the big thing is I haven't called him. I think about it way more than I should. But I haven't. I even have legit reasons to call him [I have some things of his, and he has my dog's kennel] but in spite of missing him, I'm a little afraid. In fact, I could even drop his things off at his office, through the door, but his security camera will record it, and I know he will go back and watch when I went there, and something about that bothers me. I hope you are well.