Details have been changed to protect the author's safety.
When I was pregnant with my second child, my husband made it his personal objective to decimate my self-confidence. He would tell me every day that I was fat—that I disgusted him.
Compared to the physical violence, the insults felt like almost nothing. Like the swift sting of a finger flick, the kind you use to get rid of a pesky little bug. His words were no match for his hands.
My husband would throw wine glasses at me so hard that they would break on my body. He would pitch the laptop across the room if I didn't agree on what movie to watch.
I lived in a small world of fear that felt like it was always, somehow, getting smaller.
Even money was something that was entirely in his control—I didn't have any of my own. I would say, "Today I'm taking our daughter to the park," and he'd throw me a $20.
He paid all the bills, managed all the bank accounts, and oversaw all our assets. I never knew how much money he made. I was never allowed access to the bank.
I was trapped.
I had moved East on a whim at the age of 23 and didn't know a single person there—that was part of the appeal. I wanted to start over somewhere new.
I'd left home at 15 and spent most of high school homeless and living out of cars. I grew up quickly—four years later, I started slaving away in corporate America supporting myself with mind-numbing office work. I figured a move to a new city was my one chance to be young and have fun, so I took it—and I decided to do the exact opposite of boring office work: I started stripping. It was fast, easy, and frankly, an exciting way to make sure I had the money to fund my new life.
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On my third night dancing, a cute guy kept asking me out and following me around my whole shift. In hindsight it was creepy, but at the time, I thought was romantic.
I went home with him after our first date and pretty much never left. He was a power player in real estate and his world of money, drugs, and flashy living was all very seductive—I fell in almost immediately. All we did was have sex and party.
And then I discovered I was pregnant.
I didn't want to have the baby. He did.
Since we were at such odds, we agreed that we would make a decision—together—when he came home from work one day. But when he arrived, he dropped a bombshell: He had already told his parents and they were beside themselves with excitement.
It was masterfully manipulative. My first small taste of what was to come.
At that moment, I realized I was having a baby with someone I had just met. I didn't know who to reach out to for help— I didn't have people to call or anybody to fall back on. Since I was estranged from my family and living in a new place, the only people I knew were friends he had introduced me to. This is how he ended up having complete control over me.
For my entire pregnancy, I sat at home. Alone. I had stopped stripping and taken an office job (oh, the irony), but had gotten laid off when the company was bought out. Because I didn't have a job, I was losing all ties to my independent life: my car got repossessed because I couldn't pay for it; I had let my lease on my apartment go since I spent so much time at his house. Everything that was mine was slipping away.
So was the man whose baby I was carrying.
As I became more visibly pregnant, he withdrew. He wouldn't touch me, kiss me, or seem to want to have anything to do with me. I had to walk alone for miles to my OB-GYN appointments because he was always working and wouldn't drive.
By the time the baby arrived, his moods had become completely unpredictable. When my water broke, he yelled that I'd better not get anything on the seat of his Lexus.
Then, with our daughter, there were rare, good moments: He would hold her and she would coo, he would tell me he loved me—I clung to those high points almost like life rafts. They were signs, I was sure, that things would get better. But even when they did, they would just get worse again. He would yell at me, tell me I was stupid, and then apologize with flowers or presents.
Out of nowhere, he decided that we should get married. I tried to call it off several times but he would always talk me into it because we had a kid, after all. When I told him I was unhappy—that I wanted to leave—he would threaten to commit suicide.
We got married and didn't even talk to each other during the reception.
For a brief period, things between us began to improve, at least financially. He bought us a really nice house and even purchased my dream car just for me. Eventually, we owned multiple houses and cars—but my name wasn't on any of them.
I wanted this to change—to get some kind of financial autonomy, or really any autonomy. I begged to get a job. "I have no friends and I need something that's just mine," I said over and over.
We fought about this for months. Finally, he agreed to let me get a part-time job as a waitress. Isolated and alone for so long, I was desperate to make new friends at the restaurant, but whenever I did, he went ballistic on me—yelling that he was embarrassed to tell people his wife was a waitress. Later, I learned this is exactly what a controlling, abusive partner does—tries to isolate you from anyone and everyone. To keep you all to themselves.
My job also compromised his daily hold over me. When he would offer me a $20 bill, I would say, "It's okay, I have money." He'd throw something at me and storm out the door.
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The part-time job didn't last long. Eventually he made me quit, inventing excuse after excuse that my working was bad for our marriage and for our daughter—my real Achilles heel when I would muster up any strength to advocate for myself. Even though he was rich, he got threatened by my measly paycheck, by the tiny little bit of authority it gave me in my own life.
Bored and alone at home again, I decided I wanted to have another baby—something else good and pure that I could hold on to. He promised me it wouldn't be like the first time.
And it wasn't. It was worse. He graduated from throwing glasses to throwing dishware. And appliances.
I was eight months pregnant with our second child when I finally got the nerve to kick him out. It was a burst of blind power, like the women who can lift a car when their baby is trapped underneath. I had to do it. It came from somewhere outside of me, or inside of me—I don't know, but suddenly, it was there.
Miraculously he left, but he kept begging to come back, showing up with all of these lavish gifts for me. This went on and on and then he told me there was this house that he wanted me to look at. It was a mansion—massive and beautiful with marble floors and a big balcony that overlooked the city.
He went ahead and bought the house for me (a peace offering) and then dangled this in front of my face: "I'm going to get a maid so you don't have to clean it."
I sat on the stairs of this big, beautiful house and called my sister after not speaking for years. Pulled in so many different directions at once, I broke down.
I told her I was an empty shell of a person and I had no idea who I was. There was this mansion with all of these beautiful things, and luxury cars, and a successful husband, and two beautiful kids—and it was all a sham.
She told me that I needed to do whatever it took to get out of there.
I secretly went to see an attorney about getting a divorce, but it only made me feel more trapped. He told me to fill out all this financial paperwork—but I didn't know the answers to any of the questions: inquiries about marital assets, property values, stock shares, and bank statements. I started sneaking through all my husband's financial files and I didn't understand a word.
I hadn't had a bank account, or even credit, in almost a decade. I didn't know how to make sense of any of what was in front of me.
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So I panicked. I took the kids, put them in the car, and drove out of state to stay with my sister, who had been covertly feeding me advice. When my husband came home and saw that I had left, he instantly shut off my cell phone.
I stayed at my sister's house for two weeks as we strategized a more long-term way to break free—I couldn't just keep leaving only to go back again. I needed to secure my own money so that I could fund an escape with two children, but if I started working again, I had a horrible sinking fear that my husband would know.
My sister and I came up with a plan. I would go home and put on a happy face. When I asked him for money in the mornings, I was going to lie about how much cash I needed and where I was going that day so I could save it for my escape.
From there, I launched into action. The first thing I did was get a P.O. box in my name so I could have mail sent to me that he couldn't access. Next, and much more difficult, I opened a fresh-start bank account—there were many confusing moments with bank tellers and complicated forms that made me feel stupid, like I wouldn't be able to pull this off, like I wasn't smart or savvy enough. But I pushed through all the doubt, all the times my husband put me down, everything that said I couldn't do this.
It helped that I started small. I stashed away $5 or $10 a day. Whatever I could. I built up enough money to start renting out a storage unit and then I browsed the free stuff on Craigslist. In my plan, my children and I would just leave everything behind and start completely over. So I started collecting anything I could, anything my kids or I would need for our new life: clothes, toys, furniture. Since my husband was never home, I had plenty of time.
One night, he came home late from work and dragged me out of bed by my hair—he was angry that I was sleeping in the guest bedroom and not in our bed. I knew then that I needed to leave—that I might not survive until the morning—and called a friend, one of the few I'd managed to make in secret.
We waited until my husband left the house, and then pounced: My friend and her husband came over and I frantically threw clothes into garbage bags. I climbed into the momentary safety of her husband's truck, with my kids, and went to their house—my husband didn't know where she lived.
I left him a note on the counter with my wedding ring telling him that our marriage was finished—I told him not to look for me because he wouldn't find me.
That's when he lost it. He left voicemail after voicemail threatening me with everything under the sun. He even insinuated he might kill me. I shook with nauseating fear. But I had to keep going.
For the next month, we stayed with different friends each night, always a different place for the sake of our safety. Because my husband was so wealthy, with so much at his disposal, I never knew whether we were being followed. It was in everyone's best interest, from the few people who were willing to house us to my kids, that we keep moving. We slept on an air mattress on the floor, only to pack up and go somewhere else the next day.
In desperation, I finally called my estranged mother for help. She was relieved to hear from me, heartbroken by my story. She helped me pay the lawyer fees to secure a divorce.
Eventually, I got a job. It was only part-time but after nearly a decade without steady work experience, it was all I could get—at least it still left enough time for me to pick the kids up from school. A charity organization for abuse survivors helped me with a down payment on a low-income apartment right before Christmas that year.
We finally had somewhere stable to call home. It wasn't big, or fancy, or any of the things my husband had offered me—but it was safe, and it was mine.
If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, call Safe Horizon's anonymous domestic violence hotline at 1-800-621-HOPE.
It’s 11:03 p.m. and I’m texting your boyfriend. Well, not necessarily you, the person reading this, but someone like you. A girl who has no idea the guy she loves is currently telling me what he wants to do to me and sending pics of his IRL eggplant emoji.
I’m the side chick.
I’m not a whore, although you might want to call me one. I’m not even a bitch — I’m actually a pretty nice person. I have friends and family who love me, and I don’t fit the "other woman" stereotype. Y’know the one I mean — all perfect Instagram shots feat. swoonworthy hair and curves in all the "right" places. Trust me when I say that ain’t me.
I am not special. I am not prettier than you, or funnier than you, or better in bed than you. I’m not a "slut" — I don’t have one-night stands or go out with the specific aim of taking someone home. I’m not a gold digger. I’m fairly ordinary, really.
And yet, at least five of my most recent "relationships" (and I use that term very loosely) have been with men who are … well, already in relationships.
I have friends who will never be this person. The second they hear a guy has a girlfriend, that's it — he's off limits, and they won't even entertain the idea of starting something up.
I don't know why I'm different. I don't know why I seem to be drawn to the taken, like the proverbial moth toward the (cheating) flame.
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A close male friend of mine thinks it’s because I have "commitment issues." His theory is that if a guy is unavailable, he’s instantly more attractive to me because I know that it’s not really going anywhere.
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The therapist I saw for a while believes it’s all down to deep-rooted insecurity, and the need to have my "personal worth legitimized," blah, blah, blah, more therapy speak.
I get what she means — there’s a definite ego boost to having a guy like you enough to cheat on his girlfriend. "That must mean I’m pretty, right?" screams the skinny, shy, awkward teenager inside of me.
Personally though, I think the rom-com-style movies and books I love so much have warped my mind, and I’m addicted to the idea of a grand romance that must overcome all obstacles (i.e., you) before I can get to the "happily ever after" bit.
What never ceases to surprise me is how many guys are so willing to cheat.
In my imagination, I’m not the Mia from Love Actually (ugh) type — I don't set out to seduce someone. I’m Jennifer Lopez in The Wedding Planner, or Meredith from Grey’s Anatomy back when Derek was married but not dead (R.I.P.). I’m the one he’s destined to be with and I’m the one he ends up with.
Except that’s never actually happened, of course.
What never ceases to surprise me is how many guys are so willing to cheat. These aren’t "players" that I go for. They’re not Jersey Shore guys who will sleep with anything that moves — they’re just normal men who love their girlfriends but, for some reason, take only the tiniest of pushes to enter the realm of infidelity.
Then again, maybe it’s simple; maybe humans just aren’t made to be monogamous. At least that’s what Eamon*, the pilot I met in a South American hostel, told his girlfriend over FaceTime ... just before he asked her if he could sleep with me. Spoiler alert: She said no. Double spoiler alert: We did it anyway.
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What I want to make clear is that I'm not sitting here cackling evilly and trying to break you up — I just seem to be missing the part of my body that should feel empathy for you.
I'm not an uncaring person. I donate to charity, I cry at long-lost-family reality shows, I can't bear to see an animal scared or in pain. But you? You aren't real to me. I haven't met you. I don't know you. And somehow that lets me do this.
It allows me to be the sidechick with no guilt, just frustration that I can't see him more, that he's not free tonight because he's playing host to your parents or taking you out for your birthday.
Perhaps it would be different if I’d been cheated on, but I haven’t, so maybe I just can’t comprehend the pain that comes with the discovery of infidelity.
The reality that I will always be second best eventually takes the shine off.
Sometimes I think I'm cursed — I cheated on my first serious boyfriend and occasionally I entertain the idea that karma is having a good old laugh at my expense, presenting exclusively unavailable men to me forever more.
Supernatural shit aside, the reality of being the sidechick is that as exciting and as flattering as it may be at first, the realization that I will always be second best eventually takes the shine off, and things inevitably fizzle out. Then it’s on to the next shiny new already-someone’s-boyfriend, and so the vicious cycle continues.
Until I find my happily ever after, of course.
From: Cosmopolitan US
The idea was almost as bad as the movie. I had some time off work and was in a dark place, so I decided to travel alone to Tuscany. My personal version of Under the Tuscan Sun, the cheesy Diane Lane movie from 2003. Because when planning an expensive vacation, the first thing you should ask is, "What's the funniest option?" I wasn't a middle-aged divorcée heading to Italy to rediscover myself and tan the skin where my wedding ring used to be, but I was single, emotionally lost, and riddled with the disease you get from cleaning litter boxes where you're disturbingly attached to your cats. So… close enough. Everyone around me was meeting their soulmate or having their second kid, and I was impersonating Diane Lane. I packed a sunhat and fled to Italy.
The first three days were glorious. I wandered around Rome, rented a car, and headed north to wine country. I was relaxed, open, and falling in love with me again—the whole movie thing was working! I soon realized that three days was the maximum amount of time I could spend alone and enjoy myself. After that, I began unraveling. As I drove from town to town in the most romantic place on Earth, filled with couples and retired groups of friends from Texas (all married!), I couldn't believe I had done this. No one else in Tuscany could either. Hotel concierges walked me to my rooms, confused. Restaurant hosts led me to romantic tables for two, horrified. Waiters insisted on taking the second table setting away, as if to signal to everyone that no one would ever be coming to join me.
The days under the Tuscan sun were long. Even if I woke up, had a leisurely breakfast, meditated, read, drove to a town, and wandered every corner of it, it would still only be 11:30am. "Maybe I'll die today," I'd think. "That would suck up some time." But death wasn't even a possibility. If I steered my car off the road, it would just glide down a pristine hillside, crashing into nothing. I finished three books but couldn't tell you the plot of any of them. All I could focus on were my poor life choices that led me to this vacation.
Desperate for human connection of any kind, I made a rash decision: I'd leave Tuscany early and head back to Rome to Tinder my face off. After swiping left on 7,000 shirtless men named Andrea, I matched with Marco, a photojournalist and diplomat from Verona (romantic!). He sent me YouTube videos of himself being interviewed on local news shows. They were in Italian, so he could have been pitching a sequel to the Holocaust and I wouldn't have known, but, whatever! He looked hot in a suit and I was ready for love.
Marco texted: "What do you want out of this? What happens if we like each other?" "If we like each other, then we have a fun weekend," I answered, cool as shit. My mind was racing. Love was coming! I couldn't wait to parade him back to the States with me and show him off to all my boring friends who married Americans. Thank God I'd been so miserable in Tuscany, I needed to be sad to fully appreciate this happiness. Life is a cycle.
He texted again. He was very into me. "Do you have limits?" Suddenly, we were having a different conversation. From there, it derailed fast. "Do you have shave pussy? I want to fuck you with shave pussy." Normally that would be my cue to un-match, but I was so disillusioned with my version of Under the Tuscan Sun, I decided to "yes and" it. The trip couldn't get worse, and I needed a better story than, "I drove around wine country feeling sorry for myself. At night, I drank alone and looked at Facebook pictures of my ex-boyfriends' children." We made a date to meet in Rome on Thursday.
Thursday arrived. A person! I was going to see a person! So what if he was a sex-addict, Holocaust 2 supporter? I was going to spend an evening with a person. I texted him to figure out a plan: Drinks? Dinner? Dancing? He explained that he had dinner plans and wanted to meet at a park at 4 p.m.. Much like my life, this affair continued to not go how I hoped. I put on a great, cute/casual 4 p.m. outfit and headed over. As I approached our meeting spot, I had two equal fears: Fear #1: a van would pull up, a door would slide open, and I would be Taken. This was only a minor fear because I'm too old to be Taken, and you'd have to put me on so many of those sex trafficking drugs to get me down to Taken weight, it wouldn't be worth the investment. Also, I'm an easily dehydrated, whiney Jew. No Saudi Prince would buy me at auction. Fear #2: Marco would see me from across the street and, despite his uncontrollable sexual urges, he'd decide I'm super unfuckable. In this fear, my self-confidence and feminist beliefs were no match for my devastated ego.
Neither of these things happened. We met. He was stunning. He was sweaty from riding his bike, yet he still smelled magnificent. A combination of undeniable manliness and diplomat's cologne? (Note: All over Rome there are statues of naked men. I assumed they were statues of gods, but that's actually what Italian men look like. They're all ripped, hairless, and they have that muscle-y bone thing on the side of their torsos that you don't see on men in comedy.) We strolled through the park. Marco asked a few mandatory personal questions and I did the same, but it was clear there was no need for us to get to know each other. "Where is your hotel?" he asked, two minutes in to meeting. "Let's go there now." He didn't have much time, as he had to prepare for a dinner party I wasn't invited to. "I thought maybe we'd hang out first," I foolishly exclaimed. "You leave in two days, there is no time." (Note: Italian men are excellent at convincing you to live in the moment when they want to have sex with you.) He continued. "It is not a big deal. You are American, you should be open about sex." I was American! I wasn't sure how that related to sexual openness, but maybe he was right?
I considered leaving, but then I remembered: I had no other plans that day, or for the rest of the trip. "Let's hang out for a little longer," I suggested. We walked over to a bench, where he didn't waste a second before grabbing my left breast and cramming his tongue so far down my throat, it wasn't possible to kiss back. Reminder: it was 4:03 p.m. on a weekday in a touristy park. Children were passing by in pedicabs, an old woman walked by and locked eyes with me as I came up for air. She glared at me and I wanted to yell, "I know I'm being repulsive, but you have to understand: I was just alone in Tuscany!"
"So?" Marco asked. The kiss wasn't going in the pro-column, but I had already eaten carbonara and toured the Forum, why not add this to the itinerary? "I won't have unprotected sex," I declared, my self-respect bursting to the surface. He nodded in agreement. "Okay then. We will go back to your hotel, we will give each other oral sex, and we will have sex with a condom." I shrug-nodded. I was going to see this through.
Minutes later, we arrived at my hotel. Marco excused himself to go to the bathroom, probably to wash his dick. I quickly tidied up the room. Not sure why. If my Converse were on the floor, I bet he still would've been down to fuck (Hey Converse, want to sponsor my next vacation?). When he resurfaced, I opened the mini-fridge. "Champagne?" I offered. "No." Why even pretend this is a romantic encounter? We undressed. Thus began the most disappointing sex I have ever had.
Marco was assertive, which can be a turn-on, but his brand of assertiveness felt selfish and misogynistic. Or, perhaps I was too old to be commanded to lick a stranger's balls. In the absence of sexual enjoyment, my mind went adrift. I thought about the girl from Fifty Shades of Grey and realized that she definitely wasn't Jewish. If she were, the affair would have lasted ten minutes and it would have been my favorite book of all time. "You want me to what?! I'm gonna call an Uber." By the time I tuned back in, Marco was (thankfully) finishing up. "I want to come in your face," he whispered. Surely, this was a lapse in his English. "You want to come in my mouth?" I asked, as if that were a preferable alternative. He didn't answer, he just pulled out and began positioning himself toward my head. I squirmed, but he was too ambitious. I lost the negotiation. Turns out, Marco did want to come on my face. On every part of my face. There was so much cum, if I cared about him at all, I would have suggested he go to the hospital. "Sorry," he shrugged. "I'm a very visual guy." "Can you visualize me a towel? Because I can't see right now."
Next, in what was probably the biggest surprise of the afternoon, he spooned me. Not sure why he bothered with affection at that point. I had never wanted a person to hold me less. And what were we possibly going to talk about? Luckily, Marco had a topic: "Do you like cuckolding?" "Um…in what sense?" "Would you want to have sex with another man while I watch? Maybe tomorrow?" Many questions came to mind, but "Are you bisexual?" is the one I went with. He sat up, offended. "Why would you say that?" "Because you want to fuck another guy with me?" "I will not have sex with him. I will just watch. I'm a very visual guy." I got the message, Marco. No need to remind. "Don't think I'd be into that." In a triumph of feminism, I didn't apologize. "How about a woman? I know this girl at my work, she crazy, she think about sex all the time." (Idea: workplace comedy at the Italian government. No one gets anything done because everyone is too horny.) He kept going: "You will like her. She has dragon tattoo on her pussy." Wow, this guy didn't know me at all. I declined. Even if I was interested in that once-in-a-lifetime offer, I was house-sitting for an acquaintance that weekend and I didn't feel comfortable with her coming home to find me dead and covered in an unfathomable amount of cum.
I walked him to the door. Here, he had one final opportunity for romance. "Normally while women give me oral sex I like to take their picture, but I didn't ask you, because I didn't think you'd be into it." Aww, he did know me!
If you've never seen Under the Tuscan Sun, I should make it clear that nothing even remotely like that happened. I've often made the mistake of comparing myself to other people. I was nothing like Diane Lane in that movie, or any of the people at home who "got their lives together" before me, whatever that means. I also wasn't Julie Delpy in Before Sunrise (so graceful!), or any woman who can pull off high-waisted jeans or take a yoga class without bailing halfway through. And that's a good thing. Even when my life feels slow-moving, weird, or even humiliating, it is unlike anyone else's. Our lives will be imperfect no matter what we do, so our choices might as well be our own. From now on, I'm going stop living other people's adventures. But first, I want to pull aThe Holiday.
Ali Waller is a comedian and writer for the Netflix show Love, which premiered February 19.
From: ELLE
