Loving Him Almost Killed Me: (Pt. 2: Eli)

To name the wound is to open the gate. Call it what it is—and walk through.

— A true story through the eyes of survival, with the voice of a crow who doesn’t flinch anymore and a sage who doesn’t lie.

A Breakdown Through Lundy’s Lens.
⚖️ A Note on Responsibility

Before we begin, I want to say this clearly: This isn’t gossip. This isn’t revenge. And this isn’t a one-sided story pretending to be gospel.
It’s a dissection. It’s me holding my own bones, too.

Because I wasn’t perfect in that relationship. I yelled back. I retaliated. I said mean things, too. I participated in the chaos, because I’ve seen chaos and was taught to call it love.

And I need to name something ugly here—because otherwise, it rots in the dark.

There was a moment when Eli was right to be suspicious. Not in the controlling, violent way he handled it—but in the seed of his intuition.

We were already on the edge. I’d already found the cheating, the porn, the lies. And I was hurting. I was petty. A male photographer invited me to do a shoot—he wanted to take nude photos of himself. His wife and children were upstairs.

I was angry at Eli. I went.

It started as photography. But then he turned the camera on me. He wanted to take photos of both of us. I didn’t want it. But I didn’t stop it. I didn’t know how to stop it. I didn’t even know what consent meant anymore. So I shut down. Froze. And let him have sex with me while the timer clicked and his family sat in the living room above us. I hated every second. And I didn’t tell Eli. I felt ashamed, humiliated. And in that shame, I let Eli’s suspicion feel like justice.

But what I did wasn’t empowerment. It wasn’t even revenge. It was collapse.

I wasn’t okay. I had already been raped before that—more than once. And by then, I had learned the rule most women never say out loud:

It’s easier to let them do it than to fight and get hurt.

So I let it happen. And I swallowed the guilt and let Eli be “right.” I buried the humiliation. I let it become evidence against me in my own head. This doesn’t justify what Eli did. But it is part of what happened, and I shared it to show I did ugly things too.

And that matters. Because this isn’t about painting villains. It’s about understanding how cycles feed themselves. And how shame keeps us repeating them.

What follows is a full, clear-eyed dissection of my own relationship—broken down through the teachings of Lundy Bancroft (Why Does He Do That?).
Naming is power.

The Setup: Nineteen and Newly Owned

He didn’t hit me— he just… yelled a lot at first. Then ignored me. He accused me of things he was guilty of.

I was nineteen. In the Air Force. I had my own paycheck, my own uniform, and my own place. I also had zero idea how fast abuse can show up dressed like love.

I met Eli, and within two weeks we were married. Looking back, I can see all the red flags waving—but I was young, and he was charming. He needed all his teeth replaced. And being in the military, and someone who likes to help, I had the health benefits that could provide for him.

We moved into base housing. I paid for the dental work. I was in uniform all day, and when I came home, things were already unraveling.

PART ONE: What Abuse Actually Looks Like

Eli didn’t come at me with fists on day one. That’s not how it works.

It came in waves, in shifts, in shadow.

According to Bancroft, abusers wear many faces—but the pattern is always the same: control, diminish, isolate.

When things were good, they were really good. When they were low, they were scary.

The Drill Sergeant:

I loved photography. I was learning how to take portraits and trying to go on shoots to get better. But if a man was going to be there, Eli would accuse me of cheating and I wasn’t allowed to go.

It wasn’t safe to express myself. I worked twelve-hour military shifts, came home, cooked, cleaned, and still got yelled at, thrown onto the floor or walls, my things and home destroyed, told I was failing as a wife.

Lundy says: “Abuse is not about anger. It’s about entitlement.”
Crow: “No man who chains your will can call it love. That is theft, not devotion.”

The Gaslighter:

Every time I tried to express frustration or even just confusion, I was told I was being dramatic. That I remembered things wrong. That I was too sensitive.

I began questioning my own memory. I started silencing myself before he could.

Lundy says: “The abuser's goal is to make his partner feel crazy.”

The Sadist:

He had a dog. A sweet Husky.

One day I came home from work, and the house was quiet. I called for the dog. I couldn’t find him. I opened the closet—and there he was, hanging by a leash from the closet rod, toes barely touching the ground, soaked in urine.

I have no idea how long he'd been in there.

Eli was playing video games, acting like nothing happened. He also regularly punched the dog in the face if the dog was ‘acting out’. (a.k.a. The dog would accidentally headbutt him or pee when he got excited)

Lundy: “How a man treats vulnerable creatures is a direct reflection of how he will treat you.”

The Addict:

There was porn on every device. DVDs hidden in drawers and other movie cases. I’d find texts to men and women.

Once, I found a picture of him using my own dildo inside himself, sending it to another man.

Years later, I found out he was on cocaine the entire marriage and that when he was gone, he was at the casino or sleeping with other people.

I might have been more open to things had I been included. But I was left out.

Once I went as far as to stand in front of the TV naked.
I was told to move.

I threw myself at men a lot like Peg Bundy does. Even though I never saw that show, I loved a lot like her.

Lundy: “Substance abuse does not cause abuse. It excuses it.”

The Rapist:

When he came home at 3 a.m. in those good moods, I never knew where he had been.

But when he got home, he expected sex. I didn’t want it. But he didn’t care. If he wanted it, he took it.

I didn’t have the language then to call that what it was. But I do now.

Lundy: “Coercion, pressure, or emotional manipulation around sex is abuse. Period.”

The Strangler:

I tried to escape during a fight. He followed me into the closet and choked me.

My vision blurred. I couldn’t breathe. My neck bruised.

The Suicide Threatener:

That night I told him I was done, he took a full bottle of pills to kill himself.

Dropped to his knees. Cried and started choking.

I gagged him, made him throw it all up. Even after everything, I saved him.

Lundy: “Threats of self-harm are often the final weapon in an abuser’s arsenal.”

The Stalker:

I got a restraining order. I had to hide out at a coworker’s house for 2 weeks.

He refused to be served by the sheriffs.

About 9 months after leaving him, I had to pretend I might want to reconcile—just to get him to sign the divorce papers.

Lundy: “The abuse rarely ends when the relationship does.”

PART TWO: The Culture That Keeps Us Quiet

We were raised on sitcoms that taught us women nag, and men yell.

And that love is what happens after the fight.

I thought being a good partner meant shutting up. Being patient. Fixing it myself.

Lundy: “Society raises women to take responsibility for male behavior.”

PART THREE: What It Feels Like When You’re In It

I was always editing my tone.

I apologized when I didn’t know why.

I felt like everything was my fault.

I smiled through dread.

I lost interest in things I used to love.

If any of that sounds familiar, you are not being dramatic.

PART FOUR: But I Love Him...

You can love someone and still be unsafe.

You can love someone and still need to go.

Love isn’t supposed to feel like hiding.

Love isn’t supposed to feel like being held hostage by hope.

Love isn't breadcrumbs.

CROW SPOTLIGHT: My Story Moments

The Dollar Menu:
Our first “date,” he told me to get whatever I wanted.
I ordered a meal combo.
He snapped.
He meant, get anything I want off the “Dollar Menu.”

The Birthday Meal:
I made a traditional Irish meal from scratch (because he was Irish).
I told him not to eat dinner on his way home.
He came home and had already eaten. Didn’t touch it.
Then threw it all in the trash when I got upset.

The Shining:
He was destroying the house and my things with a baseball bat.
I ran into the bedroom to hide, locked the door.
He punched through it and unlocked it.
Then choked me.

The Cat:
During a fight, he told me he killed my cat, Star.
(Years later, we briefly connected—he admitted he gave her away to his cousin.)
Letting me think she was dead? Just another move on the board.

PART FIVE: The Naming Ritual

What To Do:
Sit with a piece of paper.
Write down three things you’re not allowed to say in your relationship.
Burn it.
Destroy it.
But you won’t forget.

What To Say:
“I name this control.
I name this silence.
I name this fear.
And in naming it, I begin to break free.”

🧠 The Science of Why We Stay

🕸 Trauma Bonding:
It’s not a weakness. It’s biology.
When someone hurts you and then comforts you, your brain links the pain to the relief.
Oxytocin + cortisol = confusion.
You start craving their apology the same way a starving animal waits for scraps.
Your body thinks survival is connection. So you stay.

🧈 Charm (Bait, Not Love):
That “sweet phase”? The flowers, the compliments, the “I’ve never met anyone like you”?
It wasn’t fake—but it wasn’t pure.
It was a hook. A setup.
The charm kept you there long enough for the harm to start looking like normal.

💭 Gaslighting:
This one’s psychological warfare.
It starts when they make you second-guess your memory.
“That didn’t happen.”
“You’re crazy.”
“You’re making that up.”
And suddenly, you're defending them to you.
You doubt yourself so much that they don’t even have to lie anymore—you do it for them.

📺 Culture Conditioning:
We were taught that love means effort.
That men are just “bad communicators.”
That it’s our job to fix, wait, endure.
That leaving makes us quitters.
That staying makes us saints.

"What you called loyalty was just a leash with nice lighting. Cut it, beloved."

Final Word:

If you saw yourself in any of this—the fear, the shrinking, the shame over something as small as a burger or a photo shoot—know this:

You are not the problem. You were the target.

Crow Blessing:

May you never again confuse control for care, silence for peace, or fear for love.

💔 What pain or struggle is this blog addressing?
The internal shame of staying with someone who hurt you.
The fear that “maybe it was your fault.”
The confusion when abuse doesn’t look like fists.
The loneliness of having a story no one believes—or one you’re afraid to speak.

🦴 How does the reader feel different by the end of this? What’s the soul win?
They understand their experience through clearer eyes.
They feel less alone.
They realize that naming is not just healing—it’s protection.
And they walk away knowing: it wasn’t their fault. The target is never to blame.



———————

In this raw, unflinching episode, we unravel a survivor’s story—thread by thread. It begins like so many stories do: with love, or something we were taught to call love. He was charming. She was young. They married fast. And the unraveling was slow, careful, deliberate—just like abuse often is.

This isn’t a story of fists. It’s the kind of story most people miss because they’re looking for bruises instead of patterns. It’s a story of silence, suspicion, obedience disguised as care, and harm dressed as devotion.

With insight drawn from Lundy Bancroft’s Why Does He Do That?, we walk through the many masks an abuser wears: the gaslighter who makes you doubt your own memory; the addict who makes you feel crazy for catching him lie; the sadist who hurts pets behind closed doors; the rapist who doesn’t ask; the strangler who doesn't stop; the suicide threatener who uses death as the final leash; the stalker who won’t let go, even after you’ve left.

But this isn’t just about what he did. This is about what she learned. Because survival is never just physical—it’s emotional, mental, spiritual. It's learning how shame becomes silence. How silence becomes habit. And how you can lose your voice even when you’re screaming inside.

She tells the truth. Even the parts that don’t make her look good. She talks about collapse. About the time she didn’t say no, and the time she couldn’t. She talks about freezing, dissociating, consenting to survive. And she names it—not to confess, but to reclaim.

We talk about trauma bonds. About how oxytocin and cortisol confuse your body into thinking survival is love. We unpack how cultural myths—about men, about marriage, about “nagging women” and “fixing broken boys”—keep us shackled to people who hurt us. We look at the real difference between anger and abuse. Between passion and possession. Between care and control.

This episode is for anyone who’s ever asked themselves, "But is it really abuse?"
For anyone who’s said “sorry” just to keep the peace. For anyone who’s lost track of where they end and someone else’s rage begins.

This episode doesn’t offer easy resolutions. It doesn’t tie trauma up with a pretty bow. But it does give you something more important than closure: it gives you language. It gives you a mirror. And maybe—just maybe—it gives you permission to finally call it what it was.

What you’ll hear:

• The difference between abuse and anger

• Why gaslighting and trauma bonds are so effective

• The way abuse escalates quietly, in moments no one sees

• What it really means to name your experience—and why that’s the first step toward freedom

Content warning: This episode contains references to sexual violence, emotional abuse, animal cruelty, and suicidal ideation. Please listen with care.

If you or someone you love is experiencing domestic violence, there is help.
United States: Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233
Or visit thehotline.org for confidential live chat support.

Share this episode if it spoke to you—or if you think it might give someone else the words they didn’t know they needed. You are not broken. You are not overreacting. You are not alone. And you never were.