An Open Letter To The Man Who Slapped Me: You Only Made Me More Resilient

Toxicity is giving you too much credit.

Evil, sinister, or sociopathic are better adjectives to describe you.

You are someone I wish I could save tons of women that come your way from.

You’re a snake, a serpent and a coward. I was 22 when I met you. You were 31, nine years my senior.

You knew exactly what to say, what to do and how to act. From then on, it became the worst two years of my life.

The lying, the cheating, the manipulation, the gaslighting…

Nothing was off limits for you. No adjective too cruel and no act too wrong for you to commit.

I stayed. I stayed until my friends were sick of hearing about you and your actions and until my family was vehemently disappointed in me. I stayed.

It was 1 am in Dallas. I was visiting you from Boston.

You got physical with me already, twice.

Of course, you were blaming me for it.

Still, I stayed.

I was in a city where I didn’t know anyone.

You left me at your apartment, saying you had a work function.

I called you. From 5 pm to 1 am, you were gone.

Your ex- girlfriend answered.

You left me in your apartment, while I was visiting you, for your ex girlfriend.

Shock was my initial reaction — shock, chain-smoking cigarettes and chugging some of your very expensive, pretentious red wine.

I realized this was my opportunity to leave finally.

I packed my bags, called my mom, checked into a hotel and never looked back.

Now, anger randomly surges throughout my body — anger, angst, hate.

I want to rage-text you and tell you what a POS you are.

But you will never understand, care or change. You think you won, but you haven’t. Wanna know why?

Because you will always be miserable.

You think hurting people gives you control, but it just makes you depressed.

You think making someone cry makes you more powerful, but it just shows all of your weaknesses.

You think a grossly misogynistic attitude makes you a big alpha, but you’re nothing but a small beta.

And finally, you think putting your hands on a woman makes you a man, but it makes you nothing but a pussy.

You will never feel love because you don’t know how to love. All you know how to do is hurt.

You will never know what it is like to give or receive the most beautiful thing in the world, and I almost feel sorry for you. Almost.

I say almost because I can’t feel sorry for a man who almost ruined my life — who could have taken my life.

I can’t feel sorry for a piece of shit who did nothing but stomp on my heart repeatedly, and who blamed me for all our problems.

I refuse to feel bad for a sociopathic douchebag.

You think you broke me? You haven’t.

I’ve only become stronger. A little be colder. A little bit more careful.

I’ve become a more resilient woman. So, thank you… Marcus.

(Yeah I just name-dropped you, asshole. Whoops.)

For any woman who is in an abusive relationship, you can get out. You can walk away. You are strong, you are beautiful, and you are worthy.

Do not give a coward the power to own you, to control you, to belittle you or to hurt you.

I know you want to think you can fix him or your relationship.

I know he is telling you if you changed “this or that” about yourself, everything will be OK; if you just stopped overreacting, he wouldn’t go out and cheat; if you just stopped being unreasonable, he wouldn’t call you a crazy bitch; if you just didn’t throw a temper tantrum, he wouldn’t have had to slap you.

No matter what you do, he will find a way to put you down.

He will blame you for his behavior.

He wants you confined in a box; he wants the control; he wants a complete and utter hold on you.

And how does someone do that?

How does someone keep a person under their control? They make you feel small in order to make themselves feel big.

They cop out of their actions and point the finger at you to shift blame.

These people are toxic and in my case, evil.

People like my ex will never get better. The relationship will never improve.

Love does not hurt. Love is kind; love is acceptance.

Go out there, and find yourself a REAL man and a REAL love.

Life is too short, baby girl.

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An Open Letter To The Man Who Slapped Me: You Only Made Me More Resilient

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