So I finished reading “Why Does He Do That” by Lundy Bancroft, which has initiated a phase of growth and transformation for me.

One piece of advice that stuck out to me was when he said that you should get in touch with your abusers exes to confirm what he says about them and to hear their account of being in a relationship with your abuser. When I broke up with my ex, I started to wonder how he treated his previous girlfriend. I wondered if he verbally abused her, lied and cheated. I discovered during our relationship he did try to contact her, but I only saw her reply and not what he said. It basically amounted to “good for you now leave me alone and go be with your family,” but with all the lies I could never be sure that he wasn’t cheating on me with her.

After reading Bancroft I had a feeling that I should attempt to reach out to her and get her perspective. I found her socials but i waited a good while to reach out, a year after our relationship ended and then waited 6 months after actually finding her. Once I saw that she was in a relationship with someone else I felt that it would be safe since she had moved on completely.

I mustered up the courage to write her a message. I said that we don’t know each other but I knew of her because she dated my ex too, and that I did not have a great experience with him. That once I left him, I started to wonder about her and if she was okay and if he mistreated her too. I asked her very specific questions about his treatment of her—did he put her down? Did he ever hit her or try to? Did he lie and cheat? Was he inconsiderate of her feelings especially when he hurt them? I really wanted to focus on what she experienced and how she felt, not on him. I assured her that I didn’t want to disrupt her healing process or trigger any trauma she experienced, but that I felt that maybe it would help us both move forward to compare our experiences with him. I let her know that she was under no obligation to respond.

To my surprise she did respond after some days and while I was not shocked at how he treated her, I was disgusted nonetheless at how low he could be. I won’t get into details but after sharing her story it was obvious to see how abusive he is and has always been. It made me nauseous to hear her account and realizing how he switched up the abuse tactics on me to make sure I would never feel beautiful enough to leave him like she did. She asked me to share my experience with her too. While we both had different experiences with him we shared most of the abusive elements: the narcissism, the selfishness, the lying and cheating, verbal abuse, the low comments intended to break our self esteem and make us feel ugly and worthless.

The last words she wrote to me were “I didn’t know this was a conversation I needed to have.” It was a very cathartic experience for me as well. It’s one of the most mature things I’ve ever done. It really helped to talk to someone who knew exactly what I was dealing with in that relationship. Our female friends and family members are often well-meaning, but a lot of times they just don’t understand abusive relationships that aren’t physically abusive unless they’ve been through it themselves. In my case I get asked what I did to cause him to treat me that way. I always knew I wasn’t to blame for how I was treated, but talking with his ex and hearing her story confirmed to me that it wasn’t anything about me or anything I did, that’s just how he is.

I want to thank this community for giving me the resources to heal, the tools to recalibrate my intuition and empowering me to act on it ❤️