I Wish I Had Known That Abuse Doesn’t Always Start With a Hit

I Wish I Had Known That Abuse Doesn’t Always Start With a Hit

I survived extreme psychological abuse, sexual violence, and financial abuse: It is still difficult for me to think about this—let alone write about it. I still carry the scars of that experience, along with the shame of having endured it while seeing myself as a strong, autonomous adult woman. Yet this experience transformed my understanding of violence and led me to advocacy. I share this in support of Taking Back Our Lives and the vital work its founder, Heather Flett, is committed to.

Where It Started
As an adult, I had already been in several relationships, all with the usual challenges of miscommunication or misunderstandings. What I had never encountered before was a partner who fit what psychology describes as a narcissistic personality – a profile very common in toxic and abusive relationships. These individuals often begin by idealizing their partner, placing them on a pedestal to gain trust and admiration. Once commitment is established, their true behavior emerges: they become hyper-critical, controlling, and verbally abusive, systematically attempting to destroy their partner’s self-esteem and sense of identity. They are expert manipulators. They create cycles of idealization and devaluation, using tactics such as gaslighting: manipulating someone into doubting their own reality. That was my experience.

The Night He Tried to Hit Me
After nearly a decade without romantic relationships – years in which I was happy, focused on myself and my children – this person appeared. We shared interests: philosophy, politics, Indigenous rights. The relationship initially seemed ideal. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, it began to change.

In the second year, while intoxicated with alcohol, he attempted to hit me. My son – still a minor –
intervened and stopped him just in time. I ended the relationship, but weeks later, after emotional
blackmail, endless apologies, and promises that it would never happen again, I took him back. Huge
mistake. From that moment on, everything deteriorated.

He did not attempt to hit me again, but the psychological abuse intensified. During arguments, he repeatedly told me I was nobody, questioned what I had achieved in life, and worked to undermine my confidence. He hid my car keys in the freezer so I would believe I was losing my mind and “misplacing things.” A few days after that, he stole close to a thousand dollars I had hidden at home – he was the only person besides me who knew where the money was – and accused me of “misplacing things.” At that time I did not connect those dots.

Isolation and Escalation
When we moved to another country – a grave mistake under these circumstances—my isolation deepened. Far from my support network in Peru, the abuse escalated. He manipulated me into giving him full control over my income, even though I earned four times more than he did. He did abusive things like not buying enough animal protein for my kids and my nutritional needs arguing there wasn´t enough of a budget for that, yet he will always buy enough six packs, which fueled further verbal abuse.

The Clause
Eventually, he told me that if I ever brought up his drinking again, he would leave. Around the same time, he pressured me into accepting that he must always have the final word in our disagreements – framing it as a “verbal contract” he called “The Clause”, with supposed legal validity (he has studied law in Peru). Trusting, still, in his intentions to save the relationship, I agreed. Another major red flag I did not see. Another major mistake, because accepting this only deepened the abuse.

The Assault and The Process
The violence escalated one night to sexual assault. Against my explicit non-consent. I felt dead and empty the following days. Also, in the days that followed, the verbal abuse worsened: insults about my body, my age, my worth. One night that he came home extremely intoxicated (he could barely walk straight), he mocked my threats to call the police on him. Then started reciting all the insults and offenses he had said to me in the lasts months, all at once and in a moment of rage, told me he would destroy me. I believed him. That same night, I left with my youngest son. We found refuge with friends who supported us in reporting him to the police and to the university. Through this process, I encountered feminism for the first time, not as an abstract idea, but as real physical and emotional support. That understanding led me to further studies in academia of feminism as a critical framework to understand gender-based violence. It also led me to advocacy and jobs related to these topics. Especially after my formal complaint at the university we both attended did not succeed. Instead, it revealed painful truths about how institutions often prioritize their reputations over survivors. This was 2018 (if you haven´t, watch The Hunting Ground, 2015). The whole process was tainted and biased and made the survivor (me) feel prosecuted.

What Did I Learn?
I learned to recognize red flags I had never known existed like this. I learned that economic abuse –
controlling or stealing money – is a form of domestic violence. I learned that narcissistic abusers seek admiration and use their partners as extensions of themselves. I learned that despite projecting confidence, they are deeply fragile and react with rage when boundaries are set. Most importantly, I learned that there is no age at which one is immune to manipulation – and that escaping abusive cycles is far harder when no one has ever taught you that these patterns exist. I learned that sexual abuse can happen even within a formal relationship. I learned that ANYONE can be a victim of an abusive relationship, even if you consider yourself a strong autonomous person. I learned abuse can escalate as slowly as the frog cooking at such low temperature that you become unaware of it.

I wish I had learned all this earlier. I wish my school had offered relationship violence prevention programs like those Taking Back Our Lives provides to public school students in Chicago – programs I am now proud to be part of as an educator. I wish I had been able to protect my son from the scars this relationship also left on him. I wish I had known and now I do. Now I am vigilant. And now I share these lessons so others may be spared unnecessary suffering.

Let these stories circulate. Let fewer lives be interrupted by violence and the long road of recovery that follows. Thank you for reading.