Possesiveness isnt about love, its about power and control. In the event that you find your suitor/friend/boyfriend/husband becoming too possesive and too controlling and too obssesive , understand this, that person does not love you. He wants to have power over you. PERIOD!!! This is my story…
I joined a small private campus where my class was the second class after pioneering group. It was far from civilization but we were pretty few like 500 at most. So having lived a very sheltered life I felt very strange in this new environment. Luckily I had a former schoolmate who was in my class so it wasnt so bad but she was in a clique and I didnt want to join that crowd because they were pretty rowdy. So there I was again,so I met this guy three years older than me in my class who I found out was from my hood and we had alot in common, we were both not into crowds and the rowdiness of campus. So we sorta just became an item by proxy. We would sit together in class, in the dining hall and in the Lib and go to church together and student center. At first it was all very quint,sweet and romantic , showering me with gifts and he didnt want me going outside the school alone because he could take it if anything ever happened to me. I was so naive, I really believed that this was love . I frankly have never spent so much time together like that with anyone.To be honest, all was fine and dandy, we would always encourage each other to walk in the ways of the Lord and shun worldly things that our peers were diving into headlong. We would even go to chapel after dinner to pray together. What more could a girl dream of? Or want in a man?
Problems begun when this guy begun to pick fights with me,if I spoke to any man, even if it was just greetings. To make it worse, he would beat up anyone who he saw to be a threat.He was very strong and sporty, he actually participated in body building championships so nobody wanted to be on his wrong side. One day I was alone in the Library and some guy walked up to me and asked about the book I was reading. I had a habit of going to read Literature books when guys were doing sports in the evening before dinner, during which time my shadow was playing rugby/football I was not really interested. So that evening the guy who spoke to me was drugged into an isolated place and beaten up seriously. I did not find out till much much later. I just saw the guy with some wounds and I was like what happened to this guy but I dint ask him.
At first it was kind of cool, I felt protected and all and I loved the fact that we shared the same values about abstinence and about not indulging in the crazy party life. Things begun to escalate very rapidly. The jeolous outbursts grew more and more agressive yet I barely spoke to any men, we were always together but he would always find something to blow up over. One day I went to the cafe to buy some snacks and there was a new chef and we got to chatting and I found out he was from my shags, so we just talked about my shags and where was he before he came there. It ended up in him giving me a sandwich which I went to share , silly me I forgot how possesive this guy was I ended up telling him the whole story. Nakwambia the way that sandwich was thrown. Heh! Ive never forgotten up to date. I think thats the point it started dawning on me, this is now not normal,its not love ,its something sinister. So at that point we were in 3rd year.We would fight ALOT,ALOT,ALOT and it was always about jealousy. Like if I left the school without him, with no evidence he’d accuse me of going to meet other men. So I decided I will always go with him. He was still insecure,even a hi from some random guy in school was enough to send him into a rage. Although he never laid a hand on me,he beat up several guys for no good reason other than baseless suspicions.
The final straw came when he broke a guy’s arm because the guy touched my hair. It was a big case and I was like Ive had enough.This is not what I signed up for .I am done.He sent people to me, he bought me gifts, he tried everything to get me back and I just told him , I think its time we go our separate ways and focus more on our books. So after him pulling out all the stops and I still wasnt getting back with him as I usually did in the past. He now changed and there was no more Mr.Nice Guy. The first thing he told me was that he had slept with several women,inspite of the fact that I thought that we were both loyal to true love waits - a celibacy movement - I was sure he was being vicious and just wanted to hurt me by telling me this. Then next he got a girlfriend, a fresher, from my ethnic group but I still couldnt talk to any guys. He was monitoring all my movements. He was emailing me every evening about what I’d done the whole day. If any male student spoke to me he’d beat them up. I just didnt know what on earth to do. I think with time, reality dawned on him, that I am not getting back with him.He then told his eldest sister to come talk to me because if I didnt get back with him,he was gonna commit suicide ,she came to school in person from far and we sat down and really talked. I told her my mind was made up and she relayed the message. That is when all hell broke loose. The guy started threatening to kill me again and it got more and more graphic. He even called my folks and fabricated some stories about me. He had my home number because he’d use it to call me over the summer holidays. When I went home my folks sat me down and asked me what on earth was going on. I told them the truth. They advised me to go to the Dean of students.I didnt want to put him in trouble so I did nothing. When the holidays came I sighed in relief. That holiday he sent me so many gifts over our box and my dad burnt every last one of them and when he called he was told I went to shags. This I found out later.
When I got back to school, he acted like we had kissed and made up and I was like what is up with this guy,he even dumped his new ‘girlfriend’ and told me he had rededicated his life to Christ and if I had gotten his gifts and cards ,I told him I hadnt ,he was like stop lying I know you got them. I told him that I just wanna stay single - no offence. He was like I know you have a sugar daddy, thats the reason why you are putting me off. I was like I dont have anybody ,I just dont wanna be in a relationship . He wouldnt give up.Now he would keep talking about how much he’d spent over the holidays sending me gifts, I was like I havent gotten anything, he was like I used him, I was like how? I havent got his gifts else Id have returned them. Ofcourse I found out what happened to the gifts much,much later on- my mother made an off the cuff remark about my dad burning those things is how I found out.Meanwhile he became more and more hostile. I now became a fugitive in my school, I was always hiding and dodging him only to get an email in the evening with all the details of my day’s itinerary. I was like God!!! What is all this? I felt suffocated and smothered .I felt afraid an anxious always walking on egg shells. He was still threatening me from time to time that if he sees me as much as say hi to a man he would kill me. Since I’d never actually seen him be violent infront of me, I brushed it off, but then one evening I was studying in this class alone and then some guy I dont even know I think he was a pre university or fresher sat in that class ,he was infront and I was behind. So this guy jumped into the class,tore this guys books to smitherins and then lifted the chair desk and hit the guy so hard I thought he had killed him. That was my wake up call.I ran to the dorm and told my roomies what had happened btw one of my roomies was being assaulted by her boyfriend who worked in a bank every other weekend she went to be with him, so she was tryna rationalise it, like just let it go ,I was like I am not waiting for this guy to kill me or someone else.The next day first thing I was at the dean’s office. I cried till my voice was gone. The guy was hospitalised. Long story short he was suspended for a year, by then I was done with school. I had graduated when he returned.
Couple of years later I went to work in a town where his family lived , I knew that and kept a very low profile because I didnt want him knowing I was in town, I had taken the lady who was housing me before I got my own place out to dinner at some glitzy, snazzy place it was abit empty, it was the two of us and lo and behold, the guy just swoops in and joins us like nothing ever happened and we are childhood friends without missing a beat. So he was like why didnt you tell me you are around and I was like Ive been busy tryna settle. So to be polite I begrudgingly bear with the small talk. When the bill comes he quickly grabbed it and paid. So after this incident, he finds out where I work though I hadnt told him and he comes over with his cousin. His cousin is a supplier of some stuff I needed for my work so we start talking shop, he is very affable and a very strong Christian so we become friends, he works outside the country but was on a sabbatical then. So this cousin invites me every other weekend for a cookout their church has or his church friends are having. Problem is everytime, this guy my exe tags along ALONE yet he is married. With time I stop going to the cookouts because it was creeping me out that he was in every single cookout his cousin invited me to. I even started thinking he is the one asking his cuzo to invite me. So the thing that now made me flip was that one day he brought his momma to a mashakaya at my neighbour’s house, he left his mom there and came to my place,at night and it was raining cats and dogs, I flat out, refused to let him in because he still elicited that feeling of fear and anxiety in me. I was like how on earth did this guy know my place? The next day I called his cuzo and told him to please talk to him to never come to my house ever again as he was now a married man who must respect his marriage and I dont want rumours flying about that I am entertaining married men or any other type of men , in my house ruining my reputation or else I would have a word with his parents and his pastor about it. From that day he kept off he was really scared of his dad so it deterred him. After that I kept distance like there was no tomorrow till I left that town. Even the cousin I completely stopped doing business with him and got another supplier.
This is the cycle of abuse and it is basically what my life was like during the time I was in that place,if you see this pattern in a relationship you are in ,know that you are being abused.Its got nothing to do with love. Its all about having power over you and controlling you. Whether you leave or stay is upto you. Your life ,your choice. This shit can end badly, alot of times it does well. Take the signs seriously and involve authorities as early as you can. It could save your life or that of somebody else who might get caught in the rage, for example if you start seeing someone else. Involve his family members,community and church leaders to mediate and even have a joint arbitration dont give mixed signals even if you feel sympathetic or you feel like you wanna be nice and non confrontational. Do not fall for the honeymoon phase of love bombing and showering you with gifts or being the good guy again which is just a form of manipulative kindness that will be thrown in your face once he doesnt get what he wants which is control and power over you, that bad guy is still in there some where. Never let your guard down and backslide on your decision,if you decide to leave or end the relationship.There must be no gray areas because all they do is offer glimmers of hope to your abuser that he can get back that power and control he had over you. Better safe than sorry.Better paranoid than dead.
The Cycle of Abuse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjHmaV8fyek
Love Bombing -Manipulative Kindness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc2yycVoo4c
Incase you are confused about what love trully means,here is a good standard, anybody outside this doesnt love you,dont be fooled
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