MEMOIR
I Stayed in an Abusive Relationship Because I Didn’t Want to Be Lonely
He brought out the worst in me
CW: Domestic abuse
I saw him sitting on a table in the neighbor’s backyard. He was strumming a guitar and smoking a cigarette. He was gorgeous with long dark blonde hair and a thin build and he was right next door. I’d never seen him before. It was as if he’d been delivered by angels, the answer to my prayers.
When I went inside, my grandma sat at the kitchen table visiting my mom. Grandma loved to play matchmaker so I told her about the cute guy I saw at the neighbor’s.
“Oh, that’s the Morrison’s grandson. He’s just moved here from Florida,” she said.
I knew Grandma would have the lowdown. She talked to everyone and knew everything going on in town. She was the town’s National Enquirer.
“I have to meet him,” I said. “Let’s go pretend like you and Mom want to visit with Mrs. Morrison.”
Off we went on our matchmaking mission.
A match made in hell
We sat in Mrs. Morrison’s living room drinking iced tea. Grandma got straight to the point.
“My granddaughter Chevie wants to meet your grandson,” she said.
Just then, Levi walked through the room and Mrs. Morrison introduced us. We excused ourselves and went to the backyard to talk. His hazel eyes, high cheekbones, and long locks made me feel giddy. We talked about music and our backgrounds. He grew up in a nearby town but moved to Florida for a few years.
His dad was a legend for being a hellraiser in the town where I grew up. He’d been in and out of prison. I’d heard stories from my mom. Wild and reckless, he died young. Levi’s mom and stepdad raised him. Levi followed in his dad’s footsteps and had been in prison for cocaine, but he only drank beer now, he said.
Levi asked me to hang out with him the next day and I quickly accepted.
At 10 a.m. he pulled his blue clunky car into the driveway to pick me up. He walked to the porch where I sat waiting and handed me a brown bag with a large can of beer inside. At 10 a.m. I’d expected coffee, but I just rolled with the beer. That should have been a red flag, but all I could see were red hearts.
On the ride to his friend’s house, I could see the road below my feet through holes in the floorboard of the car. At his friend’s we sipped our beers and talked. That night, I crept into Levi’s room in the basement at his grandparent’s house. The next morning, I crept upstairs to leave, but there would be no sneaking out. I encountered Mrs. Morrison and her husband eating breakfast in the kitchen.
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” Mrs. Morrison said.
“No,” I replied and walked out the door.
I grew up living next door to the Morrisons for 15 years and she was always a bitch to me. It wasn’t anything new. When I threw a party when Mom was out of town, Mrs. Morrison told on me.
Since I had just graduated from college, I wanted my own place. I found the cheapest place I could afford, which was a trailer in a court nestled in a valley of woods. My rent was $265 per month. Grandma told me my cousin Lee recently broke up with her boyfriend and needed a place to stay, so I asked her to move in with me.
I loved having my own place. Lee and I decorated the living room with peach accents. It was cozy, but I wasn’t home much. Levi and I practically lived at the bars. Drinking is what Levi liked to do, and being the dutiful girlfriend, I joined him.
At first, we had so much fun. We partied with his stepdad and his girlfriend Sue. They liked to drink too. We frequented all the bars in town, bars I’d never been to before, even though they were walking distance from my mom’s house. We danced, we played pool, we did shots and we had sex in the bar bathroom.
We were young, wild, and free. We were living it up and alcohol fueled our fun.
Let’s move in together
Soon, I asked Levi to move in with me. We were inseparable. He didn’t have a job yet, but I overlooked that aspect.
I loved being with Levi and he loved being with me. No matter what I was doing, he just wanted to be around me, which felt great. He also loved spending time with my mom and stepdad and they liked him too. We even went on a canoe trip together. He seemed to fit right in with the family.
Eventually, I got fed up with Levi not working and gave him an ultimatum. One night Levi’s mom came to visit us at our trailer. She sat, drinking a beer in our kitchen, and chewed me out for telling her son to get a job. She accused me of not really loving Levi.
My parents always taught me to have a good work ethic and I expected Levi to pull his weight, so I stood my ground.
Levi discovered an old friend named Mark living in the trailer court. Mark got Levi a job at a factory and they often carpooled.
One night, I went out with some friends after work. I stayed out late and came home after the bars closed. Levi was pissed. He was jealous and insecure.
In retaliation, he drove his car through our shed.
When I got home, I noticed the collapsed shed. I walked in and saw Lee and Levi sitting on the couch.
“What happened to the shed?” I asked.
Lee went to bed and Levi turned into a madman. He screamed and cussed at me and accused me of cheating on him. Suddenly, he picked up a piece of broken glass from a plate our cat knocked off the counter. Levi slit his face with the glass.
I went to the bedroom and he followed me. He held me down on the bed and squeezed my inner thigh until it hurt. I yelled for Lee to call the police.
The police arrived and asked me to step outside. They asked what happened and I told them. They said Levi told them I attacked him and cut his face with the plate. I said that was a lie and he did it to himself. They asked me whose name was on the lease and I said mine. I told them I wanted Levi to leave.
We walked back inside and they told Levi he needed to leave. He responded by saying, “I’m not going anywhere without my underwear!”
Lee and I laughed about that later.
He’s gone and I’m alone
Levi moved in with a friend.
After a few weeks, I asked Levi to come back. I didn’t want to face the pain of being alone. We slipped back into our routine of drinking and fighting. Sure, we had some good times too, but they were overshadowed by our abusive relationship.
One night Levi didn’t come home from work. I walked to Mark’s trailer and asked him if he knew where Levi was since his car was parked at our trailer. Mark said he dropped Levi off at a bar after work.
My blood began to boil. Levi didn’t have the courtesy to call me to say he was going anywhere after work, and he just so happened to be drinking at a bar where his ex-girlfriend bartended.
As I drove to the bar, I wondered how Levi was going to get home at closing time, or if he planned on going home with his ex. My anger escalated.
I walked into the bar and saw Levi sitting on a barstool, obviously drunk. His ex was getting a beer for a patron. I told him to come with me. He followed me out to the parking lot. As soon as we stepped off the sidewalk, I turned around and punched him in the chest.
“What the fuck Levi?” I said.
We argued all the way home. He said hurtful things and made matters worse. When we walked into the trailer, he told me he had planned to go home with his ex. I jumped on him like a wild cat. I pulled his hair and he threw me to the ground on my back. He got on top of me and put his arm across my chest to hold me down.
He said, “Do you know what I learned in prison?”
I replied, “How to give good head?”
That was the wrong thing to say. He got up and kicked me in the thigh. I responded by kicking him in the nuts.
Moving into an apartment
Around this same time, Lee told me she was pregnant, so we decided to move to a larger apartment. Levi moved with us. Lee got back with her boyfriend and he moved in too.
We all sat out by the swimming pool and had cookouts on our balcony. It was fun for a while. Then, Lee’s boyfriend cheated on her. Levi told me the news. I didn’t tell Lee; she found out on her own. She broke up with him and asked him to move out.
If only I had the same strength and self-respect as Lee.
One of the reasons I stayed with Levi for as long as I did was because I felt sorry for him. His father abandoned him and I knew he had low self-esteem. I knew he felt unloved and just wanted to feel like he belonged somewhere. I empathized with him.
Levi lost his job, but my mom got him one where she worked at another factory. It was a tough, dirty job. One night he came home from work in a bad mood. I gave him some money so he could go to a bar. Honestly, I was happy to get him out of the apartment so I could sleep.
About 3 a.m. I was awakened by loud noises coming from the kitchen. I got up, rubbing my eyes, as I walked into the kitchen. Levi was cooking, and banging pots and pans in the process.
“Can you keep it down? Lee and I are trying to sleep,” I said.
Levi responded by walking up to me, giving me the finger right in my face. He was a half inch from my nose, in my personal space. I shoved him away from me. I turned around to go to the bedroom and he pushed me hard from behind. I landed on the glass table in the dining room. Luckily, it didn’t break.
I called my mom to come and get me. I needed to get away before the fight got more physical. I went out to the parking lot to wait for her.
Levi followed me outside. I ran away from him and he chased me around the cars parked in the lot. I told him it was over and to get his shit and get out. He told me he cheated on me three times. I told him I wasn’t surprised.
My mom arrived and told Levi to leave me alone. I got in her car and left.
When I returned to the apartment the next day, Levi was gone and this time I didn’t ask him to come back.