The Angry Bullfrog

It was about 6 months into the relationship that the mask started to slip thinking back, but of course I excused it. He was all I had, no one else cared like he did and I needed him.

Things got intense very quickly, but he convinced me that our relationship had to stay under wraps because people would interfere.

In reality it was because I was slightly bigger than most girls and he was ashamed. He told me this years later during an argument.

The first sign all was not well, when I absolutely should have run a mile was when he got drunk and called me a fat bitch in front of a group of his friends. They all laughed and of course didn’t know we were together so it was all in good fun.

The second was when I walked into maths and he asked me in front of the whole class when my “twins” were due.

He hurt me that day and I almost ended it because I was so embarrassed. I’m 43 now and can still feel the humiliation I felt when the whole class laughed at that joke. I wasn’t exactly massive, size uk 12 at most. But bigger than the popular girls.

He excused it of course, he only said it because people were starting to ask questions and that must be my fault as he’d told no one at all so it was karma of course.

I racked my brains that night while crying myself to sleep, I knew I hadn’t told a soul but he convinced me I must have done because otherwise people wouldn’t be asking him. He said I didn’t deserve him if I couldn’t keep one important secret. He said his parents couldn’t find out about me or he would be in big trouble and I’d put him at risk with my big mouth.

I believed him. I know now this was classic gas lighting but I swear it felt real at the time. I started to think I was having memory lapses as this wasn’t the first time I had forgot something I’d done…

Then about 7 months in he decided that the only way I could prove I was worthy of him is if I stayed in at all times, answered his phone calls when he rang and we only saw each other at my house.

I obliged. By this time I knew someone like me, tainted, messed up and fat and ugly was lucky to have a boyfriend at all and he was popular! I didn’t have popular friends. He was the making of me really.