“My first impression when I met him was: what a loser, with his sunglasses and his talk. But hey, it was fun again. I had some pretty bad relationship experiences up until then, because of violent men. I told myself: give this guy a chance and leave your prejudices behind. It started with a little chat on Facebook. Very innocent. He said everything I wanted to hear, suggested going on trips together, loved Dutch music. All quite trivial, but also completely harmless and that was exactly what I needed after two brutal relationships and a while away from home. He loved dogs, so did I. We drank coffee together, watched a movie, went on vacation and even though I have never been head over heels in love, I was satisfied and happy with the lack of conflict in this relationship: everything just went smoothly, without any problems. And so things quickly became serious. But that carelessness changed when we started living together and I discovered that I actually didn’t know him at all. One evening he wanted to walk the dogs. He was standing in the hallway with his coat on and his hand in his pocket when I walked in to grab something. He was extremely shocked when he saw me, was very nervous and didn’t know how quickly he had to put the leash on the dog and go outside. “Do you have a bad conscience?” I asked, still laughing, but it didn’t sit well with me. When he came back, we ate together and I asked what had happened. He seemed deep in thought and said there was nothing. That evening I felt in his jacket pocket and found a second phone. And somehow I knew right away that something was very wrong. What did this mean? What was he hiding from me? Who did I live with? I went to the bathroom to think in peace, but I felt scared. All the alarm bells I had skillfully ignored in the months before resonated throughout my body. Previous experiences with men came back vividly. What if this man was not at all the fun buddy I had willingly mistaken him for? A few weeks earlier I had caught him with a fake Facebook account. Even then he had come up with all kinds of excuses, but eventually the monkey got out of hand and it turned out that he was stalking his ex-girlfriend. That was why he owned that second phone. He manipulated and threatened her under a false name, he eventually admitted. Why, I wanted to know, had it been out for a long time? “She cheated on me,” he said, “and I’ll never forgive her.”
We had been living together for three months at that point. Of course, this was the time to pack my bags and face my mistake. If I had had a place to go then, I could have minimized the damage.
