Page 90

CHAPTER 90

OH, SNAP!

MARGAUX

L ate one night, I find myself sitting on the bed, bathed in the dim glow of my laptop. The search bar blinks at me, a cursor for my confusion. I type:

Am I abusive?

The thought has been gnawing at me. I’ve been screaming, calling Timmy a loser, a piece of shit. I’ve slammed doors, thrown my hands up, even called him names I never thought would leave my lips. I’ve been making highly questionable decisions.

This isn’t me.

My results are a jumble of terms, articles, and advice columns. And then, I see it:

Reactive Abuse.

I click, and the words leap off the page, staring into my soul.

DARVO. Reactive abuse. The cycle.

I learn that DARVO stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender —a classic manipulation tactic. The abuser denies their actions, attacks the victim, and flips the script to make the victim seem like the aggressor.

And reactive abuse? It’s the human reaction to prolonged torment.

It’s what happens when someone who is poked and prodded and belittled finally snaps.

I read further, my heart pounding with recognition. It’s like someone is seeing inside my brain.

This isn’t a justification for my behavior.

It doesn’t excuse it.

But it explains it.

Everyone has their limit, and at their breaking point they lash out.

I’m not inherently abusive. I’m reacting to abuse.

For example, I’d never wake up screaming at someone because I had a bad dream. But Timmy doesn’t need much at all to ignite a fight. A bad dream? A misplaced flip-flop? A dirty dish in the sink? Any of it can set him off.

He’ll wake up angry, already in a mood, muttering under his breath about how I don’t do enough.

He’ll hover as I work, making passive-aggressive comments about how I’m ‘so lucky’ to be working from home, how he ‘does everything around here.’

He’ll distract me from my writing, taking me further from my goals.

He’ll call me a ‘stupid cunt’ for forgetting to put the shower curtain inside the tub.

He’ll sneer at me for focusing on my career instead of spending time with him.

And I’ll hold it together. For a while. I’ll bite my tongue and focus on my screen. I’ll nod absently, hoping he’ll leave me alone.

But it doesn’t stop.

He escalates.

He pokes and prods until the dam breaks.

Then I will get upset and I will yell at him to please leave me alone so I can work.

I snap. I scream. I say things I regret:

“You’re a loser.”

“You have no friends because nobody can stand you.”

“You’re wasting your life hanging out with addicts on the beach.”

“You’re the problem in this relationship.”

The words sting, but they’re my truth in the moment.

And then it happens. He flips the narrative.

“See? You’re the abusive one,” he snarls. “ You’re the one yelling. You’re the one calling me names.”

The Timmy I know now isn’t the man I met.

When I met him, he made me laugh.

He called me beautiful.

He made me feel safe.

Now, he makes me feel small.

But only after he makes me feel huge.

It’s a dizzying, maddening cycle of praise and degradation.

And I’m not just losing myself emotionally—I’m losing myself in every way.

I’m yelling.

I’m swearing.

I’m calling names.

Things I’ve never done before.

The person I’ve become around him is foreign to me.

With anyone else, I’m calm. Measured. Thoughtful.

But around him, I’m frantic, defensive, sharp-edged.

It’s like he’s unlocked a version of me I didn’t know existed.

A version I don’t like.

And so all the stuff that happened before is ignored, and I’m identified—by him and his father—as the problem.

It’s just me, the crazy abusive fiancée, the terrible person who’s ruining Timmy’s life.

When it’s really the fact that his three hours of toxic, abusive behavior finally got to me and I had a human response.

I’m not a violent person.

I’m not an argumentative person.

I get excited about things, but in a controlled way.

Yet the relationship with Timmy is changing me.

But only with him.

He pokes and pokes at me, screaming and raging.

Swearing at me.

Calling me a stupid cunt.

Telling me all sorts of things that simply aren’t true.

If I try to bring up his behavior, he’ll scoff, “I’m just defending myself. You’re always attacking me.”

If his dad hears about it, I’m the villain.

I’m ‘crazy’, ‘unstable,’ the ‘problem.’

I think about past relationships. There have been abusive ones, but even then, the abusers were never this… methodical.

One ex tried to smother me with a pillow, and tried to systematically break me down with words every day—he just wasn’t very good at it.

Another threatened to break my jaw but didn’t chip away at my self-worth so relentlessly.

Timmy’s cruelty is in a league of its own.

It’s targeted.

Vindictive.

Designed to hurt.

And yet, I still try to defend myself. I still try to make him see how much he’s hurting me. I scream back because it feels unfair to let him win.

But it doesn’t work. It never works.

But now something within me has clicked, absolved me of my guilt, of the burden of worrying that I’m just as bad as him.

Reactive abuse isn’t the same as abuse.

I tell myself this over and over.

It’s not an excuse. I’m not proud of yelling, of calling him names. But this isn’t me. This is a version of me that exists because of him.

The version of me that doesn’t want to give up.

That refuses to let him win.

But as I stare at my reflection, my face puffy from crying, my voice hoarse from yelling, I wonder if the real battle isn’t with him—it’s with myself .

Because I’m starting to think the only way to win is to walk away.