I “gave in” because I couldn’t do most of my life if he got upset enough to throw me out; I wasn’t consenting because I couldn’t say no.My story is complicated — like so many other people’s stories—and my involvement with TC lasted well beyond the years we were an official couple.Once I achieved some level of economic stability and moved into a safe, lovely one-bedroom condo and changed jobs so we weren’t working together, his power was gone — and with it the abuse.

It took years — until the #Yes All Women conversation, in fact — to realize that those times he came home extra drunk and woke me up because he wanted to have sex were real violations.

And around that time, we had other things to talk about.

I got pregnant and, considering our lifestyle, the obvious choice for both of us was to terminate.

At some point, he began dating a married woman with two kids, which broke his only dating rule.

I didn’t know about her until months later when we were basically over, but he also didn’t have an obligation to tell me; we weren’t exclusive and I was certainly seeing other people.