What I Wish I Knew: Surviving and Thriving After an Abusive Relationship

By Kendall Ann Combs and Dr. Amelia Kelley

If a survivor of domestic violence and a trauma-informed therapist could speak to survivors of abuse, what wisdom would they provide? In this ground-breaking book, Kendall Ann Combs, a survivor of domestic violence, and Dr. Amelia Kelley, an expert in psychology, seek to answer questions and provide resources for those who have experienced abuse

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dr. Amelia Kelley & Kendall Ann Combs
• Release date: Jan 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9781684898749

Book preview

Part 1: Surviving

Chapter 1

The Fairytale Relationship

The devil doesn’t come dressed in a red cape and pointy horns. He comes as everything you’ve ever wished for.

~ Tucker Max ~

It was years in the making but this was the moment of truth: I was lying on my back on the cold, linoleum floor while a man twice my size suffocated and strangled me, banging my head against the floor beneath me. I fought to breathe, my vision began to blur, my ears rang, and my head ached. This was the moment when I either became a woman killed by her intimate partner, or a woman who survived. Either way, I would come to understand that what I didn’t know could hurt me, and quite possibly even kill me.

My only education about domestic violence was from Lifetime Movies, specifically Mother May I Sleep With Danger (1996). In that movie, a virtuous Tori Spelling is nearly murdered by her wrong side of the tracks, elusively dangerous boyfriend. It led me to believe that the early warning signs of an abuser would be easy to spot. I imagined in the beginning of the relationship an abuser would have a heart of gold, but a bad temper. He’d probably be riding a motorcycle and would be mean to waiters. These were the signs I thought I should be looking for.

Before my abusive relationship, one myth I believed was that abuse didn’t happen to women like me. I was a successful, young professional with a Master’s degree. I had no problem standing up for myself against anyone who tried to control me. I was financially stable, mature, and determined not to waste my time in relationships that I didn’t think would be long- lasting matches. Although I had recently moved to a city where I knew no one, I still had a strong network of friends and a close family with whom I spoke to daily. I spent my evenings at dance class trying to keep up with the younger members, laughing about how something that once came so easily to me now required more thought and practice than ever before. I loved nothing more than spending time with my dog, Ozzy, hiking new trails or cuddling with him at home. I was smart, strong and independent. I would never be anyone’s victim. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The Fairy Tale Begins

I met him online. Although I had been taking a break from dating to concentrate on my career, I promised my mom I’d go on one date a month. He and I exchanged a few brief texts before we decided to meet. On the evening of the date I begrudgingly applied minimal makeup and slipped on my green first date dress: a short, plunging sheath that made the heat of August in the South more bearable. I promised myself I’d stay the whole meal before using the I have to let my dog out excuse. Unaware of what lay ahead of me, I drove to the restaurant.

Upon my arrival I instantly recognized him from his pictures, and although he was shorter than he had indicated in his profile, I thought he was handsome, and I regretted not putting more energy into my own appearance. We spent the evening eating pizza, drinking wine, and laughing. It was the best first date I had ever had and before I knew it, the bartender was kicking us out. My date walked me to my car, and we shared a passionate kiss before he asked if he could see me later that week. I quickly agreed and drove away finally believing the saying, When you know, you know. I thought I had found the one.

Our courtship started the next day when I awoke to texts saying, Good morning, Beautiful and How do I miss you already? I was relieved I wasn’t the only one who had sensed the magic between us. On our second date I did most of the talking. He was surprisingly interested in my life, my goals, my past, and what I wanted in a relationship. I was flattered at how curious he was about my life. It was a refreshing change from previous dates I had gone on with men where I mostly nodded and smiled barely saying a word. When I asked him questions about himself, he would tell me that he’d rather talk about me. It made me blush and a warm sensation covered my body.

For our third date we went to his parents’ house to swim in their pool. I was surprised to see his parents were home. I had not anticipated meeting them so early in the relationship, and I instantly became nervous. His father and stepmother were warm and welcoming, but I was caught off guard when his father began commenting on things he had seen on my online professional profile. He congratulated me for the awards I had won and asked a lot of questions about my job. It seemed odd, and something in my gut alerted me that this was strange, but his father’s easy-going style of conversation disarmed me. When we were alone, I asked my date why he didn’t tell me that his parents were going to be home. He told me he didn’t know they’d be there, but I sensed he was lying. He told me it wasn’t a big deal because he could tell they loved me and listed all the reasons why. Flattered, I let the lie slide since I had no proof, and we enjoyed the rest of the day at the pool.

Within a month, I was spending most of my free time with him. Sometimes I even chose to spend time with him instead of going to the dance classes I loved so much. On our date nights, I greeted him by jumping into his arms and he’d spin me around. We called it our Bachelor Show Greeting. It felt like a dream. I congratulated myself for not settling for any of the men I had dated before and for holding out for someone so perfect.

Each night was filled with profound conversations. I told him all of my deepest fears. How I was scared to have a marriage end in divorce. How I felt like I was never really understood by those around me. How lonely it was to move to a city where I had no friends. How I longed to feel a deep connection to someone who would love and support me without fail. He held my hands and listened intently. He expressed how his father’s battle with cancer scared him and how he was happy to finally have someone to talk to about it. I was flattered he trusted me enough to be so vulnerable.

One day when we visited his parents at their lake house, he convinced me that I should try water skiing for the first time. He enthusiastically jumped off the boat with me. As we treaded water, tow rope in my hands, I confessed how terrified I was to fail in front of him and his parents. He looked deeply into my eyes and told me he knew I could do it. It filled my heart with love. I finally had someone who believed in me unconditionally, who trusted I could do anything, even when I was unsure. Even when my attempt to ski failed, he expressed how proud he was that I tried and how brave I was. We shared a passionate kiss and he told me that he loved me and I, of course, said the same. It felt like a fairytale.

I fell for him fast and hard. He was everything I had ever wanted: handsome, educated, kind, and caring. It was a dream. I had never felt so strongly about anyone before. I relished the time I spent with him, hanging on every word he said, and every minute we spent apart I was desperate to reunite with him. The nights when we didn’t have plans to see each other we’d end up texting or talking on the phone throughout the evening and into the early morning. On many of those nights the magnetism between us was so strong that one of us would end up jumping into their car, pajama-clad, to sleep next to the other. We couldn’t stand to be apart.

Kendall Ann, he said one day as we walked our dogs, hand in hand, you are the most wonderful person in the world, and I am so happy I didn’t settle for someone else that I didn’t love as much as I love you. This became a theme of our conversations: how lucky we were to have each other and the debt we owed to the universe for bringing us together. Two people who were so perfect for each other. So happy. So fortunate.

He planned romantic dates based solely on the things I liked. We went to my favorite restaurants, saw the movies I was curious about in theaters, and of course took our dogs on long hikes complete with romantic picnics of my favorite foods and sometimes even a bottle of champagne.

As an outside salesperson, many of my days were filled with driving all over the state to meet with potential clients. Countless times I’d return home to beautiful bouquets of flowers from him waiting for my return outside of my apartment. Other nights when I was shackled to my computer preparing quotes or presentations for the next day, he’d have my favorite pizza delivered so I wouldn’t have to take the time to cook.

Everything he did was thoughtful and sweet. One evening he invited me over for wine by the firepit at his house and when I arrived he handed me my favorite wine in a glass with my name on it.

What’s this? I asked. Is my name on this glass?

I wanted a reminder of the most beautiful words I have ever heard to always be here, even when you’re not, he said sweetly.

Butterflies filled my stomach. We made s’mores and talked about our future all night, kissing passionately, laughing, and slow dancing under the stars. It felt like magic.

Our chemistry and care for each other was evident in our sexual relationship. Sometimes sweet, sometimes playful but always satisfying. As my love for him deepened, my sexual desire for him grew. I finally had a man that could satisfy every need I had, mind, body, and soul.

Soon he was planning trips for us to visit cities to watch my favorite NFL team play and he promised me that together we’d accomplish my goal of seeing my favorite team, the Detroit Lions, play in every NFL stadium. He made all of the arrangements, bought the tickets to the games, and researched the best places to go in the cities. My only responsibility was to pick the city and he happily did the rest. The trips were exciting and fun: ghost tours and swamp tours in New Orleans. Listening to country music in dive bars in Nashville. During those trips he was the perfect companion. He was sensitive to my fear about missing flights and showed no frustration at my need to arrive at the airport hours early. As we walked through the airport he carried my bags and, on the plane, he insisted on sitting in the middle seat so I could have more room in the aisle seat.

I couldn’t help but brag to my family and friends about my perfect boyfriend and the message from them all was the same, You deserve it. They were thrilled that I had found my happy ending. My person. My dream man. I finally had the love I had craved for so long. All of the broken relationships, the bad first dates, the tears I shed over other men who had treated me poorly were worth it because they led me to this wonderful man who was so thoughtful, so kind, so devoted to my happiness.

The relationship transformed me. His love, devotion and faith in me gave me a confidence I never had before. He accepted and loved all parts of me, even the ones that I struggled to accept, or other men had wanted to change. One winter we traveled to Florida to escape the cold. As we walked on the beach with our dogs I dared him to jump into the ocean. He laughed as he refused and challenged me to do it instead. Never the one to say no to a dare, I changed into my bathing suit and plunged into the frigid water later that afternoon. When I ran out of the water he was waiting on the shore, cozy blanket extended in his arms to warm me.

He wrapped the blanket around me, and we laughed with such thunder at the ridiculousness of my swim that we fell to the ground. As we lay there, his arms around me, he whispered how he loved this part of me. My joy. My love of life. And that he could never be happy without me. It was one of the only times in my life that I felt seen. I knew in my heart that he was my soulmate and that he and I would share a thousand moments like this together. As we lay there, we both cried tears of joy, of belonging, and of love. It was the most connected I ever felt to another person.

I was one of the lucky ones. I had found true love.

What Is Love Bombing?

The early romance of Kendall Ann and her date can be relatable for anyone who has searched for love and experienced the feelings of a new and exciting relationship. Finding your match, or someone who cares deeply for you, is important to most people at some stage in their lives. As humans we are social beings and by nature, we are designed to need people for survival, meaning and joy. This is not to say that all people need the same number of social relationships and connections, but at least a few meaningful relationships are essential for mental health and wellness. This need for connection is supported by science. Research shows that meaningful interactions with others, where there is safety and quality in the relationship, has protective factors against aging and can improve immune health. Even at a basic biological level, we are innately drawn to connection.

When first meeting someone, we hope we can trust our instincts about whether that person will be a positive influence on our lives. When someone works at making us feel special or wanted, we hope and often expect that these gestures are coming from a genuine and safe space, and often times it is. The idea of "love at first sight" is not completely impossible; some relationships really do click and get off to a fast start. However, there are two key elements to this kind of experience that differ from love bombing.

Mutuality:: Fast-paced courtships that are not an example of love bombing are mutual in nature, meaning both people feel completely comfortable with the pace of the relationship.

Pace:: The pace of the relationship leaves each person with positive feelings, as they each sustain their individual identities, and there is little to no imbalance of power.

An example where pace was an issue in Kendall Ann’s relationship was on the third date. Her date was speeding up the pace of the relationship by introducing her to his parents without checking in with her first. For some, meeting a love interest’s parents can be nerve-wracking and is a big deal, and if he were respecting her pacing of the relationship, he would have asked her if she was ready to meet them.

Love bombing, which is a weapon many predators (or narcissists) employ at the beginning of a relationship, is hard to detect. It can mask itself as a fast-paced, love at first sight type of relationship. The difficulty in detecting love bombing lies in the fact that it feels good at first, until eventually it doesn’t. Simply put, it is an attempt to influence or manipulate a person by demonstrations of attention and affection. It can be displayed in various ways, and often results in an unequal division of power and control in the long-term outcomes of a relationship. Love bombing offers tidbits of love that can result in learned helplessness, or yearning for more, when the relationship later becomes unhealthy.

Why Love Bombing Works and Why It Is Dangerous

The positive feelings that love bombing elicits are potent and effective. These feelings can be intoxicating and make it hard to focus on much else other than the love bomber. Being told how important or special you are feels wonderful; luckily not everyone who expresses love and adoration is trying to hurt or control you. Love bombing is also coupled with manipulative efforts to retain control of most aspects of the relationship. These efforts are so gradual, they are often hard to detect unless you are looking for them.

The master goal of love bombing is to manipulate focus and attention onto the love bomber. The motivation for doing so can be attributed to the need for power, control, and idolization of a narcissist. It can also be a dangerous result of a predator working to groom their victim by making them feel safe when they are with the love bomber. Consequently, when things start to take a turn for the worse, the point of reference is skewed, and the victim is more likely to believe that there is always a way back to the way things once were.

One other way a love bomber tries to gain control is through purposeful information gathering, which was seen on Kendall Ann’s earlier dates with her abuser. The love bomber can use your own insecurities, hopes, dreams, and failings against you. The more they learn and know about you, the more they can use against you. You can decipher between genuine interest and purposeful information gathering when the love bomber is hesitant to disclose their own personal information. When things go badly, the love bomber will remind you of how good you are together or may focus on what matters most to you. This can include things they may have learned during the information gathering stage or things that make you feel most insecure if you were to leave the relationship. These tactics are also a method of control found in the repair stages in an abu-sive relationship, right after a serious fight or threats of safety occurs. We will learn more about these stages in Chapter 3, Power of Control.

Putting it simply, love bombing can create a level of trust in someone who should not be trusted. It can make you question yourself, leading to being more agreeable with requests made by the love bomber, such as cutting out relationships because your love bomber does not like someone who is important to you in your life. Their reasons for exclusion can vary, but often their objective lies in removing someone they see as a threat to your enmeshed relationship. The reasons for why abusers limit your social sphere and try to establish power will be explored further as Kendall Ann’s story unfolds.

One thing is clear, it can be difficult to identify when someone is love bombing, especially at the beginning of a relationship. That is why awareness of what love bombing is and carefully listening to your intuition and internal reactions are crucial.

Love Bombing And Kendall Ann’s Story

At the beginning of Kendall Ann’s story there was a point where her tone shifted slightly from elation and attraction to slight trepidation. As mentioned previously, this happened when she was introduced to her date’s family at a very early stage and without any warning. His father’s awareness of her life and details about who she was before she even met him made her uncomfortable. She had not been given the chance to share details about who she was in in her own time, instead her date had taken charge.

These moments of discomfort are indicators that the relationship was not entirely healthy. Something was off. We will explore many of these types of moments in this book which we will refer to as Red Flags. Together we will map out these particular warning signs that can occur at different stages of a relationship. By doing so you can become mindful of them, as awareness and knowledge both increase safety. You can find a list of these warning signs at the end of the book.

What I Now Know

1. Love bombing is a drug, and your partner is the dealer.

Texts, flowers, kind words, and extraordinary commitment can be intoxicating. These acts flooded my brain with the hormones and chemicals that gave me a natural high. I had no idea how far I’d fall when the high passed, and I had no idea the lengths I’d go to feel that high again. Now I realize my abuser did all of those things to hook me and to make me feel connected to him. The more interested he was in me and my life, the closer I felt to him. The level of intensity in our relationship did not match the time that had been invested. We were moving very fast, very soon. It felt like a love story out of a movie. I know now that no matter what concessions I made, or what parts of myself I abandoned, he’d never again be the man from the first months of our relationship, because that was not the real him.

2. Do not tell secrets to those whose faith and silence has not already been tested. ~ Queen Elizabeth ~

I remember reading this when I was young and thinking it was truly sage advice. I wish I would have remembered the quotation during the early stages of my relationship. By sharing my most intimate thoughts, fears, and desires so early, I basically gave him all the information he needed to become the person I wanted and