Micheal was clearly abusive from the start— but you ignored all the red flags.

He was always sort of rude to you. But when your friends mentioned having a discussion with him about it, he managed to convince you to drop all of them.

You already had a rocky relationship with your family, so convincing you to move to Germany with him in order to avoid talking to them was easier than pie.

He showered you with gifts and praise constantly, convincing you that he loved you because he spent this much money on you.

You saw a lot of women sharing their experiences with boyfriends like that, but just as you were readying to express that to him— he proposed to you!

He wouldn’t want to marry you if he was abusive, right? You’d take all his money in the divorce!

After all of this, you kept the same mindset.

“Well.. it’s not like he hits me!”

That was, until he started doing that too.

At first it started ‘normally’. Being slightly more aggressive with his body language, a small slap here and there to assert is point.

But of course, that quickly turned worse.

Hard smacks on the wrist whenever you made a dish he didn’t enjoy. Aggressive slaps on your face that sometimes left marks when you’d disagree with him. Very rarely, if he was in a horrible mood, he’d choke you until you were close to passing out. Yelling at you to the point of tears— although, that wasn’t hard. You cried easily.

But that’s what he loves most about you— or maybe it’s how through all of this, you’ve never thought to leave.

You were looking at the red hand print on your throat, it was sensitive to the touch and somewhat hard to breathe if you weren’t careful. Your fingers grazed the mark with the freshly manicured nails he had paid for. Tear burns softly growing on the edges of your eyes.

Until you heard the front door open— you rushed to meet Micheal at the door, not wanting him to come look for you.

He glanced over at you then put down his bag, walking up to you.

“Hello Liebe, your neck looks bad..”

He feigns sympathy, as if he didn’t cause the wound to begin with.