I'm sure that many of us heard the news about Manchester United player, Mason Greenwood, today.
Greenwood, who plays in the Forward position for the Premier League club has been arrested on suspicion of rape and assault after his ex-girlfriend, Harriet Robson, shared several posts detailing the abuse she suffered at his hands, complete with photos and even sound clips. I feel it necessary to state here that I do not condone "trial by media" and it is not my place to opine on the personal lives and trauma of others.
These posts are hard to see, particularly if you are triggered by or have personal trauma associated with these types of abuse.
Which is what brings me here.
I wasn't going to post about this today - my plan was to go along chronologically, but in solidarity with all men and women who have been in our shoes, I felt it necessary to share part of my story prematurely.
Here goes nothing.
**
I was fifteen. Andrew was a 17 year old friend within a small friendship group and he made it very clear that he had a crush on me. I wasn't interested. He wasn't my type and I just didn't like him like that.
He was incessant. He even went as far as to tell his family that I was his girlfriend - this came out after he had an argument with another of our friends who proceeded to "out" him as gay to his family. His mother replied, "No he isn't, he goes out with [me]". The issue of his sexuality, I'm sure, will come up again at a later date but it is relevant to mention here as you'll see in a little while.
A little while later, I was having a sleepover at our friend Janet's house. She and another friend brought Andrew up again and asked why I wouldn't go out with him. I explained, again, that I wasn't interested. I was heavily into rock music and he was what we would describe back then as a townie, frequenting raves and dancing like a pilled-up loon to bass-intensive dance music. Social groups weren't as fluid back then as they are now and, frankly, I wouldn't be seen dead going out with a Townie! They suggested that I give him a chance. Just a couple of weeks and if I didn't feel anything, I could at least say I'd tried. I wanted to go to sleep so I said OK.
The first week was OK but there were red flags almost immediately. We went shopping to town with our friends one weekend and I arrived for the bus in my favourite ripped jeans. I had worn these jeans several times before but suddenly they weren't acceptable attire for his girlfriend to wear. He nagged and ridiculed me the entire way there and then marched me to a shop to buy something more suitable. I never wore them again.
After only a few weeks he began nagging me for sex. I told him I wasn't ready. I wanted to wait. I knew he wasn't a virgin and he was known within our friendship group for having slept with a lot of people, including a young teenager who lived just around the corner. She was 13 at the time.
He passed his driving test around the time he turned 18 in the April, and suddenly we were going for car rides, parking up in dark car parks and secluded spots. He continued to pester me and I continued to say no. He told me that he loved me and I couldn't say it back so I just said, "I know". He then started to pleasure himself and started pestering me to do it for him. I didn't want to so he would tell me to lie on my front so that he could finish himself whilst looking at my backside. It seemed to be the only compromise, so I did.
Things continued for a short while and his advances came every day. He would up the ante by saying things like, "I might as well just be gay with [our gay friend] if you're not going to have sex with me" and emotionally blackmail me by saying, "I might as well kill myself" and "If you loved me you would".
I'm ashamed to say that I allowed things to progress more than I wanted to, just trying to appease him.
One evening in June or July, we were all staying at our friend's house - we often slept over in the living room on a weekend - Janet was a couple of years older and had a baby and a fiancé so her house was the place we hung out at. Andrew and I were asleep on the living room floor and two of our friends, Keira & Kelly, were asleep on the sofas while Janet was upstairs with some of our other friends. We had been drinking. I was drunk and asleep on my front when Andrew began to pleasure himself. He knelt over me and pulled my pyjama bottoms down to look at my underwear, as he had done several times before. The next thing I knew, he was on top of me, forcing his penis into me. I remember croaking a "No, stop" and tried to crawl away, still on my belly, but I couldn't. I knew that our friends were asleep on the sofa, just inches away but I didn't want to wake them.
Thankfully it was over in less than 30 seconds. He pulled my pyjamas back up, stood up, adjusted himself, and left me on the living room floor while he ran upstairs to tell his friends what he had done, as if I was some prize trophy he had just won. Then he came back downstairs, got a packet of Wotsits from the kitchen (which were for Janet's son's lunch the next day) and sat down beside me to eat them, singing "[my name]'s not a virgin".
The next day, it became apparent that he hadn't used protection so we took a trip to the family planning centre in town for a Morning After Pill. I went in alone whilst Andrew and our friends waited in the waiting area. The nurse was so dismissive. I had obviously been crying but she went through her checklist, not offering an STD screen or talking to me about consent or anything. I was desperately waiting for her to ask me the circumstances, silently pleading with her to ask me if I was happy to be sexually active. Somehow I didn't feel that I could start that conversation - I didn't know how. She never asked. I was given the pill and sent on my way. I was fifteen. He was eighteen. I said no. She didn't ask.
After that, I felt so ashamed. And scared. Growing up in a Christian household, I wanted to wait until marriage. My mum had always told me, "Your dad was my first, and that's how it should be". I believed that I was trapped and would have to stay with him forever otherwise I would be sinning. He, of course, took it as permission. We had done it now, there was no reason not to continue. If I'm honest, I can't say there was ever a time I enjoyed it. He was experienced but he didn't really know what he was doing and all he really cared about was satisfying his own lust and proving to himself that he wasn't gay.
Somewhere along the way he became incredibly paranoid and jealous. Once, when we hadn't been dating for very long, I forgot my phone when I went to school. He used it to send messages to my school friends, pretending to be me, asking if I had kissed anyone at a party the previous weekend. I became scared of him. My official line was "He never hit me", and he didn't. But he would often grab me by my neck and pin me to the wall. I remember watching him cock his fist and praying that he would just hit me so that I had a legitimate reason to leave - surely God wouldn't hold it against me if I left an abusive partner? I didn't realise that he had been abusive anyway, in so many ways which we'll probably go in to in more detail later.
He proposed the day after my 17th birthday. We had gone for a meal and he had already told my parents and grandparents. I knew it was coming and I felt I couldn't say no. I went to the bathroom and cried. He probably thought they were happy tears. I don't consider it a real engagement as there was never an intention to marry me; he just didn't know what to get me for my birthday.
When I was 18, we bought a house together. I didn't want to move out of my mum's house yet but he said that he wasn't going to buy a house and still have a girlfriend who lived with her parents. I felt I had no choice. We argued almost every day, about everything. He had very high expectations and I was an 18 year old sixth form student who couldn't meet them. I worked part time at British Home Stores so I had a small income but he wouldn't let me spend anything without checking with him first. He would complain if I had filled the bath up too much, or spent too long in the shower. He didn't let me see my friends because he didn't trust them. He didn't let me visit my family because he didn't like them. He wouldn't allow me to wear the clothes I liked or listen to the music I liked. He hated the way I acted and would tell me to "grow up" every time I tried to have fun and join in with my family and friends. He would pick a fight and demand to know who I was meeting and whether I was sleeping with someone when I had been at work or church.
Most of our arguments came when I would come downstairs in the middle of the night and find him watching porn. I have very strong feelings about pornography and I wasn't comfortable with him watching it, especially in secret. He had some kind of sexual addiction which I regularly bore the brunt of. That was where our main arguments came from. I remember thinking, "If I do it tonight I don't have to do it for another 3 days". I can only describe it as a hollowness. I would just go into an empty state until he had finished and I could go to sleep. Sometimes he would wait until I was already asleep - I was a very heavy sleeper and he knew that sometimes I couldn't remember conversations etc that had taken place if he woke me up and I didn't fully come around - he knew this was wrong.
I spent five years of my life with Andrew. Five years where I should have been learning how to be a grown up, making silly mistakes and lifelong friendships with my school friends or uni cohort. Instead I spent those precious formative years being controlled and abused and raped, and I didn't even realise until it was too late.
Five years, for some people, flashes by in the blink of an eye, but for me, I'm still reliving those days and reeling from the trauma I endured at his hands.
And I never told a soul. Because, what proof do I have? And why would they believe me? And surely if he was my boyfriend, it was his right and he didn't have to ask consent, right?
Wrong. Oh, it couldn't be more wrong.
I wish I had spoken out.
I wish I had evidence.
Speak out.
Maybe it's not too late for you.
