Tainted Love: Great sex made me stick with my manipulative ex

When I look at the time and it happens to be 9.11am, I am reminded of something other than the terrorist attacks in New York but that I also find disturbing. My mind wanders to a hedonistic day spent in bed with my ex in September 2011. I see it as a pivotal event that influenced the rest of the relationship and kept me accepting him back time and again for years.

I had been seeing him about three months. No man had ever made me feel like he did. It was literally mind-blowing. I couldn’t get over how much he prioritised my pleasure. He brought out visceral feelings in me that I didn’t know could be there.

After that day in September, I used to say that I felt like he had “branded” me so I would never go with anyone else. I was joking at the time but now it feels jarringly true. All the years we were together – even when I felt really lonely and unfulfilled in the relationship – I never even dreamt of sleeping with another man.

From what I have read about covert narcissism since, I now believe that the way he put my needs before his in bed was actually self-serving. It was a way of controlling me. He had me where he wanted me, convinced that nobody could be better. “I know you would never go off with anyone else,” he’d say. “You’d only be disappointed.”

He had this knack of making me feel that I had somehow won a competition. I used to even ask him in bed: “Am I your favourite?” It makes me cringe now. He had instilled a fear in me that I could lose that pole position. I worried about keeping his interest or putting on weight and him going off me.

During the final year of us living together, he would withdraw physical contact for weeks on end. I lost count of the number of times he rejected me in bed, saying his back was sore or that he was tired. I felt like I was being punished for something but had no idea what it was. I would only get monosyllabic responses if I tried to talk about it.

18 months since he split up with me, I still can’t face even the idea of being intimate with anyone else. I’m hoping this isn’t because I’m forever ‘branded’ and rather just that I have trust issues and am still healing.

Three weeks after he left, I found out he had been seeing the girl from the local Chinese takeaway behind my back for months, and that there had been others before that. The main takeaway from the whole experience for me is that if I ever do get close to anyone again, I won’t mistake great sex for a genuine connection and love. For now, though, I don’t trust myself to be able to tell the difference. So I’m choosing to steer clear of relationships until I can.

If your confidence has been rocked by a bad relationship, check out our masterclass with life coach Mark Fennell for practical steps to rebuild your self-image.