Melinda*, a 25-year-old administrative worker from London, knows this feeling all too well. After being fired from her job as a live-in housekeeper and nanny, she was thrown out into the street with little money.
"I was squatting and sleeping on people's sofas for about a month, which was fine at first, but it started to get cold last winter," Melinda says. Melinda was able to land an internship in Kent. She also met a man through mutual friends who offered to let her stay in his house in Kent. "I liked him, but I never wanted it to be a long-term thing," she says.
After two months of living with him, the plan soured. The man lived an hour away from her friends, making Melinda feel isolated. He also became extremely possessive. "I soon realized I wanted to leave—but I had nowhere to go so I bit my tongue. It was a nice home and he'd cook me dinner every night. But the weird thing was that because of this, he acted as if he owned me."
After six months of living in this strange isolation, Melinda saved enough money to leave. "A month after I left, he was still texting me all the time and he even offered me a monthly allowance to get back with him, professing to be 'concerned' about me, while really making a desperate attempt to exert his control."
So, the abuse Melinda suffered was living in a nice house and having dinner made for her every night. To top it all off he lived an hour away from her friends. The bastard!
Women can take any situation where they're clearly manipulating and using a man and still claim to be the victim.
