How I Escaped An Emotionally Abusive Relationship With A CIA Officer
In the end, our relationship was nothing but smoke and mirrors.
draganajokmanovic, Plato Terentev | Canva I was never supposed to know about my boyfriend’s job. But a loose remark from a mutual friend made it clear that his “government contractor” gig was about as euphemistic as it sounded. Once he realized that I knew he was an undercover CIA operative, I figured I’d never hear from him again, that he’d slip out of my life as easily as he’d slipped in. To my surprise (and confusion), he leaned in and pulled me closer right when I expected him to cut me loose.
We were almost inseparable within days of meeting. After earning his secret, normal conversations took on an uncertain edge, especially when he lied about what he did for work around others. I would avert my gaze and stay quiet while the made-up stories spilled out of his mouth. He did it to protect himself, to protect us. It was the two of us against the universe.
When I brought him out to get to know my friends, he was happiest when we retreated to a quiet corner of the bar, alone. We’d sit there in our little world, thinking how lucky we were to have found each other. We felt sorry for all those people who had no idea how the world worked. We felt sorry for anyone who didn’t know what it felt like to be in love the way we were. Unlike any other boyfriend I had, he paid close attention to everything I did and said. He was never shy about sharing his opinions about what I should wear. “But you look so much better in that one,” he’d say, pointing to an option he preferred. The intensity of his attention thrilled me.
Objectively, we had no business being together. I was a journalist who had recently left Washington for a new job in New York. His work was a secret and would take him to dangerous places for long periods. Who knew how long he’d be gone, or when he might come back? And then there was that heavy, scary subtext. What if he didn’t come back at all? There was no way I could question his absences.
Of course, meeting my family was a non-starter. How could he lie to them? His cover story was so bland that he knew he wouldn’t measure up to what they wanted for me. He didn’t want to let them, or me, down.
He folded me into his world in a way that made me wonder what I’d ever done with my time before I’d met him. We spent almost every night together, and on the weekends we met his friends at the bar to watch college football. Not because I had any interest in that, but because he wanted me to be part of it, and I was happy he wanted to include me in so much of his life. We lived in the moment and didn’t worry about the future. Any anxiety I had about him not wanting to be serious was forgotten when he’d wake up at 4:30 a.m. to drive me to work for a shift that started at six. If that didn’t spell commitment, what did?
My relationships with male friends, colleagues, and roommates were scrutinized closely. He knew what guys were like, and was just looking out for me, watching over me so that no harm would come my way.
Perhaps by now, reading this, you’re thinking this doesn’t sound romantic, more like manipulative and controlling. I didn’t see it. I was so conditioned to seeing things his way that I never even glimpsed the obvious red flags. He could have anyone, and he’d chosen me. How quickly my world shrank because of him.
He had the luxury of being trained in the art of deception, but I was left to fend for myself when it came to explaining our long-distance situation to everyone in my life. Why couldn’t we visit each other? How long was he going to be gone? Where was he going? Making up lies was difficult, exhausting, and defeating. It was easier to avoid everyone who had questions.
As our relationship got more serious, our mutual friend tried to step in. “Get out, and get out now,” he told me. “You have no idea what you’re up against.”
I should have listened, but I didn’t want to. In the end, I didn’t have to. My boyfriend was the one who waved the white flag. We were sitting on a park bench when he told me through tears that our relationship was nothing but smoke and mirrors. There were just too many things we couldn’t be honest about. He said he wanted to be fair to me, and apologized for complicating my life. I cried, too, but knew there was nothing I could do to change the inevitable. He was deploying and while he couldn’t tell me exactly where he was headed, I knew it was likely Afghanistan.
We said a painful goodbye and in the days that followed, I tried to turn my focus to my own life. I was in a basement bar, treating myself to a fancy cocktail when my phone pinged with a text. “You’re my reason,” he had typed as his plane taxied down the runway. One final goodbye.
I blinked my tears away and assumed that would be the end of it. He insisted on keeping in touch even though he’d called time on our romance and was on his way to a warzone. The lines between love and friendship blurred quickly because his every gesture was magnified enormously: A satellite phone call from a remote outpost simply to hear my voice. Gifts and flowers arriving at my apartment frequently. Emails with declarations of love filling my inbox. Constant reminders of how much he needed me, that I was the only person he could trust. His promise of not wanting to complicate my life was seemingly forgotten. How could I move on when he was always reminding me that he was still there?
It wasn’t until he left that I could see how much of myself I had put aside to make room for him. Without him always making plans for our time, I found my way back to the person I was before I met him. I could take the train up to visit my parents for the weekend without having to lie to them about why my boyfriend wasn’t there. I could have long conversations with my girlfriends without him telling me later they were all morons who were jealous of what we had. I could go to yoga, and opt for the 90-minute class because I didn't have to worry about emerging to questions about why I had gone dark on him, as if I were the one who was living a double life.
Sometimes months would pass without a word from him. I’d wondered if he was still OK, but mostly, I was relieved. Maybe he’d finally realized that our relationship — if we could still call it that — wasn’t healthy or normal. In retrospect, it had become unbearable.
When I finally started casually dating again, he’d re-emerge, right on cue, as if he knew from halfway around the world. My inbox filled with messages from him telling me how he missed me, how much he needed to talk to me, and that he still loved me. I responded less frequently, often through gritted teeth.
He was returning to the US to attend the wedding of his close friend. He had asked me to be his date months before he deployed, and I had agreed. When it came time to go, I backed out, because there’s nothing like a trained manipulator to suck you back in. A few days later, an email from him pinged at the top of my inbox. When the attached photo loaded on my screen, my stomach churned. It was him at the wedding, holding a necklace that belonged to me. Beneath it, he had written, “You were there. You always are.”
I sought a therapist who listened calmly as I explained what had been happening. I told her how even though we’d broken up, he wouldn’t let me go. When I was done, she looked at me and said it sounded like I’d been dealing with emotional abuse. I stared back at her, feeling incredibly stupid. “But wouldn’t I know if I was being abused?” I asked.
She told me that she had seen many smart, capable, successful women who don’t recognize it when it’s happening to them. And by the time they do, significant emotional damage has already been done. When I got home, I started Googling everything I could about emotionally abusive relationships and controlling men. Armed with this new information, I revisited our relationship through a much different lens.
For so long, I’d dismissed his behavior as collateral damage from his job. It was easy to do when I thought about how difficult getting to know new people would be for someone trying to maintain a cover story. No wonder he never wanted to meet my family or get to know my friends. How could he know who he could trust?
He kept me close not because he was so enamored with me, but to keep me under his thumb. The plan was always to isolate me from the people who knew me best so that eventually my entire support system became him, and only him. No one in my world had any idea how bad my mental health had gotten as a result. Of course, no one knew that I was maintaining any kind of relationship with someone who was in the CIA. (Was he even in the CIA?) It wasn’t like I could tell them anything without blowing his cover. As tired as I was of dealing with the whole thing, I wasn’t going to do that. It was so much easier to just pretend that I was fine.
Irrationally, I was mad at the friends I’d all but cut out of my life. Why didn’t anyone try to help me? Because no one was there. You pushed everyone away. Why didn’t I try to save myself? Because I let myself believe that someone wanting so much of my life was what “true” love was.
“The things I do for you,” was a favorite refrain of his, a constant reminder that I should be grateful for the fact that he let me into his rarefied world at all.
I blocked his number and routed all of the email addresses he had used over the years to my junk folder. It was a small step that made me feel like I was taking some control back. He was right about one thing, though: our relationship was nothing but smoke and mirrors. If only I’d seen that one truth in all the lies.
If you think you may be experiencing depression or anxiety as a result of ongoing emotional abuse, you are not alone.
Domestic abuse can happen to anyone and is not a reflection of who you are or anything you've done wrong.
If you feel as though you may be in danger, there is support available 24/7/365 through the National Domestic Violence Hotline by calling 1-800-799-7233. If you’re unable to speak safely, text LOVEIS to 1-866-331-9474.
Lauren Claudare is the author of the novel Cover Stories. She is a former journalist who spent nearly a decade in TV newsrooms in both New York and Washington, contributing coverage for some of the biggest breaking events around the world.