“Now, I’m 32 and just realized this man was a predator last year.”

Note: This post contains mentions of rape, sexual assault, substance abuse, violence, and domestic abuse.

To break the fourth wall for a second: While this is a difficult topic to tackle, and it might be hard to read all of the stories below, it's important to continue engaging in these conversations, empowering those affected, and reinforcing the urgency of addressing this. That being said, thank you to the women who bravely shared their stories, and thank you for reading their stories.

"His wife then asked for proof and to speak to my cousin, but my aunt met with her instead. After that, a few more teenage girls came forward. Two years later, he was finally fired, but I'm not sure if his wife divorced him."

"He also confessed that he was actually married and had an elementary school-aged son." 

"Something awful could have happened to me, but luckily, I met a guy my own age and broke things off." 

"We saw each other for six months, and I eventually learned that he was married and had a kid my age." 

"He hasn't shared them to my knowledge, but the fact that I know he still looks at them really creeps me out." 

"I'm a completely different person now, but I sometimes feel disgusted with myself about it." 

"He's even better looking now, too, with his silver foxiness. Now, I remember what I was doing as a 15- and 17-year-old. I thought I was cool. What the fuck were those 25- and 27-year-olds doing?!" 

"During that relationship, he stole my car, pressured me into coming back from my long-anticipated Europe trip early, and stole thousands of dollars from me." 

"Sherri, wherever you are now, I thank you very much." 

"I also hope she doesn’t blame me and is mad at him for pursuing anyone, let alone a high-schooler." 

"Moreover, a lot of the boys in my class did the same to freshman girls when we were seniors. It seems like they learned from the men before them. So sad." 

"I'm 24 now, and I can see that it was an inappropriate relationship." 

"A few years later — in my junior year — a girl in my class goes, 'I heard you had sex with my boyfriend.' 'Huh?' was my initial answer. (I just have to add that I only had sex twice in high school, so I wasn’t someone who slept around.) After talking more, I figured out it was this guy. I think we were 16, maybe 17, so he had to be at least 25 by then. The guy was still scamming on high school girls." 

"I’ve ruined many relationships in an attempt to be with him, and I’ve hurt a lot of people because of him. I finally cut ties with him in October 2019. 

In a way, I was under his control for most of my young adult life because I was never able to let go of that relationship. The relationships and bonds you make when you’re that young really do stay with you, so it’s important to make sure you are forming bonds with the appropriate people." 

"As an adult, I've thought of that often. While I'm grateful nothing ever happened apart from kissing, any memories of him still enrage me." 

"There were no policies around dating at my work. Ultimately, I ended up staying overseas for nearly a decade. He still drunk-dials me once a year and leaves a voicemail about how delightful he found the times he sexually assaulted me. (He's blocked, and, yes, I've changed numbers, but that piece of s#$% is crafty.)" 

"I finally cut it off for good when I turned 18. He wanted me to move in with him, but I was still in high school. I blocked him in every way possible on the app we used to talk and text, and then I deleted it for good. I’d done it before, but I always went back to him when I was weak. This time, though, I knew that I couldn’t go back, not when he wanted me to move in. That was way out of my comfort zone.

I finally told my mom about it this year. I broke down crying, and she told me that it was okay because I 'made a mistake.' Somehow, I believed her. It was my fault. I could’ve and should’ve ended it sooner. 

My therapist says that it isn’t, but I just can’t shake the fact that, for a while, I loved him, and I thought he loved me. What’s really crazy is that sometimes, really late at night, I miss it when he called me beautiful. He may have been manipulative, but damn, was he good at it." 

"Fast-forward to a few weeks later: His wife, who I never knew about, contacted me and told me to leave her husband alone. I was mortified. 

Again, guys at my school saw me as the quiet nerd, so if you don't think your quiet, studious daughter could fall prey to something like this, think again." 

"He cut me off from family and friends. Again, he'd use their immaturity as a reason to get rid of them — despite him being just as, if not more, immature. He would apologize after being abusive, prey on my emotions, and pretend to cry only to carry on the abuse as soon as the dust had settled.  

I finally got out, but it took me until my 20s — when he was nearing 40 — to realize how much of a hold he had over me, how he had groomed me for this when I was too young to understand what I was getting into, and how bad this was." 

"I had their platonic love, and it felt better than whatever love I thought I had. In the beginning, when we'd talk on Facebook, I felt like he understood what I was going through. We were trying to build a future together. I was going to move 20 hours away from my family to be with him, wore his class ring on a necklace, and had a wedding Pinterest board with his mom. 

As I got closer to my friends, he tried to control me because he didn't like me going out with them and manipulated me by threatening suicide a few times. After three years, I started to break it off, and he said what he knew would hurt me. The relationship was done." 

"He would know how to gain our trust in a new situation to make us feel comfortable and included."

"One day, after two years of that shit, I literally woke up and was like, 'What the fuck am I doing?' I packed up what I had of his and dropped it on his doorstep while he stood there like a blubbering mess. I haven’t spoken a word to him since. He began grooming a 16-year-old a few months later." 

"And to address it: My relationship with my dad is very supportive. My mother invested a lot of time in telling me I was unattractive and not very smart. Besides all this, my family doesn't really believe in sharing emotions or personal issues with other people, so he kind of checked all the boxes at the time. 

I was never attracted to him; he just (ironically) made me feel hopeful at the time. I promise to everyone here: You weren't stupid, and it may be difficult, but you will learn grace for your teenage self." 

"Last I heard, he was pissing off families and parents with the comments he was making to their underage daughters as their teacher. I’m 42 and see him now for what he is — wish I knew back then." 

"I felt like as a grown woman, I should be able to say no, and if I couldn’t, then I didn’t have any business in these relationships." 

"We would constantly have a huge fight, 'break up,' get back together, and it would be great for about two weeks before it would start over — just a horrible toxic cycle.

Now that I’m in my thirties, I realize that he was a classic narcissist. While I don’t want to say he was a 'predator' since I was 18 when we met, he did befriend me and sweet talk me for two years — then as soon as I turned 20, it was like it was OK for him to ask me out because I wasn’t technically a teen anymore. 

He has nothing to do with his son, and last I heard, he’s married to someone who is 20 years younger than him. It all turned out for the best because I married a man who is so good to me and my son. My husband will be adopting him next month, and I can put all those bad memories behind me." 

"I didn’t realize it at the time, but after years of therapy, I realized what he was doing." 

"When it wasn't summer and I wasn't at camp, we'd talk on Instagram. He made me feel so special. I didn’t even apply anywhere else for college. At college, he said there was an unspoken rule that staff doesn’t date freshmen. I believed him and waited on him. 

I would do anything just to be with him, so I did what he said and never told my friends or anyone else that I was meeting him. I was 21 and he was 28 when the professor spotted us. At that point, he was promising we’d get married when I was done with school. I was brokenhearted. I’d spent so many years waiting on this guy and doing everything he said — missing out on normal experiences for someone my age — all for me to have to act like it never happened." 

"We had started texting when he had begun seeing another coach that I knew. It was just chatting and joking, but eventually, they called it quits, and he told me he had feelings for me. I remember being over the moon because my entire team, as teenagers, crushed on this guy. I had told him I was a virgin and didn’t mess around with a guy who wasn’t my boyfriend — so we never had sex.

Oh, and he didn’t leave me alone after everything. He’d periodically reach out to me when I started college — even to the point of trying to meet up with me a few weeks before his WEDDING. 

Only one person from that period ever apologized. But the worst part is that when discussing it with a very close friend from high school who is a very committed feminist and caring person, she still said that I was mature for my age then and that it wasn’t a big deal. Sometimes, I still question if she’s right, but I don’t think she is." 

"He then slept with my housemates behind my back. He also slept with my best friend at the time while still having sex with me. 

When we first met, he told me that he had recently lost a baby to cot death but didn't tell me the exact date. When my birthday came around the following year, suddenly it was the anniversary of the death, and he was miserable all day. I have doubts that the child existed. 

On Valentine's Day, he told me he had to babysit for his sister. I since found out that he had plans with another girl. He later told me, after we broke up, that his sister had a stillborn baby, and he just needed to talk about it. I found out from his sister that the baby was alive and thriving." 

"I finally told him I wasn’t happy, the split was amicable, and I moved back to Florida with my family within a week." 

"In the moment immediately after he said that to me, I felt uncomfortable and saw that this 28-year-old man was just acting on a sick fantasy to be with someone young and a virgin, and that was all that mattered to him. His pressuring me to have relations felt like rape.

 I kept going back and forth in my mind over whether I should have, or whether I did the right thing by cutting all contact — which was quite hard since he was my nephew's uncle." 

"He showed up at my dorm two other times, but my roommate and other friends would always hide me and tell him I wasn’t there." 

"I ended up kissing another guy who I thought was just a friend. I never heard from or saw the '26-year-old' after that, but looking back on that year, I could definitely see I was being groomed by him." 

"I called my mom — I had to hide MY OWN cell phone in my cleavage so he wouldn’t take it — and she took the first flight up the next morning. She took a cab from the airport, rented a U-haul, and helped me back up my stuff before he came home from work for his lunch break. 

We were literally driving away as he told me he was almost home and that I had better not have left. He thought I was going to take his car and threatened to have me arrested. The only thing of mine he found was my 'engagement ring' and the key to the apartment. To say I made it out by the skin of my teeth is no joke. He proudly called himself a master manipulator, capable of getting anyone to do anything he wanted, and once gave me a concussion when he punched me in the face. 

I’m 35 now, have been with my AMAZING husband for 11 years, married for 9, have two beautiful children, and am incredibly happy. Don’t settle for cheap versions of 'love' when you can definitely find the real thing." 

"I completely regret this interaction." 

"When I did, I immediately told my dad because I trusted him. It took a lot to convince Dad not to drive to his house to have a 'stern talk' with him right away. (Military parents, y'know?)" 

"Funnily enough, he was an Orthodox Jew. He had to go home to Brooklyn every weekend and ate kosher, but he didn’t think anything was wrong with our situation. Eventually, I moved back home with my four-year-old child." 

"Even before I pulled away, he'd disappear for weeks. I'd find out he'd moved in with girlfriends who were his age, but he always made it seem like he couldn't leave me alone because we were in love. I believed it. 

After I pulled away and he turned abusive, he would do coke and accuse me of sleeping around. I don't know why I didn't scream or ask for help from his family when he locked me in that room. Later, I found out the first girlfriend he'd allegedly left for me had been pregnant and left him because he was an abusive high school dropout.

After that day he found out about the abortion, I moved in with my dad, transferred stores for my job, and dodged him. He eventually got into heroin, and that's the last I've heard about him. Now, I'm 36, and my family still doesn't know the details — only that he had upset me enough to leave." 

"He was controlling and dictated when I could be out of the house, how much money I had access to, and who he approved of me spending time with. He never hit me, but he preyed on my insecurities and shame to control me. 

I really wish my parents had intervened and stopped me from being with him. I moved in with him before I graduated from high school, and I feel like I wasted all my youth in this miserable marriage." 

"I've been dealing with the fallout ever since."

"I only had my mom, who worked all the time, because my father died when I was 9. I look back on it all now at 35 — how many years I wasted pining for him, how he indulged me, and how he encouraged the attention. I felt so special that he was paying attention to me." 

"He had seven kids, the oldest of which was older than me. He also cheated with other women and told me about it. He continued harassing me until I told my mom everything, and she and my brother confronted him as he followed me around a grocery store calling my name. 

After it was over, he still threatened me and tried to sexually harass me for years, visiting and circling my store up to four times a day looking for me. I would die of anxiety every time and hide in the storage rooms. The managers had to blacklist him." 

If you or someone you know is in immediate danger as a result of domestic violence, call 911. For anonymous, confidential help, you can call the 24/7 National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE) or chat with an advocate via the website.

If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE, which routes the caller to their nearest sexual assault service provider. You can also search for your local center here.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline is 1-888-950-6264 (NAMI) and provides information and referral services; GoodTherapy.org is an association of mental health professionals from more than 25 countries who support efforts to reduce harm in therapy.

If you've been the target of revenge porn, the Federal Trade Commission has outlined some resources available to you, as well as some steps you can take to protect yourself.

If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, you can call SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) and find more resources here.