Is It Wrong That I Asked My Boyfriend For An Open Relationship
The Turning Tide
I drove back to the warehouse in a daze, the USB drive burning a hole in my pocket. Linda was waiting in the parking lot, her face pale.
She grabbed my arm before I could get out of the car. “Don’t go inside,” she said. “Derrick’s here with HR. They’re conducting interviews about your threatening behavior. He’s got three employees ready to testify that you’ve been stalking him.”
My stomach dropped. Linda continued, “But here’s the thing. I’ve been doing some digging. Those three employees, they’re all women who’ve worked closely with Derek. All young when they started, all promoted quickly, all completely dependent on him for their careers.”
She handed me a printout of their personnel files. The patterns were there if you looked: rapid promotions followed by lateral moves, glowing reviews from Derek, and mediocre ones from everyone else.
It was the same trajectory I’d been on until last week. We sat in my car for an hour while Linda made calls.
She’d reached out to a contact at the EEOC with Catherine’s evidence and Catherine’s willingness to provide a statement. We had enough to file a formal complaint.
But Derrick was moving faster, building his case that I was unstable and dangerous. My dad called while we were strategizing.
Derrick had shown up at their house with a police officer, claiming I’d been harassing him and he feared for his safety. The officer had been apologetic but had to follow up on the complaint.
My dad had shown him the security footage of Derrick leaving the flowers, and suddenly the officer’s demeanor had changed. “He wants to talk to you,” my dad said. “The officer?” I asked. He said, “This isn’t the first time Derrick’s name has come up in stalking complaints, but the complaints always seem to disappear.”
I met Officer Martinez at the police station that evening. He was young, maybe late 20s, with kind eyes and a careful way of speaking.
He couldn’t share details of other cases, he said, but he could tell me that establishing a pattern of behavior was important. He told me to document everything, file reports, and create a paper trail that couldn’t disappear.
He also suggested I file for a restraining order immediately. The flowers, the emails, and showing up at my workplace were enough to establish a pattern of unwanted contact.
It wouldn’t stop Derrick from his professional retaliation, but it would create legal consequences if he continued to contact me directly. The next morning I sat in a courthouse waiting room with Catherine, filling out paperwork for a temporary restraining order.
My hands shook as I wrote out the timeline of events, five years condensed into black ink on legal forms. The judge, an older woman with sharp eyes, read through my application carefully.
She asked pointed questions about the relationship, the age when it started, and the power dynamics at play. When she granted the temporary order, she looked at me over her glasses.
“Young lady,” she said quietly, “I see cases like this more often than you’d think. You’re brave for coming forward. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
Justice in the Courtroom
I left the courthouse with a copy of the order and instructions for the full hearing in two weeks. Catherine warned me that Derrick would likely contest it, that he’d bring his lawyers and his documentation of my instability.
But now we had Catherine’s evidence. We had Catherine’s statement, we had Linda’s documentation, and we had a pattern that spanned almost a decade.
That afternoon Linda called with news. HR had placed Derrick on administrative leave pending an investigation.
It wasn’t a victory; he was still being paid and still had his benefits. But it was a start.
The young women he’d lined up to testify against me had suddenly become reluctant to get involved once Derrick wasn’t there to pressure them. Sarah came over that night with Thai food and a bottle of wine.
We sat on my childhood bedroom floor eating Pad Thai and looking through old photos she’d saved on her phone. There were pictures of us at 18, carefree and silly.
There were pictures from my 19th birthday, the last one I’d celebrated with friends my own age. There were pictures from the summer before I’d met Derek, when I’d had plans and dreams that didn’t revolve around him.
“I kept trying to save you,” Sarah said, tears in her eyes. “I watched you disappear and I couldn’t do anything about it.”
I squeezed her hand. She had tried; they’d all tried.
I just hadn’t been able to see it. The next few days blurred together with meetings with Catherine, statements to the EEOC investigator, and phone calls with other women who’d worked with Derek.
Some were willing to talk, others were too scared. Each conversation revealed new pieces of the pattern: the young interns who’d suddenly quit, the promising employees who’d transferred to other departments, and the ones who’d left the company entirely.
Catherine finally agreed to meet with the investigator. She flew in from Seattle where she’d rebuilt her life.
We sat together in Catherine’s office as she told her story to the official record. Her hands shook the entire time, but her voice was steady.
“He told me I was special,” she said. “He said that I was different from other girls my age, that he saw potential in me that no one else could see. I believed him because I was 17 and didn’t know any better.”
The investigator, a middle-aged woman named Ms. Rodriguez, took careful notes. She’d seen this before, she told us.
Men in power who prey on young women, using mentorship as a hunting ground. The patterns were always the same: the isolation, the control, and the careful documentation of instability when the relationship ended.
Derrick’s lawyer sent a cease and desist letter that afternoon. I was to stop spreading malicious lies or face legal action.
Catherine laughed when she read it. “This is desperation,” she said. “He knows the walls are closing in.”
That evening my phone rang from an unknown number. I almost didn’t answer, but something made me pick up.
It was a young woman named Jessica. She was 19, an intern in Derrick’s department.
“I heard what’s happening,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “He’s been so nice to me, staying late to help with projects, buying me coffee, telling me I’m too talented for the internship program. Is it true what they’re saying about him?”
I told her the truth, all of it. I told her about the grooming, the isolation, the control, and the way he’d systematically removed every other influence from my life until he was all I had.
The silence on the other end stretched so long I thought she’d hung up. “He asked me to dinner next week,” she finally said, “to discuss my career trajectory. I was so excited. I thought I was special.”
We talked for an hour. I gave her Linda’s number, Catherine’s number, and the EEOC investigator’s number.
I told her she wasn’t alone, that she hadn’t done anything wrong, and that Derrick was the predator here. When we hung up, I felt something shift inside me.
This was why I was fighting: not just for justice for myself, but to stop the cycle. The full restraining order hearing arrived faster than expected.
Derrick showed up with two lawyers and a briefcase full of documentation. I had Catherine, my parents, and a growing stack of evidence that painted a very different picture than the one Derrick was trying to sell.
He took the stand first, every inch the concerned ex-boyfriend. He spoke about my mental health struggles, my inappropriate sexual behavior, and my obsessive tendencies.
He presented text messages out of context, emails carefully edited, and photos that seemed to support his narrative. But then Catherine cross-examined him.
She asked about Catherine, about the other young women who’d mysteriously left his department. She presented the full text conversations, the complete emails, and the pattern of behavior that spanned years.
Derrick’s calm facade cracked slightly. He insisted these were all misunderstandings, that he’d only ever tried to help these young women succeed.
But when Catherine presented Catherine’s video of him going through her phone deleting contacts, his lawyers objected frantically. The judge overruled them.
The video played on the courtroom screen. Derrick’s face was clearly visible as he methodically deleted messages, blocked contacts, and changed settings on a phone that wasn’t his.
The courtroom was silent except for the sound of Catherine’s sleeping breaths in the recording. When it was my turn to testify, I told the truth, all of it.
I told how he’d pursued me when I was 17, how he’d waited until I was 18 to make it official, and how he’d convinced me that everyone else was jealous, immature, and trying to sabotage us. I explained how I’d believed him because I was young and he was everything I thought I wanted to be.
The judge granted the permanent restraining order. Derrick was ordered to stay 500 feet away from me, to cease all contact, and to stop spreading false information about my mental health.
It was just paper, but it felt like armor. Outside the courthouse, Derrick’s lawyers huddled with him, their faces grim.
One of them approached Catherine and handed her an envelope. Derrick was offering a settlement, he said, a substantial sum in exchange for dropping the EEOC complaint and signing a non-disclosure agreement.
Katherine didn’t even open it. “No,” she said simply. “My client isn’t interested in being silenced.”
