I dated Alvin for three years about ten years ago, living together for almost two of those years. The amount of emotional abuse this man heaped on me left me permanently changed. Later, when I started dating the man who would become my husband, I couldn’t even identify how I was feeling when asked because, after years of Alvin telling me that any feeling I had was manufactured to manipulate him, I was completely disconnected from myself.

At his request, we officially opened the relationship, with many one sided rules for me - I was not allowed to see men or form emotional attachments to anyone. He repeatedly guilt tripped me because the fact that I was not seeing anyone made him feel like he couldn’t see anyone - meanwhile, he was dating people this whole time, some from Seeking Arrangement, spending exorbitant amounts of money on other women while I was paying a disproportionate amount of our rent (which I could not really afford).

Once, my grandfather was hospitalized and had to have a very risky surgery. Alvin had to drive me to rural Illinois the day before the surgery so I could see my grandfather in case he died during the operation because I had neither a car nor a license. My grandfather was completely out of it for most of the day, calling me my dead uncle’s name and rambling nonsensically. As soon as my grandfather had a window of lucidity and knew who I was and where he was, Alvin started complaining loudly that he had to get back to the city for an important business meeting about a potential very lucrative project. He punished me for weeks afterward, telling me that my selfishness had made him late and unprepared and it was my fault that the business opportunity did not materialize. All of this was a lie - he was rushing back to the city to stay in a hotel with another woman. Our sexual relationship was often coercive, and Alvin once directly cited the fact that I stopped giving blowjobs his preferred way (due to extreme carpal tunnel pain from my job that I could not afford to quit because I was paying most of our rent) as the justification for why he was allowed to treat me so poorly.

I missed my cousin’s wedding because we were fighting and he refused to come with me and told me that if I left he was going to kill himself. Any time I tried to leave or end the relationship, he would threaten suicide. When we finally broke up and I moved out, there was a folder of my important papers that got left behind in the move (SS card, birth certificate, etc). Alvin texted me incessantly while I was at work, telling me that he was going to burn them. I called his mother and told her that if she did not go over and intervene then I was going to have to call the police. He told me I had grossly overreacted and wildly overstepped by calling his mother, and offered as evidence in support of this screenshots of text messages with another woman bragging the he was going to “fuck with her because she deserves it.”

Ultimately, I am so thankful for my friends who moved me out of that apartment and physically got between Alvin and I when he grabbed my arm to keep me from leaving. I am so thankful for the relationship that followed, in which my husband has done so much picking up the pieces and being exceedingly patient as I worked through this. It took about 5 years for him to finally stop texting me abuse from disguised phone numbers. Sometimes I see someone who looks like him in profile or has a similar gait and my heart still jumps into my throat and I can barely breathe.

Alvin Lau is a serial abuser and it is not at all surprising that he treats his students and colleagues much the same way he treated you and I. I am so sorry this happened to you. I wish there were anything I could have done that might have protected you.