Feeling disturbed by the similarities between Brian Laundrie and my ex

Feeling disturbed by the similarities between Brian Laundrie & my ex

I’ve been following the Gabby Petito case since she first went missing and just recently watched the Netflix documentary. As so many women before me have said, I can’t help but feeling disturbed about the eery and uncanny similarities between Brian and my ex. I keep thinking maybe I’m exaggerating it, maybe I’m paranoid, and yes he was emotionally and verbally abusive but he wasn’t THAT bad. Here are some similarities I noticed:

• The way Gabby would text Brian reassuring him that she loved him and begging him to stop being mean to her and call me names. Saying things like “we’re on the same team” and constantly having to reassure him of her love while asking over and over again to stop the emotional abuse. I’ve done that SO many times…so many texts begging him to be nice to me and stop fighting and name-calling.

• Both had extreme rage and emotional regulation problems. The way that Brian aggressively slammed the van door toward the end of the third episode before they were walking into Whole Foods reminded me of how my ex would act when he was angry. While my ex never hit me, he did scream at me, pound his fists, kick or punch things in my presence, call me terrible names, and throw/break stuff around me.

• Both tried to or threatened to abandon us in unfamiliar places. Brian would threaten to leave Gabby stranded without her keys, phone, or wallet in the middle of nowhere away from her van, and my ex attempted to abandon me in an unfamiliar city where I didn’t speak the language, also without my keys, phone, or wallet. After, both denied and/or downplayed the incident while gaslighting our fears about being stranded.

• Brian’s deep insecurities and consistent fear that Gabby would leave him was a theme I also experienced in my last relationship. He would start fights with me, be mean, call me names, and then tell me how terrified he was that I would leave him.

• They would both cry/break down and have mental health episodes AFTER being mean/emotionally abusive, demanding and requiring that you comfort them…after they had hurt you and were mean. After every single verbal abuse episode, my ex would have a mental breakdown and start crying, which put me in the position of having to offer emotional support after he had emotionally abused me. I noticed that Brian did this to Gabby in his text messages where he would cry after their fights and then Gabby would comfort him.

• Belittling/judging anything that they perceived as “shallow” or “attention-seeking”. Brian constantly put Gabby down for her vlogging, social media presence, and desire to take photos. He called it “stupid” and looked down on the whole thing. Even though I was never an influencer or very active on social media, one time I hired a professional photographer to take some pictures of me for my birthday. I didn’t post them online but I kept them for myself and showed them to my ex. I just wanted my ex to appreciate me and tell me I was beautiful (which he never did during most of our relationship) but instead he told me I was shallow and vain for having photos taken and that wanting professional photos was stupid/attention-seeking. I payed a lot for the photos and then never looking at them again because he made me feel so ashamed and stupid.

• They were both highly misanthropic. Brian would regularly make posts on instagram about how terrible humans/humanity is and how much better nature and animals are. My ex was also highly misanthropic and would constantly idealize nature while saying humanity is total garbage.

• Both had very toxic mothers, with whom they had complex unhealthy enmeshed relationships with. They simultaneously felt angry or ashamed by and also admired/were unhealthily close with. Brian’s mom seemed like a narcissist with irrational mood swings, just like my ex’s mom. In both cases, the mothers enabled or excused their son’s behaviors and were enmeshed in their lives to an inappropriate degree. In both cases, it seemed as though their confusing mixture of love and rage towards their mothers were inappropriately projected onto us, their romantic partners.

• Both had a very dark/gruesome sense of art/style, with themes of death, violence, and gore. My ex always wanted to watch horror movies, listen to dark music, look at gory art, focusing on death and violence.

• Both were balding. I say this not at all to shame men who are balding; nothing wrong with it (I really don’t care about whether a man has hair), just another similarity.

• My ex became very intrigued and somewhat obsessed with Gabby’s case and would sometimes make comments comparing himself to Brian. For example, he would give me this weird look and say “does he remind you of anyone?” and then start laughing. He would also relate to certain posts Brian made about nature/misanthropy and say that he could see Brian’s point. At the same time, he also would say he was joking and that Brian was a POS.

• Both could seem very sweet, normal, and charming to others, who generally thought they seemed like really nice guys. Both were also great with and loved kids.

• He would make jokes about how he was going to “Gabby Petito” me. For a period of time these jokes became frequent, like almost daily. He would say, “you’d better be careful, or I might Gabby Petito you”, or “If you don’t watch out, I’m going to pull a Brian Laundrie” then start laughing. It would give me this weird feeling in the pit of my stomach but he always said he was joking.

• While my ex never hit or strangled me, he would jokingly pretend to strangle me (put his hands around my neck and make a fake throttling motion without applying any pressure to my neck) or make a move as if he was about to hit me then stop at the last second. If I flinched or acted alarmed he would tell me he was just joking and I was overreacting. He would also rough play too hard and slap me around but tell I was overreacting if I said “ow” or asked him to be more gentle.

I’m not saying that ALL of these things necessarily mean that someone is dangerous. I’m just noticing all of the similarities between them and feeling chilled.