Iveta Maurerová: Mental and physical terror from lovers!

Is this your first relationship with a woman?

“Yes, LP opened my eyes to the fact that it is. When I used to like a woman, I thought to myself: Iveta, it’s just your hormones. It didn’t occur to me that I was a lesbian. I didn’t want to admit it.’

So did you like the girls?

“Yes, but far from all, after all, I need to feel in the position of a woman in a relationship, I can’t have someone like me next to me and be in the ‘male’ position. Maybe that’s why I didn’t admit it for a long time, because I didn’t meet anyone with whom it was like that. But LP isn’t about gender. I would fall in love with her even if she was a man. She charmed me at first sight, her charisma was completely oozing, she was shining and she completely got me. I found true love in her.”

When you first met at the Snídaná s Nova studio, how did you get in touch? You probably knew about her that she was a lesbian, but she couldn’t know that about you…

“She then told me back that she thought I was married with three children. Me, but when I saw her there in the morning, I said to myself: OK, so you are my future wife. The flirting was mutual. Subsequently, we exchanged Instagrams and it was easy. We also met for a date.’

You’ve been together for less than a year. You have already taken her to visit her parents in Znojmo.

“Clearly! She has already tasted our wine and some of the slivovica. She really liked it there and her parents fell in love with her. They are happy that I finally have someone who treats me well, and I am happy.”

You are probably referring to the fact that you were a victim of domestic violence in several relationships… Didn’t your parents forbid you to see the person in question?

“My parents are some of the most tolerant people I know, and they never forbade me. And then – when the daughter tells you that she will just go, no matter what happens, there is nothing the parents can do. They’re just praying that the baby comes home alive.”

Have you ever lost your life?

“I was never sure if he would accidentally switch and something would happen. I used to have that fear. Anyway, I’ll put it this way: Ours never knew if their daughter would come home alive when I left to see the person. That’s telling.’

Did you seek professional help?

“At the time when I was experiencing the worst moments of my life and because of which my endowment fund was created The key to smiling, I went to see a psychologist. And I’m very happy for that. You could say she saved me.’

How exactly?

“When you experience domestic violence and others see it, they try to keep telling you that you have to leave, that it can’t go on like this. For me, it was always a sign that I said to myself: Oh, I won’t talk to this person anymore, I don’t need him to advise me and decide what I should do, I won’t trust him with anything anymore. That’s how most victims of domestic violence feel. The psychologist didn’t tell me this, she just set up a mirror for me.”

Can you specify that?

“Suddenly I saw myself. I realized for the first time that I was really experiencing domestic violence. That what is happening to me and how the other is treating me is not normal. That is why I am of the opinion that no one should be ashamed to seek professional help, no matter what is happening to them. It is beautiful when a person wants to take care of himself and work on himself and his inner self. The victim does not respect herself, she does not like herself, because if she did, she would never allow someone to treat her like this. When a person likes himself, he doesn’t even let such people into his life or they don’t appear there, because he has some respect and boundaries for himself. And that is exactly what is important to work on internally.”

It’s strange anyway that a person leaves one relationship because they’re being hurt and jumps into another one where they’re being hurt again and again doesn’t realize it for a long time…

“I had terrible blocks in me. I solved some of them, but some accompanied me in other relationships as well. The problem is that I couldn’t be alone. Solitude was the worst idea for me. That’s why I jumped into another relationship, but there it started again. I felt that I was easily manipulated and longed for love that I would do anything for. I always thought at the beginning that it would definitely be different, I really wanted to meet someone who would really like me and respect me.”

But you must have felt at least a little that something was wrong…

“Yes, but I didn’t want to admit it, I excused him by saying that he was just in a bad mood, that he didn’t sleep well and that he would be fine the next day. I just didn’t see that he didn’t respect me by what he was doing to me.”

Why were you afraid to be alone?

“It’s very hard to spend time with yourself when you don’t like yourself. When a person is alone, he suddenly has time to go into the depths of himself, to observe the disgusting and unresolved things, to dig into them, and it is not pleasant for you. Actually, it’s “easier” to be in the role of a victim than to start solving the individual topics on your own.”

I assume that you and your partners weren’t just locked up at home. When you went out among the people, how did the people in question behave?

“Great. They are the biggest entertainers in society. Exclusive manipulators. But even the aggressor loses steam after a while and people notice that something is not OK. At our foundation’s preventive lectures, I always say: If you have an intuition at the beginning of a relationship, don’t ignore it. If you feel something is wrong, I’m not saying you have to break up with that person right away, but be aware of it. When he does something that you are uncomfortable with to begin with, it should be an exclamation point in your head, and if it happens again, even though you say it is uncomfortable, then the exclamation point should be screaming and go away. A person who truly likes you will not repeatedly do something that hurts you.”

How did you feel when you finally realized you weren’t going to put up with this anymore and walked away from that last and worst relationship?

“Terrible, actually. After all, you are going through a breakup and that is never pleasant. The fear subsided, but the pain came. As you don’t like yourself and don’t want to be alone, you experience feelings of emptiness. In the past, I always solved this by finding someone new and everything happened again. But after the last one, the psychologist and also the videos from Bára Englishová, who give advice on how to work with fear and guide you to self-love, helped me a lot. I recommend it to everyone! I swore to myself that I didn’t want to live like this anymore, and I started working hard on myself.”

Can it be said that you already like each other today?

“It’s a lifelong journey, but I can say that I’m having a great time and I can finally realize my true worth. Anyway, I take everything from the other side – I am happy for everything that has happened in my life. Without it, I would never have found myself and I would never be where I am today. What helped me is to really dive into myself. Everyone should take ten minutes for themselves every day. And whoever says they don’t have time is bullshitting. After all, we are on the toilet or in the bathroom every day. Or maybe even before you fall asleep. And in these minutes to evaluate the day, who I made happy that day, to thank myself for what he was able to do, to be kind to myself, to connect with myself and to “embrace myself”.

You are very slim and I wonder if as a model, even the winner of Miss 2018, and also a victim of domestic violence, have you ever had problems with eating disorders…

“That’s the only area my exes have helped me with. Of course, at a certain point I started to go crazy, I didn’t want to eat or I tried to get the food out of me somehow, I valued everything, I hid the food and threw it away… But I never got to the stage where I had to go to the hospital, for example. When they saw that I was fooling around and losing weight and not eating, they somehow forced me to eat. I could be grateful to them for that.”

Are you friends with food today?

“Absolutely and never again! I realized that I only live once and life should be enjoyed! After all, I won’t get upset and limit myself. I eat everything – pizza, chocolate and fast food. I also work out for it, but overall the point is that I already know my own value and I would never even think of harming myself by not eating. I love my body the way it is and I thank it for doing everything for me. I don’t want to trouble him any more.”

Do you exercise regularly?

“Before covid, I was in the gym every day. Exercise calms me down, gives me a feeling of relaxation. But since I often don’t have time, I have now made my ritual and goal to do at least ten squats and push-ups every day. It’s great because usually you’ll do more when you’re at it, but you know that if you only manage ten, that’s fine because that was his minimum limit. It’s good to set smaller and achievable goals. A person is then happy with himself that he really accomplished it, and on top of that, he does something regularly.”

Your current destination is Los Angeles, where you are flying to meet your girlfriend. What do you like to do together in your spare time?

“We practice yoga, we travel, we go oystering… This is our ritual together, LP taught me to love them. She is vegetarian but eats fish and seafood. We love beaches, meeting friends, watching good movies…”

I assume you are together more often in America?

“It depends on what our work responsibilities are. At the beginning of the year, she was probably more in Prague because she was on tour in Europe. Now I’m back in America more often. For me, America is like a second home, I fell in love with it. The energy in Los Angeles is extraordinary. I really feel that I can fly there, that I can do everything there.”

You like eccentric style, so I guess you feel better there in that direction as well.

“Exactly. I can wear what I wear here for a photo shoot there and no one will think it’s weird. Anyway, I always said that I didn’t know if I wanted to live in the Czech Republic in the future, it kept pulling me out. For example, I once wanted to try modeling abroad, but I promised myself and my parents that my studies would always be a priority for me, so I never got around to it.”

Now is your chance to…

“That’s right, I’m casting nets, so we’ll see how it goes. I don’t want to comment any further on it yet.”

You were a moderator until recently Breakfast with Nova, where you were fired. How did you take it?

“Very positively. It was a beautiful life stage for which I am really very grateful. It gave me many experiences in my life, and especially true love and friends. I experienced more there than I ever dreamed. And it should be like that, something ends, something begins. At the moment, I’m already motivated for another work adventure. And if I have a dream, I go headlong into it and go after it. Ideally, I would like it so far that I would satisfy my moderator soul here in the Czech Republic and my modeling soul across the ocean. But we’ll see, it’s all still a work in progress.”

Is a wedding or starting a family in the process?

“It is still too early to decide, but I would like children one day. But now I’m glad that everything develops gradually and naturally, we don’t put pressure on each other. I think that even in a relationship everything has its time, and I’m looking forward to what we have in common next.”