I've sat up all night reading the Lundy Bancroft Book and

[funkingcart]

my XH is a water torturer with a bit of Mr perfect thrown in

I am trying to co-parent with this man.

Has anyone got any tips? After reading the book I think its going to be exceedingly difficult.

And I can also recognise in myself the damage he's done. Any tips for that?

[BitOfFun]

I've never read it What did it tell you?

[funkingcart]

BOF - I would highly recommend it its called "Why does he do that"

(And its why I'm still awake at almost 4am)

Basically Lundy Bancroft thinks that it is highly unlikely that he'll change - the water torturer genuinely believes there is nothing wrong with his behaviour and rarely completes a programme (not that xh would anyway)

I hve learnt what made him and how he ticks but I'm also sad, since because he's a water torturer there is basically no hope for it ever changing. It helped to see that I wasn't going mad though and that what he was doing was abuse, iyswim?

Brilliant read but it has unsettled me

[MummieHunnie]

I had a quick read of the bits on amazon on line! it sounds interesting, it cuts off at Laura's story...

I am not sleeping also due to a shitty exh's behaviour recently lol x

What has unsettled you?

Can you explain more what a water torturer is, and what they say about that sort of man as a parent?

How much co parenting do you do?

[funkingcart]

I suppose it has unsettled me that he'll never changed and that I have years and years of this behaviour to get through because I have kids with him

We share custody 50/50 although recently its not been working out like that - I've had the kids more like 70/30

I have a thread about the latest incident here

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/1102793-And-breathe-small-rant

According to Lundy Bancroft, a water torturer

-stays very calm

-superior grin on his face (oh how that is true)

-aggressive conversational tactics

-twists things

-relentless in his quiet derision (that so struck a chord)

-genuinely believes there is nothing wrong with his behaviour

His central attitudes according to lundy are :

You're crazy
I can convince others you're the one who is messed up
As long as I am calm nothing I do is abusive
I know exactly how to get under your skin

There's a story in the book which happened in my marriage a bazilion times, it is about a couple getting ready to go out, the woman getting more and more uptight as she tries to get herself and kids ready, the man off doing a totally irrelevant task, wife is getting more and more wound up, husband sits reading paper, then its the kids who are telling the mother to get ready and go with out the father, she ends up in tears and decides they aren't going because she's too upset and her partner isn't ready.

At that point father appears and calmly says lets go - and plays life and soul of the party for the afternooon, while the wife looks like the bad grumpy one because she is upset and hasn't been able to shake it off.

That has really hit home for me and yet its not one of the things I would have called abuse. But it happened almost every time we had to go anywhere.

Sorry - long!

[funkingcart]

Please excuse my typos my hands are shaking - I can spell - honest!

[LittleMissHoHoHoFit]

It sitting in a drawer won't do any good at all will it?

Just wondering, if you know your relationship has failed, that his behaviour is abusive/toxic/no bloody good, and you are going to split, is it worth reading still?

I can add to that going out scenario. 'H' then gets ready 10 minutes before you do and then starts going out and telling you he'll wait for you outside, why is it taking so long, when you are struggling to get the DC ready, and he has sat doing FA.

Unless it's something I want to do, in which case it's left to the last minute and he then decides he needs a shower at the time you said you want to leave the house....

[LittleMissHoHoHoFit]

I was just wondering from my perspective btw, is it worth ME reading it still?

[funkingcart]

LittleMiss - me and ex are split over a year.

I only read it yesterday

It might have been useful if I'd read it when we were together.

Although to be honest I think I needed to get there in my own time.

[gettingeasier]

Little miss I have been split a year now and read some of the book a couple of months ago and still found it useful to move on.

If you are emotionally done and dusted then maybe it would be pointless but if you still find yourself asking why this or why that then I would take a look.

Actually op posting has has made me realise I could maybe do with another look as her xh sounds similar to mine but I didnt get to the water boarding bit. Its often recommended but isnt a book I found easy to read iyswim.

[LittleMissHoHoHoFit]

Thing is, if we read something, that identifies that they are not going to change, then there is only one way to go isn't there?

If we are over, and I read it, will it help me understand why things happened, will it help me to heal? Will it help me to deal with him going forward.

'H' is totally shocked at the opinion I have formed of him based on his actions. he can't understand why I'm angry with him. He says he didn't do it on purpose.

I find that hard to believe that ALL this shit he has pulled has been completely coincidental and accidental...

Will dust off that book...

[notsocrates]

marks place

[funkingcart]

Oh but you have to understand

My ex never means any of the stuff he does - like him "forgetting" to tell DD2 to put a coat on - apparently I should have phoned him to remind him to tell her to put a coat on.

Nothing is ever his reponsibility.

And I am a headcase. Unhinged. Off my rocker. He is so patient and understanding to have put up with me for so long. I am the one in the wrong.

[gettingeasier]

Correct funking and one of the things I have pride in is that I have failed to provide him with a single opportunity to call me a nutter as he was so fond of.

I have confounded him by being overly reasonable , accepting and calm about a number of issues with him and his ow. I honestly think at this point he is maddened by it and I would like to think from time to time he wonders if after all I wasnt this basket case he liked to call me and maybe just maybe he was wrong. Doubt it though.

[funkingcart]

I think that's part of what my ex is up to at the minute - I've moved the goal posts (I've moved on in my life and he can't do some of the stuff he used to do) and I've got on with my life on my own and I've not fallen apart.

Also, he asks me to do something, like shifts the times to keep the kids, I agree all the time.

He used to call me thick and stupid and I am proving that I'm not that either

As another name, I did post a thread about how it was my fault that there was a bank holiday when it didn't suit him and he didn't want there to be one

[gettingeasier]

You got me there funking mine isnt that barmy !

[LittleMissHoHoHoFit]

Oh, I see,

..so us moving house in the middle of winter no cooker no CH (not in England), no food, and despite him saying he'd get some food sent in for me and DS, when I asked him about it, he utterly bollocked me at high volume in his office in front of everyone, hung up and refused to answer the phone... Eventually forcing me to ring his business partner in tears and beg him to find 'H' and ask him what we were supposed to eat.

That then really WASN'T his responsibility was it? He didn't really mean to do all that?

OK.. got it I was being utterly unreasonable.

It IS so much easier when we disengage isn't it? When you are past caring it just slides right off... Drives them mental...

This is the one that woke me up at 2.30am, made me go down stairs as he had to talk to me, that it was really important... What was it? He asked me NOT to call him a TWAT again.

Yes, that went down well with me too... I was so incensed that I was actually speechless!

They WANT our reaction, they feed off it.

[gettingeasier]

Stop it please my xh is starting to look saintly and thats the last thing I need

[LittleMissHoHoHoFit]

But he is your EX... and I have yet to get to that stage yet..

SO I need to look at YOU learn that I don't need to put up with all this as it's utterly extreme, and I am right to end it.

As you look at our 'lot' and say bloody hell, My Ex wasn't as bad as that. Sadly we can look around at others on here and say the same.. It's all relative.

What we all have in common though is that ALL of us deserve BETTER.

[funkingcart]

I wish I'd read the book earlier -would've stopped my buying into his reality for so long.


I had lost my sense of normal.

It was only coming on here that gave me it back. He had isolated me from all my friends, and I hardly saw my family. (I Know I Know I Know)

[GertieWooster]

First time poster ? long time lurker.

I bought the book after seeing it recommended on here so many times. Unfortunately Bancroft wrote it 5 years after I needed it (mumsnet would have been handy too ) but it has still been an emotional read, even though I would consider that I am truly over my ex and he can no longer control me. I also think that it will help me to spot any future potential abusers that may have a different modus operandi.

Funkingcart I was blamed for things that had happened to my ex before we had even met

[funkingcart]

I have found it a hard book to read - so much of it touched a nerve

[gettingeasier]

Oh yes Littlemiss my xh (still in divorce process but to me he is x)was awful to me but in far more transparent ways as well as some of the more subtle stuff that makes you think you are the problem. You are right its all relative , relatively shit.

[GertieWooster]

It does make for difficult reading. I was really surprised at the huge range of emotions I went through, including, bizarrely, feeling quite cross with ex for not being so special and unique after all. I can?t quite explain what I mean but it was a bit like the book was pointing out to me that I had just been suckered in by a well-known trick.

My situation is different from yours in that we weren?t co-parenting our son. One thing that really helped me cope/deal with him after we split was learning from my counsellor that I could not change him and to not to try to second-guess what he was thinking and how he would react to what I did. Whatever I did he would find fault with anyway, so instead I made decisions based on what I wanted and what I thought was best.

I didn?t so much stand up to him as stand up for myself. With that his power seemed to fade. Of course, this didn?t happen overnight ? nor was it without some backlashing and threats (a wise solicitor was also handy at this point). As we don?t live near each other, he has been able to reinvent himself to a whole new audience and is quite happy pretending to be father of the year, to the poor women he befriends, whilst showing no genuine interest in our son at all. Now I?m out the other side

[funkingcart]

The thing I have found hard is that in the last week or two its been quite minor things he's done - in the grand scheme of things - that have really upset me and have reduced me to tears - and I never cry!