He said I'm abusive...am I?

[redwhiteandbluee]

Il try and summarise as much as possible.
I've always thought I'm a nice person,i have a good heart.
I met a guy through mutual friends.
Instantly we clicked and we spoke all day every day.
He told me at the time "I send women crazy" obviously I just took it as a joke at the time.
He told me all his ex girlfriends have hit him and he was worried he would find another "unstable woman".
We started dating and all was great,we weren't "official " but he called me his GF.
Then he started messing with my head.
Talking to other women.
Then sleeping with other women and telling me about it.
We weren't official so I couldn't say anything.
I kidded myself that it was okay and eventually he would stop.
I asked him where we were going and explained I just wanted to be official-he said he was worried by me saying that as I was being a bit too intense by asking that.
Then we went away for a break and had the best time-I thought this time we were going to make a go of it.
He said things like he wanted to be official -then slept with another woman and sent me a selfie of them both.
Obviously I was upset and sent him a long text explaining he was a joke,that he was hurting me etc -then I was scared to loose him so let it drop.
This repeated itself a few times and I would always apologise for getting upset.
This went on for 8 months.
In these 8 months we spoke daily all day etc

He then told me he was looking to date -and asked if I had any single friends.
He said he wouldn't date me as I get "too emotional " he said "I've been putting up with abuse from you for months and just been the bigger person and let it slide"
I tried explaining how he was treating me was the reason I was sending the long texts and getting upset.

He told me I should try learn from this so I don't abuse another man.
I'm not abusive- he broke my heart
I'm not abusive am I ?
There's so much more he did -but I would be here for days

Wow..read it back and then ditch him once and for all. What an absolute joker..you deserve better

OP
This is not going to be very useful.
But I found the same - that the person who cares less is always able to have the upper hand in terms of emotional behaviour.
I don't know what the answer is. Maybe men / people like this are able to get into ?situationships without caring much from the start. Because I know that the solution for you / I is to start caring less. Which is easy to say and hard to do.

He would twist everything
He would make out as if I imagined things that didn't happen.
He called me narcissistic -I'm not.
I don't understand what he was trying to do to me.

Er, why are you still engaging with this behaviour?

There could hardly be any more red flags!

You're not abusive, but you do need some urgent help by the sound of it. Why did you put up with being treated like this? Surely, reading it back you can see it wasn't right from very early on?

Yeah I can see it wasn't normal.
He made out that I made it like that.
The my reaction was the issue.
I did try explaining the things he did was causing me to send long messages etc but to him I was abusive

You're not alone OP.
I've just ended a relationship that was very similar.
I ended up questioning myself, and believing that I was being too intense. This went on for 4 years!!
I didn't even meet his family in that time, although he was eating at mine every night and calling myself and my children his family.

Please drop him. I promise you, he won't change xx

Some men outright lie to get their own way. He’s obviously realised that he can mess with your head by calling you abusive. He doesn’t even think it’s true, just wants to get away with his own awful behaviour.

He wants to have his cake and eat it, with added cream and jam on it.

Please walk away and don’t waste a second more of your time on this selfish, scheming, entitled dick.

You are not abusive.

You are the victim of an abuser.

Please please look after yourself now, read up around abusive relationships and the freedom programme and focus on getting yourself to a place where you truly feel strong and recovered with clarity on what happened here.

First red flag for me was his immediate conversation about how previous partners have physically abused him. I had one of those and believed him. I found out the hard way he was the abusive one and he had form for it. He went on to his next relationship and told her I regularly hit him. If you have been in an abusive relationship it isn't easy to talk to others about and certainly not the first thing you tell someone.
Get out now while you can.

He's a textbook emotional abuser

I stopped reading after the "he slept with other women". You should have left after this. Please tell me you've kicked him to the curb

In the kindest way possible you need to get some self respect. He doesn't care, not in the way you need or want him to. He's using you as a plaything for his own entertainment and the only reason he continues to do this is because you let him. He doesn't care enough to offer anything of value and only cares enough to torment you because you allow it and he gets pleasure from it. Just thing about that for a minute. I'm not one for blocking, but you need to block him, delete him and have a stern word with yourself to make sure you never accept this dire treatment off any man or woman ever again.

@redwhiteandbluee No you’re not abusive. Also 99% of the time if a man says he was previously in an abusive relationship with a woman- it’s going to turn out he was in fact the abuser. It’s a classic red flag I’m afraid.

Other red flags include: expressing jealousy and possessiveness (this is a predictor not just emotional abuse but also later physical abuse and sometimes murder), saying you are so different to other women/better than women he’s been with before; getting very intense early in the relationship; pushing to go to the ‘next step’ quite quickly after meeting; losing his temper suddenly especially early in the relationship; reality denying i.e denying he said or did something you clearly remember him doing- more than once; pushing sexual boundaries and relationship norms beyond what you’re comfortable with; love bombing- ie showering you with praise, gifts, intimacy, and sometimes extending to family and friends; conversely- taking against a family member or friend you are close to.

In short, you probably need to just get out of this all together, it’s not you- it’s him. These people are really good at manipulating other peoples emotions so don’t give yourself a hard time about it, but do get out now. And don’t look back, however painful I 100% promise you in a couple of months you will be so glad you did. Men like this are dangerous

Stop engaging with him

No your not abusive your "wordy" it's annoying but not abuse

Why on earth do you apologise or try to explain your perfectly reasonable expectations to such a low life piece of scum?

Good grief. Leave him behind and please please please get some help to learn to assert your own boundaries and expectations. If you allow someone to treat you like dirt, they might do just that. Why do you accept such awful treatment? You don't deserve it. You're not abusive, the total opposite in fact - you have been abused, dreadfully so.

You need to learn to walk away as soon as someone starts to manipulate you, but you can't do that if you don't recognise it as manipulation. I know there are various organisations out there who can help you to break free from this kind of pattern, I just wish I could remember who they are.

This has seriously shocked me to the core 😳 wtf!! He's the abusive one!!!

I read all of your post but when I read the second line of your post, I thought, I bet I can guess how this unfolds. Sorry. I don't mean that you're predictable. Just that it's a common dynamic.

I don't for a second doubt that you are a good person but the problem for you is that you having mistakenly internalised having your own agenda (where you can expect a decent minimum level of respect from somebody) as ''not nice''.

Ask yourself why you believe that ''good people'' can't have their own agenda?
If what you want is commitment, then why do you think that that is incompatible with being good.

Sorry to keep repeating that but think it's key. Were you raised to believe that expressing any need was trouble, hassle, inconvenience?

You're GOOD when you never complain?

Even when you're treated badly, it's like such a core part of your identity that you're Good that you never complain or bail. But good does not mean never complaining or never having a high bar for others or walking away from a lack of respect.

You don't have to fall in to line with somebody else's agenda to treat you quite casually.

You can decide that no, that's not good enough for me. Because after all, good people should deserve good things right?

I have listened to a number of Beverley Engel's books on audible but her first in particular would be good for you I think, Nice Girl Syndrome. Take it from somebody who isn't judging (I have the book on my shelf).

I really like Natalie Lue's Mr Unavailable and the Fall back girl too, the two together would be great for you.

x

Sending you photos with other women? Eughh vile 😩😩😷

Based on this, no you're not. He is though. Read back what you've written, imagine it's your best friend, sister, someone you love telling you this is what they've gone through. You would tell them he's manipulative, controlling, nasty and not worth a moment of their time. You would want to save them from what their horrible man was doing to them.

Yes. Agree. My abusive ex, when we met 20 years ago he played this con on me.
His exes had treated him terribly so I was going to have to RESTORE his faith in women because he'd been let down so terribly by women.

I was so UNDEFENDED at the time (boundaries were not something I felt entitled to, didn't really understand the whole concept) that he just made me feel his feelings more acutely than I experienced my own, and so therefore I was trained to feel his ''hurt'' when I hurt him by not doing exactly what he wanted me to do.

Such a classic abusers con.

Firstly and most importantly you are not abusive.

Secondly have a think even if you weren’t official do you think you would have asked if he had single friends for you to date? Would you have sent him a selfie of you with another man? Would you be telling and giving details of other people you were sleeping with, whilst also being with him?

If the answer the to above is no, then ask yourself why it’s no. Is it because it’s cruel and hurtful to do this to someone who clearly has feelings for you, is it because you know full well that if would mess with their head and upset them. OP he knows all of this too and has simply used your not official status to keep on purposefully upsetting and hurting you. He knows exactly what he is doing, and no matter that you might talk all day and have a great time together sometimes, this man will never be what you want him to be and this relationship will never be what you hope for…because if he can be so cruel as to hurt you like this now and in the early days when he should be on his best behaviour and treating you like a Queen he will never ever get better and will only go on to hurt you and in ever increasingly upsetting ways and until there is nothing left of you for him to take.

He is deeply damaged and just an ugly nasty cruel human being, and nothing you can do or say will ever fix him.

You deserve so much better, truly you do so keep telling yourself this and bin the cruel bastard off! 💐

He's a SICKO! Drop him and never look back. You will look ridiculous otherwise.

He's an absolute twat. Block him immediately and never engage with him again
Ever