Help - have I behaved terribly or not?

[dollfin]

I am having a horrible time (again) with my partner and I need some sensible advice.

I went to the UK part of a wedding on Friday night (overseas part was in Italy) with my partner, his son and my son. When I arrived there I had no issue whatsoever but my partners family kept asking if I was ok, probably around 20 or 30 times. In the end I asked what they were talking about and it emerged that 2 of my partners exes were going to be at the party. One lady who he has an 18 daughter with and I get on with well and one girl who he was with for 8 years but has no children with. Now if i'm completely honest, I have no problem with the ex who he has kids with, thats his family and she has a special place in his life. I am always friendly with her and we get on fine. The other girl I have a bit of a problem with. The family seem to favour her over everyone in some way, she was invited to the hen do and I wasn't. She is always with my DPs sister as they are still very good friends and I know that she was devastated when she and my DP split up. They split up over 5 years ago now and she hasn't had a boyfriend since. I think she still has feelings for him but I don't know for sure.

Anyway, I tried to put all this aside at the party and have a nice time. It was made very hard because when I wandered up to my partner having a chat with someone, he was also talking about his other ex, DS's Mum. It was all getting a bit much and to be honest, normally I'm so secure and self confident but I was starting to feel unimportant and horrible.

I know that his sister is not very keen on me and when I was having a dance she started asking whether I was ok that my son was with someone he didn't know upstairs (he was with a babysitter i use regularly, he is 3 and she arrived to look after him at 9pm because he was tired and had a full day at school). I told her he wasn't with someone he didn't know, he was with a regular babysitter and he was fine). But this pissed me off a bit. Then she started on with the 'was I ok?' again and at this point I just told her what I thought. I said that I was confused at why Emma hasn't really moved on, I felt a bit sorry for my DP that she was invited to all family gatherings and that our relationship hasn't really had the space to grow and be accepted by his family. She then responded my saying the girl is a family member and I basically should just get over it because shes always going to be around.

She then asked me to go outside with her and used the whole thing as an opportunity to rake up an incident that had happened a long time ago when she had looked after my DS (6months old at the time) and she had taken him out in an unsafe car, past his bedtime and not called me to let me know. At the time I was angry about this and we fell out but I had since thought it was all forgotten about. She brought this up again and made wild accusations about the evening, accusing me of all sorts of things that hand on my heart, I didn't do or say. I got more and more upset outside, kept telling her that I wasn't going to agree with her as those things didn't happen and then my DP came over. He heard the things she was saying and he took her side. We went back to the room and he called me the worst names ever, I'm not even writing them they make me feel so horrible. Everytime I tried to explain to him what had happened he screamed at me and he told me to go home first thing in the morning so I didn't see anyone. I've since had the silent treatment since then and it shows no sign of stopping. I sent him a long email yesterday and he replied saying 'if you contact me again I will be forced to take matters out of your hands'.

I feel completely bewildered and hugely upset. I probably could have dealt with the whole ex thing better but I feel pushed out and like an outcast in his family. The fact i wasn't invited to the hen do and me and my son were not invited to the wedding in Italy was really difficult to deal with. I had had enough of people asking me if I was ok and I didn't have a go at the sister, I just explained how I felt. I feel pretty sure if she was in my situation she would feel the same. She then used that to dredge up something from the past that I have tried so hard to put right, she has made no effort at all.

My DP and I are in the middle of buying a house together, we were meant to be going to Blackpool with my family later this week and I feel dreadful. I haven't eaten anything for 3 days and he will not speak to me. I feel like his sister totally set out to do this and I feel like she is having a really good laugh at me behind my back. She has also posted a picture on facebook captioned 'my favourite photo of the night' and it is her with all of his exes dancing on the dancefloor. I feel in my heart of hearts like she is purposefully trying to be a bitch and make me miserable. I don't know what to do. Help.

You have done really well not responding. Now contact the solicitor tomorrow, don't buy the house.
You sound far too lovely to have to put up with him and his bizarre harem of exes.

Hi good morning Dollfin, I hope that today is the start if a new and positive you and ds, taking positive steps today to be free from your abuser. Hopefully you will be one of his many exes, and being free from him will do your anxieties and self confidence tge world of good. Feel angry at him, feel mad, that he can have the audacity to treat you like this and get away with it. No more! Sending you strength and positive vibes.

Bump

OP another one here wishing you strength for today. It is hard. You can absolutely get through it and you will eventually be so so much happier, but it is hard.

I really don't know what to say about his emails. I'm a bit confused actually - so you get one which is basically an outpouring of filth and resentment, then one with ?less abusive language which is more self-pitying - the start of the 'blame' part of the cycle - is that right? Or are they the same email? It doesn't really matter I suppose. It must be making your head spin. Or maybe it isn't, as you make it clear in several posts that you get to go through this treatment on a regular basis - 'four horrible years.' 'every time I have done something that isn't right'. Jesus Christ, is all I can say to that.

To continue to try and help here - from I hope a reasonable person's point of view - yes of course it's difficult to leap straight into 'He is an abuser!' when it's the person you have this complex, intense and yes passionate and loving relationship with too. It would be much easier if he was violent. It is very difficult to see that what he is, how he works, how he relates to people is just as violent, unpleasant and destructive - however, I think you are seeing now that it is. And that if anything, it is even more potentially damaging and dangerous for your child, to be exposed to this kind of dysfunction and to grow up thinking 'that's how relationships work.' Heaven forbid that one day you hear your 20-something son say to you, about his partner - 'I'm not going to forgive her yet, scutty bitch, she can grovel for a bit - I've told her what I think of her.' Yuk, yuk, yuk.

You know, this series of emails, and what he's said - any reasonable person - any reasonable pair of people, in a 'relationship', where this was the staus quo - they would be saying right now -'That is it. We are clearly not making each other happy. For both our sakes, we should end our relationship.' Maybe that would be a helpful, less dramatic way to approach all this? In your own mind, of course, more than with him - he isn't reasonable, and what you ARE going to get if you dare to try and decide the partnership is over is the sobbing, crying, blaming himself, his upbringing, his insecurity, his faults, even his family - anything to reel you back in - then the anger and threats if that doesn't work.

But you can calmly point to what he has said in these emails and say - 'Look, you are clearly not happy with me. I don't make you happy. You don't make me happy - I don't like and won't accept this abusive language and the way you treat me. If you think I'm so bad, then YOU TOO should agree that we are not suited, and we should split. If you don't think that, if you want to continue to be together, then what that says is that all this hideous abuse was simply sent in order to make me suffer. That is horrible and abusive and I refuse to accept that that person loves me. So either way, the sensible logical answer is that we split.'

It won't work. It won't make sense to him, because he is a damaged and abusive person to whom this kind of treatment is simply a normal part of the relationship. It's no surprise that he has a string of strange exes and children, no surprise that he has the family he has. You can feel sorry for that, but sacrificing you and your child's happiness to that is too much.

I hope that you feel a bit better today. Your life is out there, waiting for you to step back into it and be genuinely happy again.

Dollfin if you are still trying to make sense of what he says to you and still desperately want to 'make things right' so that you can make your 'lovely' 'handsome' partner happy with you again then you are probably too damaged for MN to help.

For you to excuse his behaviour 'oh he is lovely with ds' etc ignores the fact that EVERYBODY has a lovely, charming side.

It is the dark side, the side that reveals itself when things go wrong/not according to plan that reveals a person's true character.

Your 4 years with this man has broken your spirit completely if you cannot see that his actions prove he does not respect you, he uses and abuses, humiliates and badmouths you to you and all his family members.

Only when you are tired of being his doormat and are getting used to the idea that he is now your ex will your life turn around for the better.

I agree castle, if not yourself, do it fir your ds. Woukd you like him to treat his partner, how your partner treats you. Because this is the example of relationships he has to follow, is that what you want for your ds!

I do believe it is starting to dawn on you, you are gaining some enlightenment now. If it's been 4. Horrible years without you living with him, then it going to be a whole it worse once you live with him. You will be very isolated. He is not with you, or on your side, that is a no no in a living and caring partnership.

I know it's horrid for the buyers of your house, and you buying the house, that your pulling out. But you are not in a position to buy and sell anymore. You gave to put you and ds number one, tgey will find another house and another person will buy their house. You need to escape thus abusive relationship.

Agreed that all abusers aren't evil horrible people all the time.

If they were - or rather, the ones that are - thankfully become unlikely to have partners and relationships at all.

No, it's the damaged people like this one who manage to function enough to end up entwining partners and causing this kind of havoc. Especially, sadly, ones who are superficially charming, successul in their career, and physically attractive. They look the part. They look like a 'good catch'. They look and mainly act normal.

But then you get to this point. Where you stand back and look at the four years you have spent with this particular person and describe it as 'four horrible years'. Where you are on the receiving end of hideous, foul abuse that you'd never dreamt (before this relationship) that you'd hear outside of a Jeremy Kyle episode. And you begin to see the real person hiding underneath the normal exterior.

Much harder a process than simply going on a date with someone and seeing a violent, clearly damaged person and naturally immediately deleting their number! And after four years, very hard to get yourself out of.

"I am just really down. He emailed me and said that he was so stressed and anxious by everything that I had put him through that it made him forget the anniversary of his dads death on sunday."

You know what? Of it all, he can just fuck the fuck off with that.
What a piece of shit he is to use something like that to beat you with.
I absolutely abhor this sort of emotional blackmail. It infuriates me. People who stoop to tactics like this, are wholly reliant on social convention and manners to gain advantage. They know no one will challenge them about that subject.

Well I would. I'd say "your father's anniversary is your own responsibility, and your guilt tripping won't work with me. I accept no part in your memory loss".

He'll go mental of course, but who gives a toot?

PC playing up so quickly want to say - take Kalms. 3 times a day, does what it says on the tin, brilliant xx

How are you today op?

I've been following this thread for a few days not knowing what to say as it has all been said by others before me.

Op I hope that today you can find your inner strength to start the rest of your life, please try and sort the solicitors out and spend the rest of the day as you please with your little boy.

Sending you bigs hugs, I so hope that you can break this vicious cycle he's dragged you into- you are worth so much more than him!

Lovely post, amicissimma. I agree with every word.

Castlemilk and amicissimma wonderful, well thought out and well written posts, I am sure they will bring the OP some much needed comfort and perspective.

OP I hope you are okay, l'm willing you on to your better life, neither you nor your son need or deserve this man in your life and the misery he brings.

I really hope this silence from Dollfin is because she is busy shirting a better life for herself and her ds and not because she has apologised to him and got back in her box.

I also couldnt just read and run.

OP - i know £1000 is a lot of money but it is a small price to pay to get this person out of your life. Everything i would say has been said on this thread.

Please find the strength - remember that night watching EE with a glass of wine - hang onto that feeling you had then - you knew then you would be fine without him.

HI Dollfin. I have just read the thread and agree with what has been said. I hope you are able to sort things out for yourself and your son. Completely agree with Martha - £1000 is a fair bit of money - but not much to sacrifice in terms of your long term future.

How are you today Dollfin?

I really hope Dollfin has nit done anything silly

Ah I'm fine girls! Just had a hard day and went to see my Mum for a bit. I'm fine honestly. No contact, just getting myself together.

Bless you.

Did you talk to your Mum about it all?

Good on you Dollfin did you tell your mum? The more no contact, the easier it will become. Hope it was a fruitful day xxx

We don't know you, have never met you, but we care more fir you, and want the best for you and your ds, than that horrid abuser.