To be fuming-offended?!

[Beadieeye]

I'm just coming out the other side of a sexually, emotionally, financially, physically abusive relationship (sorry but I hope that sums it up as I don't want to go into it). It's still very early days. I've been so hopeless that I feel I've ruined my children's summer holidays because I'm empty and weak and unable to face anyone.
Family haven't been supportive at all. They either think I should've 'made it work' for the kids' sake or just get on with it. No surprises there really, I know I've been brilliant fodder for gossip for most of them.
But my sister. I was really close to her. I shouldn't have, but I reached out to her when I was at my lowest, bleeding in my bedroom. I would tell her I was in hell and couldn't see a way out. She would either ignore me or say 'I don't see the appeal of your relationship, just leave him!' and when I didn't, because it isn't go straightforward, she just cut me off and said I must enjoy being with him.
Now I've found out she's gone for a volunteering position...helping out domestic abuse survivors. I'm so hurt. How can she think she can help anyone? And if she can, why did she not extend help or advice to me? I feel sick.

ummmmmm first of all well done for finding the will to get out and i hope the will to stay out!

sorry i have to ask... how many times did your sister say ltb? it might be a case of her stepping back until you were forced to make the decision to leave?

Often we hear things like this and you will hear that friends have said ltb and the woman ( in most cases its a woman) doesn't and after long enough they just step back and say to themselves when shes ready ill be there for her but until she is i cant do anything to help.

She might have been feeling as helpless to help you as you were to help yourself, maybe?
( now she is getting training in dealing with others in your situation she will understand how hard it is and understand where you were self esteem wise etc)

Maybe she didn't understand how to help you?

Whilst what you want is emotional support from your family (and this need may have gone on for months or years) remember that your ongoing support of your DH in his actions for as long as you didnt leave him, whilst due to real difficulties, was exceptionally frustrating, distressing, helpless, stressful and annoying for your family. The fact you were having emotions doesnt mean noone else was affected at all. It can be very difficult for people close to you, who want the best for you, to cope when you keep turning to them for consolation but they are powerless to make you do what is necessary for it to stop. You felt like you were powerless, but you had the power they did not - they could not force you to leave him, or remove him from your life,, but had to watch you suffering instead. That is an emotional experience too, and most people do not have an infinite supply of sympathy for someone who takes a long time to stop someone from hurting them. Whilst you have been through a really tough time, you do not have a monopoly on emotions.

So cutting you off may have been the only intervention she felt she could make to get you to leave him. And perhaps now she wants to learn how to help people more constructively and to understand why you stayed with him for so long by helping others with whom she is less emotionally involved. Perhaps she sees it as her penitence from the guilt of not being able to get you to leave your partner sooner.

It sounds like a really good chance for you to constructively explore with her the strain your ex put on your relationship with her.

KimmySchmidt you put exactly what was in my head but i didnt know how to put on paper as it were

Maybe she's doing it to learn more about it so she can support you more.

There's a reason you were conditioned to think an abusive arse was an acceptable person to be in a relationship with.

You were trained to be abused.

By your family.

999/1000 a victim of abuse will have a Shitty family like yours. Like mine.

Cut the fucking lot of them off. Today, and I swear you'll feel better when their poison begins to leave your system.

My ex beat me up.

My mum and sister both rang woman's aid to get help.

FOR THEMSELVES!

I know because they complained to me that WA basically told them they were wankers and to piss off.

I'm at arms length with my sister, and nc with my parents. I could bore you for years with the crap they pulled when I was in the relationship and when I finally got out

Fwiw, they were beyond awful when I got free.

They somehow WANTED me to stay in the relationship. I think because it made their respective lives/relationships look better.

Please get proper help from gp etc, anywhere to help you not harm yourself

You're worth more than all this pain love

Urgh...And I bet she used you and your marriage in her interview

Not suprised you are pissed off. Not sure what you can do to sooth that. She probably wouldn't understand, if you tried to talk to her. Gross

Sorry but anyone who would say that to a victim is categorically not suitable to work with DV survivors.

I say that as someone with a decade of experience in this field and a mother who was abused for years, so I do know what I'm talking about, and yes I have witnessed it from the other side.

I think rather than being resentful or hurt at her actions you could try and recognise that it is probably because she didn't know hoe to help you that she has decided to get some training. I don't really see how it is offensive to you. It is a positive step she is taking.

No, sod that OP, you don't have to make any effort to try and understand it from your sisters POV. You have every right to feel hurt and angry about this. Your sister has the sensitivity of a brick.

I would be tempted to write her a letter. And then leave her to it, until/if you feel like making contact again

What on earth does the stupid woman think she has to offer, of any use??

I can totally empathise with you OP. - my mum abandoned me for 6 months when I had a complete mental breakdown because she 'couldn't cope' and now she volunteers for Samaritans! I was so hurt when I found out- she can help complete strangers but not her own daughter. I'm very LC with her now.

I suspect it's your very situation that's led her to want to learn more about it and help others. Maybe she didn't know how to help you, maybe she tried and it went on so long she didn't know what else to say, it's hard to understand when someone stays repeatedly through this. If she wants to help she will be trained and may make a difference to others. I wouldn't be fuming, I'd assume she didn't know how to help, and wants to learn and help others.

I'd also try to think of it from her side, it's very hard to watch someone uou love put themselves through this, to know and to listen and to keep having to listen, she must have felt helpless, angry for uou, sad, distressed, impotent,sickened, the lot. Sadly it will have impacted her too.

she can help complete strangers but not her own daughter

But uou understand how much harder it is when it's your own, the emotion and pain it causes, right? 💐

Is this a bit of a phenomenor then? My sister took time off work to deal with the emotional upset of my situation (unknown to me, until years later; she never came to see me in that time); ridiculed me with her friends and then told me about it ....She also went on to do a similar role. Well weird. It's like in their heads, they think they are really empathetic and supportive

Not sure this is constructive advice but I don't think I'd be able to restrain myself from saying something like 'well I don't know why you've applied for that, you've been worse than useless at supporting me through exactly that situation'. Probably not helpful but I wouldn't be able to say nothing.

remember that your ongoing support of your DH in his actions for as long as you didnt leave him, whilst due to real difficulties, was exceptionally frustrating, distressing, helpless, stressful and annoying for your family.

Nice bit of victim blaming there. Abused women are not supporting their abusers. You show a startling lack of understanding of the nuances of an abusive relationship.

Smileeachday - I wasn't intending to victim blame, but any relationship that continues is facilitating that relationship, good or bad, by its very definition - and where that relationship is a bad one, that is excruciating for family members.

Thank you for all the responses, I've been out for a long walk to try and clear my head.
I understand where the posters are coming from with the comments about how painful it must have been for the family and the need to detach from it, but it really wasn't like that. There is a lot they don't know and things I kept hidden. I learned from past experiences with my other ex, not to go telling my problems to my family as it just made them angry- at me and I felt stupid.
My relationship with my mum is really bad. She has never liked me and loves to control so unfortunately we don't have much to do with each other. If she heard details about the problems I've been having, she would tell me what to do, say I should be thankful for her help, tut if I still looked sad, bark at me to snap out of it and think how I'm affecting my children, all the while rubbing her hands together with glee at the gossip she had to tell my wider family. The relationship my parents have is dysfunctional to say the least. I feel sorry for them both but know they aren't normal.
I thought things were different with my sister though. There's nothing I wouldn't do for her but say for example, I would ask her if she wanted to do something, obviously just wanting to escape for a bit, she'd say 'no I'm meeting friends'. Or if she'd ask how I was and I'd answer brutally honestly, she would just ignore it or act like I was being annoying almost?
It's hard to explain I'm just so let down that I really have no one now, I knew that it would be the hardest thing to leave the ex knowing that I had no support around me to fall back on afterwards. Thank god for my children!
Sorry for the whinge fest! I do appreciate everything that's been said here.

Hissy, that really strikes a chord. I'm sorry you've been through all that aswell.

Beadle have you looked into/done the Freedom program?

I haven't actually, Smile but it's definitely something I'll look into as I've seen it mentioned a few times

OP - you write that your mum doesn't like or love you, so I am think your expectations were too high. For someone who has never supported you in your life, she wasn't going to start when you were at your lowest ebb.

Before I posted on here, I felt like I didn't really have a right to feel upset but when I read other people say they'd been through similar, I just feel gutted for them especially with those cheeky family members taking ownership of their problems instead of being supportive. It's unbelievable. I know that, objectively.
Yet when I think about my own situation, it feels like I'm almost overreacting or being sensitive??

True Neutrogena. Just disappointed/baffled about my sister's choice to go into an area she doesn't seem to know much about