Coercive control

[Fairygodmotherplease]

I don't have an aibu, sorry.
I'd like to know how someone can go so long - multiple decades for example - without realising they are being controlled.
And what steps do you take to recover from such a thing?

Because it starts so small. Tiny little things that you just can't see that get bigger and bigger until they take over your entire life.

Even the cleverest, smartest women (and men) can be taken in by it. I was.

Getting away is hard because it's hardwired to doubt yourself - you've been told that's the way things are for so long that no matter what anyone else (your friends, family, expensive solicitors) says, you can't believe anything other than what he says.

He's going to get the kids, he's going to get the house, you'll be destitute, unemployable, on the relationship scrapheap as he was the best thing that ever happened to you...

Because the abuser is manipulative, convincing the person that it's their fault/normal and they have no escape

I recently did some training about domestic violence ( due to my work) and the coercive side was probably the hardest to hear about

And it becomes increasingly difficult to imagine any other life or that there are alternative potential choices. Friendship and social groups become discouraged, so objective opinions are less available and those that there are quickly discredited. A facade is presented to family, colleagues and friends to remove doubts about what may be going on at home.

It becomes your normal.

Many people who end up in controlling relationships have experienced abuse in childhood, so it feels familiar/normal and just what love is like. Obviously not all, but this is a common theme.

He's going to get the kids, he's going to get the house, you'll be destitute, unemployable, on the relationship scrapheap as he was the best thing that ever happened to you...

This.

The victim's mental health is so damaged that it seems plausible to the victim that the perpetrator would succeed at taking the kids away. This is both because they are actually at this point (situationally) mentally ill and also because that mental illness causes everything to seem more dire than it really is.

So many abusive men use the "you're crazy, I'm taking the kids to protect them from you" threat, but so many victims don't know how common this is and that the family court are incredibly familiar with the tactic and sceptical of those men's "concern".

More information to young women is the answer. Mumsnet is a great start.

Many people who end up in controlling relationships have experienced abuse in childhood, so it feels familiar/normal and just what love is like.

This also.
Also results in less support around the victim and more people telling the victim they are unreasonable (when they're not) or even actively wanting the victim to stay in an abusive relationship due to collective crabs-in-a-bucket mentality.

In addition to everything else thats been said there have been very small (although growing!) number of storylines about this. Ross in friends is presented as hopelessly in love and we laugh at him and Rachel takes him back, despite his awful controlling behaviour.

Plus minimalising and internal misogyny (blaming women for mens behaviour), the way the papers write about dv although i believe there are now guidelines.

Its not always easy to see what a good relationship looks like when the media muddy the waters.

Because gaslighting is a huge part of that. So the abuser destabilises you, attacks and corrodes your sense of self, your self worth and self esteem, makes you feel like you are going mad, mires you in self hatred, constantly and unpredictably switches between loving and abusive behaviour specifically to destabilise and confuse you. Some of the time, things are great.

In fact, I would say the controlling begins with a malign version of 'love bombing' -the charm, the recklessness, the massive declarations of love, the largesse, etc. 'Swept off your feet', to begin with, nobody will ever love you like this, it's intense and breathtaking, flattering and exciting.

There is also the isolation - gradual - criticism of friends and family, subtly done, and again with a sprinkling of being extra-adoring/passionate, slowly becoming more toxic and corrosive, so that you end up thinking they are the only person who understands you, loves you, will put up with you, etc.

If there has been clearly unacceptable behaviour, but you didn't leave, then there can sometimes be a horrible feeling of being too ashamed to admit it, which can reinforce the feeling that it's just you and them. Nobody else could understand.

And so you can find yourself living in a sort of greyish murk of uncertainty, depression and misery, so befuddled that although you know something is very wrong, it couldn't possibly be your passionate, so-intense, strong, protective abuser, because they are the person you rely on for almost everything (they've ensured that).

And you can't live without each other.

Pity you aren't watching coronation Street, Geoff has just got Yasmeen under his complete control.

For me it was because of my abusive childhood, when it started it was a new thing to have someone so interested in me. It ramped up when we had our first. There was a time period that I wanted out, but this was the 80's and there was no help, so I stayed. I think my Mother liked that my relationship wasn't good and Ave me bad advice and no support to free myself. My Grandmother was all about men being Gods, so she in a way helped him. Because of a, lack of physical violence it didn't seem big enough to end my marriage.

My F was like this. My DM just didn't see what was going on, saw it as him being a loving husband and father. She was also vulnerable, having been orphaned at 10 and then being sexually abused by the uncle who was her guardian.

He was paranoid, accusing her of cheating (apparently his sexual abuse of his DDs and other girls didn't count). She put it down to his Parkinson's Disease medication. He made all the decisions about where we would live (even bullying her into Saudi Arabia, where she had a torrid year with 3 small children.

Day to day he was controlling as well, insisting on us having a dog he wanted, which she didn't want, but then she had to do all the work. (When I was older, he made me clear up the poo of a dog that wasn't even mine.)

I certainly didn't understand that he was controlling, I thought that was just how fathers behaved. It's only now he's been long dead and DH and I have 2 DDs that I can see how toxic he was.

It's easier to get away with crap like this in a conservative Christian household, as it's easier for such men to convince their families that the man is the head of the house and that submission means that women must submit in all things, and that the man knows best.

I've heard good things about this programme if you're looking for help OP? freedomprogramme.co.uk/

Yes, the Geoff storyline on Corrie is interesting - I've not watched it for literally years. Saw one episode this week and I've had a horrible week of nightmares, flashbacks and panic attacks. 10 years later.

How do people get out? Well for me it took years of knowing things weren't right but not knowing how and where to get help. Friends had been pushed away, family in disbelief. Finally admitting to a neighbour I was struggling was a big step. 8 months of living together after having The Talk was pure hell, the abuse continued for years after I moved out with the kids(of course, there was no way he was leaving and yes he was going to get at least 50% of the equity and the kids despite zero involvement before). I found a hugely supportive empowering solicitor who told me how to do my own legal bits to save lots of her time and my money. I've had some counselling. I also found some amazing new friends and rebuilt family relationships. I found a great new man who treats me like a queen but encourages me to have freedom, opinions, space, boundaries and a voice.

He's continued to threaten me and last year I finally saw red after a threat that endangered me, my kids, my job, my liberty. No more. He chose not to be in the kids lives much, and told me that he'd tell them the 'truth' once they were old enough.

Steps to recovery... claiming back your life and finding yourself again. Doing things you wouldn't be allowed to do or wouldn't been approved of. That feeling of freedom is bliss.
Being kind to yourself and remembering over and over it was not your fault. It was not your fault.
Learning more about coercive control and abusive relationships to help make sense of the situation and plus knowledge is power. You'll also realise it's not only you and they all follow a similar type of script.
Talking to others who have been through it whether on MN or a group.
These are some of the things I did and they helped. Should it become too intense or you're not coping then also speaking to a GP can be beneficial too.
Good luck

Many people who end up in controlling relationships have experienced abuse in childhood, so it feels familiar/normal and just what love is like

Nothing my exes did ever seemed as bad as what I experienced as a child. Because they were occasionally physically affectionate/demonstrative. From memory, the first time I was ever touched that wasn't a punch, push, wallop or other attack, other than in hospital when they stuck needles in me or relocated my shoulder where it had been dragged out of the socket, was aged 16. Of course I went with all the other crap he came out with. He liked kissing me and touching me. It felt great. In comparison.

Even the one who attempted to strangle me didn't scare me in the way that being pinned up against a wall with a hot iron near my face did.

I can't bear to watch the Geoff and Yasmine storyline; I hadn't realised until now that it's because it's very triggering. My F was for financially controlling and wanted to know where she was the whole time.

He also told us what to think, or tried to. The only party to vote for was the Tory Party, and he hated us, or DM, disagreeing.

My DM has changed completely following his death. She spends 2-3 months a year in Africa, and managed to complete a PhD in her 70s. (She turned 80 this year.)

I've just finished reading Platform Seven by Louise Doughty - it's an excellent fictional account of a controlling relationship, with a really good eye for how it inches along at first, just enough undermining to mildly unsettle but not too overt to cause immediate alarm.

It captures arguments well and also examines the biases and thoughts we as women have about how we 'should' behave in a relationship which enables an abuser to exert control easily.

Likely triggering for those who have been through it but another very good way to explain it to people who don't really get it.

I know a lovely woman through a club I belong to. She's early 70's probably and been married for decades. I met her and her husband recently at an event, and got chatting to them both.

Crikey. Is she under the thumb, or what? I'm sure she hasn't a clue.

@Madamswearsalot I agree with you. It's good that it's being talked about, because I never realised that my F had been abusive to my DM. I always thought that he really loved her. It's helped me to understand why she didn't see what was going on under her nose.

It's good that Coronation Street are tackling it. I just change the channel when that storyline comes up.

It took me a good few years to even admit to myself that I was in a controlling relationship, let alone take the leap and get out (13 years actually). Without feedback from the world outside of your abuser, it is so hard to see what is going on. I found the following invaluable in helping the scales to fall from my eyes -

• Reading books e.g. the oft quoted (for good reason) Lundy Bancroft 's "Why Does He Do That?", anything by Patricia Evans but particularly "Controlling People" was instrumental in showing me what I was actually dealing with

• Reading about other people's relationships on Mumsnet and seeing the feedback on these helped me see the similarities with my relationship and showed me what was not actually normal or acceptable behaviour from a partner
• Individual counselling with someone trained in abusive relationships

For the last couple of years of my relationship, the thing keeping me from leaving was the terror of not knowing how my partner would react. I was so trained to do anything to bolster his feelings and avoid his tears/sulking that I had to work on making myself impervious to anything he may try and do to get me to stay, as I knew that when I left I would never go back. As @PicsInRed said, I was so ground down after 25 years that I could only see the most dire outcomes (no matter how unlikely) e.g. he would kill me, he would kill my kids, I would be homeless etc. In the end my only choice was to take a huge breath and just do it.

In the end it came down to the fact that, no matter if I was scared etc., it was the only choice to give my kids the childhood they deserve and a chance at future fufilling relationships.

I've been in a relationship like this for 30 years. I will never leave. This is how my life is.

Because it starts small and they take control inch by inch.
Example ExH didn’t like a particular programme I watched. He would watch and complain all the way though. After a while he started flouncing upstairs in a big huff. He’d say ‘I’m not even allowed to watch TV in my own house, I’m banished to my room like a naughty boy’. Every time. So i stopped watching it. Then I also stopped watching other stuff I liked and he didn’t. If we watched a film and he decided he didn’t like it he’d just turn it off. Imagine the same with clothes you wear, people I speak to, friends I have, money I spent, what to wear, what to think. I was an empty shell when we finally split up. It took me a long long time to realise how controlling he was. He never explicitly told me what I was or wasn’t allowed to do, but I knew.

MitziK, I'm so sorry, for all of it. Sending you .

Morgenrot, also. . I wish I could give you a glimpse of how lovely it is to be free of it.

Thanks, @scrimshawthesecond.

It seems so far away, now. I think I compartmentalised childhood and then early adulthood, so it's like talking about a film for me 99% of the time. The 1% can be hard, though. But it's better than giving those people the secrecy and power they thrived upon. Fuck that. They don't deserve that.

So there are, thanks to SM and my openness about it, thousands of people who know that somewhere out there, there is a sweet looking little old lady whose last comments to me about her eldest (and completely abused throughout his life) son were 'I wish he was dead' 'I hate him' whilst she's being waited on hand and foot and described as 'so brave' since he died. And a dickhead alcoholic who whined and wailed and threatened suicide. And one who nearly killed me who was mostly angry at his own heavily closeted homosexuality. And one 'hippy' type whose argument for hitting me was that it was treating women as equals to do so - and that he was only like it when he picked up on my 'negative vibes'.

I don't do it for sympathy (much though it's appreciated). I talk about it so that they can't have complete privacy and so that if anything I say rings bells with other posters, that they can see my suggesting what they are experiencing is wrong and they should protect themselves.