Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2

Original poster

To think Taylor Swift wrote a song about my husband?

44 replies

Especiallynow · 29/12/2020 09:55

Driving home on Christmas day after my DH had yet again, purposefully tried to embarrass me over something pointless in front of my family. All of a sudden 'Dear John' comes on spotify and it was so apt, I could have cried.

'Long were the nights when my days once revolved around you
Counting my footsteps,
Praying the floor won’t fall through, again
My mother accused me of losing my mind,
But I swore I was fine, you paint me a blue sky
And go back and turn it to rain
And I lived in your chess game,
But you changed the rules every day
Wondering which version of you I might get on the phone
Tonight, well I stopped picking up, and this song is to let you know why'

This is just the first verse but the whole song is just the perfect depiction of emotional abuse. I can't believe a 19 year old wrote this.

I don't know if this was a turning point for me. I think I've known for a while that my husband was abusive but I kept talking myself out of it. I didn't understand why someone only started being like that after 15 years and I don't remember it being like that before then.

OP posts:

PurpleHoodie · 29/12/2020 10:54

What AnyFucker said.

Thewithesarehere · 29/12/2020 10:55

TS is so talented!

EloraaDanan · 29/12/2020 10:58

I believe you OP

MarieVanGoethem · 29/12/2020 11:01

I believe you - & there will be people who know you IRL who’d believe you too

Please be gentle with yourself Especiallynow; & please do take the advice you’ve had on this thread about the Freedom Programme & seeking support from the MN relationships board - you can even ask MNHQ to move this thread there rather than starting another if you’d rather keep everything together.

Nomorepies · 29/12/2020 11:03

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

AcornAutumn · 29/12/2020 11:03

OP "I feel he has become so volatile. I simply asked him to turn on the taps to run a bath for the children last night and he started screaming, kicked the stair banister and asked me why I was 'causing trouble again'."

So in Taylor speak "And I can see you years from now in a bar
Talking over a football game
With that same big loud opinion
But nobody's listening
Washed up and ranting about the same old bitter things
Drunk and grumbling on about how I can't sing
But all you are is mean
All you are is mean
And a liar, and pathetic, and alone in life
And mean, and mean, and mean, and mean"

Please leave. And you don't need to do him the courtesy of a Dear
John letter.

Googlebrained · 29/12/2020 11:12

@sixthtimelucky

I believe you OP.

I'd believe you anyway, but most of us if not all of us know these people - people (trying not to write men here!) who are charismatic, outwardly caring, intelligent etc but who are monsters behind closed doors. A close friend has been married to one for 30 years. Don't let that be you.

And Taylor Swift is a genius, the writer of a generation.

Totally this OP. I believe you.

Bunchup · 29/12/2020 11:20

But if you met him in real life, no one would believe me

Oh, trust me OP - not everyone will be taken in by this man. The chances are your family and friends can see perfectly well what he is, but they are waiting for you to reach out to them.

WhereamI88 · 29/12/2020 11:20

My exDH sounds exactly like yours and I was convinced no one else could see it. After I left, my family and friends ALL sighed a sigh of relief and they said they could see it but they couldn't alienate me, he was my husband after all and if they wanted me around, they had to put up with him too. To be fair, if someone had tried to pull me aside and tell me he was awful before I was ready to hear it, I would probably have become quite defensive.

Make a plan to leave. He won't change and you only have one life. Is this how you want to spend it?

YoniAndGuy · 29/12/2020 11:35

Get out, OP.

And... your family are changing their holiday plans to avoid the tantrum? They know. They just don't know how to say it to you.

Get out.

WhereYouLeftIt · 29/12/2020 11:40

@Especiallynow

I suppose the realisation comes with a whole lot of doubt as well. I don't understand how someone could turn into a completely different person after 15 years. That in itself is heartbreaking. Maybe he is ill? I don't know...

I'd suggest he was always the person he is now, but wore a mask which has since slipped. After all, you'd never have stayed if you'd known what he was really like. He had to hook you first. After that, the effort he put into his mask dropped until you now see the real thing

Is he ill? Maybe. Does this mean you should endure his abuse? No.

"But if you met him in real life, no one would believe me."
Oh I think they would. We've all become a bit more clued up about abusive men over the last few years.

"I feel like I am wasting my life away."
You are for as long as you stay with him . It doesn't have to be this way.

2020isalmosthindsight · 29/12/2020 11:51

I believe you, OP.

Disregard anyone who doesn't; they don't walk in your shoes and have no idea what goes on behind closed doors.

I hope you are able to find a way out safely.

Ginkypig · 29/12/2020 12:11

@Bunchup

But if you met him in real life, no one would believe me

Oh, trust me OP - not everyone will be taken in by this man. The chances are your family and friends can see perfectly well what he is, but they are waiting for you to reach out to them.

This but also I believe you.

I’m can’t say your family will know for sure but they aren’t stupid they must at least figure him to be a difficult character but put up with h8m because as far as they know he is your chosen partner so they accept him for you.
BUT there will absolutely definitely be people in your life. Who deeply wish they could step in but are afraid you will cut them off and there will be others who dislike him but aren’t sure why and some others who even see through him and are disgusted but they all deal with him and pretend because they like you so much and most adults know if you tell the truth about someone’s wife/husband you are the one that’s loses.

The truth is so what if not a single person knows or it surprises some to hear, YOU DO and you are the one who has been forced to live like this!

Free yourself you deserve much better.

CrazyToast · 29/12/2020 12:16

I read an article once, an interview with Taylor Swift when she was early twenties. It focussed on how mature and almost world-weary she was because of everything which had happened to her. The last line was :

'No matter what your age, Taylor Swift is older than you'.

Wise lady.

redastherose · 29/12/2020 12:32

I think sometimes it's things like song lyrics which you listen to without consciously looking for answers that really make you stop and think about what has happened in your life. Mine was Someone who I used to know' by Gotye

Now and then I think of when we were together
Like when you said you felt so happy you could die
Told myself that you were right for me
But felt so lonely in your company
But that was love and it's an ache I still remember
You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness
Like resignation to the end, always the end
So when we found that we could not make sense
Well, you said that we would still be friends
But I'll admit that I was glad it was over
But you didn't have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened and that we were nothing
And I don't even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger and that feels so rough
No, you didn't have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records
And then change your number
I guess that I don't need that though
Now you're just somebody that I used to know
Now you're just somebody that I used to know
Now you're just somebody that I used to know
Now and then, I think of all the times you screwed me over
But had me believing it was always something that I'd done
But I don't wanna live that way
Reading into every word you say
You said that you could let it go
And I wouldn't catch, you hung up on
Somebody that you used to know
But you didn't have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened and that we were nothing
And I don't even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger and that feels so rough
And you didn't have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records
And then change your number
I guess that I don't need that though
Now you're just somebody that I used to know

Sexnotgender · 29/12/2020 12:35

I believe you. I’ve been where you are. I got out. You can too

Dullardmullard · 29/12/2020 12:36

I believe you

Please leave

bearlyactive · 29/12/2020 12:40

I agree with the suggestion of the Freedom Programme, and now that your eyes are open it will be doubly effective and help cement your new realisation in your mind. Realisation is the first step towards freeing yourself. I hope that in time, you manage to get out of there. Good luck OP

Plussizejumpsuit · 29/12/2020 12:54

This is awful op. What are the practicalities of leaving? He won't change. And how can yiu actually love somone who treats you like this?
I think sometimes songs, TV, Film , art in general can really articulate what we are feeling and help us gain clarity. Which is amazing, but can be a shock to the system.

Flip

1 2