To wonder if I should have known? Or does it happen later?

[Todaywastheday]

I’m getting out of an emotionally abusive marriage and have so many thoughts going round my head.

I’ve noticed a lot of threads on here saying ‘why would you have kids with someone like that?’ But the more I think about my own situation, everything was ok before kids and since then its been different (mainly expecting me to do a lot and calling me a bully if I ask for help/support/giving me the silent treatment if I don’t just accept his way).

AIBU to have not realised sooner? Some things I’ve read suggest that emotional abuse can start after children. Any thoughts on whether that’s right? Or why?

The birth of our kids was also the tipping point in my marriage. As PPs have said, the combination of pressures - small children, lack of sleep, moving to a bigger house, higher outgoings, much more stressful job - resulted in DH’s mental health taking a nosedive. As a result of which he became ever more unreasonable, demanding, controlling, spiteful and generally cunty.

And I had stupidly given up my career a few years in, so I was effectively quite isolated and felt like it was my ‘job’ and duty to make everything ok for him, so increasingly the whole household revolved around his needs and no one else’s.

The whole shitshow was a bit of a boiled frog situation, tbh - over a 10 year period we slowly went from being happy and optimistic and effectively a pretty good team, to me being permanently anxious, unhappy and treading on eggs, and him being correspondingly more controlling and abusive (though never physically).

We’re still together (when he realsed I was about to leave him for good it shook him out of his denial) but it’s taken years of work to repair the damage and it’ll never be the same as it was when we were young. There’s part of me that’ll always be a little bit broken, I think, partly from the shame of it (I appear to be a stridently confident and articulate person; no one in a million years would guess that was the true dynamic of our relationship behind closed doors), and partly from grief at those lost years when I was in the thick of it.

The other thing to say is that my DH, though he has behaved unforgivably in some ways, is a good person, who battles daily with his mental health and demons from his awful childhood. People are complicated. Relationships are difficult.

So in answer to your question, OP, no, you definitely can’t always see it coming, and anyone who tries to blame or shame you can get to fuck.

OP.

You could have done everything right. You could have been the ‘perfect’ mother (and I’m not saying you aren’t already by the way). You could have been the perfect wife - never stressed, or tired etc etc. This will still have happened I’m afraid to say. The thing about abusers is it doesn’t matter what you do, what you say, it is never enough. They will constantly come at you and find something in you lacking.

You’re trying to figure this out, that’s good. But if stop focusing on what you could have done differently and instead understand the makeup/ mind of the abuser. Once you understand the beast you are dealing with, you will appreciate how little it was to do with you and how this is him.

Kind and loving people do not use their partners mental health (PND), against them, ever.

I highly recommend you read a boom by Lundy Bancroft, why does he do that? It’s so well written and will help you unpick some of this x

OP
I guess the problem is that I have done things wrong and could have been better, which I think is probably true of everyone in any relationship

I'm sure that there are some 100% blameless people in the world but surely they are rare. Acknowledging that you've made some bad decisions or done the wrong thing sometimes means you are more more likely to know what NOT to do next time. It isn't victim blaming, It's acknowledging that you are human. NOONE deserves to be abused in a relationship even if they were not perfect themselves.

@FOJN

OP I'm an absolutely take no shit from anyone type of person but I could not clearly see the abuse in my marriage until it was over. So often the abuse is insidious, it ramps up almost imperceptibly and becomes normalised in the process. You recognise something is wrong but your abuser convinces you it's your fault even though that doesn't feel quite right either.

The boiling a frog analogy works and its impossible to understand if you haven't experienced it. When you look back you can see critical points where you think what was happening should have been obvious but it wasn't to you at the time. It's very confusing but it was not and never will be your fault, it's the nature of relationships with abusers.

If someone doesn't understand it I try to feel pleased for them that they have never been in that situation. More abused women in the world would not be a good thing.

This is exactly my experience.

Even 5 years down the line, I was questioning myself this morning - thinking about how things could’ve been very different if I’d just noticed something or responded differently to his abuse.

The truth is that anyone in your position would’ve behaved the same way. People are kidding themselves if they think they’d have noticed or behaved differently.

There is a myth pedalled that domestic abuse victims are singled out because they are already ‘vulnerable’ or ‘susceptible’. That is bullshit. It’s also the reason why it took me so long to realise what was happening- domestic wasn’t the kind of thing that could happen to me. I’m confident, independent, healthy self-esteem etc.

You were just unlucky

I think the same as others, that there maybe are signs before having children, but they are so subtle that it's difficult to notice a pattern, plus you also aren't knackered, stressed etc so things go unnoticed.

Like pressuring for sex after having children. This is likely to have still been the case before children too, but you weren't knackered then. You probably wanted it too, whether to make a baby or just for pleasure and out of love for your partner, so it never felt like pressure and you rarely said no. Suddenly though the baby comes along and you're now too tired and sore to have sex. The abusive partner doesn't give a toss though.

Or the tidying up the house. They probably didn't help much before anyway other than doing a few jobs, and you had more time because you had no baby, so you didn't notice or care much. Thought he would change when the baby comes along and help out more. But he doesn't help out more, and lack of the sex he wants makes him want to help less.

It's still all the abusive partners fault though. No one has a reason to be abusive towards another person, ever. So no matter what, whether there were maybe subtle signs or nothing at all, it's not your fault.

Thank you all. Its been really helpful to get out of my head and hear your thoughts. Its so tough because obviously I’m not perfect and finding a balance between taking responsibility for my part and not falling in a hole of self blame is hard.