Advice please - coercive control?

[rosesarentred3]

I'll start by saying if anyone recognises me from other threads I've created under a different name, please do not put those links on this post as all the info added together would make me easily identifiable to friends and family.

After being in my marriage for 10 years, I can see now that I believe my partner is controlling. I see a therapist who feel strongly that this is happening.

There are too many examples to list but I'll list a few:

Starting random arguments about my family out of nowhere, it literally could be anything. Then DP says to me 'see, look, we're arguing because of them, look at what they're doing to us! We shouldn't have contact with them'. This is about various family members and friends. DP has fallen out with many members of my family so it's awkward to see them.

If I leave a wrapper on the side, DP will be annoyed at me, tell me off, go on and on at me about it. But then does the same herself. If I said something she'd go mad.
The other week I said one night that I was going for a shower abr her response was 'does this kitchen look clean to you? Can you honestly say this is clean? Clean the kitchen before you have a shower'.

Saying what clothes to wear and not wear. I put on some summer pants and DP says 'you really look big in them. Honestly, if you're conscious about your weight I wouldn't wear those, they make you look massive'. I'm a size 10. Not that that matters.

My work is extremely confidential. DP will ask me for confidential information about my work saying 'if you don't tell me then you don't trust me' and will badger me about it and eventually not speak to me for long periods of time because I haven't divulged information.

Tells me regularly I wouldn't survive without her. What would I do without her? How did I manage before? etc.

My confidence is so low. I rarely see my friends. I've lost loads of friends since is being together.
DP told me when we first got together that some of my friends who I saw all the time had been speaking about me behind my back saying awful things and made sure we broke ties with them so I don't see any of them anymore.

Will get really mad at my family and say it's just because she's trying to protect me. Even though there's nothing to protect me from.

We have a child. When I was pregnant she insisted that she take the shared parental leave because I'd had enough time to bond with the baby while I was pregnant so it was now her turn. So I returned to work after having the baby. I cried to dp and said I really wanted to be with the baby and couldn't bear the thought of leaving her. But this just turned into an arguments where DP would cry saying she wanted time off with the baby.
A part of me felt like it was the right thing to do because DP continuously told me I wouldn't manage on my own, that I'd probably forget to do what I needed to do with the baby etc. and I really started to worry that would be true and agreed for her to take the leave instead.

Anyway - what I wonder is, what do I do now? I feel like I can't be in this relationship. I don't feel loved. I haven't ever felt loved in this relationship. Do I just leave? In which case this means selling the house and sorting shared custody etc.

Do I try to spend some time building my confidence first? Making friends? Going out more? Meeting people?
I'm always at home. I work at home. Then when I'm not working, I'm always with DP to the point where I now feel extreme anxiety whenever I go somewhere without DP.

Today I was planning a day with DC. DP then started a big argument with me, slagging of my family again etc.
however, I came out.
Is it completely pathetic that I feel chuffed with myself for coming out? I wasn't as anxious as I usually am. Years ago, I wouldn't have batted an eye at coming out on my own.

It all feels such a mess.

I think you're engaging with her too much. Don't warn her that you'll phone the police if she threatens to kill herself again. Just phone them. Or just ignore her. She's continuing to control you by constantly grabbing your intention and disrupting your day and your life with her bullshit.

You really, REALLY need to get out. I know you said your family aren't very supportive, but I'm pretty sure that if you turned up at your mum's with your DC and explained that you were being abused by your partner and were trying to escape, she'd at least let you stay the night. Go and pick your DC up from nursery and go.

Do you have your own bank account? If not, set one up NOW and transfer some money from your joint account into it, and speak to your work NOW and ask them as a matter of urgency to change your bank details on their system so your salary gets paid to you from now on and not into a joint account.

I would strike while the iron is hot. Your daughter is in nursery and so it's the perfect time for you to take her before your partner considers taking off with your child.

My mum would be fine with us staying there. She has said she is happy for us to go there. I have told her some of what has happened. I have also called another domestic abuse line today and they were helpful.

I know it sounds stupid but I feel bad. I feel guilty. I can't help but feel bad. And I'm also worried and scared for myself.
She seems desperate which just isn't like her. The constant pleading.
I know it's all tactics etc. I know it is.

Op you just need to use good old fashioned logic.

You wouldn't need to break up if she wasn't so horrible to you. You wouldn't be phoning a domestic abuse helpline if you didn't feel abused. Lots of posters here can identify what you are enduring as abuse, because it is. I'm sure there are 'good sides' to your partner but all abusers need to have some kind of hook to keep their victims confused and to ensure they keep coming back.

The way she speaks to you is wrong. My husband wouldn't talk to me the way she speaks to you. The way she robbed you of your first moments with your baby and how she constantly gaslights you is disgusting. As a mother I know that ache to nurse your newborn. Find that anger. Look at that woman and muster up the disgust that she deserves for bullying you into go back to work when you needed to recover, for jot letting you breastfeed, foe snapping your head off when you ask a simple question, running you down to your mutual friends, keeping you awake at night, blackmailing you with suicide!

She has conditioned you to see yourself as the problem so you need to get your logical goggles on now and remember that jot one person on this thread has said she isn't too bad or her behaviour sounds OK. Re read your lists that you have been keeping. You need to operate on another level that involves your empathy for others. You need to look at the cold, hard evidence with cold, hard eyes.

By the way, I don't know you but I feel proud of you and know you can do this. She is freaking out because she can sense your strength too, except for her it's a huge threat.

Abusers, when control is taken from them, become desperate and can resort to desperate measures to regain control, this is why it is a dangerous time for people leaving those situations. Too many cases in the news to mention the people who have been killed whilst trying to flee abusers.

She knows it's over and has already escalated her behaviour to mind games with the suicide threats and depriving you of sleep last night in the attempt to wear you down.

Please don't sleep there tonight, OP.

I have told 2 friends and my mum. Another family member has been in touch to ask if I'm ok and has said if I need any support to let them know. They haven't heard anything from anyone else. They just picked up on something last week and have asked me about it.

I feel really disloyal telling people. Like I'm really betraying her and she would be so upset and mortified if she knew. I feel like I'm being awful towards her and the guilt is eating me alive.

I know that sounds pathetic but I can't help feeling like this.

Not pathetic at all. It's how you have been trained. I'm assuming you loved this person at some point and obviously saw something in her or you wouldn't have got into a relationship with her. And now she knows the softer, more vulnerable sides to show to you because she knows what buttons to press. The thing is, she IS abusing you and loyalty towards her is the last thing that you need but is the one thing she is counting on. Keep reaching out and telling people. Keep looking for that anger!

Just stick to the facts and logic OP.

You FEEL guilty yes. Because you have been trained to feel this way by her. FEELINGS are always biased and skewers and temporary!

The FACTS are that she is a horrendously abusive person to you and DC. This whole situation is HER FAULT.

The feelings will change and you will realise one day this feeling was WRONG.

The action you take today will always be the right one. Every time.

Im really glad you've spoken to multiple people. Do you have a plan for this eve? Have you collected DC?

Then she's succeeded if you're feeling guilty and bad. But you're here because she's like this. Stay strong.

So sorry for what you're going through OP.

"I feel like I'm being awful towards her and the guilt is eating me alive."

I heard on a podcast recently that "often the guilt is that we're not living up to the other person's expectation of us". An abuser programmes you to behave in a certain way and to feel terrible if you don't, even if it means you are completely neglecting your own needs.

In this situation it is absolutely vital you start to look after your own needs. Perhaps you could let her think you are just going to stay with somone for a few days to let things settle down; like others I would be concerned about her escalating her horrific behaviour if she thinks the relationship is breaking down completely. But I'd echo everyone who has said you need to get out, and fast.

Ow she knows you need to ACT you need to speak to a solicitor about get emergency child orders.

There is nothing to stop her making up a pack of lies and feeling with your DD.

Please report her coercive control to the police now.

Thank you all for your comments.
I did speak to my mum last night who said I can stay with her if I need to with Dc.

However, we did stay here. I said to DP that I do need sleep and we can have a repeat of what's been happening the last couple of nights. She agreed and stayed in the other room.

She hasn't eaten or drank anything. She's walking around shaking and keeps heaving and running to the bathroom as if she's being sick but isn't because she hasn't eaten.

She keeps asking if we can please try again saying it will really be different this time and she really feels like we have the chance to make it better.

She keeps asking me for a hug or to hold my hand.
She keeps telling me how stressed and anxious she is with all that will be changing.
And to be honest when she's saying it all, I'm also feeling anxious and thinking of how much will be changing, not seeing DC every day, the whole process of moving house and getting a divorce.

All the little things she keeps asking such as 'who will keep the DC's memory box?' And 'who will DC wake up with on Mother's Day and Christmas Day?'

She said yesterday 'I'm so worried DC will grow up thinking this is all her fault why we've split up'.
I told her we won't let that happen and it isn't DC's fault.

She keeps saying we've had a hard year because of having a baby and I have said the problems have been going on a lot longer than that.

She keeps apologising for everything she's ever said or done wrong.
Complimenting me. Telling me how much she loves me. Telling me she wants to be close to me and always has but she's afraid.
Telling me she is triggered a lot by her own childhood trauma and that's why she gets so angry with me, but she doesn't mean to.

It's so hard hearing all of this and going through this. She's never been like this before. I've never seen her like this before.

Well unless she moves out and does a whole heap of therapy and respects your boundaries she isn't ever going to change. She's had years to address some of this an hasn't done a thing.

It doesn't matter why she has behaved like that, she has chosen to carry on and do nothing like it.

Of course she wants you anxious and stressed like her so she can control what happens again. Where has her genuine compassion been for you in all these years been? She has shown NONE, where has her nurture and compassion for DD been? There has been NONE.

Don't get suckered into her lies. My ex was exactly like yours, and when I finally left I heard all the things your ex has said to from him. I caned and went back. It took him less than 2 weeks to start the emotional abuse again.

You're doing the right thing, it's hard now but you're well on your way to a peaceful life

It's not your responsibility to fix or comfort her.

I would be very cynical of all of this display, it sounds like more manipulation.

You don't need to sort out every detail now, you just need to separate, let the dust settle and work the rest out then.

I assume you're paying most of the rent/mortgage. Do you want her to vacate the property or yourself?

The longer you stay there the longer you'll keep going around this merry go round.

She's talking in your ear constantly trying to convince you not to leave.

I'd bet my career she has an undiagnosed personality disorder. She needs intense long term therapy. The childhood trauma she speaks of makes sense.

Either way, she needs to do that alone. Her behaviour is abusive regardless and you need to leave.

Every minute you stay there she is offering 100 reasons not to go.

Even her saying she hopes DC doesn't grow up to think it's her fault is a comment designed to manipulate you. Plant that seed.

I'd get out today OP.

I know it's hard but don't think just DO.

^She said yesterday 'I'm so worried DC will grow up thinking this is all her fault why we've split up'.
I told her we won't let that happen and it isn't DC's fault.^

She’s really scraping the barrel with that one. I have heard that older children sometimes think that but your DD is a baby so won’t remember any different. I think you need to go now sooner rather than later for all your sakes. The details can be sorted out later.

This is all lies designed to make you feel guilty. Don't fall for it. You know in your heart that she has been horrible to you. She is doing everything in her power to stop you from leaving because she is losing control. Normal, loving people don't behave in a way which makes their partners ring Womens Aid. This is a cornered animal pulling everything that they can think of, throwing the kitchen sink at a sinking ship.

As po says, where was her compassion when you were vulnerable, recovering from childbirth and yearning to be with your baby only for her to laugh at you and ridicule you in front of your friends for being lazy? Where has her compassion been when you've been asking simp questions and she has snapped at you hurtfully? She isn't going to change . You've never seen her like this because you've never been pushed to your limits like this before. Her behaviour has become so unbearable that the only way you can envisage a happy life is without her. Her behaviour has become so bad that you've now decided to leave. Her fault.

Posted too soon.
you think the penny is dropping with her and that she now realises how she has been because of how remorseful she seems. However the truth is that she has never seen you so resolute and so has never been so sacred to lose control. Not the same thing.

It's more playing the victim, which you KNOW she has done previously to keep you in line and her in control.

She will stop at nothing including lying to the police & WA & the courts to get what she wants. She is very dangerous.

Please try not to be influenced by her behaviour, many of us could have written exactly what she would do as it follows the script behaviour of someone who is abusive, it is a manipulative reaction to losing control.
This behaviour is to control you, similar behaviours have worked in the past and she will use everything to keep control.
You need to leave, go to your mums, go anywhere that she is not, whilst in her presence you cannot escape her influence and magnetic pull, you need clarity and people around you who can support you.
Her behaviour will spiral as she tries everything to get control, and one thing that is a 100% guarantee, her behaviour WILL NOT CHANGE, maybe a few weeks of honeymoon type behaviours BUT her abusive behaviour will return and without doubt increase, she wants you and your child fully to herself and under her control.
Please leave, it’s so hard to make that break, but understand that this behaviour is all an Oscar winning performance to get you to stay. Xx

@rosesarentred3 Please go to your mum’s today with DC. You MUST get away from all this bullshit. She is manipulating you and controlling you literally as we speak.

She will not change. She is not a nice woman. She is an abuser who made your life a misery and separated you from your own child so she could have time off when she was a tiny baby. She doesn’t give a shit about what’s best for your DC; she just wants to possess her like an object and use her as another pawn in her control game. PLEASE go to your mum and when you are there, don’t answer your phone.

Telling me she is triggered a lot by her own childhood trauma and that's why she gets so angry with me, but she doesn't mean to.

Bollocks. More manipulation. Don’t fall for this shit.

Please be strong and please log her threats to kill with the police today so they are on record.
you are doing so well x