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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

I have caused so much pain to so many people and it’s too late to fix it.

173 replies

wrongstation · 27/10/2025 10:13

I was very insecure when I was younger and overheard my husband’s parents and siblings telling him they didn’t like me and to end our relationship.
He knew I was uncomfortable with him listening to people that were trying to persuade him to leave me all the time so he stopped contact with his family.

His friends were concerned that he didn’t speak to his family anymore and kept trying to get him to talk to them, he changed his number but his friends gave his new number to his mum even though he said not to, so he stopped seeing those friends too.
They didn’t give up and were constantly calling and texting and by this time I was pregnant and still worried that he’d listen to them and just wanted us to be left alone to be happy.
Eventually we moved away and got married so we could be together without judgment but I am a lot older now as this was 17 years ago and the reality is I isolated my husband from his family and friends because they didn’t like me and I felt threatened by them talking him out of being with me.
I literally just removed them like they were obstacles in the way of my happiness.
I hate that I did this to my lovely husband and I’ve apologised but he just thanks me for getting him away from there and says how happy he is and yes we are happy now but I can’t live with myself for all the heartbreak I’ve caused his family who don’t even know our teenage kids.
I am not insecure now I’m older and a lot more confident than I was but I know there’s no going back because his family didn’t like me to begin with and especially don’t now they think I am controlling and have isolated him from his family and friends which is 100% what I did and I am even more sorry that I did that to him and he doesn’t blame me and says he did it so we could be happy, which we are.
I know there’s no going back now, and what’s done is done but I wish I could have been stronger and it could’ve been different.
He just says leave it, we’re happy and that’s all that matters but it’s eating me up.

OP posts:
TwinklyStork · 27/10/2025 13:21

Also:

"I literally just removed them like they were obstacles in the way of my happiness."

is chilling.

Plugsocketrocket · 27/10/2025 13:28

SerafinasGoose · 27/10/2025 13:07

No on both counts. No, it's not just you and no, this is quite usual for Mumsnet!

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I guess each person is always filtering the OPs words through their own lens. Personally I don’t feel I have enough information to work with to do that.

It is absolutely fascinating how this thread is going but at the end of the day it is someone’s life and the advice needs to consider that. It could be the OP, it could be the family, they could both have contributed in part.

How people are so adamant is really surprising me.

jonathanwoss · 27/10/2025 13:30

SerafinasGoose · 27/10/2025 10:58

That is not the question I was answering. Since you asked it, of course they absolutely can. But it's certainly a truism that women are frequently expected to take responsibility for men's behaviour as well as their own. Just look at any variation on this theme on this site alone: there are likely thousands of these.

I'm going from the information OP has provided in her post. None of this shows any indication that she was abusive - unless, of course, there's a great deal of information she isn't telling us. Posters can only respond on the basis of what we are given. If there is a missing piece of the puzzle here then OP is skewing her own results and receiving valueless information, making the act of posting here an exercise in futility.

The fact that OP is even asking these questions of herself is revealing. Most abusers don't want to wear the badge - with or without pride - and will justify and defend their own actions in relation to the wrongs they've been done by others.

Either this is a 180-degree about-face in personality - a rarity but it can sometimes happen - or it's yet another variety of 'woman is always to blame' even when a man acts of his own volition.

Again - unless there are serious omissions here - then the simplest and more common explanation is usually the right one.

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"But it's certainly a truism that women are frequently expected to take responsibility for men's behaviour as well as their own"

This so false, you are basis this solely because this is "mumsnet" not dadsnet

It is not always the case is real life

HauntedMushroom · 27/10/2025 14:18

BerryTwister · 27/10/2025 12:12

I find it terribly sad that so many people are saying it was the DH’s choice to go along with this, so OP shouldn’t blame herself. Have people not heard of coercive control? Do they know nothing about abuse, and how one of the things abusive partners do is isolate their victim from friends and family? Is it not possible that there’s a reason that everyone in this man’s life wanted him to leave OP?

If a woman posted saying all her friends and family had warned her off her DH, so he’d persuaded her to go NC with all of them, she’d be told she was a victim.

Yes. I'm an abuse survivor and work with abuse survivors.

Abusers are rarely as self critical as the OP. She has told us that her DH made the decision to go NC and although she feels responsible she's given us no reason to believe she coerced her DH into doing so. Many posters here have extrapolated that from her posts - meanwhile many of us have also noted that her DH's family sound toxic and as he made the decision to go NC himself, there may well be a history of further toxic behaviour on their part. There is evidence for this given their behaviour towards the OP - but none for her being abusive.

diddl · 27/10/2025 14:18

I know there’s no going back now,

Not for your husband either?

TwinklyStork · 27/10/2025 14:20

HauntedMushroom · 27/10/2025 14:18

Yes. I'm an abuse survivor and work with abuse survivors.

Abusers are rarely as self critical as the OP. She has told us that her DH made the decision to go NC and although she feels responsible she's given us no reason to believe she coerced her DH into doing so. Many posters here have extrapolated that from her posts - meanwhile many of us have also noted that her DH's family sound toxic and as he made the decision to go NC himself, there may well be a history of further toxic behaviour on their part. There is evidence for this given their behaviour towards the OP - but none for her being abusive.

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There's no evidence for her being abusive? What about "I literally just removed them like they were obstacles in the way of my happiness."

My god, I'd hate to see the quality of your work with abusive survivors if you miss a red flag as huge as this.

Tiswa · 27/10/2025 14:20

@wrongstation whet has prompted these thoughts - why now?

HauntedMushroom · 27/10/2025 14:22

Kubricklayer · 27/10/2025 13:06

How many people that went NC with family and all of the friends were not in a coerce relationship? I imagine slim to none.

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My DH isn't in a coercive relationship but he did this. Years of abuse and control, then attempting to wreck any peace and happiness your son finally manages to find, will do that.

HauntedMushroom · 27/10/2025 14:25

TwinklyStork · 27/10/2025 14:20

There's no evidence for her being abusive? What about "I literally just removed them like they were obstacles in the way of my happiness."

My god, I'd hate to see the quality of your work with abusive survivors if you miss a red flag as huge as this.

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She also says that her DH decided to cut off contact. She feels responsible, but she did not directly ask him to.

Perhaps if OP returns we can clarify this.

TwinklyStork · 27/10/2025 14:30

HauntedMushroom · 27/10/2025 14:25

She also says that her DH decided to cut off contact. She feels responsible, but she did not directly ask him to.

Perhaps if OP returns we can clarify this.

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If he was the one to cut off contact - with everyone in his life, remember - his entire family and all his friends - he probably did so to appease her.
She feels responsible now. Didn't stop her "removing them like they were obstacles to her happiness" at the time, did it?

TwinklyStork · 27/10/2025 14:34

HauntedMushroom · 27/10/2025 14:25

She also says that her DH decided to cut off contact. She feels responsible, but she did not directly ask him to.

Perhaps if OP returns we can clarify this.

Show quote history

Actually - I've just read the OP's posts and I can't see anywhere where she says she didn't directly ask him to cut off contact.
She does, on the other hand, say "the reality is I isolated my husband from his family and friends because they didn’t like me and I felt threatened by them talking him out of being with me. I literally just removed them like they were obstacles in the way of my happiness."

BerryTwister · 27/10/2025 14:34

HauntedMushroom · 27/10/2025 14:25

She also says that her DH decided to cut off contact. She feels responsible, but she did not directly ask him to.

Perhaps if OP returns we can clarify this.

Show quote history

@HauntedMushroom my understanding is that most coercive abusers don’t actually tell, or even ask their victim to cut friends off. They do it more subtly. They point out failings in friends’ characters, tell the victim that their friends are bad people, that they don’t really care, that they’re trouble. Or the abuser gets sad when the victim spends time with friends, so the victim feels guilty and decides it’s easier just to not see friends at all.

Kubricklayer · 27/10/2025 15:01

HauntedMushroom · 27/10/2025 14:22

My DH isn't in a coercive relationship but he did this. Years of abuse and control, then attempting to wreck any peace and happiness your son finally manages to find, will do that.

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So your DH suffered years of abuse from all his family and all his friends? I guess you qualify as the slim then.

Kubricklayer · 27/10/2025 15:05

TwinklyStork · 27/10/2025 14:20

There's no evidence for her being abusive? What about "I literally just removed them like they were obstacles in the way of my happiness."

My god, I'd hate to see the quality of your work with abusive survivors if you miss a red flag as huge as this.

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This.

Also it's possible OP isolated her and DH to the extent she has no RL friends and is only now starting to regret that behaviour. Is probably looking for validation and sympathy from people online to justify that past behaviour.

TwinklyStork · 27/10/2025 15:08

Kubricklayer · 27/10/2025 15:05

This.

Also it's possible OP isolated her and DH to the extent she has no RL friends and is only now starting to regret that behaviour. Is probably looking for validation and sympathy from people online to justify that past behaviour.

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Or he's starting to kick back and she thinks he's going to leave her. There's no-one left to isolate him from to hold on to him, so she does the "I'm sorry" routine.

Castiela · 27/10/2025 15:19

Quite sure that everyone who says on here that it's DH's issue as he has free wouldn't go and say the same to the many women we have on MN weekly talking about their experience of beong isolated from everyone, not just few people, by abusive partner/spouse.
"But you had free will so it's on you that you stopped contact."
...

Kubricklayer · 27/10/2025 15:19

TwinklyStork · 27/10/2025 15:08

Or he's starting to kick back and she thinks he's going to leave her. There's no-one left to isolate him from to hold on to him, so she does the "I'm sorry" routine.

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Could even be that the kids are starting to challenge why they have zero relationship with DH family?

KitchenTrollyDolly · 27/10/2025 15:52

There is something really off about this post, it reads a bit like a reverse.

Taking your OP at face value, this was all your fault and therefore you should try and make amends, it's never too late to try.

ConcordeSkyHigh · 27/10/2025 16:20

Did you assume they didn't like you because you were posh? Kindly op you can't put an old person's head on a young person's shoulders so don't beat yourself up. You say there's no going back now. Why? What's stopping you from being completely honest to them and apologising? They already hate you as you believe so that's not going to get any worse and it could lead to reconciliation. Obviously once you open that up you can't go back so be sure about it.

Jackiepumpkinhead · 27/10/2025 17:25

TwinklyStork · 27/10/2025 13:13

This.

This is one of the most disturbing threads I've ever read.

It's not just the family who "didn't like her because they said she was posh" and made her insecure. It's his friends too. All of them. Every single one of his friends and family.

Were they all in the wrong? All of them? Every single person in his life was wrong about her? All of them saying the same thing about her, yet they were all wrong? Here's a newsflash: if everyone else is saying the same thing, it's you that's the problem. More likely they were trying to stage an intervention of some kind and he's cut them all off to keep the peace with his insecure and paranoid girlfriend-then-wife. The most obvious explanation is usually the correct one.

Men fall victim to coercive control too, you know. The OP willingly admits that she deliberately isolated him from his family and all his friends because she didn't like what they were saying about her, and I can't see where she's answered the question as to whether he has anyone else in his life apart from her. Yet still she's being supported purely on the basis that she's a woman. If a woman was in this situation and her male partner/husband had done this everyone would be screaming abuse and control and directing her towards Women's Aid.

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Absolutely this! This thread is really worrying and the amount of people taking the OP’s side is terrifying.

Jackiepumpkinhead · 27/10/2025 17:27

HauntedMushroom · 27/10/2025 14:18

Yes. I'm an abuse survivor and work with abuse survivors.

Abusers are rarely as self critical as the OP. She has told us that her DH made the decision to go NC and although she feels responsible she's given us no reason to believe she coerced her DH into doing so. Many posters here have extrapolated that from her posts - meanwhile many of us have also noted that her DH's family sound toxic and as he made the decision to go NC himself, there may well be a history of further toxic behaviour on their part. There is evidence for this given their behaviour towards the OP - but none for her being abusive.

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You need more training.

WhatNoRaisins · 27/10/2025 18:02

I'm also think that once someone has labelled you posh in a negative way there's nothing you can do to convince them. I had this label at school simply because my accent was different, I wasn't especially wealthy and my ancestors were all working class but I felt like there was nothing I could do to shed the label.

moderate · 27/10/2025 18:21

TwinklyStork · 27/10/2025 14:30

If he was the one to cut off contact - with everyone in his life, remember - his entire family and all his friends - he probably did so to appease her.
She feels responsible now. Didn't stop her "removing them like they were obstacles to her happiness" at the time, did it?

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My reading is that she has recently learned about coercive control and is self-flagellating because the outcome looks similar to outcomes where CC is involved.

ClareBlue · 27/10/2025 18:29

moderate · 27/10/2025 13:05

Is It just me or is there a greater number than usual of people projecting their own insecurities onto the OP in this discussion?

It's not you
It's an informative thread, no doubt about it.

RitaFromThePitCanteen · 27/10/2025 18:34

YABU. He is his own person and made his own decisions and seems fine with them. It's only you who seems to feel this way.

Unless you're leaving out details whereby you took control of his finances, threatened him, forced him to quit his job, emotionally abused him and so on, then no, you didn't isolate him or force him to cut his family off who were horrible about his partner, nor his friends who completely disrespected his boundaries. Sounds like he considers it a blessing that those people are no longer in his life.

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