AIBU to still feel unsafe and want to tell someone?

[Puffinsandcoffee]

My husband has done some things to me /around me in recent years that weren't great. Nothing really terrible - not hitting or SA - but stuff that has made me definitely a bit scared of him.

It's been well over a year since he's done anything like that.

I just have two questions I thought maybe someone on here would have experience of this stuff and could answer.

One is, when did you find that you felt safe and comfortable around your husband again? Is it normal that I don't? Every time he swears or slams a door or something I get scared, and then scared he'll notice I'm scared, because he would get annoyed by that because he just wants us to move on from the stuff that happened. The world cup is stressing me out because he keeps jolting out of his chair and shouting and swearing at the TV!

The other question is, is it really vindictive that I want to tell someone in real life? I obviously won't. He'd be so hurt and really angry, because it's such an injustice to who he is in general. But there was total secrecy in my family about my dad's additions and abuses and I think because of that, having to not tell anyone about the stuff my husband has done is making me feel worse, like as if it's all happening again even though it's not.

Just to pre-empt some stuff that might come up

• I have posted about this stuff before. I spoke to Women's Aid because of replies. I don't mind my other posts being referred to but please don't "catch me out" with stuff from them. Mumsnet is the only place I can have these "conversations" and I'm not trying to be defensive or in denial or anything like that.
• I am getting therapy for cPTSD which I have from other stuff mostly childhood stuff.
• I haven't gone into detail about what he did because I don't think it's relevant but I will if it is.
• I won't be leaving him. I can't even if I wanted to but I don't want to.

I didn't put a poll as it's not really an either/ or but just - is this all normal and will pass, or am I damaging my relationship by not moving on from it?

Look, honestly, I can't say whether he loves you or not. Noone can, except him. But I can say I don't think he loves you well, or healthily, or enough.

You say I'm unusual, I'd argue strongly that I'm not. I'm not a "good" man. I'm bang on average. I've hurt DP emotionally, as I've hurt past partners.

DP cannot sing. Like, not even badly. DPs singing is possibly the worst I've ever heard. And so I used to take the piss. Not in a cruel way, but gently taking the piss. She takes the piss out of me for stuff I'm bad at too. Then one day, I realised that DP didn't sing any more. I asked her about it, and she just said "No, I don't". And she didn't, for about 5 years. I stopped the woman I love from doing something she enjoyed for years, without even meaning to. I'm not a "good" man.

My Dad isn't a good man either. He cheated on my Mum repeatedly, he has done the same with every woman he's been in a relationship with since. He hurts the people he claims to love.

The difference between us and your husband, is that we're not trying to hurt the person we love. I hurt DP, but that wasn't the aim. It was accidental, I didn't know where the line was and I crossed it. It remains the worst thing I have ever done in my life. I will feel guilty about it until I die.

My Dad doesn't mean to hurt the people he loves either. He just thinks he's cleverer than them. The intention is always to get laid, and for his wife, or girlfriend to never ever find out. He's absolutely crap at it, but that's still the aim. He hurts people, but he's not trying to.

You husband wants to hurt you. He wants you scared, he wants you pliable. He wants you to be a nice, easily controlled woman so that he doesn't have to worry about you being your own person. He's not worried about crossing the line, he doesn't feel guilty about crossing the line, because, as I said in the post days ago, he crossed the line years ago and realised there are no consequences. He's not a good man, he's not even an average man. He's a bad man, and he's making the conscious decision to be that man. Whether or not he loves you doesn't really matter, he'll treat you like shit either way.

OK, thank you everyone for so many helpful replies. I am so grateful that people have taken the time to share how all of this looks to them. I've been thinking over it all for the past few days and have a different view of the whole thing than I did when I first posted. I have some sense of what I'll do next as well. I won't just carry on as before. I don't think I see anything more clearly now, probably less clearly, but I think that's a good thing. Thank you all 🙂

I would agree with this to a point. I think you learnt from your mistake but your father actively chose not to learn from his mistake by repeating it over and over even though it hurt the people he so called loved.

i completely agree it seems OP’s husband wants to keep her scared and under control and that if he genuinely loved and cared for her, he would try everything to be better and gain trust back.

Not really sure what this means to be honest, OP, but I’m glad you’re feeling more sure of what you want to do next and how you want to do things differently. Do you mean you were sure what you thought of him and now you’re not so sure? And that’s good because you’ll be looking with an open mind instead of seeing what you would have been telling yourself to see? If so, then that’s very positive. I’m glad you’ve managed to get back to feeling confident again after the knock you had.

I disagree. My dad learnt a lot from his mistakes. He learnt how better to hide his affairs, how to play the women he was with. And I honestly do believe that part of the reason he learnt those lessons is because he didn't want to hurt those women.

The problem was he never learnt the right lessons, rather than he never learnt any lessons.

My Dad never wanted to hurt anyone, he just wanted to get laid while he wasn't hurting anyone, and he was spectacularly shit at it.

DPs husband on the other hand, wants to hurt her. The abuse, and control is the point. The pain isn't a Side effect, it's the whole idea.

You will never convince me that someone who cheats on their partner loves them fully and doesn’t want to hurt them. I think you’ve mistaken your father’s remorse for getting caught, and the repercussions that follow, for his remorse for hurting them.
You obviously love your father, and therefore are trying to justify
his behaviour. Abuse can be emotional also.

Oh that actually just made me laugh.

There is absolutely no love lost between me and my Dad. He's an spectacularly selfish man who fucks up everything he touches and ruined his relationship with me long before the house of cards around his marriage fell down.

I tolerate him in small doses because it makes life easier for other members of my family, but believe me, there are no rose tinted specs going on here.

I believe he could love my mother and still cheat on her, because honestly I'd be capable of the same thing if there was no chance of hurting DP. I don't do it because of course it's always going to end up hurting DP.

My dad on the other hand, thought he was cleverer than everyone else, despite the constant evidence to the contrary. He's always utterly mystified when his carefully laid plans fall apart and his latest affair comes out.

Anyway, I'm derailing the thread now with irrelevancy, so I'm out.

Thank you. Do you mean you were sure what you thought of him and now you’re not so sure? And that’s good because you’ll be looking with an open mind instead of seeing what you would have been telling yourself to see?
Yeah I think that's what I mean. I started the thread thinking everything was fine, except me being fearful, and I just needed to fix that. Now I think everything's not fine, and maybe not even in a stable place either, and I don't know what to do about it but I do want him to stop shouting at me. Like, I think his behaviour does need to change and I didn't really think that before.

Sorry I wasn't clear! I feel like I've become less coherent generally since my earlier posts - honestly the direction the thread went was really unexpected for me and I've had trouble sleeping and had nightmares etc for a couple of weeks now. I'm visiting family, just me and the kids, soon. I think that'll help.

I don’t think you’re less coherent but you are less “closed” to other ways of reading the situation, which no doubt has destabilised you a bit, so that you’re feeling for answers.
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It’s never easy to question. I think it’s a good thing all the same.

A friend of mine used to do counselling and she told me something really interesting. She used to work with people in various situations that they thought they were stuck in and thought they couldn't change or sometimes thought they didn't want to or didn't need to. She used to say that the biggest thing was to get her client to consider the possibility for change. She said that even if they didn't make the changes while they were with her, that moment of actually considering the possibility was the pivot point. The point that freed them.

I totally agree with this! I have been there too. I also grew up in a religious family that didn’t agree with divorce, and I sort of felt like it wasn’t an option. One day I decided it was an option and I wasn’t going to stay if I wasn’t happy. Because of that decision, I changed and our relationship changed simply because I no longer felt stuck with it. I insisted on changes where before I had sort of felt I shouldn’t “make ultimatums” because I wouldn’t really leave if he didn’t change and I’d just make myself look weak.

And OP, don’t blame yourself for my confusion - it was late last night when I read your update and I probably needed sleep! But it sounds like I did get what you were saying then, and that’s all good news (even if it’s scary territory, you’re heading towards unraveling the actual problem instead of blaming yourself and hoping for an outcome that will never be possible).

If my partner called me a c**t he would no longer be my partner, end of, never mind the rest of what yours has done to you. I have never been scared of my partner in my life (or my dad. Or brother. Or uncles. Or grampas). I was lucky to grow up around kind, gentle men. Please understand that his behavior is not okay and that not all men are scary OP, not at all.

You may love each other but I think you may be bad for each other, and he is certainly bad for you at least at this point. You have triggers and he triggers them. Leaving aside the does he love me/ is it my fault/is it really abuse, take all the blame and questions out of the equation - you live in a fear state and he does things that terrify you and make it worse. That's a fact as far as I can see from the thread.