Is there anybody who can advise on this. It's long but I want to post with as much info as possible, to get as proper a response as possible. I don't know what counts and what doesn't, so I've tried to include a representative sample.
I'm looking to know a) if any aspect of the following in law (Scottish or English) is considered coercive control, or it's "just" a controlling relationship and b) is it actually illegal to be controlling? This is just for my knowledge. I'm not in the U.K. and the country I'm in doesn't consider it abuse and therefore illegal because he's never hit me. It has completely, totally wrecked my mental health though.
My STBX has controlled me from Day 1 and I didn't realise until now (13 years later). He's belittled my first degree choice, my income (when I had one), my savings, and basically every decision I've made. That goes from who my now former friends are to who my lawyer today is! He withheld all affection until I cleaned the house better, greet him "properly" when he comes home from work, speak in a better tone - and other things I can't remember (all ridiculous) - and when I did them to his liking he immediately found fault with something else. He has refused to talk to me about any problem I raised with the relationship because of my tone, or it was the wrong time of day that I brought the topic up.
We've moved countries a few times for his work and I've been pregnant just after one move and during another. He's been angry I didn't go and get a job asap in both countries - although I didn't speak the country's languages. I started lessons in the first one, which is actually his mother tongue, just before I got pregnant. He made it impossible for me to continue the lessons because I wasn't keeping the house clean enough and keeping up with the laundry. I was EXHAUSTED from the pregnancy (that was my symptom, I was never nauseous). It honestly wasn't that bad, it was just the two of us! I also had to keep strict tabs on everything I spent, also after baby was born, to prove to him that I valued him working. I barely bought anything for myself, and this was after moving to a colder country than where I came from, then getting pregnant - so I actually needed quite a lot of clothes. I did buy some, but I always had to justify everything. He criticised too how I fed our baby once he was being weaned. I used a couple of organic baby food pots once and he was upset at me for not cooking from scratch. I had to fight to be able to use them again.
All this time, sex and intimacy are withheld from me again, because I wasn't behaving properly towards him. I believed it was mostly my fault. I loved him and I wanted intimacy with him (ie a hug) and assumed he did too - or why did he propose, right?! I felt bad that I was making so many mistakes. I assumed he loved me, so if he was so upset with me he couldn't touch me, I must have been really hurting him.
Then we moved to another country. Much of the same. Only after baby2 was born (conceived the ONE time he agreed to have sex with me), I decided to retrain in something I could work in. I needed a (second) bachelors and a local uni did it in English. But I needed help outside creche hours because uni classes could take place between 9am and 8pm, with the schedule changing every six weeks. He point blank refused. We had money and space for an au pair, but he said no. He wouldn't help more either. So, undeterred, I opted for the OU part time. He's belittled me for this too, primarily the subject area. He's worked against me the whole time. I'm literally studying in any spare minute, trying to fit it in around everything else. He calls it my "hobby". I've had two serious burnouts from his behaviours (a lot more of the earlier stuff, apart from withholding intimacy because I don't want him near me). I am really stuck and cannot move out (legally and financially) but he can. He's deliberately stayed 5 years after I first tried to divorce. He said in September 2020 that he'd definitely move out in summer 2022, but he didn't. He's still here. This also makes it impossible for me to have a relationship with anybody else - as he well knows...
Turns out now that he thinks that as a woman with children, I should never have expected to have a career and he's deliberately manipulated everything so I can't. He wanted me at home (and relatively isolated) so he could peruse his own career goals. There was never a discussion saying I wanted to be a SAHM! He sort of thinks it's ok for me to have a small job, but, definitely not the sort of income that comes with that. I did look a few times but everything I suggested he just laughed at the salary of (and I'd be taxed on his income so the income would be less than minimum wage). He actually has an apartment he can move to. He chooses not to because I'm built-in childcare.
Every time I've raised anything I've written here as being unfair, he's said that I'm making mountains out of molehills. Well, that's when he doesn't just turn his back on me and walk out. It's not the odd time. It's been every single time, for years. He dismisses everything I think or do - unless he agrees or likes the idea. If I'm upset, crying, he doesn't care. My pain literally means nothing to him. When I was I'll with the burnouts and not able to get out of bed, and when I was in bed rest in the second pregnancy, I was just a major inconvenience to him. I don't count. I even had to tell him I wanted a divorce in marriage counselling because I needed a third person there to stop him walking off. He didn't walk off but he then refused to even talk about it for a year (and here mediation is an important first step) - because he'd walk out the room every time.
He has never physically threatened me. I am afraid of him because he has the financial power obviously has wielded it, and I'm in a vulnerable situation, but he's never threatened to hit me, punched walls etc.
So in a legal sense in the UK's laws, would any of this be covered under a particular law? If so, what would it be called. And how do judges even view this behaviour if it even makes it to court?
I'm sorry if it's a strange question. Where I am living it's seen as differing opinions. And that I, for example, chose to study part time, so it's actually nice of him to not mind being the sole-breadwinner while I take my sweet time studying. Our previous mediation lawyer also had this opinion. My current lawyer seems on my side, but she speaks legal speak, not psychological speak. If any of his treatment of me is in any way illegal in the U.K. I'd like to tell her.