Was I right to lie for my daughter

[Starbug74]

I recently posted on here about my daughters graduation from uni.
My husband her dad couldn’t go due to being housebound with various illness. He found out that she had invited my mom and dad, my sister and my nephew. He has no family to invite.
He went totally crazy because he hates my sister from a fall out over 20 years ago and said why should they all get to see her and I can’t. He blamed me because he said I should have told her that her dad wouldn’t like it and stopped her inviting them. But as I pointed out it’s her day not his and he was being totally selfish and upset her asking her why she did this to him.
We ended up telling him that they were not going now just so I could go otherwise he was stopping me too. So he thinks it was just me and her boyfriend that went.
They all went to as it’s what she wanted, I had her in tears over it all, he ruined her big day by saying what he did to her.
So now we all have to pretend that no one else went just so he doesn’t explode, but I feel like I am betraying him.
Is this the right thing to do just keep quiet about it for my daughter. He made her so upset I don’t even know if I can forgive him, but now he says I could have avoided the upset by telling her not to invite them.
I am so confused and can’t get away from all these thoughts.

So you have just confirmed you don't actually understand the psychological impact of it all. For some women it's not a question of finances or family it's a question of how strong the mental and emotional shackles holding her are. Sometimes the man can control her with just a look, the fear is that strong. It's why they can make several attempts to leave before they are finally free. Some never get free despite trying. And to call anyone being abused as weak is victim blaming.

You have a good relationship in every other way? But he threatens to destroy your home if you talk to your own sister?

Of course I understand the psychological impact, I am not an idiot or heartless. But somehow from somewhere many women DO find rhe courage if not for themselves then for their children. The OP has that in her, she has lied to her husband, hang the consequences, she did go to the graduation in the end.....she just has to keep going. Courage is doing something even when you are terrified. We can know how very strong these mental and emotional shackles are but still try and encourage the OP to break them.

Hm. It's not just the fear, tbh.

It's that a controlling, coercive, abusive relationship is a process. It takes time, and by the time it's fully in swing, has you gaslit, confused, diminished, bamboozled, uncertain, destabilised, isolated, and subtly undermined in so very many ways, that you are often struggling to get through the day knowing what is true, what is going on, what is up and what is down.

There is guilt, fear, shame, confusion, depression, anxiety, brainfog and other emotions swirling about in there, often along with various bullshit stories about how he is a victim, needs help, can't live without you, and a lot of lovebombing in between. Plus a stream of tiny digs, suggestions that you are weak, defective, generally wrong.

There may be financial abuse, so that one is left with few resources.

Over time, friends and family have been turned away and pushed away, so there is little wider support.

If you've not experienced it it can be very hard to grasp how the dynamic works.

No woman should ever be made to feel worse for not leaving.

Only support. Only understanding. Only patient listening, and information when it's of use.

I do hope you get there, OP. Life is so much better on the other side. I can't begin to tell you.

@ArabeIIaScott , I echo everything Arabella has said above. I would have described myself as a strong person and I always prided myself on being a feminist but I was also, in hindsight, very susceptible to emotional manipulation because I had lost a parent to suicide. I was also in the same relationship from my young teens so there was a slow evolution of destructive behaviour.

By the time I broke free in 2021, I hadn't had my own bank account for well over a decade and attempts to start one for an escape fund were discovered and quashed, I had a pay-as-you-go mobile that I was rarely able to top up (it had dwindled to half a dozen times in 3 years before I got him out) because it "made more sense" for him to have the phone contract and I could just use the landline.

Every work opportunity beyond the limited hours he was comfortable with was sabotaged (including a volunteer role I treasured) and to this day I cannot have an online presence professionally because he will (anonymously) write to the head office of any business I am associated with. Very few people knew any of this and I hadn't fully realised how massively fucked up it was until I had to put it all down on paper for the court.

I once attended a close friend's wedding up north with the exact cash I was permitted for train travel, one taxi from the station and one taxi back. When it turned out the hotel my friend had kindly treated DD and me to was quite a long way from the reception venue I carried her for miles to get there and back because I was ashamed to be an adult woman in that position and terrified I would be asked to split a fare if we shared.

Despite all of the above, I was the person you would call on to have your children if you got stuck, I was a supportive and empathetic friend to those who didn't try to get too close and appeared to be very good at my work and an excellent mum (debatable). We don't know we're giving pieces of ourselves away because it doesn't happen all at once. I only realised my life was small when I was finally free to live it.

Just stop. Not every case is the same. My mother has made every excuse in the book for my father, she’s the major breadwinner and could’ve left at any time but she prefers denial so she doesn’t have to bother her arse to take action. Selfish. Women are not always faultless victims.

A lot of perpetrators of abuse were once the victims of abuse too. It's why people talk about the cycle and breaking the cycle. There comes a point where you are no longer the victim, but instead you are complicit. That point, for many people, is when children are being exposed to the abuse and you don't protect them.

Was the fall out with your sister due to her seeing him for what he is, an abusive bully?

This is domestic abuse

@Starbug74 but it isn’t just your sister is it. It sounds like your daughter wants to do stuff and he won’t let you see her. Is that what you want? It is only going to get worse

He is an abuser, bipolar or not. I'm so sorry.

Yup. I was a child with a father like that and a mother who was too afraid to stop him. It was awful to live with. Am glad I escaped him.

Bipolar doesn't make you housebound

It definitely can make people housebound at times. But as I said earlier in the thread, I have bipolar. At one point in the past for a year or so I could barely leave the house. But I kept taking and trying different medications until they found the one that was best for me. I tried everything to help myself and eventually got out of that phase.

If he isn't even bothering to take his meds then I have very little sympathy.