This has been bothering me for a while

[BertieBotts]

I realise this is insignificant and a bit self-indulgent given that it's all in the past now. But I reread this thread periodically and wonder whether, if I posted it today, I would get a different response? It's often proclaimed that "abuse" is cried too easily on MN, but my experience when I posted this was the opposite.

Anyway here's the (long) thread (using an old name):
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/763225-Deep-breath-Okay-Anyone-around-for-some-support-please

I understand if nobody cares, BTW.

What happened in the end? Did the issues resolve themselves?

Your partner is/was very controlling. Seems he needed to control you with regards the food.

Is he a better father now? More chilled and less controlling with regards food?

No, I left and he continued to be a twat. The mother of his second child has just kicked him out as well.

Reading that thread has just made me quite sad. I hope things are ok for you now OP.

What strikes me is how different you "sound" these days. You sounded so low and flat and brow beaten which is not at all how I'd describe your posts these days.

Thanks Millie :) Yes much better now thank you. I have a new DP now who couldn't be more different. Am at uni as well which XP always sneered at the idea of.

Its fantastic that you managed to move on, really pleased for you, just shows there can be a happy ending!

Well done you x

xposted - Yes Alouise I was just exhausted at the time. Everything was a huge effort, and I was so numb.

I still get the exhaustion sometimes and general feeling that things are hard - but I have so much more time feeling happy. It's a definite improvement :)

Thanks Fabby :)

That's good! I got away from an abusive relationship nearly 3 years ago and am also doing a degree. It feels great to be free to do something that I was told I was too useless to achieve, and actually be doing quite well at it!

Well, apart from you saying you thought he might be abusive, your post wasn't all that clear-cut at first (don't blame you, you were clearly exhausted, under-nourished and bewildered). Some people spotted the clues and began to ask the right kind of questions but for most of them your tiredness and lack of organisation, due to your youth and DS's difficult sleeping habits, were the most obvious problems. So they can't really be blamed for focussing on those. I note that while most said he wasn't necessarily being deliberately abusive, they all said he wasn't behaving well, some more strongly than others, and how right they were. I don't think even you realised quite how abusive it was - and you were living under it.

I think you're right, two years on we would probably call abuse much earlier in such a case, or at least start asking questions with the aim of teasing out whether it was. This is mainly I think because since your first thread there have been so many relationship issues that did turn out to be abuse, including yours, that regulars are now quite sensitised to it.

there have been so many relationship issues that did turn out to be abuse, including yours, that regulars are now quite sensitised to it.

This is what they miss, those posters who claim we always shout "Abuse!" When you've lived it, analysed it in retrospect (because you can't analyse it when you're in it) and/or have seen it - you spot warning signs. As you said, Annie, it's then a matter of teasing out more details and, hopefully, waking the OP up to what's really going on.

I always feel dreadfully sad when an abused poster gives up on her thread and goes back to the false comfort of her controlled life.

Ah okay. Thanks Annie, that's really helpful :) all I can see reading back is how hopeless I felt at the time, but I can see what you mean about how it could be more easily attributed to tiredness.

Millie that's really great :)

Yes garlicbutter exactly - I had a couple of threads actually where I said "Is this me/our relationship?" and was just told I had PND. (I don't think I did) - and it did break my confidence a bit. It was only when someone in real life came along in that June and said "Fuck, are you sure you're okay with this? You know, I'd rent a flat with you if you needed somewhere to stay." that made me think maybe I did have some kind of right to be upset and/or consider leaving.

I got half way through the OP and thought ABUSE. But had I read it some 3 or so weeks after arriving back from the 3 years of hell in X country, I'm sure I would have said different to what I know and say today.

I only rejoined MN in the August of that year, and it was only then that I was kind of forced to re-examine MY life and what had gone on in it. It was a slow dawn of realisation, the scales falling from my eyes, the excuses I'd made, the half truths, cover ups and tweaking I'd done to make things sound a little better, all began to unravel.

When we know better, we do better. We have to line up quite a few ducks though before we can see the whole picture and realise that the life we live is not the same as everyone elses.

Congratulations on surviving, congratulations on sticking with it and well bloody done on bouncing back so well. Your contributions are great on MN and you can help other 'Berties' make their bids for freedom and happiness! Brave of you to look back! I admire you. [csmile]

It's the "right to be upset", isn't it? :(

Abusers invariably tell you're wrong to feel the way you do. They'll build a case to show how wrong you are. But your feelings are your feelings, you know? You have every right to feel the way you feel, even if YABU. All feelings are real. When you're upset, a caring partner will try to fix it. And if they can't, well - it's sad but everybody has the right to leave a relationship because it doesn't make them happy.

Here and everywhere, we still see strangers - who genuinely want to help - asking an OP for their justifications in feeling unhappy; trying to force them into a relationship shoe that doesn't fit. Whatever the underlying issues may be, that is always wrong.

I've avoided a few threads recently, where the overwhelming current of opinion was "You're depressed, he's depressed, you're making too much of it." This is invalidation of a distressed person's feelings I'm very sorry it happened to you.

You're so clearly a fantastic individual, Bertie, you deserve better from life and better from us.

Yes garlicbutter - absolutely agree. I think that's why I get so annoyed at the threads where people complain about "shouting abuse" because I almost feel it's better to suggest abuse where there is none (since surely someone is capable of reading the definitions of abuse OR working out whether they are happy or not, for themselves - I mean honestly, if I posted something about my now DP and somebody said "But that's abusive" I'd laugh in their face. He is so much the opposite it would just be a ludicrous suggestion.) - better to suggest abuse when there is none, than deny someone's feelings if they are a victim of abuse. I wonder sometimes if people are just in denial about how common it really is, because I think it's frighteningly so. But then I doubt myself and wonder if I see abuse in otherwise innocent threads just because of my experience.

I'm not sure it's brave of me to look back, HerHissyness. I just remember stuff occasionally and think wait, what was said on such-and-such an occasion? Or I'm curious about what timescale my awareness happened on, or something. And so I go and look it up, but it just annoys me or upsets me or reminds me of what I was feeling at the time. I don't know whether that's helpful to the getting-over-it process, or whether it just drags it out.

My take on it, Bertie: Once you've experienced AND ACKNOWLEDGED it, you see it everywhere because it is everywhere. Not too long ago, I advised a (gay, male) friend to be careful of how many concessions he made to his partner. His partner then went on to escalate his controlling and - as so often happens - my friend reacted by becoming rather hysterical in the relationship.

He was reacting to the abuse but, since he wouldn't/couldn't take enough of a step back to evaluate it clinically, felt he was acting unreasonably and kept on trying - you know :( The partner dumped him for his 'moodiness'. My friend is still sad & confused about what happened.

The recognition is really hard; it goes against everything we are told and want to believe about love & partnership. That shared wish to believe in the happy ending is, I think, what drives other people to make us think we're wrong - but feelings don't lie, not often anyway.

There definitely is such a thing as a good love - as you're now finding :) If people were more willing to accept they have the RIGHT to feel happy in their relationship - and the right to end it when it doesn't improve their life - abusers wouldn't find so many victims, and victims wouldn't find it so hard to get heard. I like Mumsnet's 'harridans' for poking away at the truth; I think they (we) do more good than we know!

Plus, the mechanics of abuse is now being taught in schools, hurrah! A stride forward for the coming generation, one hopes

That's good :) I think it would be fantastic if people learned to recognise it before it happened.

Thanks for talking to me on this thread tonight (and the others who posted) - I've been feeling really shit lately about stuff in general and a comment someone made on another site has shaken me up a bit. But talking helps.

It's difficult to know enough from a few posts on a message board to know whether a relationship is abusive or not - that particular thread you talk a lot about how you feel and less about how your partner behaves, so it's clearer that you are sad/exhausted/depressed than whether he is abusive.

I always worry about projecting too, especially at the moment, my spidey senses are on turbo I think, so I see red flags and worst case scenarios everywhere.

I do think that some people don't like to say ABUSE as even IF it IS true, it is a horrible situation to realise you are in and some people can't be that blunt.

My mums H is a right twunt a lot of the time, and his behaviour is almost exactly like my abusive x. this naturally worries me, but I now realise that there is a huge difference between the 2 men, My mums' H would be told to get the bloody hell over himself and although he wouldn't like it, eventually he would sort himself out. My X would react badly to the rebuke, would sulk and look for ways of getting his own back.

These days I do try to take a step back and really see if there is a serious situation. I usually say there are warnings, red flags, and hope that the OP will monitor and be aware of x, y or z.

You are doing fine Bertie, have faith, this is a long road lovey! keep talking!

I was hopefull09 on that thread , i thought it was obvious he was an abusive bastard from the first post . I often get flamed for saying abuse but ill say it where i see it . Some of those comments about you having Pnd and being advised to ignore him were a bit

Am glad you binned him Bertie , and that things are so much better for you now