Emotional abuse

[NosyRosie]

I am an educated, fairly intelligent woman but I only recently discovered that I have been living in an emotionally abusive marriage.

I thought it was just the way he was and that I had to be understanding and try to keep him calm and happy in order to live a half normal life.

I never dreamed of telling my friends or family what he was really like because it was important to me that they liked him.

The last straw came on 15th April (his birthday incidentally) when his behaviour was so shocking that it was the last straw. I genuinely thought I was going mad (seeds sown by him) and phoned my HV in a state. She asked me if I was being harmed and mentioned Women's Aid.

In my mind Women's Aid = domestic violence = physical abuse. I have since found out that emotional abuse can be more damaging than physical abuse.

I feel so stupid. How can I have not realised what was going on? Why have I not been aware of the dangers of emotional abuse? So much is said about DV but it always seems to refer to the physical attacks and I always told myself "at least he doesn't hit me".

Does this sound familiar to anyone? I really feel the need to sit down and talk to other people who have been through the same thing and tried to get hold of a local support group but no one got back to me.

How easy would it be to start an awareness campaign? I keep thinking about how many other women could be going through the same thing without realising the damage it's doing.

Thanks if you're still here!

Rosie all you are feeling is normal, I too feel cheated that I may never know what it is to be loved.

It does take time to heal and you are doing the right thing connecting with women who have been in your shoes.

I lurk a lot and gain wisom from other people's posts.

valium you are a very wise lady and make a lot of sense

sunday my soon-to-be XH managed to spend 10s of thousands from the sale of a house, bankrupt himself, get through a MASSIVE chunk of my inheritance and then another loan of £20,000. My name is on most of the debt. He has nothing to show for any of it, but I just let it happen while I worked my arse off and he did near enough fuck all.

I know I'm to blame as well for the financial side of things but I believed everything he said and that everything would be ok in the end.

Notoriginal - I thought I was too old too fat too frumpy and too forty to ever find anyone else.

I have a lovely DP/BF, I don't know how to explain it except to say that it's so relaxed and easy and different to being with my ex.

Ah, he used your deepest fears and secrets against you? Classic NPD stuff indeed. You are going to learn a lot about NPD in the next few months. I second the recommendation to get hold of a book called Why does he do that by Lundy Bancroft.

I know I became obsessed with understanding it, nobody else would have understood such an obsession, but the more I learnt the more it helped.

The things you confided to your x were probably in the early days right? and he stored them away for a bit and then used them against you? Tick. Yupp.

He is using his knowledge of your personality to try and manipulate you with his notes to your daughter. He knows taht you value being a nice person and that that is probably central to your identity, so now he's subtly implying that you are harsh and ruthless and cold by not forgiving him.....???

I also worked SO hard to create a facade of normality to friends and family that I eventually realised I just felt completely disconnected from the people I was trying to fool , so it had all become a pointless facade.,,, and I was like a husk ..

NosyRosie, I've also recently realised that my husband is emotionally abusive. I'd also class myself as fairly well educated,fairly smart, I've got a job I enjoy, etc. I went on a course in connection with my job (about workplace bullying!)and it was only after reading some of the extra material we were sent home with that I realised that what I was reading about emotional abuse in the workplace actually fitted the way my husband acted at home. I bought some of the books on the suggested further reading list, which included Lundy Bancroft's book. I have no idea how I can have been daft enough, for ten years, to think that the way he acts is 'OK', and that I just need to learn how to act differently to stop him getting upset.

Problem is, as others have also posted, his usually abuse is so subtle and clever, with perhaps only one 'big outburst' every few months, that I just really think no-one else will believe what I say. Admittedly, people who know him well think he's a 'bit of a character' but usually, in public, he plays the part of loving dad and generally all round fantastic guy, so I honestly think people would just think I was a nutter making up a pack of lies.

Hadn't even thought about the financial aspect of abuse before. I suspect that might also apply.

Don't mean to hijack, just wanted you and the other posters in similar situations to know you weren't alone.

Valium - that was me too.

I also ended up with no friends - how could I be myself and really talk to friends when I was hiding what a major part of my life was like?

I honestly believe emotional destroys kills your soul, piece by piece, like physical abuse destoys your body.
I have not lived with XH for over 4 years, and am not sure if my soul will ever recover.

So glad busters that makes me happy to read :)

I cry often because my head is so screwed. My ex called me every disgusting name you can think of, he used to tell me I'd never get anything more than a one night stand.

It pisses me because sometimes I think it's proving him right that I would be alone.

I was told I was a nutter. He told me to go and get my head read because I was so deranged.

I did. The "head reader" told me I was normal, given the situation I was in my reactions were normal.

But my XH is perceived as mr easygoing - if you look for thread's I've posted you'll see that he's still saying I'm too uptight and anal.

And yet DP thinks I'm the most easygoing girlfriend he's ever had, he can't believe how laid back I am

Snaildoodle, remember that if you do decide to end the relationship you are not obliged to justify your decision to him. These guys expect you to justify every single decision you make and something which is entirely your decision to decide, eg, this relationship is over, turns into a massiver court case where you are on trial and he is the barrister and you're the accused!

I know on threads about more normal relationship breakdowns they suggest 'sitting down and talking reasonably' but in this kind of situation with this kind of man, if you do decide to leave you will need a strategy.

I'm 'unhinged' too buster. I also went to see a counsellor recently. When I told her I'd left him she said she wasn't in the least bit surprised based on what I'd told her. I felt better after seeing her because I started to think that maybe I was capable to talking sense.

bustersmummy, my x made me take anti-depressants which I only needed because I felt trapped, miserable and powerless. Guess what, the anti-depressants gave me the strength to leave him.

My x honestly looks like a young Cliff Richard in a suit. He has quite a gentle voice. He has quite feminine hands. He smells nice. He abused me emotionally, physically, verbally, financially. He can not understand why I left him. I left him on a whim for an easy life .

snail don't apologise. It's important that you say what's going on with you too.

It's amazing how similar they sound. Name calling, implying mental instability.

I tried to explain it to a friend. She asked if he was controlling and the only way I could explain it was by saying it was passive control rather than active. I ended up being so submissive in order to keep him happy that I was being controlled that way.

Does that make sense?

Valium - you too?

I left him out of the blue.

Yup I was a "fucking loon" as well, after DD1 was born he told me I was quite mad and had postnatal depression, in reality I couldnt cope with a H who did nothing at all, and forced me to have sex while my few week old baby was screaming for a feed :(
She'll be 10 this yr, hate his fecking guts.

Nosy - look up passive aggressive.

That's what my ex was like, and it's very very hard to deal with.

I could never argue with him, he would be so cold and he would never ever see he was in the wrong.

I ended up trying to become what he wanted me to be, for the sake of a home life, my kids, a family.

I was a shell. I used to leave early for work and sit in the car in layby and cry and cry.

macdoodle I was forced to have sex at 4 weeks and thought that was bad. Poor poor you

He kept telling me that he'd have an affair if I didn't have sex with him. He wouldn't accept that I was tired/in pain/generally not in the mood.

He said that everyone did it that soon.

I told him that I could never forgive him for that.

I suffered from emotional abuse, and his abuse also became physical. I didn't recognise it as emotional abuse at the time, though I remember describing to a family member that I felt like I was being bullied. That's how I viewed it, and it was with counselling when I was staying in a refuge that I realised domestic violence is more than physical abuse.

He also abused me financially. Whilst I was with him I spent time on incapacity benefit for a serious health problem, and I never saw a penny of it. He was regimented in his routine, and every fortnight when my cheque came he took it and cashed it, keeping it in his wallet. If I wanted to buy anything I had to go through him, and would be met with a lecture on why it wasn't a necessary purchase. Even when I needed to buy some maternity clothes it had to be a joint shopping excursion with his approval, and him handing over the cash (my cash) appearing like a paragon of generosity treating me to clothes. When I looked back and reflected I realised there was a time when I didn't physically possess any money for over a year.

I feel the financial and emotional abuse has continued. When I finally left him, he withheld child benefit and tax credits and spent them on himself, and he stopped working when I contacted the CSA. Today, at the supervised contact he has once a month, I requested that he purchased some nappies for his visits, which he has been asked to do previously by the courts as he is supposed to be proving he can independently care for DS. He blew his top, yelling in front of DS that he isn't buying a thing for me (even though it's not for me, just for DS to use on his access visits), why should he do me any favours, he adequately provides for DS (5 pounds a week.)

The emotional abuse also continues and he uses the contact as a means to pester and intimidate me, and nearly 3 years down the line contact has been reduced and supervision increased due to his behaviour, yet they continue to plug away regardless. I don't know how much more I can take.

I thought I was crap at sex. I really did. I thought i was shit in bed.

I ended up being expert at getting him to cum asap so it would be over and done with.

And he never cared if I was interested or not - wouldn't be fair to call it rape, but I just let him IYSWIM?

Emotional abuse is one damaged / abusive person taking advantage of another person until that becomes a cycle of abuse.

It's not about "him" abusing "her", although that will cover a great many of the cases.

Personally, it was emotional, psychological and financial abuse (with elements of NPD), and like others, I ended it when I saw her do aspects of it with DD.

Her current mark is getting the full house of emotional, psychological, financial and physical abuse, so in some ways I'm thankful for small mercies.

I also think a campaign would be a good thing, but I think that campaign would do well to make it clear that men can also be abused.

I used to leave early and stay late and drive around avoiding going home. Now I go home happily with music blaring and me and DD's sing in the car :)

It was actually thanks to MN that I realised our relationship wasn't normal. I used to get cross with reading posts saying 'leave him now!' and gradually started to realise that there was so much fundamentally wrong with our marriage you'd all say the same to me!

I've read on here about men who are doting and genuinely want to make their wives happy. It made me start to wish I had the same thing and that I didn't have to settle for what I had.

I was so relieved when I left, but I was also sad because I thought I'd never know what it would be like to be with someone who really cared.

my experience of financial abuse;

we have increased our mortgage twice- first time to fund him starting his own business; he put in no effort and it collapsed because I was unable to run it as I was working full time myself. Second time, mortgage increased to pay off debts I had run up paying bills because he drank all that he earned and some of what I earned.

I earn twice what he earns so he gives me less than half the household bills. But he refuses to pay a fair share, leaving himself with plenty of disposable income for weekends out and new clothes etc- whilst I am left with literally NO disposable income, again funding kids clothes/ school trip/ any fun whatsoever with credit.

If he was ever to spend time with us as a family on days out/ holidays- i had to pay for him as he 'couldnt afford it'. Which I did so the kids could spend time with him- not ANY MORE

Borrowed money off my credit card with agreement to pay back monthly. Refuses to pay it back and said I never said he had to pay it back. Apparently I said I would borrow more on the mortgage

Macdoodle, I can relate to not wanting to go home. When I had my baby I asked the hospital not to discharge me, but they said that there was no reason for me to stay any longer and they needed the bed.