Support for those in Emotionally Abusive Relationships

[ViVee]

I thought it would be a good idea to start a thread, a place to vent, offer support, advice.

I'm in an emotionally abusive relationship but I'm trying to find the tools to fight back - I've recently started counselling & the Lundy Bancroft book (Why Does He Do That? Inside The Minds of Angry and Controlling Men) (recommended by mumsnetters) has become my bible.

Anyone else feel the same?

Just need to go "arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"
Not back to square one exactly but got damn reeled back into fairytale land in the past week or two. He was being great, doing all the good father and husband should do. Life seemed normal for a change. Deep down of course I knew it wasn't going to last. I was just enjoying the peace and normality that others might have. It was what normal should be.
His petty rant about how unsupportive my family are and how uselessly unsupportive I am with regards his business ventures and every other aspect of his self absorbed life really riled me this morning and popped that bubble. He is forever having a pop at my family and I. How bad I am. How horrible I am to him!?!
Last night he wanted sex. I said NO. He stropped off. Told me I wind him up and he doesn't know what I want and I fuck with his head. I had made it quite clear what I wanted three weeks ago and he chose to ignore it to play happy family instead and suddenly he decides he has the right to have sex with me again when he feels like it. Also the response of no means that I get a tirade of "pityme" you dont love me, you don't think im attractive, you want someone else blahblahblah. Round and round the merrygoround we go.

Answer: no I don't love you, I don't think you're attractive, I do not wish to live with you any more, repeated as necessary. Ignore the "you want someone else", that's trying to change the subject and put you on the defensive.

great thread. went through emotionally(and physical) abusive few years with my ex. Even now he still has the power to utterly destroy me.
He left me abusive voicemails a few weks back and i just wanna scream "if im so ugly, why the hell were you with me?!" it just doesnt make sense!

Congratulations, wizbit. Courage, BreakFree.

I hope you can be amused rather than exhausted by the predictability of your respective Hs' meltdowns.

wizbit congratulations on the job.. think this is the start of things looking up

breakfree I know. stbex is being very reasonable since the stock rotation incident. It always make me sad. I know there is horror to come. It's horrible when you go to live in that fairyland for a while because each time you hope it's for real
wizbit that's excellent, well done you
not much to report here

I'm dreading deciding to go to bed because I know he will huff and sigh and mutter at me when I go out the door because he still expects -it- like its his entitlement. Much as I ignore it and continue up to bed and don't engage or retort it still picks at me inside. It hurts to feel just only there for his pleasure. Its not like he would ever choose to just cuddle me or talk to me in bed before.
What really makes me kick myself the most is when if I did relent all is rosy in the garden for a few hours but he usually goes off on one once he's gotten what he wants. If I refuse during fairytale time he shuns me. Turns his back like I'm no use to him. Then can't quite fathom why I claim I'm only of interest to him as somewhere to put his cock. Excuse my language.

wizbit congratulations on the job.

Breakfree I am sorry, nothing useful to add beyond I remember well that sinking feeling.

If you can, disconnect a little each time he shuns you, until you eventuallly, you become like a spectator to the crazy and it cannot hurt you anymore.

Good on you wizbit! bloody well done!

Breakfree, read Lundy, read the cycle of abuse and remember that you KNEW this was coming. We all KNOW the good has to come to an end, because they can't sustain NICE, it's not natural to them.

girls, ladies PLEASE, remember what you know is true. You know you didn't do this, you know it's not about you, it's about HIS control of you, his demands, his moods, his image, his esteem.

I know that I sound like I'm over simplifying, but as soon as you realise that nothing you can do to change them, that all the pleading, begging and soul searching in the world won't change them, your life will transform immeasurably.

They won't change until they give up the entitlement to rule you with an iron fist.... and that hardly ever happens.

snowmama - excellent advice - the spectator thing is the only way, watch the craziness from the safety of the cheap seats! ;-)

Don't ever try to reason with them, it literally is a waste of breath. believe me.

Hi ladies,

I am still here, still surviving a month after the split. Actually I am doing much better than surviving. I am actually enjoying life. I didnt think I would feel this good, this soon, but taking it as one more piece of evidence that my relationship really was doing me no good at all - now that I am free of it, i am feeling better

I have to confess that I did have a big meltdown yesterday, H's mother phoned me, started off all nice asking about DS's upcoming birthday and then asked me why I wouldnt let him have visits in the house (such a great move! I am so glad I took both therapists and lawyers advice on that one, him taking DS out gives me time to myself and removes any opportunity for more abuse) and when I told her my lawyer recommended it for my personal safety, because H had been abusive she went BALLISTIC. I should have hung up but didnt want to give her ammunition by doing so, so I endured this long narcasstic rage about how everything was my fault!!! I cried buckets afterwards as it felt exactly like H's attacks - but then I remembered I am free of them both and dont have to go through stuff like that on a daily basis any more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

humpty I understand the mourning thing, I have just done it myself. You will come out of it and move on to the next stage (feeling free - which is much nicer but in the meantime grieve all you need to. You are entitled too. My therapist told me a couple of weeks ago "of course you are going to mourn, you have been together 5 years, had children together and got used to every tiny detail of each others lives, IT WILL HURT to let go of that, but you will come out the other side eventually - unless you stay in the relationship and then you will be back to square one" It was very sobering but it helped. She also said "although its painful, nobody dies of a broken heart"

hope everyone else is doing OK today. xxxxx

I ma having the most awful time. I feel bloody desperate

whats going on bigbuttons? xx

Nicecupatea - well done on reaching that very important stage!
bigbuttons - please do vent xxx

I don't know where to start.
I had a ruck with dc1 (12) yesterday. He is really angry with me. All this bile and fury came spewing out. It was horrible. I felt so battered. Then I had my mum on the phone ( she's a narcissist and a half) telling me to sort myself out for the sake of the kids. She doesn't like stbex because he has wrestled me away from her, but she puts up with him for the kids' sake.
So what i am stuck between is an abusive male and a narcissistic mother. Both are telling me everything's my fault. That I am this angry controlling woman who has issues. I foolishly tried to explain to the narcissist that the abuse was more horrendous than she could possibly imagine
I just want to pack my bags and run off. Leave all of them behind.

See I KNOW I have been really angry with the kids, I know I have turned into this angry, depressive person. I know I stopped being a decent mother a while back that stbex has destroyed my sense of self worth, self belief. My misery has affected all the kids and how I interact with them. I stopped wanting to have anything to do with them, with anyone. I just turned in on myself, exhausted and beaten down. Tired to the very core..

I went to the dr's today and asked to be referred for counselling and to try some ad's. I've got so much shit to talk through. A whole bloody life time's worth of pain and confusion to face head on. If I don't Ido this I'm going to end up with another stbex. Both stbex and mother were telling me today I was this person causing damage to the kids, it was my 'fault' my doing. Every time I tried to tell my mother about how stbex had affected me and caused these behaviours she told me to stop blaming other people and to forget about him, take him out the equation.

Inside I was screaming " I am ok, I am ok" .I wish I was a million miles away.
You know my mother knows how awful stbex is, she knows, she knows he has been physically violent but today she was saying ": I hope you don't think that life on your own with the children is going to be all Strawberry fields, its going to be worse on your own" WTF?
I moved away from London to get away from her and when dc4 was born she moved here too support me and the kids. I didn't want her to come because she eats into me by just as much by what she doesn't do as much as the things she does. There are always these nasty sly criticisms of me and stbex does the same.
Fuck the pair of them.
And do you know I came to the conclusion today that I must indeed be the great unhinged looney they both said I was.

gentle hug for bigbuttons Oh I am so sorry to hear you have been put through the mill again. For what its worth I am crediting both counselling and ad's for pulling me out of my rut and getting me back on track, I recommend you do both as it sounds like you need all the help you can get. Try not to let all the poison and nasty words sink in, try to ignore them or better replace them with kinder words (I have been reading "Healing Your Emotional Self" and its always advocating this.) Try saying to yourself "I am doing the best I can. I love my children, I am a good mother and a good person"

I recently had an unsympathetic narcissistic rant from my mum when I turned to her for a shoulder to cry on, so I know how that feels. Learn not to expect love and sympathy from these people, as hard as that sounds. Try and surround yourself with nice people, it will change your life. Two days later my mum was all interested and sympathetic again (likes seeing me weakened?)

and your are not an unhinged looney. You are a victim of abuse and when you get free of it, your mental health will rebound and you will be happier than you ever imagined possible

Aww bigbutton I dont know you, but just from reading that post I can tell you are not an unhinged looney at, you are just bone tired...I hope you get the counselling sorted with the drs.

Bigbuttons, I posted a reply and my sodding Internet has gone down!! Am on phone now. Will try and type it again x

Oh bigbuttons
(have namechanged back btw)
You do indeed need counselling - but only because you need a KIND and IMPARTIAL ear, not one driven by an abusive, selfish agenda!

The way your feeling, whilst totally shit, is COMPLETELY normal. Talk about a rock and a hard place!
It's ok to feel unhinged, but you are not a loony! Just a decent person reacting to indecent treatment, from not one but TWO people who ought to be treating you with love and respect. Fuckers

All I can is that you have the potential, once away from them, for happiness.

They on the other hand, will never be happy, because they are driven by the need to drag others down. It's like they feel they don't exist unless they can affect someone else negatively.
Please continue to post on here, we will try and support you all we can.

By the way bigbuttons during our last row, H threw some cash in my face and told me to go and see a counsellor because I was "mad". I did go and see one the very next day and she helped me get free of him and feel good about myself again. It was the best bit of "advice" that H has ever given me!

Oh thank you ladies, I have tears in my tired red eyes from you lovely kind words. I am not unhinged I am not unhinged. That's right I'm not. deep deep down I know I'm not, I know what's happening. I have 2 people telling me black is purple as always and I'm shouting no blAck is bLack is black.
I only realised last week that my mother whom I have know for years to be emotionally abusive was actually a narcissist.
I'm so scared I will become like her. Is that possible? Can I damage my children the way she has damaged me I would rather die.

I had one of those odd flashes of clarity today. Ds1 came home thank God i was worried he was going to stay at my mother's again. I realised when he was ranting at me angrily" you can't treat me like this etc etc" that those are the very words I had always wanted to scream at my mother as a child and had never had the guts to do. Sam, my eldest has a'bolt hole'; that is his narcissistic grandmother who indulges and controls him. I had no bolt hole. I was stuck with my looney mother.

He blames her for my 'madness', she blames him

Anyway, ds came into say goodnight. the tension had thawed between us and neither of us mentioned what happened yesterday. I took him on my lap, great big enormous 12 year old that he is, curled him up and held and rocked him like baby. Pressed my face against his ear and told him how very very much I loved him, how I had never wanted to cause him pain and was so so sorry that I had and would try my best to sort out my own pain so that I wasn't so angry and destructive. I called him my baby. He let me do this without any resistance. Even when his11 year old brother came in!
We arranged to go out for a coffee, just the 2 of us at the weekend.

I have to wrestle him back from stbex. I felt so powerless and tired, and yes snowmama I AM bone tired, actually speechless with exhaustion.

I am reading a book on verbally abusive relationships, it's interesting. I also intend to do more research on daughters of narcissistic mothers.

It's interesting the number of people I tell about the reasons why I am leaving stbex , basically that he is abusive. I give the more gory examples and still they give me a sad look and ask if there's any chance of a reconciliation?
WTF WTF?????

I was talking to stbex today and he said he thought I might be holding out some hope that we had a 'relationship" OMG I said we do have a relationship. We are 2 human beings ( well I am anyway0 and we have 6 children therefore we have a relationship. I can't believe he thought I was thinking we might stay a couple. There he was telling ME that it had gone too far for any kind of mending bridges. i said all I was after was that we could be amicable. That's surely impossible, but I can hope.

Oh dear sorry, this was bit of an epic. Nothing to say fro days then a crisis happens and it all comes out.
If you've read to the end well done and thanks again for the wonderful support. I don't know where I'd be without you lot xx

btw I remember that speaking to mother later today. she wanted to know how I'd got on at the dr;'s I told her. She said "Buttons, anyone would be depressed in your situation, it's completely understandable. All those things I said to you earlier, it's because I love you and want the best for you"'

She has ALWAYS BLOODY done this, "It's in your own interests and all of our interests dear" stuff. Stbex does it too. He used to tell me to go and have a lie down at the weekends like I was some crazed Dickensian heroine who had funny turns and needed her bed rest. He made me feel like an invalid. I should rest because if I didn't I became an over tired monster and spoilt it for everyone else in the house.
If I complained I wasn't going to rest, didn't want to then I'd get the rolling of the eyes and of course any subsequent crossness by me was blamed on my selfish refusal to take a rest when he suggested. But he would say :" heaven forbid buttons that I would tell YOU what to do, I know better than that"
It makes me feel physically sick thinking about it.

bigbuttons god, the "go lie down" things is really awful please just keep reading as much as you can about abuse and narcissism, hopefully you will get to a place soon where you really believe deep down with every fibre of your being that people like that cant be cured or managed, and you must protect yourself from their nasty traps. Just accepting what you are dealing with can help enormously, so much of the pain is wrapped up in the idea that "they are supposed to love me and treat me right" once you really understand that they never will, you will expect less from them, be disapointed less often and then you will find that you suddenly have a lot more energy and space in your head to take care of yourself, and do they things that you like and need to do. xxx