Hi there,
I am an oddity on this thread as I am a father rather than a mother. However, I don't know of any places where men discuss matters such as this, so I hope no one will mind me chipping in.
I don't know whether my relationship counts as emotionally abusive. However, my relationship with my DW has been rocky to varying degrees over the last four years. My DW quite often loses her temper at me, shouts at me in front of the children, and accuses me of stupidity, idiocy, selfishness and so on. This probably happens about twice a week although there have been occasions when it has been more frequent.
My instinct is to try and withdraw when this happens. I hate arguments. However, this only makes my DW crosser: if I ask her if we can stop now and talk later when we've both calmed down, she says that I'm "running away" and that I must deal with this now (this tends to mean listening to her). The arguments tend to flare up over small things. The last one was when I said I didn't have time to take some kitchen waste to the compost bin because I was rushing to leave for work.
For much of 2010 we were in counselling. The counsellor taught us ways of talking without arguing, ie, in a very controlled way and with very strict rules. This has worked up to a point, but my DW (in my opinion) finds it very hard to accept that my viewpoint is reasonable when we do have a disagreement.
My dw is not at all manipulative, and sometimes she is lovely. She can sometimes just be very, very pushy.
Her father was a difficult man when she was young, and family arguments were a feature of her upbringing.
At times it has got so awful that I have taken a knife to my arms.
The first time I did this, I managed to keep the marks hidden for a week. Then I admitted what I'd done. My dw insisted that next time I was tempted to do this, I was to talk to her. I said that I was only likely to do this in times of absolute stress, and talking to her was likely to be the very last thing I wanted to do. Nevertheless, she said that I must.
I am currently hiding my arms again.
I believe my dw is a good woman, so for her sake and for the sake of the children I want to make the marriage work. However, at times I don't feel that she really sees what she is doing to me.
If anyone could recommend some useful reading for me, I'd be very grateful, because things have got to the point where I have to find some solution by myself.