Support for those in emotionally abusive relationships 3

[ItsMeAndMyPuppyNow]

New thread - will copy our library of links in the following posts

Honestly, my 2p? Tell him after the birth. You're giving birth, fgs! Not the time to cater to his needs, if they make you less than delighted.

Unless you would feel better having him there proving his worth, in which case ignore the above, and instead make sure he is there.

I guess what I'm really saying is: consider what you want for the birth. Then do it.

Orb, if you allow this man to be there, he'll make it HIS drama, HIS thing and tbh, you don't need him there, you will be at the most vulnerable time in your life and to have someone who treats you like this, who denies your existence, who ignores you sharing that most fragile of moments is not right.

Seriously, being with you is a privilege, a blessing, not a right. He has no right to do this to you, to insist on being present at an event so wonderful as this when he has done his damnedest to deny, ignore and complicate the whole process.

He wants to be there because it would say too much for him not to be - but it's a box he's ticking FOR HIMSELF, not for you, not for your child. This is all about HIS needs. Sharpen up your vision, and see this for what it is, it's all about HIS terms and not yours.

You don't have to allow it. I don't think you should have him there at all. Nor do I think he should be on the birth certificate, don't you dare give this clown parental responsibility.

Barbie: I knew nothing of this, I was assuming (rightly or wrongly) that as OP is on this thread and not any other that there was an issue of EA at the least. she's right about that. She is a victim of EA. The kind of man that would deny his P's baby to all and sundry is never going to be in a successful relationship. He's a write off.

barbie - reading Lundy is not doom and gloom! IMHO anyway!

OK so it may wake us up to the fact that what we thought was just random crappy behaviour is more deep-seated, and that there is nothing WE can do to stop it. It also teaches us that nothing we did caused it either! It absolves us of all the blame heaped upon us, all the responsibility placed on our heads, in a few pages, it's all GONE!

What we do next of course is the interesting part, but it teaches us to let go, release the deadweight that is the guilt, blame and imposition our relationship has become.

I've said this before, but the newbies here may benefit from hearing it repeated. When X had told my BFF's husband that I'd spent 5 years in a mental institute as an attempt to get him to ban his wife from contact with me, robbing me of my only friend, something snapped in me.

I said to him "To make me look bad, you have to LIE, To make YOU look bad, all I have to do is tell the TRUTH. That statement really helped me hold onto my resolve.

breakfree thanks yes i was but i'm ok now, Mr Jekkyll was in full force yesterday, woke up this morning and got Mr Hyde, nice as pie did all the housework with a bit of grumbling then made a huge point of telling his MIL when my mum came over this morning, i actually said to him this morning 'so all the insults you thrown at me yesterday are forgotton about now in your mind then?' -why did the row start yesterday? because whilst having a quick soak ds pooed his nappy and stbx had to deal with it......

my problem is i've always been headstrong, so has he, (we're both leo starsigns) so when he starts usually i would have told him what a nob he was being but i'm trying very hard at the moment to do the disengaging and not add the fuel to his fire so to speak. Orb I agree with Hissy take the 'whatever' approach with him and have a plan b, Happydoll you'll be fantastic on you're own-it just takes time and courage, you've just been programmed to Think You're not iykwm. hugs everyone, sorry to those I missed x

Pixie, I may be massively projecting here, but: are you certain you're that headstrong, or have you often been told by important people in your life that you're headstrong, whenever they were put out by you having your own opinions?

pixie: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cycle_of_Abuse.png

recognise anything here?

Pixie... I will pick up the baton from Puppy here.

"my problem is i've always been headstrong"

My problem? MY problem? Erm, I doubt very much that YOU have a problem with being headstrong, it's OTHER PEOPLE that have the problem as Puppy says!

You have a right to be forthright, to hold opinions and to defend them. People don't have to like your opinions, but they are yours to hold in any event!

"i'm trying very hard at the moment to do the disengaging and not add the fuel to his fire so to speak"

So you are complying... CALL HIM OUT ON HIS TWATTISHNESS!* Tell him he has no right to belittle you, don't worry about his fire, it is exactly that HIS. His problem.

Detach by all means, but only to gain a better view of what is going on here, which is the systematic denial of YOU, your feelings, your thoughts, your happiness. Stop caring about what he thinks, that is what detachment is all about.

*As long as violence is not likely, if it is, GET OUT. Simple as that. Really. It is.

Pixie that 'headstrong' stuff - as a new convert to disengaging, I have found that the reaction is amazing - the arguments just come to a sudden halt. The thing is in your own mind you know what's right and what's wrong - and if you don't expose what you think, they can't think you're being headstrong. Only you know you still are.

DH forced me to tell him I wanted him to come on holiday with us this morning. I said it's your time off work, we'll do what you want. But he just wanted me to tell him that I wanted him to come with us. So I said 'yes I want you to come with us'. He knew exactly that it meant nothing. Very weird. He's so mixed up. It's as though he's clinging to some kind of ideal scenario and is trying to make us fit into it.

It's as though he's clinging to some kind of ideal scenario and is trying to make us fit into it.

Yes, I get that. stbxh liked the idea of a wife and family, but certainly couldn't give of himself to cope with the reality. He liked the idea of me, and would get in rages if I went off-script -- from a script that existed only in his head.

A brilliant MNer (was it Annie?) recently told me to imagine narcissists as Truman in the Truman show that film with Jim Carrey as a man whose entire life was fake; all the people in it were just actors playing roles except with Truman as the director of the show, deciding what role all the people around him should be playing to please him.

Evening everyone,

just wonder if this is all getting too complex? I said to a RL friend when trying to explain that it was all a headf*. And that one thing was difficult was trying to keep a stable point of view. Does it make more sense just to detach and work out what you want and then what obstacles stand in your way, what things are non-negotiable, what things you can accept as signs of change, a decision to begin to change?

Also spoke to my counsellor today who said that trying to justify was a typical pattern of those exposed to EA or DV and it was a really new and sometimes frightening experience to assert yourself or put your needs first. So am feeling pretty scared by thinking about that. It sort of makes you wonder if you are copying his unacceptable selfish behaviour iyswim.

herhissyness have you seen on amazon, a man (clearly an emotionally abusive narcissist) has written a damning review of Lundy's "why does he do that?"

ps, the piece on heartless-bitches.com about emotional abuse is excellent..

Ooh, bandwithering, (good name! How come I never come up with clever names.. ) no I haven't see that...

I'll have to have a look now...

Thanks guys. I've been thinking about it and see that he is trying to make me feel responsible for a situation he has engineered (him being not at the birth) and I think me trying to justify my reasons for not wanting him there show that he has me doubting whether it is somehow my fault. Really if he was that keen he would be renting a B&B room nearby (he's in between jobs and has a couple of training days a week in London, about 1.5hr away by train so not impossible). Instead he's decided not to tell me who he is with and say he will need at least 3hrs to get to mine from London.

I also fully agree that he will make it all about him when he gets here - "oooh look how far i've had to come and with a bad leg" etc etc.

Strangely I had an email from his father when I got home just now, asking whether I am willing to count them as extended family and asking for my guidance as to whether this will be possible. Wrote a long reply explaining the situation and some back ground as I know for a fact he's not told them everything. He didn't even tell them about me being pregnant until after he left us! He told me that they weren't very "hands on" and wouldn't be at all interested. Obviously a complete lie, which I knew it was at the time, but he had me wondering. At least there is communication there now and they might finally get a bit more insight into my side of the drama he's created.

he he he he he he he.... the guy is an idiot!

He says he has an anger problem not physical, but verbal.

He says he has read FIFTEEN books on the subject 15! and he is STILL a verbally abusive idiot!

Which bit of the HUMUNGOUS majority of abusive males will NOT ever change does HE himself not get? He is reading these books to gain terminology, to allow himself a condition to use to hide behind. he is using the books, I'm willing to bet as a stick to beat his victim. Poor Mrs BroadPete.

If he really WAS serious about stopping his abuse, he could just STOP shouting/swearing/calling names, surely? It's not like its Tourette's or anything is it?

Oh but Hissy, you don't understand the anguish poor Pete is in! He doesn't understand why he does what he does, and until the right book tells him, he just can't help himself now can he?

I don't understand why 'they' do that, but that's text book as well. All that telling some bits of the truth, and releasing the truth in drips. They want to control the truth, or not have other people know it until after they've absorbed it or put their own spin on it I think.
After I left my x, I discovered that almost a YEAR later he had not told his boss that I'd left. so he was pretending for a year that every friday night he was going home to a 'family'.

PART of the reason was that he couldn't quite believe that he couldn't MAKE me go back though. He only finally told people at work that I'd left when he finally grasped that he couldn't MAKE me go back.

I wouldn't bother having him at the birth. I think the midwives gave me far more support than my x did. He was fussing about the tea from the machine tasting like metal and the cost of the parking and so on and so on.

@hissy, yeah god love his wife. I hope she has left him by now. I really do, because as it says on that heartless-bitches.com site on the rant about EA, an abuser who 'swots up' on the subject is one of the worst types of all.

Orbinator given your current insight on exP, how would you feel about not justifying yourself at all to him, perhaps even not giving him any more info about your delivery until such time as you feel comfortable with it?

Regarding his parents: it sounds promising that they have contacted you, and asked rather than insisted on being given a role, and letting the decision be up to you. Have you ever met them? Do you have any insights on whether giving them a role would just be another way for exP to have inroads into your life that you might not want? (he is their son and they are unlikely to side against him in any conflict).

notsorted, I see where you are. You are in the Fog still.. It's OK, an abusive relationship totally disorientates you, you have no idea which way is up.

Try to find a quiet place with yourself and identify the base truths in your life. That you are not happy, that STBX is making you unhappy, and not doing enough/anything to help you NOT be unhappy, that you do deserve better, that it will never get any better, only worse if you stay where you are.

Once you accept that there really is no point in entering into negotiations, really understand that. the person you thought you were married to is not there, is long gone, never existed in the first place, and no matter how hard you wish, he will never ever be seen again. Once you get that, hang onto it, for dear life, because those thoughts are the white pebbles that will lead you out of this deep dark forest.

focus on the truth, don't accept anything he says as the truth until you have checked it out, disengage, be non-committal to everything and know yourself, love yourself and stand up for yourself.

Use the word NO more often, use it all the time if it helps. Come to your own decisions about everything.

TBH, you have to let go, you have to tell yourself that there WILL be no changes, there will be no signs to look for. Even if he turns over a new leaf tomorrow, it's sustaining that change for a VERY LONG time that will prove there is change.
While you stay in this relationship, there is no incentive for him to change in reality. think about it.

The only way he will change (minute possibility) is that you leave him, he realises what he has done and works damned hard to make it up to you, by himself and over a very long time works to change the fundamental beliefs of entitlement to treat you like crap, permanently.

If you leave and he changes, great. You can consider a new relationship with the new him. If you leave but he doesn't change, GREAT, you know where you are and you are free of the abusive controlling man. As hard as it looks, leaving him is actually a WIN/WIN situation.

Poor Pete ... am I allowed to use the C word....?

well I kinda just did then didn't I

Sideways on to that review about the Lundy book. I had long conversation with SO (not in that sense but a possible intermediator, but don't want to reveal more about myself in case) and was trying to explain situation and why I wasn't going to go back on what I'd said before. I just wondered whether I should point some websites out that may or may not get forwarded to ex or am I added ammunition to being blamed myself? If so which ones does anyone recommend as top couple.
In moments of self-doubt I start seeing myself as displaying some abusive bits and then wonder if I'm absorbing all the terminology just to get my point over.
No idea but I need reassurance that this is right course of action.

Orb: If I were you, tbh, I'd refuse to engage with either father or son at the moment.

Focus on you, on the baby. Nothing else matters.

If he wanted to be there, he would be. He is dicking about (literally) and being a total arse (borrows that C word I previously reserved for Pete) leave him to it. Seriously.

Ignore any calls, emails, texts. Don't feed either him or his dad. You don't know his family? Perhaps your X learnt all he knows about abuse from his Dad... Tread carefully, treat them all with suspicion. You have enough friends in your life, and you have far too many foes too. Screen these people before you allow them access to you and your babe.

SO may not be such a trusted intermediate if you are afraid of what information may be passed on to your P, notsorted. Or is it just that you are (rightly) concerned that any information that labels your relationship abusive will only be used by him against you?

Nobody but yourself knows what the right course of action for you is, sweetie. It's normal to be confused about initiating change, though. I'm confident you'll find clarity, though.