Support for those in emotionally abusive relationships 3

[ItsMeAndMyPuppyNow]

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

Apologise - pissed on way home from drink ('oh! Are you going out? :() with yet another friend who supports me completely. Thank you all so much. I forgot to mention the addictions - fags, booze, weed, fags. And I wouldn't even mind if I didn't have to endure the 'I'm not addicted, it's fine!'mantra. It's fine to be stoned looking after the kids! It's fine to drive the kids stoned! No questions allowed! No, I'm not in withdrawal, you're just being touchy.'

And yet I still feel bad, still feel I'm Overreacting, still feel like I ought to rise above and make it all ok.

Have to go, very nearly collided with bus stop! Thanks again. BeJ, will email when can xx

barbie - i dont know, but I think you have the same rights living with some one, as if you were married?

No bejeezus, in England you have zero rights if you are not married. You may as well be single. I think if things go to court the tendency is to keep the children with the mother but that's about it. Fortunately we have joint ownership of the house so although I can't kick him out, he can't kick me out either. If the house was in his name he would be able to do that - it happens!

I don't get his pension either which is a bit of a pain. I will grow old and poor.

Hello everyone - I think I might write a blog purely for old diary entries so that all the similarities can be spotted! I recognise my ex SO much in your descriptions above: the moping, self-pitying, pathetic resentful manchild who was perfectly capable of being charming to everyone else, or showing his "depressed" face to the world when he wanted some sympathy.

HelpMeMN - you are minimising the abuse SO much! You've got a bad case of cognitive dissonance - so get reading and know what it is your brain is doing!

Been there and feel for you x

oh yeah, i had to walk away from a house. he was very cunning because to begin with the plan was we would get a mortgage together but then he said he could borrow more on his own than he could with me. I challenged this but he was so insistent. I didn't roll over totally, I challenged all his financial abuse of me but it made no difference. We ended up living in a lovely house, the deposit was his from his old flat, the mortgage was in his name, and I was pressured into using up my savings (not huge but still fgs! ) on things like council tax and curtains and so on. so I had jack shit to show for 8 years of living with the guy. I felt resentful about it, and it stopped me leaving for a while because I couldn't quite get to grips with the fact that when I'd left it'd be with like a nappy bag and a buggy.

But no matter what I might have been entitled to legally, I would never have taken him to court. He would have gone bananas. The RAGE it would have unleashed in him. omg. And I'd never have got a penny out of him because you can't push water uphill.

helpmeMN I totally get the minimising things. It's a normal reaction. You can't process what's really going on because it's so fucking..... dramatic and dramatic things like that don't happen to people like you, right?!

Well, I know why I didn't leave 'the first time he hit me' it's because it was like being boiled slowly. I can't remember the first time. Because first it was a shove, then it was a rougher shove, then it was a rough shove and a POKE and then a rough shove and a rough poke, and then it was a hit. omg. "he hit me" "he hit me". but wait. hang on. it was no worse than the shove and the poke really, so it would be dramatic of me to leave because "he hit me". There's nothing worse than being unnecessarily dramatic is there!?!?!? it's just unnecessary!! {Cognitive Dissonance}.

Dear Helpme

read around and about on here, especially the links at the top. Just google emotional abuse/domestic abuse.
I was a complete mess in July, now towards end of August am getting there slowly albeit with lots of ups and downs, but they are not as dramatic as they were earlier ifswim?

And just thought I'd say I had my hypno and EFT. It was weird - I pictured a place from my childhood as my safe place and then to picture ex and feeling indifferent to him I did have a rush of adrenaline/anxiety but I saw myself sitting in a cafe and laughing with someone (NM???) and ex slouching moodily down the street on his own. Mmm, subconscious is a funny thing.
Whole thing was a bit like a long end of yoga session relax/breathing thing.
On the whole it was good.

It's getting worse and worse here, won't go into boring details but I've made up my mind I have to get out of this. I have spoken to everyone I can think of, domestic violence helpline, CAB, local authority housing advice line, women's resource centre. I just keep getting referred from one agency to another, the bottom line being I have no money for deposit/rent up front, I'm only looking at bedsits and house shares. All anyone can suggest is that I go into a refuge, it would be in another town and I'd have to give up my jobs for reasons of distance, I don't want to do this, I feel I can't give up absolutely everything. I have looked into a crisis loan but don't feel myself I'd be able to meet the repayments and of course if they don't think you can do that they won't give it to you anyway. I am constantly tearful and absolutely dreading the weekend. Waiting to hear back from Shelter, after that, no idea. Just feels like it's getting worse and worse by the day.

reasons, can you talk to someone at work to see if they can help with travel costs? or perhaps someone could give you a lift for a while until you get on your feet?

It does feel like it gets worse before it gets better somehow. We hide the truth from ourselves and when it happens that we can't ignore the facts, that we have to do something, we have to get out, all the truth we hid comes to the fore. It's normal, it's OK, and it has to happen. You have people in place to help you talk it through, organisations and individuals WILL help you if they can, be brave and do what you know you must.

It'll be OK, I promise, be brave, deep breath and focus on the happy, free life you deserve. It's waiting for you on the other side of all this.

Thankyou, I know there is a better life out there, at the moment it feels as if I can see it but I can't get to it.

Reasons,
which of the various agencies who fobbed you off did you reckon was the most sympathetic? I know you've been passed from pillar to post but can you face going back to the best of the lot and saying I really can't get anywhere. I need the buck to stop with you. Or see if Shelter is the one?
Do you have anyone in RL who can help? Hissy's idea re a lift/loan might be good. Is there someone sympathetic at work? It's awful having to open up, but someone might just have an idea to get you back on your feet again or have the time to sit down and look at finances etc with you?
Keep posting

I'm going to make an appointment with the local womens' resource centre again just to speak to a real person I can actually see. The domestic vioence helpline were lovely, housing department were the worst.
The thing about work is that it's only cleaning, I do one job on my own in an empty building, the other job there's a team of 3 so I don't have contact with masses of people. My friend I work with in one job is a complete rock to me emotionally and I don't know what I'd do without her. Other than that I only have my son, he has also been in tears over all this recently, I know he feels guilty he can't help in any practical way ie with money, I feel guilty putting him in that position. And he's beyond angry with my partner but knows confrontation wouldn't help me.

If you know where you will be moving to, roughly, surely you can scout about to find other jobs and then you won't feel so scared about the future? You'll get there love, you really will!!

I've covered another person's job in the evenings all this week so basically done twice as much and am knackered. I get home to the usual grump who has not moved from his bed all day, all week in fact. He's kicking off about having texted my son who has not replied, over the fact my son has invited his father to his own wedding, which is no business of anyone's, I am 'being a bitch' apparently and he has never trusted me. He accused me of plotting behind his back and demanded to know what is going on, I said if I could move I would, having trouble with cash etc. So it's in the open. His big concern?.. my cat. My son has said he will take my cat and that is good enough for me, I trust him. Partner only wants what is best for the cat, which is staying with him. Conversation over, he's not prepared to talk any more, no controlling behavior there then, I'm apparently an alcoholic as well. Couple of glasses of wine on a Friday night and I'm a wino. I can't even believe all this is real.

Oh I was an alky too! 2 glasses MAX. Or on a roll, a real bender of a week I'd have ONE glass a night for 3 nights running...

Is your DS living with you? could you go stay with him for a while?

You need to get this lump of lard out of your life, either he leaves or you do. If he loses his temper? 999 without a second thought. Throw the book at him, spare him no mercy at all! All's fair in Love and Abusive Bastards!

You could try the passive aggressive, ever so nicey nicey agreeing with him about everything, he can't lose his temper when you are agreeing with him, and it'll totally unseat him....

Play him at his own game from now on. Repeat "you are not prepared to talk anymore, neither am I, I am leaving, you are history" over and over and over.

thanks everyone, for your take on my wild idea of provoking some abuse so that I can feel "justified" in making my move. Your comments have made me think.

Still, it makes me furious,the idea that "provoking" some abuse would actually be...just doing something that would be considered normal in other families. Something (or things) that you've stopped doing "just for a quiet life" right? Changing your behaviour to avoid aggression or hostility, right? That's how you know you're being abused.

No, the "violence" has never, ever, been physical, only verbal. I sometimes wonder if he had ever hit me it might be "easier" to leave. Maybe not. Sorry to those of you who have been hit.

Helpme, stick around, you'll get so much support here. And stop cleaning the toilet! Please?! For you. Make the choice not to.

Reasons, I'm so sorry you are coming up against these brick walls. I hope that something will come up for you. The stuff you're doing, all the people you're asking, you're going in the right direction. You'll get there in the end.

Can't get on here much at the mo, but trying to keep up with the thread.

Love to y'all.

If its any consolation going through the mill here as well so you're not alone in your misery.
I havent been well last few days and this morning got up, felt myself blacking out and vomited in the bathroom. My 3year old was with me and she went up to get him to come help me. He refused to get up. It broke my heart when she came back down and said Daddy won't get up but it was ok she would mind me. Last night he argued with me over my apparent interest in other men. I said to him that honestly I just had no interest in other men and just wanted to be on my own with the DCs and free of him. This all happened because he asked for sex and I said that it was all he seemed to want me for and that there is never any amount of affection involved so why would I want to. Led to him saying I only want it to suit myself and into another rant about how horrible I am and onto the other men thing. I went to bed. As I said, been ill the last few days and was woken at 6am by DD. Can't believe the nightmare I live in.

Oh nearly forgot. Another tick on the twat bingo. I went up to him yesterday while he was enjoying his bed at 12pm in the day and said (nicely) was he getting up as there was no food in the house and I needed to go shopping. He said as I sat on the bed. "Don't get into the bed unless you're going to shag me"

The following is from a men's abuser help website thingy. It seems to sum up their permanent victim like status, how they have this deep seated belief that it's not "fair" for them, and that's why they take that perceived injustice out on those closest to them.....Breakfree......clearly being "most unfair" in not giving him sex, and having the audacity to expect help from him when you are ill. From his perspective, that is SO unfair. Sounds like Harry Enfields Kevin the teenager dontcha think?
I know with my xh though, that when he really is being treated like shit, eg, by some people he works for, he seems to be in some kind of comfort zone.

Underpinning our work is the understanding, based on many years of clinical experience and research, that abusive men [and many men who do not think themselves abusive] suffer from a profound sense of injustice, the feeling that life is unfair or that their partner is treating them unfairly. Anyone with a sense of injustice needs to find injustices, or create them, in order to account for why they feel so unfairly treated, anxious, afraid and angry. Such men will often create dramas with authority in order to feel their rage and righteous indignation without the guilt usually associated with such powerful feelings. The most easily available place in which to create situations where these feelings can be dramatised and enacted is the home with the most important person in their life - their partner. Much of our work, after the achievement of self-control is designed to help mitigate the sense of injustice and to uncover its roots in early attachments

My xh even has pepper victimising him.....ground pepper is middle class, and therefore the perpetrator of some dreadful slight on the working classes, especially those from his family. He only has "working class" pepper, the white powdery stuff. That's fine, but how on earth anyone can ascribe the class war to types of pepper is just nuts. Oh he REALLY means it too.

This is why he doesn't like me coming on MN, 'cos I tell people this stuff about him, and deeeeeeeep down, he KNOWS he's the nutjob, not me.

Oh by the way, I drink TWO LITRES of wine, every night. I didn't know that, but I do apparently. :o

According to him wine doesn't SUIT me. As soon as he starts on me after he has slugged down nearly two bottles of the stuff and I respond or reply after about 3 glasses its ALL me.Yes, I'm the deranged one. Hmmmm.Yes thats why I'm the one downstairs slamming doors and talking loudly to myself about what a bitch and a c* he is because I'M the nutjob.

The pepper thing is hilarious. The injustice thing makes total sense.

I'd love to get a very posh pepper mills and grind some on the head of your xh thisis, would be fine comedy moment. Hah.

But I love the exaggeration and victimisation thing. Mine accused me of drinking too much (he said that about one of his exes too). Oh and I live in a chaotic mess. Mmm that's because two DCs don't make for the house perfect and I'd much rather we had fun and tolerated a bit of mess. Oh and because it was a red letter day when he so much as hung the washing out or tidied away some toys.
Had funny conversation with BiL last night when he told me about x shouting at him towards the end. Apparently x whined that my family didn't like him because of some really trivial matter. BiL said to me 'actually that isn't a good point true, but basically we dislike him because he is abusive, aggressive and doesn't support the DCs.'

he still hasnt gotten out of bed.I actually went up and told him to get up and he told me to f.off and that he hadnt gone to bed till 5am.he is a fucking asshole.why does he get to choose when to be a parent.

breakfree, he is tosser indeed, poor you. stbex is the same,selective parenting. The Sw dealing with us told him he needed to be more involved with the kids. stbex told him he would be, had seen the error of his absent ways, blah blah. there is of no difference in his behaviour. Twat

Loving the condiment class war thing. DP's dad is very anti black pepper as well which has to be catered for. Speaking of catering for his parents I wanted to buy a particular duvet cover once, DP: my parents wouldn't like it. Me: but they don't live here. DP: yeah but if they came to visit they'd see it and they wouldn't like it.
I bought a lettuce which was apparently 'the wrong shade of green' once.
And we are supposed to be the nutjobs.
I've noticed the perceived sense of injustice and massive constant catastrophisation as well, everyone is out to rip him off, fuck him up, someone doesn't answer a text within 30 seconds and they've got the hump with him.
And the constant whining about being tired he has to be the most tired, the most ill. He once called his GP for reassurance over how 'ill' he was perceived to be and supposedly they told him he was amongst their most ill patients. I said you're not ill you have a bad back.
He's moaning now he wants to go and buy dope, there is no petrol in the car, he's just told me to put my fucking hand in my pocket, give him money for petrol and stop fucking sponging off him. I told him to stop moaning, he's now shocked beyond belief at the way I talk to him and treat him. Hey ho.