Support for those in abusive relationships - thread 6

[ItsMeAndMyPuppyNow]

Welcome!

This is the latest instalment in a series of threads for those who are in abusive relationships, those who have left abusive relationships, and those gearing to leave.

Come vent, share, give and receive support.

The first question you may be asking yourself as a new visitor to this thread is:

Am I being abused?
Verbal Abuse A wonderfully non-hysterical summary. If you're unsure, read the whole page and see if you're on it
Emotional abuse from the same site as above
Emotional abuse a more heartfelt description
Signs of Abuse & Control Useful check list
Financial abuse Are you a free ride for a cocklodger, or supposed to act grateful for every penny you get for running the home
Women's Aid: "What is Domestic Violence?" This is also, broadly, the Police definition
20 signs you're with a controlling and/or abusive partner Exactly what it says on the tin

Books
"Why Does He Do That?" by Lundy Bancroft - The eye-opener. Read this if you read nothing else
"The Verbally Abusive Relationship" by Patricia Evans ? He wants power OVER you and gets angry when you prove not to be the dream woman who lives only in his head
"The Verbally Abusive Man, Can He Change?" by Patricia Evans - Answer: Perhaps - ONLY IF he recognises HIS issues, and if you can be arsed to work through it. She gives explicit guidelines
"Men who hate women and the women who love them" by Susan Forward. The author is a psychotherapist who realised her own marriage was abusive, so she's invested in helping you understand yourself just as much as helping you understand your abusive partner
"The Emotionally Abusive Relationship: How to Stop Being Abused and How to Stop Abusing" by Beverley Engels - The principle is sound, if your partner isn't basically an arse, or disordered
"Codependent No More : How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself" by Melody Beattie - If you a rescuer, you're a co-dependent. It's a form of addiction! This book will help you
But whatever you do, don't blame yourself for being Co-dependent!

Websites
So, you're in love with a narcissist - Snarky, witty, angry, but also highly intelligent: very good for catharsis
Dr Irene's verbal abuse site - motherly advice to readers' write-ins from a caring psychotherapist; can be a pain to navigate but very validating stuff
Out of the fog - and now for the science bit! Clinical, dispassionate, and very informative website on the various forms of personality disorders and how they impact on family and intimate relationships
Get your angries out ? You may not realise it yet, but you ARE angry. Find out in what unhealthy ways your anger is expressing itself. It has probably led you to staying in an unhealthy relationship
Melanie Tonia Evans is a woman who turned her recovery from abuse into a business. A little bit "woo" and product placement-tastic, but does contain a lot of useful articles
Love fraud - another site by one woman burned by an abusive marriage
You are not crazy - one woman's experience. She actually has recordings of her and her abusive partner having an argument, so you can hear what verbal abuse sounds like. A pain to navigate, but well worth it
Baggage reclaim - Part advice column, part blog on the many forms of shitty relationships.

Oldest is 11 so nearly the same I think. they are ok when available to help in house. trouble is i have other children in the house all day so we really use all the space and it's not really fair for them to help with all of it,,and they don't really have time (mind you they have time for their turn on computer (we have 1 between them) and tv!

it'd just overwhelming

Hissy, resist. The temptation is perfectly understandable - oh yes, I've been there (not with an MM but with other unsuitable candidates) - but you will feel like shite if you pursue it, I promise you.

This is another comparison I've used before but... if you have a bad tooth that's got to come out, it leaves a big gap for a long time. You've got a man-sized gap in your life, even though he had to go, and you haven't got used to it/scabbed over yet. You've just got over the first flush of relief that the abusive bugger isn't there and are starting to miss the companionship. Then along comes sexy-looking guy who knows how to say all the right things to make you feel good again, remind you you're an attractive woman with a lot to offer etc. Of course it feels great. If nothing else, it proves you still have feelings that the ex hasn't knocked out of you. He's a cheaty bastard though, and long term you will really wish you hadn't gone there. You do know this. It's what you'd tell anyone else.

Just pretend he's a film star or something who you've got a major crush on but can never have. Moon over the picture if you must. But he is not yours.

Hissy Step. Away. From. The. Twitter.

I know, I know, I know.

All this will pass...

Thanks friends! Really needed all that and really appreciate it!

Houdini Hugs to everyone!

Could do with some Houdini skills here.
How did I let this man ruin 13 years of my life?? How can I stop him ruining every day even now he is gone? Just how does anyone cope with all this and just keep going??

He looks even more deranged now than he did.

the only positive is that DCs are definitely better without him...but they don't really realise that and are beginning to want us to "say sorry and make it all better"

I am not given to swearing but Si

How does this happen to people like us...I could have made a good wife...............

I might even have made someone somewhere happy

beginning to unravel...
don't know what to do
1 month now and we are no further on at all.

Fool... you can do this. It's shit, but it will not last for ever. It just feels like it's lasting forever while you're in the middle of it.

Not wanting to start competitive abusee status as everyone's circumstances are different, and by the sound of it your soon-to-be-ex is a few degrees nastier than my ex, but I put up with it for nearly twice as long as you so I guess that makes me twice as stupid! And you wouldn't want to call me stupid, would you?

I spent two years in the same house with the man I was divorcing, plus another three months between decree absolute and the house being sold. My sanity has taken quite a knock and it caused me to lose my job - which I'd been in for even longer than the marriage. I became a pretty crap parent, bad-tempered, distant, hiding in computer games. But it ended, I'm out, and miraculously the DCs still love me.

You can do it too. One foot in front of the other, keep detaching, and you'll be there before you know it.

Annie ALWAYS speaks good sense! You will get through this and you will look back and laugh! I promise you will!

Stop carimg, start spectating, it's hard to maaster, but it's the only way!

thx.
Can't stop caring...or as i see it...being a doormat. Just walks all over me. I want to be able to reasonable but looks like I'll have to be a cow to get through, but don't want DCs to see me as being unnecessarily nasty to someone they do love even if it is a bit ambivalent at times.

I hate what he has done to us, i hate what he is doing now even more.

He's got no work for ever 3 months now so 3 months of availability to harass and destroy me whilst i look after the 7 of us, and work.....

Sound so self-pitying don't I? And that's not me either...

I just want it all to stop, now.

fool my lovely, someone who can see how much more deranged someone has become is NOT, repeat NOT unravelling.
Stop trying to be reasonable with him. He is not and will never be reasonable. Trying to be the decent human being yo are with him will never work.

You know when one of your kids is having an 'unreasonable moment' what do you do? Think...
You tell them firmly "no" you let them know how their behaviour is not ok and you stand firm.
You have to do that with him. You're not being a cow you're simply not putting up with shit.
You be form for your kids and for you. be be their rock in the middle of all this stormy nightmare.
Tell your dc's why mummy and daddy won't be making up, tell them that daddy is not nice to you and he makes you sad. Tell them they should never chose to be around friends who make them sad either.

Practise saying NO in the mirror, calmly, like stuck record. NO
xxxxxxx

practising stuck record technique...........
good alternative to sheep counting????

I have been struggling to see where genuine love ended and this strange dance took its place.

I think that my DC were conceived in real love between OH and me. A strange kind of warped love on both sides, but it was the best we could do at the time. I am not sure either of us were born of parents who both loved each other at the time.

But my love was for a partner, and it never really felt like a partnership after he stopped working full time in his own business, and remained very much based in the house with me (and DD wasn't yet at school then, though DS was).

So fool I decided I can still love him as the father of my children. But that is all that remains of what we once had.

Well H has me running around after him like a blue arsed fly again. Trying not to slip back into anything, I have been really strong lately. Just trying to get Xmas out of the way.

Totally off topic - but I'm panicing about me smoking. Started 6 months ago, its the only thing that de-stresses me, smoke around 10 a day, I've started coughing - worried I've got lung cancer already. My only concern is leaving my DCs with a shit father if I pop my clogs. Anyone know if it happens that fast - so worried about my mortality lately

IWBF xx

just in case it helps...lung cancer in younger people is usually unrelated to smoking....................wouldn't be a bad idea to stop sometime though. The cough is probably because the little hairs that sweep mucus up and out of the lungs/airwaves are being clogged up with gunk....from the cigs.

uh oh Have I outed my previous life, before OH took it all away and i landed on less than min wage....??

airwaves??????? airways duh!!

thanks fool airwaves lol - reminded me of chewing gum though, may try that as an alternative .

I too struggle with the be horrible to him - if its just not in your nature its so tough - but fool it sounds like you have no other choice with him - he's bloody horrible to you.

Someone somewhere someday will there to make you as happy as you make him!

will be there!!!

really really horrible to me, inappropriate with children...what man would ask their 10 yr old DD what Mummy thought of the letter he had written her??? As if I would share it with her

Bit wrried that she is filling the shoes that I have left..she is quite good at handling him, and quite proud that she can and other DCs can't ,leads to him treating her as older than she is.....ALARM BELLS...she protects the others as much as possible.

Lots of discussions about the fact that it is not right that she has to "handle him" that it isn't what normal relationships are about. She feels so torn and so responsible fopr him ITS NOT FAIR.

When he went away and we had a week free of him then she became a child again...in a good way, I want her to have that back...and it's stopping me from growing a backbone and setting personal limits cos it means they have to deal with him on their own

fool, what are your arrangements for contact? Do the DC want to see him? (sorry if you've already said)?

You are snowed under with kids all day, is that right? Do you have any plans for the future, such as retraining to reenter your specialty?

What processing time do you have for yourself? Are you like me, driving or supermarket shopping is a good state to think in? Or are you having to monitor kids at the same time?

fool I wish I could share my LWH with you and all the exhausted mums on here who need a bit of pampering and time off from the struggle!

I understand your worry for DD. My DD17 had her F sobbing in the kitchen and telling her his woes after I left and she held it all together running the house until she came over to see me then collapsed sobbing and let it all out. Because actually I am the adult and she is the child, and that is how it should be! He just thinks it is all about him. Grrr

Detach and observe is working a treat here. Yesterday XH borrowed my car and left the lights on and killed the battery. He was most put out and grudgingly bought me a new battery at the roadside and tried to blame me for it all. Ha! Then we went to parents evening with DS (who has done really well) and XH managed to make the teachers feel small and apologetic instead of thanking them and being nice.

I read him, I marked him and I learned!!

Thank goodness it is no longer me that is being made to apologise and feel bad for all his failings. Or bail him out of his stupid careless mistakes.

Off to shop with DS now for Xmas. I'm beginning to feel a little festive!!
LittleHollyHouse??

My "arrangements" are this: he sees DCs straight after school Mon, drives back and forth to piano lessons..unfortunately has some time here in between runs. usually then goes home but tries to stay for tea...

then should be free until Fri when he is supposed to take DCs swimming...he always arrives for tea...kids invite him...he stays for film night

Sat am 9-12 his time with DCs...except he does nothing with them and is here. (I stay because DCs want me to and i can't get jobs done if I go out)

But there is always something else...this week his mums birthday, last week a DCs birthday, Christmas stuff coming up.

Kids are ambivalent about seeing him, they want to but they know they are likely to be disappointed...he is not very into them...finds the middle ones easiest...fun, forgiving and undemanding. DS1 would be semi happy not to see him, he's desperate for approval and will never get it

He emails, writes, texts constantly...sometimes practical but also abusive threatening letters, and also manipulative letters. DCs are 10 down to 2, 6 of them.

I work at home 36 hours as childminder

(yes i want to go back to use my skills but DCs are very small!) No family close, good friends but all busy, busy....processing time?????shower....?cooking?ummmm?????)

No time, no space

OK that makes one of your possible processing times Sat 9-12. He has responsibility for the kids. You do what you want to in the house. As you are a childminder, are you like the lovely one I had back in the day when I came out of hospital in 1993? She got things out one at a time, and got the kids to clear up. What kind of jobs do you do? Is there any music you'd like to listen to while you are doing it?

Can you tell me any more about the 36 hours childminding? Or about your living space? The first step in escapology is to wriggle in your strait-jacket .

It is good that you know you want to used your skills again, and good that you know now is not the time. I am blessed to have been a SAHM, I did enjoy my children, though the house was chaos!

If i can keep to myself in the 9-12 and not be pursued by him, that works.

We live in a Victorian terrace, 2 rooms downstairs, 3 beds then loft conversion. If poss I clean up in the loft/bathroom when he is here.

I would love to be the sort of childminder you describe!! I look after an assortment of under3s,. 3 at a time but different children on different days ..some days i have children who i can do something then clear and do something else but i have 2 "tippers" who basically tip toy boxes and carry to far corners....this is their "mode" it's developmental and they will progress...but at the moment i have to live with it to an extent (or go out!!).

I think my straight jacket is him...I am completely taken aback (understatement) at the way he is behaving...i just thought he would care about what he looked like and behave better for that reason alone but he seems evil in the way he is using and manipulating the children and the way he speaks to me. Somewhere there was a post entitled something like..."Help my life's turning into a soap opera...." It's a good title and certainly how i feel. Real people don't act like this do they?? They don't willfully hurt their children , really?????????? Yes they do

I love being at home for my children, even if it means i look after others too. The paperwork is getting on top of me though...need a secretary to do it all, then I could sort out the separation agreement etc. which would at least help me mentally even if he is his usual difficult self.

I think when mine were at the stage you describe, a saucepan of pegs kept them amused for quite a while!

Is that 3 in all, or 3 plus (some or all of) yours (I need that spreadsheet )

Do you read books and watch TV with them, I find kid's stories can be quite good at provoking metaphorical insights for adults, as well as what they do for the kids! [mad] All processing possibilities...

Of course you need to find time to rest from the processing too!

I, too, am surprised that stbx has not at least put on a cloak of normality - well, he sort of has abit, but not when money is mentioned!