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.

Hmmmm the knitting metaphor has got me thinking.

2 years on almost and I've certainly been doing quite a bit of unravelling but I don't think I want to do any dying (sp?) of any sort.

I want to get it crystal clear just what a crappy pattern that was so that I can recognise it from 20 paces and never end up wearing such a horrible horrible sweater again. Then it's going right at the back of the wardrobe. (Think the metaphor's getting a bit stretched now)

Definitely in my favorite colours now though.

X hated my knitting, loathed it! Because it was an activity I could do from the confines of my golden cage! He was unreasonably against it. He'd buy me the wool though

I've done a couple of scarves, did a lovely one for him and a mini one for DS!

I tried to do a jumper, but got stuck at the putting it together bit, so it never got finished, and I don't know any babies the right size now

I started a lovely jumper for DS too, but then X came back, so it stopped.

I'll have to unravel it and size it up again won't I?

hello everyone. I have a thread here - someone on it recommended this thread.

I'm a couple of weeks into being alone (after a few months of turmoil) and finding it hard. The problem is that I forget about the incidents/or they seem less important. Plus no-one else believes me, H is not abusive in public. It has upset me the most when my sister asked if I'm sure I was right because I'm pregnant and therefore emotional, which is why I was crying when H was being verbally abusive to me. I have the Lundy book which did ring lots of bells. also will look into some of the others.

My H seems to have become like this recently. His behaviour changes drastically over the last few months. I am trying to remember whether he was like it before - I can't work out whether he has just recently become abusive, or whether I am in denial that he was always like this because I am hoping that this is a mid-life crisis rather than his personality.

I am exactly the same Beattiebow. I asked dp to leave yesterday. But I can't really explain why I did when I tell people. One fried even said don't do anything g hasty! Because ex was always nice as pie (mostly) in front of everybody else

It's how they get away with it

I love the analogy of the knitting with lovely, new colours nd creating a better life by getting rid of the yucky grey and black bits. I think there's alot of unravelling to do when you have been in these relationships and it takes a while. It doesn't just happen overnight like magic and you're all better.

What's the accommodation situation in the near future going to be for you and your soon to be ex, noseinbook? For the timebeing, try and keep as much distance as is possible with you both still in the same house; like others have said - go out frequently, if you can, it gets you out of the atmosphere.

MrCondiment - frustrating isn't it. Someone I know said to me - well, bellsring, we all like to have a drink to relax. It's as if they don't want to believe there is another side to the situation. It did make my blood boil as alcohol caused huge problems in the home - but it was just assumed that my ex, like him, just enjoyed socialising with alcohol/enjoying a few drinks at home. I went home thinking 'unbelieveable-why don't they understand'.

Beattiebow - you may not be able to remember alot of behaviour immediately prior to the last few months when your H's personality seems to have changed dramatically. In my case, there were subtle signs there right from the start- but I would never have picked up on them at the time; the rot really started full on when I had first dc.

true for most of us I think. So much of EA and VA is in the emotion that goes with it, and that's hard to put your finger on when you're not feeling it any more.

Pregnant women usually don't find they ask their oh to leave in a turmoil of emotions they usually cling to the familiar (even in my case when the familiar was an abusive relationship).... i think if you realised what was happening and acted then you really must have been very brave and very sure.

be careful, just because you don't feel like that now doesn't mean it wasn't real.
And you will probably find that over time little bits of unreasonableness will start to come back to you gradually.

Abuse is often triggered by being PG or birth of first child....competition for top spot!

Very familiar with all those symptoms you are going through. Yes, functioning can be just getting by/doing only the most important stuff at first.

AD's can be a help too to get you through.

foolonthehill, he made the mistake of putting me through a 45 minute episode of verbal abuse/haranging in the car when all the children were there listening and watching me sobbing. I will always remember them sitting there in absolute silence. I felt so shocked that he would do that in front of them, and the affect it would have on them, that I asked him to leave straightaway. Maybe had he just carried on doing it in the evenings/when the dcs weren't there, I wouldn't have been so decisive.

Beattie - our dc like to have a happy mum; makes them happy.

Me too Beattie...except I let it get to the point where he was verbally and emotionally abusing our eldest 2 as well, before the light came on and I said no more

guilt guilt...makes it all the harder today when i receive several emails from his family pointing out my faults and that I "drive him to his anger". Ok so I shouldn't be surprised but it still hurts.

Don't ask him, fool, why he has to behave like this to you - he will say - because no one else treats him the way you do (speaking from personal experience).

fool - don't be surprised if his family take his side. I know it's upsetting and frustrating.

yes. there he is in the bosom of his family being looked after. telling them what a witch I am (surprising he wants to come back really...i am apparently so bad!). Yet again he has someone doing his cooking, washing (ok probably not ironing!) bed and comforts and that most precious thing, time. here i am up to my neck in children, working, housekeeping, sorting.....................schools meetings, social workers, etc.etc.

Of course he has no insight or empathy so he wouldn't think twice about this would he.

Ok end of self-pity rant

Am actually wondering if he has NPD: never really thought about it before ...but has had troubled relationships with authority ( including his parents...which they seem to have forgotten conveniently) all through his adult life with lengthy estrangements....

Would be interesting if it weren't tragic.

I'm at my lowest ebb since 23rd. I've coped so far but I can see it's going to get a lot worse as he (and his supporters) realise I meant it, he's not back for at least 2 years and only then if he's done the work and made the changes ( never looked probable but now looking perilously close to impossible).

Changed favourite dream to large red bus at improbably high speed........

In reply to bellsring, actually things are not so different from what they were, in fact they are better, because I no longer try to talk to him about our marriage, our finances and our housework. A few comments about the telly (he always contradicts anything I say, it is actually quite funny now), updates on the kids' movements - they are grown, working and mostly living here - and that is it.

My plans are very fluid, and depend on the financial settlement, and the value of the portfolio, currently in freefall. Part of me would like to keep the house, but then again... He is hoping to end up buying somewhere, it doesn't look likely if we have to sell the house to do it, market is sluggish and house is large newbuild - and yes, we bought at the top of the market. But no mortgage.

I was expecting the divorce petition to arrive today for him, so I was out when the post was due. Everything was 'normal' tonight, so I thought it hadn't come. Now he has gone out without telling me. Well well well.

He was back by the time I got up. Did not reply to my "good morning"
if anyone reads this

Can you check with your solicitors to see if it was likely he got it this morning? Or, you may find out later, if he chooses to tell you.

I think now that he must have got it yesterday. It was sent Oct 31st, got email yesterday from solicitors confirming this.

Guess I'll just have to remain in limbo for a while.

Hello all.
foolonthehill how is everything going?

Hi sweep, well he's still out of the house physically, but has not moved any stuff. Seems to think he'll be back by christmas and we are having a "cooling off period".

Does this man never listen?......well no, obviously and apparently hasn't read my carefully crafted and really quite short letter...no surprise there.

Now I'm getting "helpful" emails from his parents.............

Terrified I am going to crack up.
self employed, have to keep working, have to sort children, have to sort home, ....

Social worker has invited himself for tomorrow am, I'm then off to solicitors,................

Nausea, vomiting, shakes, palpitation, dry mouth,....but now sleeping when i get to bed...hooray.

Welcome to a rubbish life!
At least so far the children look like they are doing ok.

Sorry if TMI....so , so tired, so pissed off....and underneath, tho I seldom admit it just a little bit ........ok a lot!

Oh, it sounds so hard. But keep plodding down that road.
He will make it tough. That's what he is.
Hope your children are ok now as well.
Thinking of you x

thx