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.

Hello lovely ladees

Popping in to share a humorous snippet from Bibi towers (as good a bump for this thread as any I reckon :) )

Came home tonight to find a valentines card on my doormat (be still my beating heart thinks I)

It's from the ex - recognise the handwriting and the fact he never could spell for toffee.

Signed from ' a distant admirer' - oh, the urge to scrawl on it 'nowhere near distant enough for me mate' and post it back is overwhelming....

I won't of course but it amuses me to think I could.

Damn the blighter, for a second there I thought my sharp wit and stunning good looks had attracted an actual secret admirer

Love and strength to all of you still fighting your own unwanted 'admirers' !

He's a bit premature, isn't he? Did this apply to (ahem) other areas of his life ?

Bit of a while since mine admired me if he ever did

yes, in his world this probably counts as a supreme effort - sending it so early I mean and cunningly misspelling even my name

I'm convinced your tosspot admires you a great deal still and always has pinkpussycat but where would they be if they actually ever admitted that?

No, to give you any kind of confirmation of your wonderfulness would of course mean your head would swell to the size of a giant pumpkin with self importance and you'd be off immediately finding someone who is actually worthy of you/us!

That's my amateur assessment anyway (well, it always felt like that to me when I was still living with the twerp) :)

Ah, valentines day, the prescriptive day of choice for the unimaginative man.... funny how he spent a decade poo pooing the day but now we've been split for 14 months suddenly it's the most important day in the 'how to be a perfect lover' hand-book - psml!

Bibi!

I've missed you. (have name changed - you probably have no idea who this random is)

HAhahahahahahaaaa at the Cap'n's self-pitying Valentine's card. ("Why do you keep me so distant, oh cruel Bibi of my heart? Pity meeeeeee!" being the undertone I infer from his sig.)

Snort.

Ha ha ha HotDamn your post just made me snort too!

I am wonderfull - with two ll's no less

Just thinking to myself that I have literally been hunting for two and one pence pieces these last few days (payday tomorrow at last) but I'd sooner wear rags and eat dirt than still be with the cap'n :)

Cruel Bibi - Ha!

yay Bibi...missed ya!

Thanks fool - continued pom poms for you (caught some of your progress on other threads on Sunday)

Of course I never look at MN nowadays, not me siree nope, just have my head in my book for the blinking work exam I've kept putting off for the last year...ahem....

You'd think it'd be a cinch now i live the peaceful life of riley with just 'old lady fm' playing of an evening rather than bloody zombies being chopped up on the playstation

Ah well, nothing like the pressure of a looming deadline for me :)

Come to think of it, I received an even more overtly "pity me" text last February 14th form stbxh. iirc, it said: "This is the worst Valentine's Day ever [sad emoticon]"

Shockingly, I did not rush to his side to coo about his poor lonely state and pat his head and make it all better for him, poor little violent and abusive diddums.

Ladies, prepare for pity-parties in your inboxes in 2 weeks' time!

And good luck with the exam, Bibi!

And the zombie-slaying.

good luck Bibi.
shall be looking for advice on where to find coppers as H drives us further down the road to penury...can't extract myself fast enough legally and he is a self entitled worthless lazy twatnot very good with money and probably hasn't looked at the mortgage account in his life. He's running away ignoring the solicitor. And he still thinks he'll be back in a few weeks!!

panicing...a bit!!

me panicking*....his head's too far into the sand to panic....

On the plus side, we have no money to fight over. On the minus side, I had plenty before meeting him!

Leo, that is definitely a text to manipulate you and make you worry.

Latest idea is to go and live in a caravan whilst we have the flat. No doubt so he can come back and want to live in 'his' flat again. He blows so hot and cold that I don't want him to have our address. He has threatened me and our son, so no. But he still thinks it's okay to call up for a chat.

Lawyer has written a very safe letter saying we should sort out access. Doesn't say that his advice is not to let him have any!

love lawyer speak.

Not long now till I feel Decree Absolutely Fabulous :) Meanwhile, have started legal process re settlement (no pensions to speak of, so don't need to delay the final end of the marriage) Feel calm, though powder keg and match feeling rings a bell, fool.

Kardakan is your H on benefits? Is he happy with his dope habit (although he might not tell you if he wasn't)? Does he ever have a few days without? Does it make him sit about not doing anything (does the opposite for me, but I suspect I am weird wired differently). What is it you want from him - divorce, co-parenting, etc? Sorry lots of questions. It is possible to modify a dope habit, but it depends a lot on the circumstances and the desire to do it.

Hiya, Pinky, I will try to answer. We were both on benefits due to being unable to work. Since I left, he has got a job, and is earning well, but it still all goes on cannabis. I frequently asked if he wanted help to cut down - no, he just wanted more money to pay for more. I had hoped in the early days that he would change, as I think smoking that amount has changed him, and I thought he might be able to return to the peaceable man I had married rather than the abusive, aggressive, irresponsible man he is now. Now I just want it over with, rather than being kept in his circle so he can 'phone me up to rant whenever he wants. I would like him to be responsible and see our son, but that's up to him. He doesn't see a problem with teaching a two-year-old to roll joints, and I do. Our son can do what he wants when he's older, but I don't want him educated into it, if you see what I mean? I have plenty of friends who take dope, but they think it's wrong, so I hope I'm not too prudish!

Hope you manage to sort out the settlement as smoothly as possible. It's good that you're feeling calm - you've got that control back in your own hands, as it should be. But yes, the feeling of everything primed to go off is very familiar!

Nothing 'prudish' about not wanting your child to be around that lifestyle Karkadan.

I spent a decade with a heavy dope smoker and I've come to believe that the constant escape it seems to be used for with heavy indulgers literally stops emotional development dead.

The end result in my case was like living with a supposedly fully grown 37 year old man who had the attitudes and emotional awareness of a 16 year old and just wanted someone to make all the responsibility etc of every day life to go away while stroking his head and saying 'there, there, mummy make it better, don't you worry'

You do exactly what you feel is best for your actual child and yourself and that includes you standing firm on no exposure to the dope life for your little one.

I do find it strange that he is teaching him to roll joints. It would be equally strange if someone who smoked ordinary roll-ups taught their 2-year-old to roll cigarettes. And apart from the morality, it's leaving him open for his child to innocently reveal what his father does. I also don't think he should be smoking in the same room as DS (if he does).

It's good he has a job, what is it? I hope he puts fresh clothes on before he sets off, especially if he smokes weed rather than hash. Or the job may be somewhat shortlived.

He also had an old grinder so he could play along.

I think he is good at his job - they have not penalised him when he was caught drink-driving in their vehicle, so they must value his skills. He is hard-working when he actually gets round to it.

Letter has gone out saying he can't have contact until he shows he can be responsible. I feel like such a bitch, and am awaiting backlash!

But yes, Bibi, I was the responsible one. Once I left, he kept calling to ask how he was supposed to sort out his own bills, etc..

Karkadan was he the only child in that community or were there others? I am v slightly reminded of a bunch of wasters some male single ex-friends (over 20 years ago) who I hung around with for a few months. One of them was a bloke visiting with his 2.5 year old, basically the child was a source of entertainment (nothing horrible, but somehow they didn't seem to relate to him as a child, presumably because they had no experience of children).

Me and my friends were all freaks (cool word for hippies ) back in our twenties and early 30's, yes we smoked but didn't involve the kids, there was generally a nurturing feel to it all, we were couples by and large, kids were clean, went to school etc. and kids have mostly turned into lovely adults.

good on you for the letter. How is he going to show his responsibility?

Feeling a bit mis Figures show definite cocklodging, timetable for legal process of settlement through, mediator wanting me and him to make separate assessment appointments, but am worried marital arrangements re finances have gone on too long without me taking action, or that stbx will argue we agreed we would live off capital.

And he's still here. And DD still thinks I am the unreasonable one.

Showed figures to a friend who I haven't seen for a while, she does know us both. Thought figures spoke for themselves, I so wanted validation She said she can't know what arrangements we had come to WTF?

Hi girls.

Missing you all,
failing to extract myself financially...(he's playing sillyb***s)
low ebb with energy
work is rubbish
feeling very very sad....don't want to "be strong" any more but don't have any option....
any one want to hold my hand??
Friends in RL seem to think I've managed and am now OK!

you are/have been amazing, dont forget this, your posts inspire me no end in my need to get out of my shit relationship.

Friends want something else to talk about - they dont understand, as much as they may try.

Hang on in there fool

xxx

Hi all. Seven days more marriage. Still been sorting out the financials. This involved a fairly recent drive to a large nearby town to obtain some historical financial information. It may be the last piece of the jig-saw.

I suspect stbx rang my above mentioned friend earlier this week, when I came in he had a face like thunder, was swearing at the phone, then had to go out. I checked dialled numbers, and what I found, her no, was gone when I checked a couple of hours later (he wan't gone long). It was a short call, Im sure she would have said that she would not discuss my business with him. Legal process started, and timetable set, stbx will see me in court it seems. Further details by PM. Oh and booked mediator assessment (£100 free on LA tho I think.

May I once more express my thanks for this thread and all who post on her [toast to us all]