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.

Maybe, now, I am simply glad that the world does not have to know exactly what FWH (the acronym never loses its greatness, does it?) has done to me over the years.
Warden, what about looking at it as another bit of housework.
My mistake was to dream of justice. Until I read the Susan Forward book (recommended by the wise women here) and understood that FWH really realizing that he had done anything wrong was a silly pipedream.

When I looked on the net, I thought I would need examples and dates, turned out not in my case. I collected examples at first though, and we kind of worked throught them.

I listed 7 things I found unreasonable, and have just looked at them. Separate rooms, no sex. (not that I actually found that unreasonable :) ), won't talk about money, won't share housework, business related stuff all over the house, won't discuss other things, won't reply to questions, my mh has been made worse.

It doesn't matter whether or not you too have 'acted unreasonably', since he is not divorcing you. Everyone does unreasonable things, it's whether their partner is pissed off enough to petition for divorce.

I should add that even amicable divorces these days rely on unreasonable behaviour, as the alternative is to wait two years and do it by mutual consent. Both parties agree what will be put, and Respondent doesn't contest. (You are allowed to do this while not conceding that the behaviour is unreasonable).

Family courts are v private, if stbx does not contest you don't have to attend, and the courts are not in the business of apportioning blame or keeping people married against their will.

And, (and it's a big AND) the arrangements for children and finances are separate from the actual divorce, though obviously the two are connected.

Fingers- in the style of animal farm, "twelve ribs good/ten ribs bad. All men are bastards, just some men are more bastardier than others." and I forget that, wrapped up in my own situation, that smne folks have problems worse than mine. Sorry. I do like the idea of treating it like housework though- an unpleasant but necessary chore to do when making things nice and neat again! (ps I like to think you are smoking a cigar in a 40's gin palace, arranging all sorts of shady deals arthritic Fingers Malone :)

Pink- that really worries me, that someone in the divorce court (a judge?) woul take a look at my reasons and say "wtf is she on about- that's no reason to divorce the poor guy! Suck it up love. Next!" hopefully won't happen though!

FWH out at the mo- I am commencing the Great Paperwork Hunt now.

Well, one guy did tell me his ex-wife had put on the petition, amongst other things, that he was too tidy. It doesn't particularly matter whether the thing he does is objectively unreasonable; it only matters that you can't live with it.

Pussycat, that's interesting. I think it's because some things are ongoing so there is no need to add a date. I had a mixture of things with dates and things that never stopped, in mine. (How can you put what dates a man didn't take a shower?!) I've just spent a happy hour looking over the divorce paperwork actually - ah, such memories, not happy at the time but in hindsight worth a snigger or two - but I seem to have put the important things (the petition and the absolute) somewhere else, darn it, so I can't quote.

Warden that was my point - that they really don't go wtf etc.

Am still on with mine, Annie - we are now divorced and under the same roof and I am asking for more than 50/50, with, I believe, good reason. Need to show it in figures though. I am arguing that mine is a case where financial and domestic contributions were far from equal.

Still nice to be single though

We had rather different expectations of divorce at the start. I saw it as (unfortunately) only right that everything should be split 50-50, including time with DCs. He saw it as me taking myself off to a flat somewhere and continuing to pay all the bills. I won.

It was a bit bitter reading the letters where I argued my income was not secure. He didn't believe me. A few months later I lost my job. Sometimes being right isn't such a good thing.

Don't get me wrong, if ex had put some effort in even, I would have thought 50/50 fair (kids are grown, btw) - but then if he had done so, we wouldn't have ended up where we are in the first place.

You were right about the insecurity, however, you did your best to protect yourself against the job-loss possibility, and won. That is a result, and it's down to you. :)

Nicely said, PP. If I'd been that smart, of course, I'd have kept the job; but although it was a blow right between the eyes (for more reasons than one), there were advantages too, most importantly being able to look after DS4 full time when he needed it most. (The rest of mine are grown too.) Sometimes bad things may seem to happen for a good reason. Hold onto that thought when the going gets tough.

Hi all,
Thanks Warden. Sometimes I think the worst is over, sometimes I think I am at the bottom of a sticky slimy mud pit.
The support on here is a lifeline (probably literally); I have no-one in RL
I really hope I didn't come over as saying I was more bashed about than others. I wanted to say that, 20 - or even 15 - years ago, if I had drawn up a list, it would have looked very much like that. Now, if I drew up a list, the police would have to become involved, and FWH would lose his job.
As the others are saying - what you can't live with you do NOT have to.

Anyone around this evening?

What's up? You OK?

Thanks for replying Houdini. Yes, I am OK. I am just finding negotiating the endgame rather difficult.
FWH is on best behaviour (his best behaviour would, alone, be grounds for divorce ) because the separation becomes final by the end of April.
Best behaviour consists of crying and begging and asking what will become of him.
What it does not include is even asking what I needed/wanted from him. When I asked him why he hadn't bothered to ask, his answer was 'because all you do is get on my f*ing nerves'. Remember this is his best behaviour.
I am used to much worse than this (please, please don't flame me) but I still can't get rid of the feeling that the light will go on in his psyche and I will be able to get through.
I am not having any change of conviction that my course of action is the only one left open to me; Just finding the road difficult at times.

fingers although ex is a narcissistic cock lodger I have recently come to a place where I can feel compassion for him. I wish him well, even.

Just not at my expense any more.

Hi Pink. I have never wished FWH ill -not really that kind of person. Just sad and frustrated that nothing I say even registers; certainly does not lead to even failed attempts to make amends. :( I feel like the condemned man in John Grisham's 'The Confession' holding out against all hope.)

fingers I am sure you are not that kind of person :)

You have to stop engaging though, then things get easier ime. You have said what you had to say, only experience can teach him now (if anything can). We still exchange info re the kids, and some house things where necessary, and even the odd pleasantry (still under same roof). But that is all.

Thanks for taking the time to reply Pink.
So did your OH make any attempt to find out what you were talking about?
I hope that this morning was my last attempt to engage - but who knows.

Oh no! He is right of course, and I am wrong

So... am now following the advice so often given on here: Do Not Engage.
Pretty sure that FWH thinks that this means I have seen the light and have decided not to get on his 'f*ing nerves' bu 'going on about things' thereby proving my mental instability.(shrugs)

fingers before NCL said he wanted to live separately and I said I wanted to divorce, I spent two years and more trying to have a talk about our marriage and whether/how we might save it. He would either not talk or he would make promises he wouldn't keep. I felt honour bound to try to save what we once had by engaging, only for this to be used by him for further emotional and verbal abuse.

Once I had begun divorce proceedings and was no longer trying to instigate these talks, I immediately felt so much better. My marriage was dead, it could not be resuscitated, and I could stop trying so to do.

As the months have gone by, the insights I got here helped me realise more fully what had been going on, that I had been suffering from abuse, my mh was in great part a result of NCL's behaviour, rather than the other way round, and that I am still the person I was at the best of times past, I survived and am now starting to thrive.

"I felt honour bound to try to save what we once had by engaging, only for this to be used by him for further emotional and verbal abuse."
Well Pink I can totally completely entirely etc. relate to that. (would put smiley, but there isn't one for not knowing whether to laugh or cry)
How stupid am I to still be painfully bashing my head against the wall asking WHY?
Thanks for posting again, Pink

The last couple of hours have not been my finest DS here tonight for a meal, DD and I were going to cook together, she didn't feel up to it, I was tired, I knocked a glass off the worktop and it smashed, DD and I had a shouting match, she accused me of fucking OH over (in those words). We managed to calm down, next thing me and NCL are sniping at each other.

Well, it was quite a good meal in the end, toad in the hole, but hardly the family Sunday eve I was hoping for, probably our last, and that's probably why it all went a bit pear-shaped.

DD and I had a spat yesterday, but sorted it, however it's all under the surface waiting to erupt. I will not let it happen again, even if I am tired and stressed.

I am actually proud of myself, my brain formed the riposte 'I've fucked OH over? I rather think it's the other way round' but I didn't even have to hold back saying it, I just didn't say it.

Sorry about your evening Pink :(
Tiredness does strange things to people.
Well done for not involving DD. In all families (even the happiest) Mothers are totally wrong about everything

Bumping for someone I met on AIBU. Hope you find us! (stupid thing to write - if you read it, you have found us)