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.

Well almost didnt post.....
H is back at home by mutual agreement, he has spent 5 days at his mums, we have talked and talked - calmly. We talked every day whilst he was at his mums for approx an hour.

I went through my big things (emotional side, relationship with the kids) he told me his issues (wants more time for us, wants to come in from work and not have people here - he means my friends and family). He accepted his behavior for a long time has been totally unacceptable and understands the reasons I asked to seperate.

He says he desperately does not want to split up and wants to give it a final go. I told him I cant stand to feel like I have anymore, or be in this situation again, and have told him we can be good parents apart as we seem to get on better apart. He agreed with this and also agreed we would seperate if things derteriorate again before we get to crisis point again.

Now girls, I'm not as green as grass as I used to be (she says) so here are my questions and I would like totally honest opinions from you all....

1. Am I totally deluding myself that this man I have here now can stay like this?

1. Because I like to think methodically, at the moment I think we have about a 70% - 30% against, chance of this working, is 30% large enough odds to take the risk. (I would be interested in your odds based on experience/knowledge).

1. In the Lundy book it mentions listening to family members - all my family think he wont/cant change, although they have been supportive of me, they have made it clear what they think about him,can they all be wrong?

1. Do you think this is the hoover manourvre (sp)? If so when will I know as I have never seen this level of aparant change.

1. Should I still have a plan in my head incase it goes tits up or will this subconsciously give me a negative outlook and it will fail anyway?

I just want to thank you all for your support - particularly those who pm'd me with fantastic advice.

Pink sorry about your evening

Love IWBF

Hello do you mind if I join?
Have a new thread further down. Also if you search my name you will find another thread with links to previous ones. I don't want to link them myself. i can't face the fact that I am still here.

hi broad its a long hard journey isnt it.......havnt read your threads yet but welcome xxxxxxx

Iwillbefree, not sure whether you've been on the AS traits compared with (N)PD traits, it might be worth a quick once over.

I am methodical in a pretty similar way - hence I love Excel :)

BTW, the whole point about risk (at least in financial investments which I know a little about) is that only the investor herself can assess what level of risk she is prepared to take.

And everyone is unique - you really cannot give a meaningful risk percentage to a single relationship (or other complex, choatic event) imho.

Hi pussycat i did find you!

They moved my thread and then i couldn't log in with my old email/username and i really don't understand why? Have emailed mn and waiting for an answer.

I was just glad to get it all off my chest and seeing it written down made it all so real. Dp doesn't have a clue.

Hiya dog and welcome. It is easy to slip out of normality without realising what's going on, like an innocent lobster sitting in a pan of cold water with the ring on on heating it up, and so often only when we write it down that we can think WTF about our own situation.

DD and I are Family on fb, I found the following post: Mother for sale, any reasonable offer. To which I added: 'Daughter, free to good home :-)'
Got a 'like' from DD.

:) pink sweet exchange with DD

I considered adding 'partially house-trained' but restrained myself. After all it was her wall I was posting on :)

I have just one question for you ladies.

Do abusive men EVER change?

I was upstairs feeding dd last night and had sat on my phone so it was lit up. Dp walk in and automatically says "what are you doing?". So i explained, he didn't believe me and was basically accusing me of being up to something til i told him i was sick and tired of being accused all the time when i'm doing nothing wrong. He disappeared downstairs and then apologised saying he knew i wasn't doing anything and he was being stupid. I was shocked!!

HOUSEKEEPING NOTE

As this thread is nearing the 1000 post mark, here is the document that one of you can copy-paste in the first post of the next thread, repeating all the helpful links you can find at the top of this thread.

Dog: you asked a question:

Do abusive men EVER change?

Short answer: NO.

Iwilbefree Your questions too...

1. Am I totally deluding myself that this man I have here now can stay like this?

YES He'll slip by the end of the week.

1. Because I like to think methodically, at the moment I think we have about a 70% - 30% against, chance of this working, is 30% large enough odds to take the risk. (I would be interested in your odds based on experience/knowledge).

Out of 10 chances of it working, you are thinking 7 are against you? Hell NO!, this needs to be at least 70% sure of working out... and it still might not work out. As it stands you have NO chance. End it now.

1. In the Lundy book it mentions listening to family members - all my family think he wont/cant change, although they have been supportive of me, they have made it clear what they think about him,can they all be wrong?

No they are not wrong. They are not in the fog that you are in. That said, they probably somehow made you vulnerable to abuse, so there will be other dynamics you will have to overcome WHEN you dump him

1. Do you think this is the hoover manourvre (sp)? If so when will I know as I have never seen this level of aparant change.

Hoover yes, abso-bloody-lutey

1. Should I still have a plan in my head incase it goes tits up or will this subconsciously give me a negative outlook and it will fail anyway?

yes, abso-bloody-lutey

Or do I need to put it more strongly? what on EARTH were you thinking letting him back in???

(((hugs))))

I think this is a good sign that your oh may not be an entirely lost cause - but do not get your hopes up too hight!

Sometimes the abuser has to re-experience actually doing the behaviour (which, though abusive, is a semi-automatic response, in this case to you being sat on a lit-up phone [could she be hiding something - well yes, though rather badly ).

if they have managed to change sufficiently to at least analyse your joint communication, then if they do this behaviour with this slightly different mindset, they notice more about it. Things like, the words you both used, the tones of voice, the thoughts and emotions he had etc.

After the event the abuser can process this information if he so wishes, and may well need time and space to do so. It sounds like he may have done some processing afterwards and then come up to apologise. Is this new behaviour for him, apologising and admitting stupidity?

I ask because many partners of EA men are used to men apologising, we can't help thinking and hoping this means something, only to have their hopes dashed. It is a repeating pattern, called hoovering, because it can suck the victim back in.

So if this is not a pattern you recognise that may also be a good sign.

He is the one who always does the apologising so no, nothing new there.

Although its usually "i'm sorry for talking to you like a piece of shit BUT...you did ask for it" type thing.

See i've never heard of all these traits etc i'm pretty new to this. I just thought it was normal before.

Still hope, it's a definite improval on his usual!

Action (coming to apologise), words (apology), what will the next action be I wonder?

He apologised, did he also promise anything? They often go together

pink thank you, I know ultimately its down to me(still doubting my own judgement), just wanted opinions

hissy so is that a no then? you made me smile - say it how it is, deep down I know just finding it so hard. At least I can say I gave it everything. But I now need to set a boundry that if crossed thats it, otherwise I am going to end up in an early grave. I know I cant just let it drip drip drip until I'm on the edge of lunacy again.

(again)

love IWBF xxx

Sorry Iwillbefree my post came over a bit harsh. What I really wanted to say was - Check out the AS vcs NPD behaviour/abuse thread and then see whether it changes your estimate of success.

My gut instinct has always been to think 'where there's life, there's hope' - but this is what kept me reapeatedly trying to change my abusive relationship for so long, without even realising properly that I was being abused. So probably not the best person to express an opinion .

and all the best. And sorry again.

(Hissy's good, isn't she - sometimes unnerving, but good with it)

Do they change...doubt it, they've had a lifetime of toddler behaviour working for them...once we've sussed them quicker and easier to move on...too much hard work to change themselves .

IWBF: I think keep doubting yourself just a bit...especially with him in the house. I find i can be much more objective now I never ever see him!!!!! When he was around i kept falling for the act. Protect yourself!!

PS I have the document saved in word so can post it assuming I am around when the thread runs dry!!!!! (I am nearlyalways around)!!!

Can I just say, Hissy says it like it is, and she has given me a good kick up the touche lots of times. . I am feeling a little stronger. I weakened and walked away but came back to this fab support group and yes.. I Feel there is a light there that I will get to at some point with the support here. My TF doesn't hit me doesn't regularly physically do anything to me that you would auto think domestic abuse as an outsider,
but regularly he calls me cunt, bitch whore, scrawny fucker .....
he has called my daughter little cunt to her face.
he has pushed me, got right in my face, squared up to me.

he had previously assaulted me years ago when i was pregnant more than once. once knocking me down at 8mth pg. when i was 8 WKS pg he hit me on the stairs then pursued me upstairs and threw me in the bathtub , the rail came down as I scrabbled for it. I had a black eye after that which i told people my daughter did with her beaker. Funnily enough physical assaulting stopped when i stood up to him and told people. he stopped that and kept to the verbal shit.
Now years later, its always verbal never physical but i know its there. Do i think he's better? no. I think he's worse. He's carrying all that in him knowing he did it to me and hes still denying it. He still believes he's not an abuser. He still says im the crazy one. Would you attack a pregnant lady even if she was crazy?

Clarity is slowly but surely coming to me recently.

Glad to hear it breakfree
I haven't posted for months so hello to all the new faces
The-apology-that-isn't is classic.

You: you did x, it's awful, it really hurt me. And when i told you, you rolled your eyes! This isnt working. This is not how a relationship is supposed to be!

Them -I agree that this is not how it's supposed to be. I'm so sorry, please, please give me another chance. You're wrong that this isn't working. Whatever you think is wrong, we can work on it to try and make it better.

What do you think of this? Sweet? Reasonable? Hopeful? I'm interested to see what newer posters make of it.

Well, if they are trying to give an honest answer, then maybe they actually do think it's working, at least in some ways. Perhaps because it is still better than the way their birth family acted.

Thing is, 'we can work on it to try and make it better' is a promise of sorts. The difficulty is, you will both need to discuss how you will work on it. Somehow, you will have to have that discussion without firing off all the abusive patterns again.

NCL has never said anything like this, btw. He never apologises, because he is never in the wrong.

I have extracted promises of change, yet he would never take part in a follow up discussion about how to go about this. And twice he promised to share the housework more equally, I got all hopeful and started cleaning and his behaviour changed not one iota.

Not an acceptable apology madame O in my humble opinion...it is an acknowledgement of a problem, maybe, at best...

but: no reference to the hurt "you" feel, no personal commitment to take responsibility for their part in that hurt or for "their" dismissal of "your" feelings, then dismisses "your" analysis of the situation "your wrong"...and replaces it with "their" analysis.

However...is it better than they have managed before?? Does it show a willingness to work at something?Yes...but only as a We.