Please talk sense to me.

[totallyscunnered]

Re-post from Mental Health because I got no replies

I'm in a self destructive spiral.

I cannot get my head around my ex, the way he behaves, and I've ended up replaying a whole load of past stuff in my head and I can't stop thinking about it and I'm in tears if I relax my guard at all.

There's a massive history with me and my ex in-laws. They hate me, treated me terribly when we were married, he defended them (they were sneaky and sly and it was sly digs and comments when he wasn't around I was portrayed as a headcase, and a nutter and yes those were the words they used if I pulled them up on it)

My ex is a twat and puts his views and opinions over and above mine, always has, he viewed himself as the "senior partner" and me as the "junior partner" in the marriage. In other words, I had to do what I was told or I was subject to verbal abuse and withdrawal of affection and emotional blackmail.

So, Sunday night I had to drop the kids off after their week with me of the holidays - they are off til Thursday so he asked for them yesterday and I will have them today (he was off yesterday as Bank Holiday).

I did the usual handover at the door.

He asked me to step inside a minute and walked me to the living room where members of his family who I hate with a passion were sitting and said "Here's TotallyScunnered"

I felt so so awkward, said "hello" they turned their backs, snorted, and pointedly ignored me.

To be fair to ex, he had told them he was going to ask me in. He wants everyone to play nice and kid on we're all mates.

I am gutted. I'm struggling to come to terms with it. It's put me back where I was when we were together. I feel like i'm going to have a panic attack I'm playing over in my head every time they ever did it to me before and I want to do them an injury. Real physical pain.

To be fair, the ex is mortified and has apologised a million times and for once they did it in front of him and he sees it. now. After 20 fucking yeards. Why couldn't he see it before.

He says I have to accept he did it with the best of intentions and he didn't mean it maliciously or to hurt me.

I've told him that I don't give a fiddlers fart if he did it maliciously or not, what matters is the end result and how it makes me feel . And to put me in that position with no warning and not being sure of how they would react and the reception I would get is wrong. Just wrong.

God I have a harbour full

Not a harbour. A dock side. That's what I mean.

Sheesh.

FWIW I think you handled the situation with great strength (and restraint!). Ex finally sees them for what they are/have been, tries to unburden his guilt and you quite rightly give it to him both barrels.

Crap that you're having to relive those past experiences but use them to stoke your inner fire to stick two fingers up to the lot of them, knowing they have shown their true colours and you're best rid of them.

Well done you :)

i've actually freaked myself out a little - i love boxes - i have bought them all over the world and i have to restrain myself from buying more and more.

i'm sitting next to a stack of bamboo and wood boxes upon which my lamp stands and realising i have no idea what is in them.

OP - bravo to what you said - all perfect.

Santa I now have a lovely image of your house

Thank you all for the support - I appear to have got over myself a bit today and am feeling a lot calmer and not so stressy head

so glad you're feeling calmer.

how long ago did you split up by the way?

three years almost, so I've definitely moved on.

I was just shocked at how much it floored me.

And the feelings of regret - why couldn't he have seen it when we were together? And the waste of all the tears I cried and emotion I spent over it - and now, when it doesn't matter, he gets it.

Bah

It's great that you've been vindicated, and well done for how you handled your ex and put him in his place.
Now that this is out in the open it gives you a chance to deal with it properly and move on and leave it behind you instead of dragging that dead weight around.

3 years isn't that long after a marriage of 20yrs i'd have thought.

i've never been married myself but i've watched my sister through a decade since her divorce and there was and still is a lot of hurt and stuff that comes up because she invested so much in it and really had believed that that was her future.

go easy on yourself.

I actually feel bad that I gave it to him with both barrels - he's really really gutted and upset.

so he should be!

don't feel bad. it is reality that is finally biting his arse - not you!

I know but I didn't exactly miss him and hit the wall.

(figuratively, not literally I didn't hit him)

Scunnered - well done for just walking out

But, I'm curious: Did he honestly not know and understand how his parents treated you over 20 years? Surely he must have suspected? I mean, if you were together for 20 years, he must have known you quite well, and surely, he didn't really think you were making it all up?

I'm not criticising - I had a boss who bullied me for months - but nobody ever saw it (although some people, knowing what she was like, did believe me).

He did think I was making it all up. He thought I was over-dramatising it, that it was never as bad as I said it was and on the very few occasions he challenged them on it they denied it all.

He sent me to see a psychiatrist because he thought I was making it up so much.

He also is very poor at relationships/considering other's feelings/emotions in general and just doesn't notice stuff (like if we went for a visit and I spent the whole visit of 5 or 6 hours and no one not one soul spoke a word to me other than my kids he didn't notice that)

They were very very clever, they never did it in front of him.

A couple of times they did and it was obvious (in the very beginning) and he bulldozed me into going back saying that it was my duty as a DIL to build a relationship with them.

And then, to be honest, I just stopped after a while even mentioning it to hiim. The path of least resistance was just to go, keep my mouth shut, interact as little as possible.

And I was incredibly stressed, incredibly bad tempered and would be in a foul mood a lot of the time, because I had to do that every week or if I was lucky every other week (used to be a Friday night or a Saturday) so that was another reason to have a go at me because I was always so bad tempered and never could relax.

And it's only since I'm out of it that I have reaslised the effect that being in that situation had on me - I'm not like that anymore and what this did was put me back there emotionally iyswim? I was uptight, stressed, panicking like I used to feel all the time.

makes total sense. it triggered you back into that state. but it's/it was temporary because you're not trapped in that world and cycle anymore. so the same intensity of feelings at the event but it can be let go or quickly lessen intensity because you don't have next weekend and the whole thing again looming over you and you don't have the stress of him being pissed off with you for not being happy in the air.

gosh - think of that cycle you were caught in? so much stress! very glad you're out of it.

It was awful, and it is one of those ones that it's not until it stops that you realise how bad it was and how many things it affected. I was a bad tempered moody bitch

Ex is very secure in his own wee world and tends to swan along not noticing stuff and this has blown the lid right off. And he's struggling. Well, so did I for a long time. Now he knows what it felt like

I'm so angry. How fucking dare he let people treat me like that for all that length of time?

He told me on Tuesday night that he was sorry and that he never had any respect for me when we were married because he thought it was all me and he believed them and that became how he thought about me.

Why the fuck would you be married to someone you had no respect for?

And I used to do what he wanted because I knew he didn't love me enough, like other people's husbands did, so I thought (I was very young and there was no MN) that if I did what he wanted then that would make him love me more.

How fucking DARE he put this onto me now.

Honey you need to rise above these nasty bastards they are not worthy of your company or your time.

It's time to become hard faced and know you are the better person, and that no one should treat anbody least of all you the way they are treating you.

GIve as good as you get. You are emotionally vulnerable and no one should be treated the way they treated you. Wish could give you a hug.

I don't believe your ex done it maliciously at all maybe he thought as past was past they would be different.

Fabby - thank you.

I think he did think it was in the past and it would be different - it would be easier to hate him if I thought he did it maliciously, but I honestly don't think he did.

i'm thinking he had some kind of revelation and felt all ready to be the bigger man and amicable and la la la land and was probably feeling quite proud of his maturity and grandesse and then BAM! he saw how they actually treat you.

now his revelation and wanting to be the amicable grown up trip might have to go a lot deeper than he was expecting or he can stop the bus and put his head back in the sand.

either way it's too late for him in terms of already having lost you. hopefully from the realisation that his family treated you like shit will come the beginnings of seeing how shitly he treated you - not just with regard to them but in general. hopefully for him anyway - it's not your problem anymore.