Support thread for those in Emotionally abusive relationships number 7

[foolonthehill]

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.

waves at bobits (glad you came!!). Hi Inbetweener....

I am bothered about the concept of my husband knowing and more importantly making conscious decisions to emotionally abuse the people who love him most

Knowing they are doing something that get's them what they want is different from making deliberate choices to do that thing.

For some abusers they are stuck in the toddler stage of me, me, me and then pursue behaviours that get them what they want. They are emotionally immature, do not fully realise what they are doing to the other person, because they do not really see others as real people except in relation to themselves. To this extent they are pitiable because their self love, their family background and their later experiences have not promoted their development into fully functioning emotionally mature human beings.

Other abusers would appear to be wired this way...significant personality disorder would fit this...even long term treatment in secure environments only enables them to "fake" normal...they can learn the behaviours and rules but not really feel as you and I do.

To that extent I also enabled my NSDH's abuse...I accepted it, did not challenge behaviour that was wrong and failed to realise what was going on for many years. The behaviour was still his fault, he had lots of opportunities to learn to deal with the world in a mature adult non-abusive way and failed to do it

Lecture over!!!!

Except that the alternative is facing up to the fact that they are shitfaced fuckwits bullies - now that would not be nice (for them)

Thanks garlicbutter. That backs up how I feel that we have just sort of "grown" to this point- it's just where our lives are and I don't believe either of us had a game plan. But why have I now changed?

Does it feel like waking up EW??

One day we lose the dead inside, dare to feel something (usually about something small) and suddenly we are faced with a life that is not ours, not our choice, not fixable, not tolerable...and so we try to work out why...lucky us to have MN...and then work out what to do about it.

My NSDH happily and cheerily admits to being a bully.......obviously does not admit to bullying me because I cause all the problems, he's just sorting me and the children out cos he's been pushed to his limits (by being asked to put a plate in then dishwasher...or some other similar thing).

whoops present tense post...yes he's still gone...just living the moment there!

Fool- my husband is famously intolerant of other people perceived shortcomings. Family members making the "wrong" choices (in his eyes) friends making mistakes (again, in his eyes) and I often have to tell him to just calm down and try and leave it, to stop letting the situation - which is absolutely none of his business after all- really wind him up. His approach seems to be incredulation that the whole world does not think the way he does "I have told x he/she is doing the wrong thing, yet they are still doing it!"

Detached- another thing he would recognise in himself is that he spends a lot of time analysing his next "move"'- and something that I find really unpalettable. He likes to manoeuvre himself into a position where he feels he has the upper hand and can act as if he's morally effing superior. Makes me so mad.

Another thing- you do know it's not lunch time yet? And you're using words like "axiomatic"? By god woman I need to have a lie down now

Garlic...I quite enjoyed some of the finer points of brain surgery many years ago (goes away to sharpen kitchen knives .......

Intolerant..yup...all the world should think like him!!

Also in the car someone makes a genuine mistake cutting NSDH up...or just driving a bit too close..... cue, rage, pursuit and horn/lights...I am Entitled (yes he really uses this word!!!) to respect and my space on the road....ummmm yeah.

Fool they are all so bloody similar! Grrr. And yes it does feel a bit like waking up- the world looks ever so slightly strange. Like I've not seen the things in it from the same angle before. And I all of a sudden "know" something that I half wish I could "un-know" if that makes sense. because it's all I can really think about, and there will come a time in the not too distant future where he spots that something is really off kilter and that frightens me a bit because I will have to take action then.

Sorry everyone for self obsessed posting . This thread is such a life line for me at the moment- I have been saying for ages that nothing makes the synapses in my brain fire any more, thought i was bored but it turns out the reason I couldn't get passionate about anything was cos of all this shit.

you could steel his thunder and take action before he realises......much better not to be forced to act...my BIL forced my hand by guessing correctly that I was gearing up to something...it was not a nice feeling.......

You can try out different scripts, EW. Admittedly, I only managed to do this when I had a therapist guiding me ... but that was before MN! Have a go at being massively detached, maybe, and try a few "Yes, dear" responses? Just to see what happens next. It's interesting to do, I promise!

Fool - I can lend you my jigsaw? It's slightly rusty, but that won't matter for FW brain remodelling purposes ...

fool I scent a nice little side-line business for you...

EW you are vocalising everything that's in my head! I feel terrible because I'm the one who has changed and no longer wants a relationship like this.

"For some abusers they are stuck in the toddler stage of me, me, me and then pursue behaviours that get them what they want"

"And yes it does feel a bit like waking up- the world looks ever so slightly strange. Like I've not seen the things in it from the same angle before. And I all of a sudden "know" something that I half wish I could "un-know" if that makes sense"

YY - nodding along with a lot of posts here - oh, and I had to go look up axiomatic since I had no clue what it meant - can't say this thread never learns me nuffing :)

I've just finished liberally applying some baby brand lotion to my parched, oh so sensitive wintery skin (which I bought for the first time in a decade) and it hit me that I allowed the ex to even control the very way I smelled (among all the other things)

'Urrrgh, you smell like a baby, I hate the smell of babies' Yuck, Nivea, that's revolting' 'Why are you wearing fly killer?' (perfume) and so on. Nothing would please that picky feckers nose and I went right along with it while he polluted my lungs with can after can of teenage lynx

Musing on the minute details again but every now and then something like this still fully hits my consciousness and I'm just amazed at the extent of my self suppression while in (all my) relationships.

I'm beginning to find out a bit more as to why I didn't stand up for myself and put up with so much crap (much related to my traumatic childhood) which is good because I spent so long being totally baffled by it all and solely blaming myself.

EW - the time will come when you'll be glad of the truths that are coming up for you now - much more happiness lies on the awake path than on the one that these deluded controllers are on. Much more pain as well but that too is good in it's own way and necessary.

veeeee, don't feel terrible...you haven't changed, you have just realised that what you thought was going on...progression to a good helathy happy partnership, is not what is going on at all. It is not your fault if he is an angry abusive man

But like EW says, we got together when we were 18 and I have allowed him to get to where he is now after 13 years!

You know, I have found myself thinking, "I have allowed you to behave like this" and I think this self-blaming is false...in my case, and I'm sure many others, fwit husband got progressively worse. Sometimes it happens so gradually you do not properly realise it is happening, and I think your mind 'blocks' it, in order for you to survive. We should not be taking responsibility for their abusive behaviour.

do threads like this actually help anyone? you can recognise things, you can even get away from the problems. but the problems never ever leave you alone. how does it all work?

Bunny- this is my first post on these threads, but I have lurked lots. I get comfort and support from just reading that others have similar problems/experiences - it's always nice to know you're not alone even if you feel like it in RL. I don't know if I will ever get the courage to change my situation- it's only me who can do this- but I can feel myself getting more and more certain that I know what my husband does is wrong. I hope that one day I will get to the point where I say ENOUGH.

So thank you ladies of the last 5 threads ( that's how long I've been lurking ), the more you reach out the stronger I get. I will go back to lurking now- am always scared h will catch me- but PlEASE bunny don't think thy these sorts of threads don't help. Hang around a bit, talk, and you might find it does. Xxxxx (how un-mnet!)

Hi ladies,

fool, parsley - with some thread snooping, i notice you both jumped off the crazy train in oct 11 as well :) - Thankyou both for your valuable advice on previous personal threads xx

garlic - were you garlic breath zombie back then too? Thankyou for your advice if you were.

houdini - I hope so. I also gained insight into their (level of 'insanity') position - ex cited reasons for being abusive to my son as 'my son's behaviour' being a 'bad reflection on him as a father' - victim blaming.
His mother revealed her fear of ex not being able to have dd on his own.
Therefore he will go for access as he subconsciously is desperate to please her/terrirfied to lose her approval again (abandonment issues).

i will be - full many a flower is born to waste it's sweetness on the desert air...
you are strong and talented - make a decision to be free and you will be so happy. :)

EW - Im sorry if what I said offended you - I don't want to push my opinions onto anyone, it's just my take on it and how it works, and as garlic said - it is oh so subtle, as subtle as on the recieving end you let little things go...
You never saw the real him before - he didn't have the confidence to be himself. And we all have vulnerabilities - our spouse should help us and hold our hand through these (in sickness and in health and all that) but he enjoys it a little too much...and hopes you fall again...to make him feel important...to someone for the first time in his small little life.
Feel gladness in the feeling of 'you know' - keep your eyes open - I wish you strength xx

veee - 13years and your 31? You are young like me - Look foward to celebrating your 40th, 50th...happy...don't waste another minute. Don't let it be 20 or 30 years unhappy - you owe it to yourself :)

detached - you can do it to - once you open you eyes, you can choose to leave and feel empowered and very soon your strength and self-belief will return.

bibi - i agree when you wake up and see the the future of staying is grim and you fear staying more than leaving you start detaching.

Yes Bobbit off the crazy train in Oct, along with other peeps. Methinks there must have been a full moon or something!

Oh Bunny, yes these threads do help.

I don't know how long you have been looking at our ramblings, but the journey we have all been on is reflected in our posts.

I said up thread or on the previous one, that when Ex left I felt SUCH an idiot, of monumental proportions. I stopped posting on anything. After all, what right did I have. WTF did I know about anything.

One of the first POST-X questions I asked was Shall I still read the book WHY DOES HE DO THAT? There was a resounding YES. It's just a book, right, might help, so why not.... I was terrified.

I was terrified of everything tbh. Fear is what we live with day in and day out. I've BEEN inbetweener I know where she is. I want to help her get out of there, cos he's done such a good job on her that she is HER OWN GAOLER!

I've been there done that.

MN as a whole is a mighty resource. Our perpetrators HATE MN because it gives us the opinions (forthright and blunt) that we don't get from our friends (if we have any left) or from them/other abusive types that have controlled our lives.

There is a MASSIVE consensus here, with no agenda, no axe to grind (mostly )

The one thing reading Why Does He Do That gives us is the realisation that we are so very far from being alone with this. These threads too tell us that they ALL work to an almost identical script, their methods so similar as to be possible to list out and be common to most if not all of us.

Many of us are told we are insane, we are depressed. We get medication to help us cope with the abuse. Which in turn proves them right.

It's true the issues may not leave us easily, but they do lose their power. I've just realised that I don't hate X anymore. I don't care really. His power has gone. I haven't forgiven him. It's just that he himself is Someone I Used to Know. No negative impact on my day to day. I've got more interesting things to talk about day to day, or in therapy. I need to work on my insecurity. I need to work on my self confidence, I need to learn to trust my instincts, and I need to learn how to allow someone to love me for me. I've learned how to not squirm in excruciation when complimented... I even enjoy them nowadays! MHO That's a massive step forward in only a year!

I'm not saying that threads like these have brought about that detachment, but they form a massive part, alongside the FB support I have, The Freedom Programme, the Therapy and the DV survivors Group I attend whenever possible.

Oh yes, I've worked hard to be functional I still wobble, but I have real people that really care about my well-being that I can bounce stuff off and I know they won't BS me. 99% of them I met on here.

nothappybunny457, what is YOUR situation? If you talk about it, to people that may be in similar, or have got out, you will feel less isolated, and we can help support you. You can come to the decisions you need to take and we will be with you as long as you need us to be.

what have you got to lose? What's the worst that could happen....

BuiltForComfortNotSpeed WELCOME! (((((MASSIVE HUGS))))) 5 Threads? WOW! Glad to have you here! Delighted that you get help/support from them!

Now that you have put your lovely head above the parapet, please come and post as often as you feel you can do! How about an update on how YOU are once a week?

You WILL grow strong enough one day to reclaim your freedom.