Support thread for those in Emotionally Abusive relationships number *8*

[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
why financial abuse is domestic violenceAre 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.
heart to heart a wealth of information and personal experiences drawn together in one place

If you find that he really wants to change

I stay or should I go bonus materials this is a site containing the material for men who want to change?please don?t give him the link?print out the content for him to work through.

The Bill of Rights
bill of rights here is what you should expect as a starting point for your treatment in a relationship, as you will of course be treating others!!

Thank you, Fool for the good ideas and for listening. Must have been bloody hard and taken a lot of courage doing what you describe.

Nhan, lots of sympathy to you. Good luck, keep strong.

xx

Fool, did he leave straight away or did you have to live with him for a while after that conversation? Thanks so much for sharing your story with me, hope you don't mind me asking further questions. xx

Oh, if only mine would go. He can't afford to till after the settlement, although at least we are divorced now.

We manage as I have now got everything separated, except that DD, him and me pay the same each month towards the household bills. He works from home, which has always been an irritation during the times when I haven't been working. We exchange very few words these days, mainly about what's on the telly, or whose turn to buy the milk, tbh this is better than before when I kept trying to get him to talk about things.

Especially as, until the last 2 years, he hasn't really been working...

I find I can be talking about seperation one minute, then making plan for the house by thit e evening - with him. I find it so hard to detach. Our lives are so busy there's not time to detach - it's one thing after the next - bam, bam, bam. I wish I could just have a few hourse where nobody interrupted with their needs. It seems that there's so much we need to talk about together.

I have been sleeping in with dcs for a while which has made a big difference to my energy levels as I can sleep, finally, without being woken up at 2am when he deigns to go to bed.

But the constant need to just deal with stuff is relentless and keeps us attached. I see I am going to just tell him what I want him to do. I have to take control of this separation. I told him earlier that we are only together because of my damned optimism and hoping for the best.

pink I wonder what you make of the 'verbal abuse' section in the OP - it describes mine to a tee. It's exhausting. That kind of snakey conversation isn't Aspergers is it? See, look at me clutching at straws again!

Mine did the snakey conversation thing. The only way it is like AS is that sometimes someone with AS can get sidetracked onto a logical detail that seems to them to need correcting. Also, sometimes an AS person can get the wrong end of the stick, or take the wrong meaning from an ambiguous sentence - I have done this myself with people other than ex, and it has led to escalation, though I have usually managed to rescue the situation.

DM left DF because of his AS-type behaviour, very little conversation, not going out much, sulks, flounces, emotional explosions (he has slammed the phone down on me more than once), he wouldn't take our views into account eg when the rest of the family wanted a telly, and then, later, when the rest of the family wanted a colour telly :) DF thinks there is only one right way of doing things... But he is not nasty like ex can be.

Ex has refused to talk about anything I thought important for quite a number of years, or if he has, has made promises he didn't keep, to shut me up. He was addicted to a computer game for over a decade, wouldn't even look up or stop playing when I tried to talk to him. He blames me for every little thing, has never apologised for anything, has given me the silent treatment, has walked away when I am talking, refused to acknowledge things I have told him even by a simple grunt (I need some sort of sound to know I've been heard) and has replied to simple requests for ordinary help with a flat refusal. My tears of frustration merely resulted in him distancing himself, then me pathetically following him round the house wailing It was after one such weeping session that I packed a bag and went to a hotel for the night. As soon as I got in the car, I felt immediately better. That's when I knew for sure it was him causing my depression, not me being depressed. The next day I posted on EA thread for the first time.

I also can't help getting louder if something is important, ex (and DD ) then switch from what I'm saying, to how I'm saying it, and there I am, sidelined and blamed again.

horse - I do that, make plans to leave, curse his name forever, etc etc, then start making lists for house renovation. Maybe it's displacement? Although I really want to get the house done! But then I guess I would, with displacement, wouldn't I! Hmmm.

Pink, everything you said, everything, mirrors my experiences with my FWH. Seeing you put it into words is such a relief. You begin to feel like you're invisible, have no validation, no reason for being in the world. My FWH doesn't look up from telly when I talk, when I make him he sighs, looks at me briefly then dips back to telly in a nanosec. Explodes all the times, sulks, flounces, silences lasting days or weeks. Prat. What a prat. Yet because of 20 years together, he feels like family, tho I don't love him as a husband at all. So it's so hard and weird to think of leaving, like leaving priamry school when you've known nothing else.

I was doing that too. Saying I was leaving, then putting the house on the market and looking for somewhere else to buy. That said, it's just as well it went on the market as I've moved out now.

It is so good to get validation on here...though I am still having massive periods of doubting myself. I am at a different life stage to most of you and left in a period when things were actually getting better. It wouldn't have stayed that way, but I have to think back to a year or so ago I keep reminding myself just what it was like.

NHAN, I can't offer you any easy comfort. Chances are he will get unsupervised contact. If it helps, men like this will often fight for contact, but then not really bother taking it up. It might just tail off naturally.

It hasn't happened in my case - exH spends a lot of time with DD, more than I would ideally like. So far, it is not as bad as I feared. If their father is confusing and distressing them, at least they have you as a safe haven, and if things get really bad, contact could potentially be reduced or stopped down the line. It's very hard, but you have to pretty much allow events to unfold - hope for the best, and be prepared to take action if the worst happens.

Hi I've been watching thread for ages and getting lots of strength from your posts, but I have had the ground knocked out from under my feet and need some advice.
Have recently filed for divorce from my abusive husband after he decided to move out! however he has since turned all my children against me with his lies and victim mode and has moved back into the marital home which is unbearable to say the least. However he informed me this morning that hes been to see my GP and hes 2 steps away from having me sectioned!!!!!!!!!!!
Just rang surgey my Drs away til next tues, have rang both my solicitor and my counsellor(who im seeing because of him) but they havent got back to me yet. Im beside myself, has anyone any ideas please?

sorry for spelling mistakes

Oh ladybird, you poor thing...that sounds awful. I don't think he can have you sectioned! I hope someone will be along with advice soon, but for now ((((hugs))))

Is there anyone else you can call for now?

He won't be able to have you sectioned. It's just more abuse.

Do not take this seriously. Try to keep a cool head (easier said than done). He just wants to drive you into a panic. It sounds to me like he might be trying to drive you out, leaving him in the home with the dcs, so that down the line he can persuade a court that this is the status quo and he should be allowed to stay in the home with the dcs.

Normally I would say cut and run, but in this case I would say block your ears, don't believe a word he says, and hold on till you've spoken to your solicitor.

He can't get you sectioned.

Ladybird, this is extreme domestic abuse.

Stay calm, call WA and talk it out. See if you can get an DV outreach worker to come and see you as a matter of emergency.

If you have proof of abuse/violence there could be ways that you can have HIM removed from your home with a residency order.

DON'T PANIC, it will be OK, he can't do a thing. To get someone sanctioned is not by the say so of an abusive H... otherwise we'd all be inside.

They don't want us isolated from them, they don't want us in the general domain, because then we would see just how shit they really are.

Tough it out, know that he can do NOTHING against you.

Call your solicitor or CAB and get some advice about having HIM removed.

This shit head tosser is talking through is arse.
Please, please find the strength (I know, believe me, that fuck know where strength comes from) to stand up to him.
keep posting

Ladybird - read THIS www.rethink.org/living_with_mental_illness/rights_and_laws/laws_you_need_to_know_about/mental_health_act/

It's VERY hard to get someone sectioned - read the details here and LAUGH IN THE FACE OF THIS ARSE... YOU are more likely to get HIM sectioned for his treatment of YOU and your family tbh!

Hang in there love!

Thank you both for your replies, Pillar thanks for your Hugs, I was feeling so strong on Tuesday now pathetic lump of sogginess yet again.
My best friend is at work but she texting me!
Nickname he is trying to get me out, he told me that parent in situ gets marital home so I can get out now, cause I'm not having it! But now he denying saying that!!!!
I just can't believe how low he will go. I don't even know whether he has contacted my GP or whether its another case of 'no I didn't say that' if you know what I mean?

Ladybird: Read this through too www.basmt.org.uk/common-relationship-problems/abusive-relationship.html

HappyHissy I do sometimes believe its me, I'm too sensitive or over analyse things like he says I do, but then when I'm feeling strong I can see it for what it is. Just seems like never ending battle at the mo :-(I have said that he is Evil perhaps he is mad too!!
Thanks Arthritic fingers Shit Head Tosser, I like that!
will keep posting on here as keeping out of his way in bedroom!

thanks happy will read your links now, are you with abuser now or in past?

If he raises his voice to you, call the police, TELL them what he is threatening and tell him that you are in fear for your life and that you want him to go. Tell them that he left already, filed a divorce and is now back to intimidate you out of your home.

Your GP won't give him the time of day.

My suggestion to you is to write to your GP and tell him that you are being abused, that this arse is threatening you and you are afraid of the tactics he will use against you.

Start getting ALL his shit on record. He will create the NOOSE that legally will be used to hang him out to dry.

He will go lower. Be ready. Expect EVERYTHING.

Try to detach, it helps. Expect him to do unspeakable things and adopt the stance of 'Oh, I wondered when you'd stoop lower...' You WILL come through this, you will get to the other side. INTACT too! You will win. The Good Guys always win in the end love, remember that!?

Get some RL help on the go now, call WA. Please? they will reassure you and they may be able to get someone out to you.

I spent 10 years with mine. He's been out of my life for 1 year. I can't tell you how hard it was to let him go, i felt physical pain.

I kept focussing on the fact that I'd never go on holiday to anywhere if I stayed with him, as Spain, Portugal, France or anywhere are not good enough peoples for us to spend time with He's a sodding Egyptian Male FGS... not like THEY are worth much.... (IMNVHO)

I was in bits when he left, but I can tell you that even so, not a single second has gone by where I missed him or regretted my decision. I've hated him, I've feared him, now I don't really care about him at all. My son is oohhhhh so much better in every respect now that his dad is gone. There are NO downsides to getting rid of these vile monsters.

YOU too can and will get to where I am. I'm here to help/handhold if you need me to.

Be strong, reclaim your life, your freedom and save your family. GET HIM OUT OF IT.

When you have read the links about getting someone sectioned.. come back and let us know how much better you feel knowing that he IS indeed full of shit?

Ladybird - have you read WHY DOES HE DO THAT? by Lundy Bancroft? You need to! It'll help you in unimaginable ways. Promise!