Support thread for those in Emotionally Abusive relationships Number *9*

[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!!

don't know what to say detached except well done for taking that step and im here to hold your hand and hopefully the time will fly in till your family are back and you can get some rl support

Hi all, Just popping in, as I now have the space and time to be exhausted. I was expecting it though. You all seem to be having one of those days , as is my wont, I will offer a .

He has started looking for a house, so that's good.

Ooooh that is good ay Pink. Can you taste that FREEDOM huh

Thanks MissFaversam. Sounds like a few of us are struggling

Jan it's HIM and not you. You will find a way to stop doing his dance you really will. Find a way to stop retalliating. Try saying "ouch" every time he hurts you and say no more. These bastards turn it all round until you don't know your head from your arse.

Thanks for the hugs MissF :)

jan2011, your DH is evil. There's no gentle way of saying that. I really, really hope you can find some RL emotional support to help you get away and get your happiness back.

Struggling Nini but tunnels tend to have a light at the end of them darling, really they do. If I feel really down I close my eyes and think about something in the past that made me feel happy. Come on sweetheart I'm sure you can think of a time.

cant believe it all

Do you know what I really really want to kick all these men in the goolies right now, get right where it hurts ay.

Not recently no. Apart from DD and the cat I can't think of anything happy. I can't even say its just him either, its everything.

They either make you go on anti-d's due to repressed anger or want to chop their dicks off!

Nini :( and keep posting

Hissy and MissF, My mother was extremely physically, emotionally and verbally abusive when I was growing up. The physical violence stopped (as it does) but the rest of the abuse continued. well ... you can also add that she did say that she was going to leave everything - and I mean everything - to my sister (the only child she has ever really recognized) because I, and my other siblings were rolling in it - but I and my other siblings are soo **not attached to material things that she was pissing in the wind.
However, my mother was able to make me cry well into my 40s. I could probably write my own version of 'Mommy dearest' , so I won't even start, but the nothing which I feel I have achieved with my life, is her workmanship.
What I wanted from my mother, obviously, was affection and approval. Things I now believe that she was and is constitutionally incapable of giving.
What has been interesting me more and more, however, is the connection between childhood (and ongoing) abuse and abusive relationships as adults.
When we got together, FW set himself up as my saviour from my mother. ... I should thank goodness I had him, etc. etc.
I believed him
But my girls grew up and so, then, really, there was absolutely nothing I wanted from my mother not even that she love my girls, who, loved their grandmother despite all her faults ? but, You know, I mean, like ... had a life 
Gradually there was nothing I (or my two beautiful teenagers) needed or wanted from my mother. Gradually, my relationship with my mother became that of two unrelated adults ?
we started to get on.
Interestingly, at the same time, FW's behaviour started to go really downhill. If I called him on his behaviour, he would say 'You have been talking to your mother. You always get like this when you talk to your mother
I stopped telling him when I spoke to my mother. I also stopped calling him on his behaviour, but that is another story 
I suppose there are two ideas in this looong story.

1. with abusive parents you have to let go ? I just love the title of the thread ?nothing can drag you down if you are not holding on.?,
2. FWs have NO shame ? now isn?t that one a surprise, O Wise Women?

Goodness I have written Mommy Dearest

Hi battle babes,

Agree with the poster who just wants to kick all these arse holes in the goolies!

Nini - one of those days indeed - I have often felt the way you do atm (and still do at times)

I read somewhere a while back that 'just' because my emotions are fucked up and I'm in the pit some days it doesn't mean that it's true.

Probably falls in the annoying as hell 'woo' camp but I frequently get evenings (distracted by being a good worker bee in the day) where I feel utterly shit emotionally and it does help me to think over and over 'I feel this way right now but I know that tomorrow night/the night after, I will feel like putting on my music and dancing around the place again'

Then it's a matter of coping with the feelings for the short term rather than getting caught up in the big vat of forever.

Love the use of the word 'ouch' and will adopt that more in everyday life I think - simple and quick and gets the point across perfectly!

'kind to my bum tissue' and no knickers - - made me laugh tonight.

Nini, sometimes it never rains but it pours. Sometimes we get to that point were we are so aware that we notice all the stuff that needs changing in one swoop ay.

I've just been told today that I'm being made redundant in 6 month (and I'm 50 this year). FUCK, that's my rug pulled right from under me now. But it's not, it's an indication for a fresh start. I'm resourceful, I'm a lovely person, I have the best DS in the world dont have cats coz he's allergic and I CAN DO IT! So can you. Put it this way, the floor is as low as you can go and the only way is UP!

Oh Nini, what about sneaking in on your gorgeous DD and cuddling the wonderful warm body of someone that loves you more than anything in the world, mmmmm

Sorry to hear your news MissF :( Of course you will do it. I am 52 - will shortly be homeless and have a job, which, albeit secure, pays rubbish
Anyone for:

And - by 'fix it' here - we are not referring to FWs

How's things, Fool?

Hi,

Netcurtains, I had to post in response to your post on the previous page. I lurk alot on this but rarely post due to continuos spaghetti-brain since leaving a few months ago (mainly re the legal nightmare). Your FWH sounds just like my STBX-FWH about housework, nagging, implying he's generally hard-done-by etc. If you are thinking about leaving/divorcing please be very very careful, he sounds the type to continue his abuse of you through the family courts. Is there any way you can take back the care of your children at the weekends? I really don't like the sounds of him not 'allowing' you to take the children to their activities, and the way he implies that he is the capable one. And also his mother looking after the other child. I'm sorry I have not read back over any of your other posts, and don't know how old the children are but can you find something that you could take the other child to, anything at all, some kind of class/weekend activity/playing at a friend's house? Children's centres sometimes have things on at the weekends too. He sounds very very controlling. Sod the housework, unless he is physically abusive in order to get his way re this, try to steel yourself to his criticism and concentrate on the children, in the knowledge that it is all short-term, and part of your plan to be free - which you will be as it sounds like you have made the decision and are putting the pieces together. Don't look on wikivorce, get a free initial consultation with a solicitor and explain what he is like, then you will be in a much better position to know how to proceed. Good luck!

thank you arthriticfingers.

My DS sort of know a bit of what's going on at the moment. He just came home from explorers and handed me a packet of my favourite sweets. Now THATs the sort of man we should be with isn't it.

Hi Outof :( about spaghetti brain.
Understand your point. I am probably headed for the poor house, but it was that or the funny farm ...
Net listen to this excellent advice.

MissF, would that I could, she's still in a cot so no room for me, and she's a light sleeper so I'd only wake her & there'd be hell to pay.

I have a much younger sibling, and when times got really bad when I was in my late teens (ironically before I met NSDH), I had to keep telling myself to stay alive for my sibling. Now he's old enough not to need me, I have to keep telling myself to stay alive for DD and the cat. There's always someone worth staying alive for but its never me.

It's our wedding anniversary - we exchanged cards this morning and I had to laugh when I read that he'd written "Thank you for 3 wonderful years". He bought takeaway for dinner when I asked him not to, and this evening I've been studying upstairs while he watches TV downstairs. How different life was this time 3 yrs ago. .

Anyway, this is depressing. Big hugs to all.

It's not depressing Nini, it's you telling things as they are at the MOMENT. Sometimes we have to carry on solely for others and so it should be, where would they be without us huh.

Arthritic - they will need a very big funny farm to accommodate all of us here! (hope smiley works - I am a smiley-virgin!)