Support for those in Emotionally abusive relationships number 10

[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
should 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!!

hey we all live with a bit of guilt...but really the guilt is theirs.
You can rebuild and you will.

Arth...the sun is coming to the uk. hope it gives you a little lift!

Thanks, Fool :)
How are you?

Warning long post coming up:

hilde you can appreciate the change whilst keeping your wits about you. You can watch the change whilst preparing for the worst. Is he in an extended cycle of abuse because you have been strong or is he confronting......

^Assessment of change: Bancroft And Silverman 2002^

Assessment of change in an abusive partner should draw on multiple sources of information (not just self-report), and include attention to the following issues at a minimum:
Has he made full disclosure of his history of physical and psychological abuse? A perpetrator must overcome denial and minimization . It is common for abusers to claim to have changed while simultaneously denying most of the history of violence.
Has he recognized that abusive behaviour is unacceptable? some perpetrators continue to justify their past violent or abusive behavior, usually through blaming the victim, thereby leaving an opening for using such justifications for future abuse. One indication of an abuser who may be making serious progress is his unqualified statements that his behaviour was wrong.
Has he recognized that abusive behaviour is a choice? Acceptance of full responsibility is indispensable for change and needs to include recognition that abuse is intentional and instrumental.
Does he show empathy for the effects of his actions on his partner and children? a perpetrator should be able to identify in detail the destructive impact his abuse has had and demonstrate that he feels empathy for his victims without shifting attention back to his own emotional injuries, grievances, or excuses.
Can he identify what his pattern of controlling behaviours and entitled attitudes has been? In order to change, a perpetrator has to see that his violence grows out of a surrounding context of abusive behaviours and attitudes and be able to name the specific forms of abuse he has relied onand the entitled beliefs that have driven those behaviours.
Has he replaced abuse with respectful behaviours and attitudes? A changing abuser responds respectfully to his (ex-)partner?s grievances, meets his responsibilities, and stops focusing exclusively on his own needs.
Is he willing to make amends in a meaningful way? We have observed that abusers who are making genuine change develop a sense of long-term indebtedness towards their victims.
Does he accept the consequences of his actions? Our clients who make substantial progress come to recognize that abusive behaviour rightly carries consequences with it, which may include the woman?s decision to end the relationship or the placement of restrictions on the abuser?s access to his children. On the other hand, continued anger or externalizing of responsibility regarding such consequences tends to portend a return to abusive behaviour.

Don't confuse changed behaviour with a changed attitude. these men are usually "charming" out of the house and intimate relationships. They can keep up a good front for a long time (how long were you dating??). It's the attitudes that need to change, not just the behaviour.

fingers I am having a few RL problems at present and having to deal with a new advocate for NSDH and also mediation (not face to face).

it's hard
I hate the feeling that I am coming across as "unreasonable" but being "reasonable" kept me in a whole heap of trouble for a long time!

It would help if the advocate were not a person who i both love and respect and who matters to me.

Hi Fool :( about your problems. My thought is that there are only two ways of dealing with FWs.
Gloves off an no quarter given
or
No contact whatsoever
You need to do the first because your children are still young
I am doing the second
Neither behaviour is normal. This is not how people usually relate to each other - which is why you are feeling unreasonable.
But dealing with FWs normally - as we all know - does not work.
I suppose we are all very lonely. :( Let's hope for better times to come.
FWIW, I think you totally rock

Just to say that I feel weird about no contact with FW, but he just twists everything I say.

up the thread a bit, i posted about dh and me arguing about dinners and me refusing to cook cos he was too picky, and wanted a 'fresh dinner every day'. because someone has mentioned this to me, i realise it can be taken the wrong way so i just want to clarify.
i was cooking for dh every day. what i mean by 'fresh' is - for example, if i bought chicken, i would cook it all and use half for the dinner one night and the other half for a stir fry the next night. this was unacceptable, because he does not like re - heated food. also, if i cooked something like cottage pie, or chilli con carne, i would cook a batch and freeze a portion. but this was unacceptable because he does not like food from the freezer - it would have to be cooked from scratch each time. then add him claiming he doesn't like plain potatoes cos they are boring (he needs homemade spicy potatoe wedges, or homemade roasties) he doesn't like jackets, or pasta, or most vegetables, or anything like a risotto. it has to just be meat, and the fries, or like a cottage pie type thing. so this is what i would do. then he would complain that he was getting the same thing every day.
so this is when i complained i wasn't doing it anymore - now is he is more relaxed and he will have stuff that i have frozen for example. (i explained that the stuff he buys for himself are out of a freezer!?) and he likes pasta dishes now.

and also the reason we are eating different meals is because i am a vegetarian and he is not. i hope this clarifies to anyone who thinks i am unreasonable. i guess this is more of a normal argument than an ea issue though.

Jan you do not have to justify yourself at all. Have a look at what you have written above - that is EA & no way you just being unreasonable. He should've been thankful you cooked for him at all the way he behaved towards you.

Fool & Fingers I have no contact with FW husband all contact goes through my mum at the moment. He gets inside my head & twists everything I say. He will not get that opportunity this time :)

Jan you're not being unreasonable at all! My exP was a right arse about everything we ate being as local, seasonal and cheap as possible - he supplied all the veg and I was expected to turn it into freshly cooked dinners day after day. He would just turn up with bags of the stuff (he grew it) and I was so bloody sick of eating the same thing day in day out. If he 'cooked' it would be pork from his pigs - pork is my least favourite meat - and the same old bloody veg and potatoes. Or tomato soup. I ate tomato soup for three days running and on the fourth day he tried to serve it up again and I said seriously, not again, my stomach lining is in tatters from all the acidity. Balanced diet anyone?

I once made a special dinner of four different types of curry (all homemade), with rice, pakoras etc and his response was "that was quite nice". QUITE NICE?? It was blooming delish! I bought a pizza once towards the end of our relationship, just because I couldn't be arsed to cook, and he asked if it was homemade. I think I just stared at him.

Also whenever we had his kids to stay he would buy any old crap for them. But if I bought some chocolate he'd eat it saying he was doing me and my 'large thighs' a favour

I still feel guilty about buying the odd ready meal or takeaway. It's ridiculous how they affect you.

thanks newbe and kern for your kind words. its hard when we doubt ourselves. Kern i totally understand how you felt when you had put all that effort into those currys and didn't get the appreciation - on our anniversary i went and got ingredients for a special dish and made it and i KNEW it was amazing and he said it was nice, but i reckon in another relationship they would have been like 'flip me thats gorgeous!' or something along those lines. i mean, we all know when we have put in that added special effort and it pays off, and its like a slap in the face when its just not appreciated.

i cannot believe your exp said that about the chocolate - that is shocking.

Oh yes, that was just one of many - he once told me he sometimes thought I was pretty but my double chin didn't do me any favours. I was "porky" (I am tall and slim with a bit of a belly, granted, but I'm certainly not big). The tops of my thighs were "fat". My shoulders "needed building up". I was too tall (he was 5'8"; I am 5'10").

Throughout it all I kept in my head a previous ex of mine who was never shy with the compliments, and once sent me a text while I was getting us drinks at a bar, saying "you have a lovely bum". I know all men aren't like my recent ex, but I will find it hard to trust anyone for a good while yet.

The first year we were together he outright forgot my birthday, despite me telling him it was later that week, and he didn't even attempt to make amends. This year I wondered if he'd make a bit more of an effort, but no, it got to the day and he said "I haven't bought you anything yet but I'll get something today". It turned out to be stuff from the shop at his workplace, where he got everyone's presents, mainly because it was easy and he got a 25% discount. Oh yes, and the bar of chocolate he got me was reduced because it was past its best before date.

All this is after him throwing the biggest tantrum ever when I said I wasn't staying over the night of his birthday last year. I'd gone to pick him up (early, at short notice, from a station 15 miles from me) from a weekend away, bought him supplies in case he'd run out, and all I got was a barrage of shouting. Earlier that week I'd cooked him a special meal because I didn't think we'd be spending his birthday together.

He was an ungrateful shit, basically, and I was a mug, and he knew it. [embarrassed]

Jan2011, and all the other ladies on this thread, we are worth so much more than this.

K he did not forget your birthday...he knew which buttons to press....had i any money I would wager the lot!

Hi all, been away for a bit, and here you are nearly 300 posts into Thread 10 :)

We have now had the settlement ratified by the court (I like the idea of it turning into little ratty-rats lol). I am getting the house, and me and the cat will be staying here. He is in the process of buying his own house, nearer our local city/town, and is gradually sorting his stuff out. I can now count the days till he has to be gone, late next month.

Am contemplating a celebratory name change, but may decide against. As usual, from me. As fingers (among others) would say "Chin up and tits out" (in the sense of tits forward rather than tits out for the lads )

First line of previous posts means I have yet to catch up!

Pink that's wonderful for you!

Kernow I know what you mean about food. I was never allowed take-aways. Ever. And I was with FWX for 18 yrs. God I missed KFC! I'll have a take-away maybe once every two or three months, and it's lovely to be able to do so.

One year he came home on a Saturday ( he worked away) and Valentine's Day was the following Thursday or Friday. Come Valentine's, I give him a card, chocolates and a new DVD. He says 'oh I haven't got you anything, I haven't really had a chance'

And then he thought if he got a card from the local newsagents for me then I'd be
a) grateful
b) treat him like a king all day, and
c) want sex with him that night

And they wonder why we leave them...

I never bothered with Valentine's because we agreed we wouldn't do anything. Last year he later said he was hurt that I'd ignored it, despite our agreement, and this year he was cooking for his kids and shoved a plate towards me saying "the girls say I should have got you something for valentine's day; here's your dinner". Even his kids looked embarrassed. In fact they frequently looked embarrassed at his behaviour towards me.

Anyway enough of the me me me, WELL DONE PINK! waves pompoms

Thanks all, I couldn't have done it without you, I really mean that.

Now, don't get me started on Valentine's...

...

Oh OK then. The only Valentine's meal I ever had with Ex I had to book myself. 'Nuff said, I think (we did exchange cards till a few years ago though)

yay Pink......you are positively glowing. I would miss your name...I think it suits you

Hi all. Firstly, yay pink!

Grrr re all the cooking/eating/snide remarks re appearance. FW wouldn't dare now we have some distance between us, but used to say stuff to me like "eating again?" as I had my supper or "gosh, this is the fattest you've ever been, did you realise" (I'm not fat) and once, on hols with his family, he followed me into the kitchen and kicked my bottom and whispered "fat cow". Lovely bloke. Re the cooking, I like cooking, I cook for the family every day and I know I make nice meals. But the best I ever get from him is "Yeah, nice" if I actively ask him (knowing it was bloody good and had made a special effort).

I am so looking forward to him missing my cooking and kicking himself. He has been an incredibly horrible prat today. Horrible to the kids, an arse to me and just a dickhead in general. I've just spent some time with a group of close friends and he is always arsey when I come back from a good time and also he can't cope on his own with kids' normal sibling stuff without huge, nasty dramatics (from him). Grrrr. Very angry with the sod today. I'm off to diarise it all for legal purposes

Yey Pink!! except that should be champagne!

FW wouldn't have dreamed of mentioning valentines ... or birthdays ... or Easter ... or even Christmas ...
He did suggest I could book a pizza for my 50th - if I really wanted to ... :(