Separation & beyond.. Lala goes forth!!!

[LalaDipsey]

Hi everyone. Well, the saga continues. H turned up for his single 'abuse assessment session' on Monday to find that the counsellor had, by mistake, booked him in for Wednesday instead of Monday! I was fuming!
I spoke to them and said it may just be one more week to them, but to me I had mentally psyched myself up for H to have this DV assessment and was then ready for a session this Monday coming either together or on my own. Nothing could be done but I was gutted as I had hoped us to be significantly further along by next week and now we won't be.
On the plus side, night 3 of sleep training tonight so hoping for a massive improvement.
Had no idea what to call this thread... Felt this was still the right place as I extricate us from this relationship but I hope by the time this reaches 1000 posts H has either moved out, or is living here whilst the divorce is being processed so I hope the title sums that up!!
Thanks for everyone still with me

Lala no one thinks you're cocky. :) You need to stop second guessing yourself, he's made you feel that you need to explain any 'I know' because 'he knows best.' [Insert eyeroll here] It's amazing when you leave an abusive relationship how you find yourself again and learn to breathe again. That part must feel wonderful, focus on that!

Don't be ashamed you still love/miss him, or even deep down wish he'd magically change (not saying you do.) That's all so normal, you've been together a long time and he's the father of your children. You're human hun, you'd have to be a robot not to emotionally effected. Please don't feel shame. Embrace those feelings, embrace your grief because you are grieving a loss here. Allowing yourself to hurt is all part of the process.

Getting nice and angry is all part of the process too! I'm way younger than you but I hope you don't mind me saying how proud I am of you! In fact, you inspire me a great deal.

Geez with that comment AND a 'hun,' I really should run off to netmums...

lala he's never going to change.

He will never make you the cup of tea you want without you begging for it and sacrificing who you are and your children's happiness you can tell I'm not really talking about tea

I would definitely do the counselling session yourself, you will benefit enormously from it.

ABSOLUTELY DO one more joint counselling session to set out a plan of action for your separation, and attach a timescale and conditions to it.

DON'T DO more joint counselling if you're trying to find a way back from the separation to a happy marriage with this man. It's never going to happen, you would be torturing yourself, and exposing yourself to more emotional hurt from him.

The man you want to be married to doesn't exist inside the man you're actually married to. But I can tell you, as can many others on this thread, that he DOES exist somewhere else...

Well done Lala for not getting the milk. He wants you to go and get milk for his cup of tea when he can't be arsed to make one for you as well?!£&!?£&?!? What a toss**!

What a wanker.

How you didn't pick the tea up and chuck it in his face is beyond me!! raging!!!!!!!!
He's an insensitive, self indulgent, cruel, less-than-a-man, man. Did he even acknowledge that you'd boiled the kettle for him?? thanked you for not pouring it over his balls?

Have you set yourself a limit on how many counselling sessions you are prepared to go to with him?? He could use this process to string out leaving and before you know it life is going on just as before on the back of attending sessions. If you want to end this then I think you have to make this explicit in the first session and start taking decisive action to make it happen - like refusing things like getting the milk and absolutely excluding him.

So the DV session wasn't that helpful after all. He clearly learned nothing.

My guess is he is blanking it all out as much as he can. He is a man who wears a suit and shiny shoes. He has a job. He is not an abuser -- just a misunderstood man whose (cold, frigid, obsessive) wife has no time for him after he went through with all the hassle and expense of fertility treatment and gave her what she wanted, and despite all he does for her and for the DCs at work...

Lala, I hope you will go to the individual counselling.

I hope you are prepared mentally and emotionally for a lot of button pushing and manipulation, twisting of what you say, and messing with your mind at the joint sessions.

Relationship counselling with an abuser who is also addicted to alcohol has a very slim chance of not driving you crazy. If you find yourself tied up in knots, having an extreme emotional reaction (flooding), getting nowhere, being blamed, you have every right to call it quits and do individual counselling instead.

If you find yourself having an emotional reaction like the one you had with the 'poor me' act he put on, it is because your rational mind is trying desperately to square the circle here. Somewhere inside your gut is telling you 'that's not right/that's not fair/what about me?' When you notice things like the absence of his cold 'Bye' in the morning, pay attention and put it in the debit column.

Denial, projection, blame-shifting, manipulation, playing the sympathy card are all the stock in trade of the abuser. Do not get in involved in talking about specific things he brings up. All he wants to do is absolve himself of responsibility for the way the relationship has gone when he tries to talk about the past. Do not engage with his statements about you -- I suspect there will be plenty and it will do your head in if you allow it.

Your agenda is to help steer the relationship out the door and into your separate futures with the minimum of rancour. Do you think you are ready to state that out loud and keep that on the table, brushing all else off? If it looks as if that is not happening, you are under no obligation to continue beating your head against the wall with the joint counselling. A good solicitor will also be able to accomplish your goal for you.

Phrases to use when he accuses you of running the relationship into the ground or of being impossible to understand:
I will not accept that from you. What I need is...
You are confusing the issue. What I said was../ What I need from you is...
Your tone is abusive and it is confusing my point. What I need from you is...

Be prepared for sarcasm, plenty of 'you always' and 'you never', 'you are so hard to understand', 'I can't read your mind', 'I gave up drinking and it's still not good enough for you', 'I can't win with you'...

Don't get bogged down answering him directly. Brush him off and direct the sessions to your agenda.

You are dealing with an abuser here, Lala, and I am afraid there will be a serious attempt by your H to make you accept responsibility for the abuse you and the DCs have received. You are in no way responsible for anything he has felt or thought or done or said or not done or not said or not felt or not thought. This is not to say you are some sort of angel walking among the mortals here. What I am saying is that he alone is responsible for his choices; he has had every chance to choose better. He has failed.

www.lisaescott.com/forum/2011/10/02/how-abusers-stage-their-returns

How are you doing this morning, lala?

Hiya
Math I know that what you're saying makes utter sense but (& please do tell me if I'm being utterly bonkers) H and I had a talk on Tuesday night about his counselling session.
He said he realises his behaviour has been appalling and has to change and he needs help. He said he was now 'at peace' with whatever the outcome of me and him was and wasn't going to fight it. He was really rational. He just said he wants us to start communicating again and being able to talk rather than just being civil as we will need to do this even if he isn't living here about the dc. He seemed humbled.
I don't know, it has just made me question a little bit whether he could change. But then I remember that even if he could be the husband I need him to be again (which actually I think is realistically very possible) he can never be the father I need him to be as it's just not in him. He doesn't wake up on a Saturday morning and think 'Great, it's the weekend. What can we do with the children today? What will make dd happy? Park and picnic? Let's do that!'
Oh I don't know. Am just a little wobbly I guess. Only a little. Joint counselling on Tuesday and then I have a solo session the following Monday.
Later on though just to really confuse me H was talking about whether he should book Christmas off this year????!!!!! As if I will really have anything to do with that?!

Lala, your H has been talking to you for months. He's been telling you what you want to hear for months. This has kept you in an ongoing, never-ending, hellish cycle since your DTs were born (and even before).

After all this talking on Tuesday, what ACTION has he said he will now take to "change and get the help he needs" as he put it?

Unless he has a plan and knows what he needs to do and how he's going to do it, and unless this plan is already in action, then I'm afraid all you're getting is the practised bullshit of a serial bullshitter.

He's done this too you SO many times, for the express purpose of making you wobble. And it's worked.

PLEASE don't get sucked back into the cycle. If he genuinely meant everything he said on Tuesday (oh wait, lookit that, it was just him speaking again. About him.) then he will ask you what YOU want him to do.

Four days ago, he didn't even bother to make you a cup of tea after YOU had boiled the kettle. Somehow, I highly doubt he's even bothered in this talk you had to even enquire after your needs. Am I wrong?

He did say he was stupid and no good at guessing what I wanted and I needed to spell out to him what I wanted him to do and 'stick a post-it note on his head if necessary'
Maybe I am being unrealistic - should I have to spell out that when dc are crying they need picking up? When a nappy is dirty it needs changing? When I have no sleep I need a rest? That I need a break?

No. You shouldn't have to spell it out. And, to be honest, he's once again focusing on the little things to distract from his drinking the big things. I know that him extricating himself from family life feels like such a big thing for you lala because it's ongoing and leaves you so tired, but it's just a symptom, not the root problem itself.

It sounds like he's trying to overwhelm you with asking for examples of his bad behaviour and getting you to write a manual - "How to be a good father and husband". It's bogging you down in minutiae when the big, main, huge, unavoidable problem is simply who he is.

Next time he asks what you want and need, tell him you want and need a husband who doesn't have to be begged, cajoled, and tutored in being a minimally decent human being.

same old bullshit from him Lala. He'll always mess with your head like this, he's had years of practice. He needs to leave. Now.

Hi lala. Take this from one who knows: even if you roll over to be a surrendered wife and not the mum that we know you are and read all the post-its on his head etc, it will not make any difference. Once your pang of guilt and 'Could I have done more?' ..er maybe i could so i will keep plugging away ...has passed, you will totally resent the blindingly obvious neglect of your basic needs crapness... and panic that you are back at square one. 2 babies and a toddler and a husband needing things..wow. But when you have an older child, two demanding toddlers and a husband who psychologically and practically checks out as soon as things are not as he wants..my god. Think you know we project onto each other! But hope this makes sense ((hugs))

No, Lala. Nobody needs any of that to be spelt out to them. Nor does anyone need to be told that when you are making tea you need to at least ask if anyone else could do with one.

Sorry, but this is same old, same old.

And you're falling for it again.

'stick a note on my head to remind me' - so apart from ALL the child care you do you Are also requested to micro manage his parenting by reminding him what a parent should at any given time!!! It's beyond unreasonable - he is sooooo lazy or really couldn't give a t*. At the end of the day it really doesn't matter what the causes of his dreadful behaviour are - you need to keep focused on how bad it's made you and the kids feel - so many people have suggested that he will now throw ant defence possible into the mix.

Lala: i lurked in your other threads. I read the title of this I really hoped the you had left him.

I know you want to believe him; you want him to start being the man you need, not the man he has been. But, his reaction should be telling you that he is incapable of doing this. Telling you to remind him to be a good parent /husband is not taking responsability for his actions or making any effort to change. It is just doing the same he has always done, make you responsible for all he does. Thus when he misbehaves (and he will) it will be all your fault, as it always has been. And he will take it out on you as he always has done.

If he really wanted to change he wouldn't still be gas lighting you and making out he is the injured party to get you to feel guilty. He wouldn't be asking youto pop to the shops and not offer to make you a cuppa. He would be bending over backwards to help you with your dc.

What he is doing is trying to get you back to where you were a couple of months ago. He liked that status quo. He doesn't like the new one. And he won't move out while he still thinks he can pressure and guilt you back into going back to the way things were. You need to tell him to stop playing games and to leave. Please; for your sake and for your dc.

'He did say he was stupid and no good at guessing what I wanted and I needed to spell out to him what I wanted him to do and 'stick a post-it note on his head if necessary'

Bloody hell, Lala -- have you fallen for that???

It's the 'Save Me From Myself Routine' and it comes with the subtext of 'I know, I'll flatter her into thinking she can save me'. The other subtext is 'You speak in riddles Lala'. You are being gaslighted here.

Forget about your so-called 'rational conversation' where he said he was at peace with whatever the outcome of you and him. Lala -- he is suckering you in again because his ego can't take the fact that you have finally wised up just as wife number one did all those years ago.

He is absolutely not taking any personal responsibility for anything here, Lala, neither the past nor the present nor whatever happens in the future.

'Maybe I am being unrealistic - should I have to spell out that when dc are crying they need picking up? When a nappy is dirty it needs changing? When I have no sleep I need a rest? That I need a break? '

Lala, rephrase this -- ''What kind of a moron needs to be told all of the above?'

You are being bonkers. There is no such thing as magic.

If there really is no part of you that raises its hackles when he says something like 'I'm no good at guessing what you want' then you need a lot of counselling.

Does that not make you bang your head really hard against a wall, or better still, want to bang his?

That is pure gaslighting.

Gaslighting is telling you a version of events that fits in with his unshakeable self image. It involves a complete reframing of everything that has gone on since your DD was born and especially since the twins' birth.

He refuses to believe that he is abusive.
It is far easier for him to hint to you that you speak gibberish, that you make him read your mind, that the two of you are you are not communicating well.

The poor communication aspect is something you come back to again and again Lala, as if you feel you need to somehow find the exact right words or phrase that will make him see the light here, and there will be an epiphany on his part.

You feel that way because of the way he blanks you out -- this is a habit of his that has already been noticed by the counsellor (you see it in the remark about Christmas but you are not joining all the dots here). You are desperate to be heard. That is why you grasp so hopefully at any semblance of rationality he shows. He is just as determined to ignore you completely when he seems rational as he is when he seems irrational.
That 'better communication' you dream of is not going to happen. It will never happen. Please, please stop hoping it can happen.

When he says to you that all it would have taken (while he has been drunk, hopping in the kitchen in anger, asleep until 11 am, away at work, holed up in his office and yelling about the little fuckwit of a son you have foisted on him) to be the man you wanted him to be was for you to simply say the word, he is insulting your intelligence and attempting to drive you stark raving mad.

When he says he can't read your mind what he is doing is blaming you for everything he has done and failed to do. He is not holding out hope that better communication will improve things.

The DV session was not 'helpful'. He is fighting the DV label all the way.

Lala -- you are not ready for joint counselling with this man. He is going to walk all over you if you go ahead with it. Your desire to do it and to be finally heard is sooooooo dangerous here.

?Gaslighting is a form of intimidation or psychological abuse in which false information is presented to the victim, making them doubt their own memory and perception.?

Morning Lala - how's things?

Morning lala

Hope you're good on this beautiful Saturday morning, and that you've got a lovely day planned for you and the DC.

I know it's not my place, but I would really recommend that you read, and re-read, and print out, and read again, math's last two posts. Take it in, understand it, and use it. Don't get sucked in again - you've come so far for him to undo it all again.

Math is so right and so wise. You're not getting any further forward here Lala. You need him to leave. It's over. Enough.

Lala, where are you? Are you alright?