I'm concerned that I'm a "controlling" "redflag" husband HTF do I change? (long sorry)

[bongopants]

Preamble & Context Ok! short of everyone going she should leave you, you bastard... What do I have to do to change? I did go to see a therapist but he dobbed me in to social services and cause a load of grief at home cos I mentioned that I'd smacked my daughter once, left a bruise and I was freaked at what I done. We had three months of interviews, enquiries etc before they found there was no case to be found.

I've got anger issues, I'm quick tempered and can be quite obnoxious when I put my mind to it. I like things to be orderly and disciplined and I'm marginally obsessive compulsive. I had a really really shit upbringing crappy broken home, alky stepfather, cold violent mother, distant everything. To top all of that I have a sex compulsion too.

I'm pissed off with myself cos I feel that I'm fucking up my wife's life and my kids lives and I don't want to. I recently got some self help books but they seemed overly "Christian" and I'm a Jewish atheist.

The therapist I saw appeared to talk a lot of shit about "comming to terms", "understanding" and other such stuff. I don't want to come to terms I want a bloody fix for myself. I have considered drugs (prescription one of course but I won't rule out other sorts).

Even I annoy and irritate myself. Some of the things I've read on here about controlling, red-flag and paranoid make me think of myself. I have a deep inner worry that DW cheats on me, there's no evidence for it, we get jiggy together three or four times a week. I do mither about it but as she points out we do it more than most couple with two children under the age of 8.

I do get very narky when she doesn't answer the phone, which is stupid and its getting worse - I'm becoming way too needy at times.

Some other bits and pieces, three years ago I had a nervous breakdown and tried to top myself after psych services cleared me as no danger I've been feeling deeply fucked up inside and dunno what the hell to do.

Any helpful pointers on how to stop being a controlling knobhead, being needy, and/or a fucking dick whose gonna ruin his marriage and children would be greatly appreciated.

Mayisout he should move out for his DW's and DC's sake, not his own though I do think he needs work on himself by himself.

I have yet to hear of an abuser who stops abusing. Which, again, is why I made the leopard/spots comment.

It's one thing to be a teen whose gone a bit off the rails, largely down to immaturity. It's quite another to be an adult who abuses others. JMHO.

If he is willing to do the work that is great, but remove yourself from your wife and kids first.

Actually the question re whether or not your wife is a mumsnetter is a very good one that needs answering. Because if she is, this could very easily be another avenue for manipulation and control.

You don't even take responsibility for what you did to your child OP!

Therapy and the cost of therapy. Well, it depends how much you feel you need it, OP. Sometimes for people its more important than anything else (apart from food I guess) so its your call.

Seeing as he is not answering the MN question.

DW - if you are reading, you are living with an abuser.

You need to make him leave now. Not one of us on here in any way condone his behaviour even though there may be some small level of understanding, indeed disgusted with it would be more appropriate, and he has a lot of work to do before he should be allowed anywhere near you and your child.

Hi.

Read 'I hate you don't leave me'.

Good luck, seek the professional help.

Yup. Exp knew I was a mner - tried to use it as an avenue of control - memorable thread

Dh says he would be like you are if he didn't do vast amounts of exercise (about 1.5-2h hard workout 7 days a week).

Sounds like you have way to much pent up stuff going down for you to be able to deal with it without an outlet.

Finding an outlet which allows you to channel some of that negative energy into something more constructive may be very helpful to you. I'd certainly give it a go before resorting to drugs.

You should move out while you sort out your issues.

You have said that you hit your dd hard enough to leave a bruise.

Have you ever hit or physically threatened your wife?

You have said that you have anger problems and that you sometimes have a knee jerk reaction to anger.

The only way to keep your family safe from your anger is to remove yourself whilst you seek help.

Solidgoldbrass 100% got it right. Different issues involved, but worked for me & DP.

It's good that he recognises his faults and wants to change. I hope for him and his family's sake he is able to. I find it hard to get too optimistic about the situation though, having an ex P who knows his faults, was willing to go, but still has the faults years later. Understanding where it comes from and recognising the problems is only the start. Therapy is the only way things could change so you have to go for it and take it on board.
Perhaps psychiatry is the way to go, I think they are bound by more confidentiality. I am surprised a therapist would dob you in to SS, based on one slap that was deeply regretted if discibed in those terms.

Sorry posted too soon, he spent 2 years living away from us & getting his act together. Now making plans for the future.

Suggest living separately for a period of time. If this is not acceptable to you and your DW then sit down and get some appropriate house rules written down and some "red flag words" which bring any and all conversations to a temporary halt,by either party irrespective of the subject matter. Live by the rules and respect one anothers boundaries

Then enrol on www.respect.uk.net approved perpetrators programme,

then address issues with individual counselling/anger management.

Doing counselling before abusers programme can result in "understanding" being used as a manipulative tool and reduced efficacy of the programme,

Good luck.
There are no excuses for bad behaviour, but there are many benefits from living well

I also would like to know if your wife is a mumsnetter.

OP, concentrate on being KIND in everything you do.
Good luck

I'm not reading from these posts a person who is recognising their faults, taking responsibility and trying to move forward. I'm reading someone really angry making an attempt at being reasonable but who still can't help blaming others for their faults and when challenged in a very slight way, seriously op most people posting on here would expect to get ripped to shreds with no support posting what you did, immediately reverting back to type and unravelling any attempt at reasonableness or responsibility.

I agree you need to leave to work on yourself for a bit because your family dont sound safe with you (you are not recognising the scale of the problem) and that it doesn't matter what your wife thinks if you are abusing her she will have been accustomed to that abuse. I also agree you can't keep blaming your therapist for reporting that you hit your child, the investigation occurred because you hit her not because he reported you.

There has been a lot of good advice and sympathy on this thread, please try and heed it.

Hi, Bongo. I've only read your own posts and about a quarter of your replies so far. I may be duplicating some.

Your posts are full of anger and frustration. You've grasped that the way we use language does reflect how we think and what we believe. You may have been "un-helped" by one therapist, but the other's done a fantastic amount of good: you actually have a lot of self-insight, which is half the problem cracked. (Not to say the other half will be easy.)

Your childhood was not too dissimilar to mine. Anger, frustration, feeling trapped and 'controlled' are pretty normal responses to a childhood which failed to meet the basic needs of a child. One of those needs is unconditional love. All children should be loved unconditionally, but no adult should. This is the hardest lesson, in my experience. The unmet need prompts us to test adult friends & partners unreasonably, to see whether they love us no matter what. Even if they do, they shouldn't and our tests are damaging. Like a little kid who isn't loved as he was born to be, we're tormented by anger and frustration. Sometimes we explode.

The only grown-up solution is to learn how to love ourselves unconditionally. Unlike those who were loved properly as children, we have no model of how to do it. It's a bit of a weird process, but it can be done. Millions of people are doing it right now. You will, too :)

I'll recommend one helpline and two books.
The helpline is Respect, as already mentioned: 0808 801 0327 (free to call).
The first book is The Compassionate Mind by Paul Gilbert. This is not a book about abuse. It explains stuff about how our minds work, with exercises to help them work better.
The second is John Bradshaw's Homecoming. This is an inner child therapy workbook and is very heavy going in places. It's best done with a therapist's support.

Good luck! I'll catch up on your thread tomorrow.

Difficult to know how much of your tone is bluster, 'front' as you feel threatened, or alot of anger... Or a mixture of the three.

Some good advice on where & what type of therapy to do, & good advice to find a therapist you feel you 'click' with. I'd had several really bad attempts at councelling where the fit wasn't right or a felt their view of me was two dimensional & I wasn't going to be able to have a useful discourse with them... But then I went through my gp to a centre for councelling who did a very thorough assessment before matching me with someone, and that councelling changed my life.

I like many others on here are very cautious when thinking about how to engage with an abusive man in any context, & it's hard to know what type of person you really are, & tbh we can't ever know because you could be doing this to manipulate your dw, or because you genuinely are horrified about who you are/ how you act & history repeating itself.

One thing which is clear, you have to resolve the anger you feel about being reported to the ss... If you want to move forwards & stop accumulating hatred inside yourself.

They are duty bound to report any threat to others & for small children it's the LAW they cannot pick & choose or excuse the abuser, they have to let ss take over & do their job. No i suppose it wasn't pleasant, it's horrible I'm sure... but that I'm afraid was your own making when you harmed for child, it's not the counsellors doing.

Does your wife use Mumsnet ?

OP, simply reading your posts makes me feel frightened of you.

I don't think abusers know they're abusers,they entitle themselves to the power, get addicted to the power and carry on.

Likewise, the mad don't know they're mad.

Op, speak to respect, find a counsellor you can work with, you'll beat this, if you want to.

Put the hard work in, you're worth that.

The therapist who made a report to SS was doing their job properly.

If you are an abuser you need to leave your family and enter an abuser program - it will not be a quick fix.

I would like to know if your wife uses Mumsnet too.

Firstly, it is a massive step to see your behaviour is wrong. Many, many people do not manage that...ever.
You did have a terrible childhood. People either replicate or reject what they learn to some extent.
The website you need to find a private therapist is bacp.
There is much mention of cbt on this posting. As a psychotherapist I would say that short term cbt will help you minimise the pain you are causing yourself and others.
However, given the depth of your issues and possible personality traits I would look into longer term work which may be available through your local mental health team if they hey have a psychotherapy service.
If you do have a personality disorder it is not a quick business fixing it so some techniques to minimise harm first would be advisable.
Best of luck.

OP: are your children more important than you, or not? Is your wife more important than you, or not? Here's a clue. If you expect your family to carry on absorbing your tantrums now that you are Getting Help, and if you're going to be angry and upset if they're actually more concerned about the kids' homework and the interesting thing on the telly and the trip to the park than whatever wank issues your therapy just brought up then you really need to be living somewhere else. Because the first lesson you need to learn is that life is Not All About You.

are you really angry?

do you get angry at everyone or just your wife and kids?

First I apologise for not using peoples handles/uids when responding to some of the questions posed, its just there's quite a few and I trust that you can marry up the responses to the questions.

The leaving stuff poses a few questions which I will raise later.

Yes DW is a mumsnetter, she often leaves threads open on the family pc, I don't actually know her handle/uid there were a couple towards the foot of the first page that sort of sounded like her, but as she's been mumsnetting this evening (and hadn't noticed that I was logged in) so I guess she's been lurking and she hasn't actually spoken to me about it so I dunno. Also it would be a bit bloody difficult to try to control her posting anyway, I'd have to be seriously into micro management to do that and I'm way too lazy to do that.

As today is the day of atonement I'll let her know so she can read/participate. Also contrition is the act of regret and sorrow. I regret my actions (but my time machine is far from perfected so I can't go back in time and prevent them) and I am sorrowful for them, this (the initial post) can be seen as an act of contrition "mea culpa mea culpa mea maxima culpa", but I'd rather work towards righting the wrongs, injustices and injuries and ensuring that this shit does not go forward. I'm sure DW would prefer something more concrete than ex post facto sorry's

So more background.
After my breakdown, I was initially signed off for three weeks, then after my return to work I was subsequently signed off again for three months. During that period I found that I was feeling more and more angry about just about anything. It got to the point when one evening I'm doing the dishes and I start raging about something inconsequential and trivial. I was so angry at myself for being angry and what I had become which prompted the suicide bid.

Well, after that I was put on 60mg citalopram and saw Psych Services after about a year I was taken off citalopram by a doctor (wean off would be a better way of describing it). You see I wasn't angry before the breakdown something has changed inside my head.

The smacking incident made me flash back to my own childhood, which is what prompted me to undertake therapy, I sure as shit do not want my little girls (and DW) living through the nightmare that was my own childhood.

I have noted that there have been some implications that there may be violence, nope sorry boys don't hit girls (except once which thoroughly disgusted me). Aggression is different to anger, also I don't go in for Emotional Abuse, but the tantrums (mine) and the stressors and the constant feeling of being angry drive me to cutting and burning myself. Which is I guess second hand abuse. The pain of burning myself takes the anger away. I think most of my abusive behaviour is down to being a whining pain in the arse and a needy attention seeker

DW is really pissed off with me since she caught me burning myself with a soldering iron, I'd been able to pass of quite a few of them as crap at cooking and ironing.

In order for some of you to get more clarity, since my breakdown I've found it increasingly harder to go back to work. I support DW in her career which is going stellar at the moment. I have a small stipend of £100 a week which I use for the children, DW pays everything else. Currently, I look after the family and balance the family budget, do the school run and all the other stuff that a stay at home dad has to do.

As so many of you have suggested leaving, I guess you've been through it yourselves. What are the mechanics of it? DW would have to take the girls out of school to afford childcare while she's at work. I don't have anywhere to go all of my mates evaporated after the breakdown and its over 30 years since I've been anywhere near my family.

How do I explain it to my children as well, I can't just up and disappear until I'm sorted, many of you have pointed out it takes a long time if ever. How does it work, what are your recommendations, what the hell should I do and how do I go about it.