Support for those in Emotionally Abusive Relationships: 13

[CharlotteCollinsislost]

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
a check list Use this site for some concise diagnostic lists and support
Signs of Abuse & Control Useful check list
why financial abuse is domestic violence Are 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.
www.heart-2-heart.ca/women/page1.htm heart to heart]] a wealth of information and personal experiences drawn together in one place

what couples therapy does for abusers

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!!

What drives me mad is how nice he can be, so caring sometimes then all it would take would be one careless word from someone else (like my brother who might say "my friend says why is my sister so much better looking than me") and that is it, sulking for days. When he's nice it's great but I can't flick from being scared to being fine like he can flick from being scary to being nice.

yy, nicky - they obviously could be nice people if they wanted to, couldn't they? Or maybe not, maybe the strain of keeping up a pretence of niceness would be too much for them.

Oh fuck. Oh fuckity-fuck. Have just seen a house which looks perfect for us, available January. Losing my nerve immediately. That means getting a solicitor, splitting our joint finances, lots of hell. It's not as if he's ever hit me or even shouted at me for years. What am I thinking of?!?

Charlotte go for it! This is just a temporary failure of nerve while you come to the realisation that there really is a way out.

Charlotte, yyy to what you are saying. I have already lost my nerve this time round... Silver pussycat you are so right. I reckon it's like giving up an addiction and the more times you try the further you get every time until one day... GONE

It's not as if he's ever hit me or even shouted at me for years. What am I thinking of?!?

you are thinking of freedom, the possibility that you are enough and good just as you are, the hope of bringing up children who come first, and who know their value just for being themselves.

A hit can be nothing (or it can kill), you can recover in a few hours, a couple of days, it is the abuse behind the fist that hurts the most.....yes really. And you do have that.

take the house, worry later.

Charlotte January :) house :)
Just do it - as the slogan goes.
Agonizing about it could go on for yet more years.

Very good luck to everyone with your current or planned separation, and also to everyone who is, like me, staying (or rather stuck) for now with EA. (I'm delighted to know what FW stands for - very appropriate.)

So - the consensus is that it is definitely best for the children that the relationship ends, is that right?

I'm in a quandry. For 3 years, partner's abiding threat has been that he's planning to send me a letter telling me to leave his house (it is his house that we live in, and not in Britain.) I really wanted us all to stay together, at 1st because I thought it was nicer for the children to have mum and dad there, but now because I don't like the idea of him having the children on his own for half the time (that is how a court would order it here). So could it be a good idea to stay together so that I can be with the children almost all the time, they can keep a relationship with dad by seeing him either for a short outing alone with him, or with me around too to counterbalance any crackpot behaviour towards them? If I leave them to him half the time won't he just take out his EA on them?

Just out of interest, the threat to send me this letter is horrible but also hilarious - first he was going to send the letter, then the letter was already written, then the letter was at the lawyer's waiting to be sent. Lately there are two letters already written waiting at the lawyer's. I've told him I'll only need the one letter and please send it if he wants so we can just get on with it. (But I'm definitely not at a point where I myself would make the decision to separate.)

If I leave them to him half the time won't he just take out his EA on them? does he at present five? if he does not then his entitlement may actually be just confined to misogynistic beliefs around romantic/husband wife relations.

i may have missed the details of your own particular FW and obviously geography matters too. is it pos. to give an indication of the type of country you are in? Are you also a national there?

at 2 letters!!!!

Thank you, wonderful friends - all just what I needed to hear. Yy to children coming first. I'm going to arrange to see the house. So excited, just solely by the thought of having space from fw. Freedom!

I think...does cheerleeding dance for charlotte

Good luck with that, Charlotte. Once you see the house, the rest might not seem so hard.

Yes, Fool, he does take it out on the children a little. I think that's what I mean - I'm usually right there to assure them that they aren't "always" spilling things, breaking things, crying etc. And that they aren't "crybabies". Etc etc. They are 4 and 5.

I'm not living far from Britain - in Europe, very civilised, everything geared up for families and women's rights supposed to be highly respected. But no recognition of EA, certainly not as a form of domestic abuse (as far as I can see). And the standard practice where couples are in dispute over child care is for courts to order alternating care, one week at a time with each parent. (I think that's hard enough on the child even when the parents are harmonious, but very hard in a case like ours.)

I'm British, and my "partner" is foreign here too.

Is the EA based on a feeling of entitlement then?
Interesting because "entitled b..." is one of the things he calls me. Also "freeloader" and "solopsyst" - I was probably supposed to look it up in the dictionary but haven't bothered. My favourite is "antechrist" (no-one need ask who is Christ of course). There are many others. I can only cope with the EA by making fun of it (which is possibly not healthy and definitely makes him more cross if do it in front of him.)

H and i continue to live together but separate lives after 20 years of abuse, sometimes physical but mostly verbal and controlling. I have been fine with this and try just to live my own life. This morning at 7.30 I was served papers to sever the joint tenancy on our house to tenants in common. It means whenever I step out of line he can change his will so I have no peace of mind as in some circumstances I would have to pay his 50% share to whoever he wants to leave it to. It feels like a gun to my head. After our children left home I felt free at last, now it's back to those chains. I don't want to divorce as my share of the house would not buy anything and I am now retired.

It doesn't get any better as I am now trapped.

Sorry for waffling, feeling distraught but its par for the course from H

Yes, EA is a direct consequence of entitlement.

They behave this way because it is reasonable in their eyes so to do. They are entitled to respect (but you are not) they are entitled to their feelings (you are not), they are entitled to "their" home, "their" children. The entitlement often mixed with a deeply held misogynism (and often very strong beliefs about other groups of "freeloaders" eg immigrants).

In your situation there is a lot of weighing up to be done. I would suggest you would need to look into legalities of divorcing (if you are married) in the UK (where did you marry...here, there or his??) which would allow you to look at a more child focussed way of maintaining parental relationships with DC, also where you would live if you left (here? there? somewhere else?), other family/RL support.

Even if you did alternate weeks (who thought that up as a great idea for stable DCs??) there is something to be said for demonstrating how a normal, well functioning home looks and giving the DC a space where it is always ok to be themselves. As they grow you can equip them with the tools to spot EA/VA even without badmouthing their DF and help them to develop normal healthy relationships themselves. You can probably do this more easily than the "counteracting/balancing" act you do at present because DCs internalise behaviours even more than words and if they see you tolerating/avoiding things that will matter even more than you saying it is untrue/unacceptable.

keep investigating/talking/posting.

PS would he definitely want 50/50??

katie

why/how can he alter the tenancy??? do you have a good lawyer/any lawyer?

Do check out the implications, katie - try legal board, and sol's advice would be good. Tenency in common, AIUI, means either of you can force house sale, whereas joint tenancy means both have to agree.

I've already been on the legal board this am and it is legal. I have been served legal papers as I signed for the papers. I will ring citizens advice to see if he can make me sell. The house was my security. It's the underhand way he woke me up and got me to answer the door so I would be sure to sign for the letter that gets me.

Frankly I'd rather take the gun to my head off him and shoot myself than be in a position where I would apologise for him taking his temper out on me just for the sake of peace in the house and the awful atmosphere me and the children had to endure

As soon as his solicitor sends off the forms to the land registry we will be tenants in common and he can will what he wants anywhere. He's always talking about these female friends he has so pretty sure their are OW out there.

Having a bit of a wobble today about going into the unknown. For those of you that have escaped into rented property how did you approach the letting agents? Did you tell them the situation? I will need to claim benefits until I can get back on my feet so not sure how they will take that news. Benefits-another thing I need to arrange/sort-anyone know how long it takes to process a claim or the best way to approach it-explain about the abuse or not-have always worked so no clue. Also can you put deposits/first months rent on credit cards? I literally don't have a penny to my name because of FW. My parents have agreed to be guarantors if needed on a rented property but I just don't know where to start. Need to register DD by 15th January for primary school too so stressing a bit I'm running out of time to find a property near a nice school etc. FW was really nice this morning, making me breakfast, doing all the washing etc and let me sleep so had slipped back into noramlising it all again until he was about to go out to work an hour ago and called me a f*king c**. Back to planning-cue panic mode thought I was really organised and planning well but in a right panic today about what I'm doing and what lies ahead over the next 6 months or so

Agh, DH can one day suggest I'm entirely inapproriate for sunbathing on a beach where there are other men (and he's not there) and that I only make difficult decisions (I'm a fairly senior manager at work) for attention and the next day he's sexting me expecting me to reply. I KNOW I will get a hard time for not replying to him when I get home. I just don't know what to say. He doesn't know I'm thinking of leaving but I have mentally given myself six months... I wish he could see what he's doing.

((Maggie)) so sorry. I can't help with housing advice myself, sorry. The only experience I have had with letting agents, I had to pay for a reference and they wanted proof of earnings. You may be better to look for a landlord that you can deal with directly as they may be more flexible. Cant remember if u have spoken to Womens Aid already but suggest them/Shelter/CAB for housing advice.

Maggie I was lucky in finding my house through a friend whose boss had renovated it. Because I have known my friend for 17yrs he took her word as a reference and I just gave him a reduced bond and 1 month's rent that my fabulous grandma gave me. I had already spoken to some letting agents that were a bit funny about my children only being 2 and 4, but others were okay as long as I could provide bank statements and pay slips.
Even though I still have plenty of stuff with ex to sort out I feel so much more relaxed and even happy now I am in my own place as I don't have the crap on a daily basis.
He has made me an offer of about 14% of the cost of buying my own place. I know court would award me more, but our marital home will never sell and the solicitor told me likely costs would be 10k.
I just want to get my own home and for this to be over. We would just divorce after 2 years separation.
The funniest thing is he said what upsets him is that I seem to be happy about us being apart. Then said "what am I going to do about sex?!" Half seriously. Then told me he had been having dreams about me. Like I give a rat's ass!

Ha, Matchsticks, that sounds like my fw. Do you think he thinks you're only being happy to insult him? He clearly takes it as a personal slight. FW here said the same thing about my being happy when he goes on work trips - think he would've preferred to think of me pining in his absence. Ain't gonna happen, fw!

Charlotte - the way I saw it, the way I eased my brain into it, was that renting is not permanent. It's temporary, and gives space to see if things can be worked out. If they can, brilliant. If they can't, well, then I'm already in a place of safety and security. So glad you've arranged to see the house. It's the first step. Soon you'll be dancing!
(And, NSDH came home to an empty house the day I left, expecting it to be full of us. It wasn't. It was hard, hearing how upset he was on text and voicemail, but he very quickly starting sending horrible threatening texts, so then it was business as usual!)

Maggie - I had a bit of trouble with letting agents. I told them my situation - that wasn't the problem - but they have a sliding scale of affordability for renting, based on income. I haven't got much income (and I guess you don't have any), and even though I'd be receiving enough in Child Tax Credits to cover it, they don't take that into account. I needed my parents to be guarantors, which was fine. But it's pricey letting through an agent - they usually want six weeks rent as a deposit, as well as the first months' rent up front. Plus, as MrsOp said (I'd forgotten this), they require a couple of hundred up front to get references, etc. It's so frustratingly expensive!

As MrsOP says, this is where something like Women's Aid or CAB might be able to help you Maggie. They'll know what landlords will rent to people with little salaried income. In the end, I found somewhere through Gumtree, and only paid a minimal deposit because the landlord knew I didn't have much (although it helped that it turned out he knew my parents, so could always go to them if I trash the place!!!).

Why not go into a letting agency and have a chat with them about all of your concerns? Then go to CAB and Women's Aid. You need to gather more information so you know where you are, it'll help you feel in control.