Support thread for those in Emotionally abusive relationships :15

[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
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 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

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!!

whooops. sorry for apologising.

fingers - LOVE your synopsis of Jack Reacher novels, very funny! FW reads them, although his fave is James Patterson/Alex Cross. Any chance you could summarise those for me, out of curiosity? :o

I can't summarise, but the Alex Cross books are good. Definitely an interesting read IMO.

Am thinking through my plan (such as it is) and am suddenly overwhelmed by how impossible it is all going to be. It's so complicated I'm not sure I can even explain it, but I'll try.

I'm applying for jobs. If I get an interview, I will have to arrange childcare for the dcs. They will wonder where I've gone. Maybe I can get away with saying it's a medical appointment and hope they don't ask more... but I have never had to leave at 6am for a medical appointment before and the place I'm applying to at the moment is not near here.

If I tell them it's a job interview (won't be too surprising, as they are aware that FW and I have discussed my return to work), there is a small chance they will mention it to FW. Not very likely, but enough to worry about. Even if the dcs don't know what's going on, FW wants me to apply for jobs - overseas, preferably, but he was coming round to the idea of being in the UK as long as he could choose the location. I could end up with a real job under my belt, having conversations with FW full of complete fabrications about where I'm applying and what success or otherwise I'm meeting with.

If I avoid all that and go down the honesty route, I'm stuck with him and the dcs knowing I'm leaving, but not actually able to leave yet, which sounds intolerably stressful, for me yes but chiefly for the dcs. Mind you, uprooting and moving miles away with no notice at all is going to be similarly stressful for them - but how can I prepare them for it without also preparing FW?!

Plus there is this three-week Easter holiday looming on the horizon, which I feel I must be at (FW not entirely careful about childcare; dcs would miss me; don't feel I can pull them out of it as only chance to see distant family, who in fact I'm really looking forward to seeing as well!), which will be much easier if he doesn't realise I'm on the verge of leaving.

Part of me wonders why I'm so desperate to lull him into a false sense of security before pulling the plug - any answers to that, anyone? Am I avoiding inevitable difficulties as long as possible? Is it totally unfair? 'Cause it feels it.

These problems are all looking insurmountable at the moment. Please could you use your perspective from outside the situation and tell me they're all molehills, really, and point out the paths to the summit? Thanks ever so!

Oh, and if I'm honest about leaving him, I will get a whole load of grief about this 4-month period in which he's too busy to deal with relationship stuff and how if I was in any way sensitive to that I wouldn't burden him with this when everything else is so stressful... (Which it is; it wouldn't be him being a drama queen.)

I keep thinking charlotte that the best thing is for you all to be away from him as soon as you can, and that he doesn't need considering in that, only in terms of considering his reactions so that you all stay safe.

It surely will be impossible to tell or prepare them in any way without risking the chance of discovery and a huge blow up? (and tbh whichever way, the thought of it will be upsetting - I have to say I did lie a bit massively and said that although we had to leave him to calm down, I had already arranged to be away anyway for this 'shopping trip' for birthday gifts with a good friend, and then that he was away for work. So although we left in the midst of an awful scary and distressing incident, Dc enjoyed the time away as a little break and hadn't realised atall the implications of the incident that was the end of it all and the last time it happened (well, in such an all-trapped-in-it-together way) he has, of course, been true to form since, but its not here in our safe home, where we can escape from his abuse

I don't think it would be fair to them (although I do absolutely get your want to soften any blows) for them to know in advance, and if your cover was blown by one of them they would be made by him to feel awfully responsible for anything that then happened as a result IYSWIM?

I don't know if it helps to have shared a bit of my story, but it did work for DC doing it that way (especially as FW used to be away on work - like yours - anyway). It was extraordinarily hard and strange doing 'normal' things whilst knowing what a huge rip in our daily lives had just occurred, and very surreal. I was able to break it gently a while afterwards by answering very honestly questions that came up afterwards as they came and on the level DC wanted.

oooo.. too long, and don't know if that will help any? do hope so, but the main thing I can see is the way you are searching so seriously for the right course to act. Keep at it ...

Do you have to say anything.,...usually FWs are so up themselves that they could not care less...

I used I've got to go for an appointment, "personal women's stuff"...this got me out of several probs...it was personal and I am a woman. You only have to worry about the one appointment for job interview.

As for not wanting to be honest....cos you are used to keeping the peace and you know this won't bring peace. Natural self preservation.Also you don't want him undermining your self confidence for the interview...which he will do if he knows, or fabricate some way of keeping you from attending.

I think your new personal motto is now "feel the fear and do it anyway"

it really and truly is better on the other side of all this.

Charlotte: Part of me wonders why I'm so desperate to lull him into a false sense of security before pulling the plug - any answers to that, anyone? Am I avoiding inevitable difficulties as long as possible? Is it totally unfair? 'Cause it feels it.

the false sense of security is borne out of fear of him and also that stating YOUR unhappiness with his treatment of you is something you don't feel justified in doing on some level. You are scared of being happy, scared of being free.

OK it's daunting, but seriously, do it and then look back, you'll laugh at yourself for feeling all this. You HAVE to get out, you absolutely have to. Your children will be happier for it long term and when they are old enough for you to tell them why you did what you did, they will understand you.

These problems are all looking insurmountable at the moment. Please could you use your perspective from outside the situation and tell me they're all molehills, really, and point out the paths to the summit?

They are really all just that. A moment's difficulty for a lifetime of happiness, safety and healing. You are giving up a mean and nasty man, a blighted life because YOU DESERVE BETTER (even if you don't believe it yet)

These ARE molehills, but you can only see them as such when you are the other side of the wall.

Leaving is not the end. Its the beginning of your life , it's the saving of your family. you have another journey ahead of you, but one where the steps get easier and easier the more you take.

Don't be scared, really, it will be OK, as long as you do actually get out.

Part of me wonders why I'm so desperate to lull him into a false sense of security before pulling the plug - any answers to that, anyone? Am I avoiding inevitable difficulties as long as possible? Is it totally unfair? 'Cause it feels it.

I have taken your statement here as a normal reaction to an abnormal situation. Any half decent person is going to feel odd, deceitful, underhand (you get the picture) plotting such huge changes in secret from which there will be fallout. In the normal run of events though you wouldn't have to go to such lengths.

It is a very strange unpleasant, difficult (& scarey) thing to do but it is born out of the desperate circumstances he has put you in and your will to set you all free from it and its pain.

Good point Fi, I meant to say that... , well more like

I feel that way - lulling into false sense of security. Partly because of his MH issues and I don't want a huge blowup where we're vulnerable. It would be near to impossible to just pick up both children and walk out safely in a blowup situation. It must be planned to be safe for us.

And because of one child's SNs, we are better off at our house. So it complicates things, as it puts one child at risk if we stay elsewhere due to those reasons.

We're all used to keeping the peace. I have days where I think "I just cannot cope with another blowup, I just can't."

I get what Charlotte is saying. H asks where I'm going, who I'm visiting with when I do go places. It doesn't seem in a "I'm keeping tabs on you" way, but at the same time, if I don't answer it gets uncomfortable. Not threatening, mind you, just maybe me that I'm aware I'm not being up front about it and hiding something. But then, he offers info to me when he's going somewhere so it's not just me, does that make sense? I've been pulling back a bit recently, testing boundaries. It's so uncomfortable though.

fingers match and charlotte thanks for sage advice. I replied:

we need period of space and calm. I need to consider future without pressure. Kids upset of course but this arises from your behaviour ? not my whim. Your presence in house is why we are away from it at moment. Perhaps you should put your love for kids into constructive plan to change that for time being ? eg you move into temp flat and kids and I move back home.

He replied if you love them call me to end this game

Now he?s gone silent ? we tried to call to say goodnight at kids? request and he?s ignoring (at least I hope that?s all it is).

Fi I agree meeting somewhere neutral would be best. Good luck with your travels in the snow!

Pony and Fi re nits, we had them and used nit comb and slatherings of tea tree conditioner every time we washed, plus ran a tiny bit of conditioner through our hair each morning to keep it slightly slippery (without being greasy) as nits can?t grip then ? seemed to work well, FWIW!

leclerc they are 8 and 9 poor poppets. Great ideas re GP, school, mind etc. I will do that first thing Monday. God knows what?ll have happened by then, I feel very weirded out and afraid. So sorry you had another mammoth meltdown from ds2 xxx Yay re exams

twelve my love you do sound like you are minimising to yourself the hell you?re going through. Mental torture is still torture. And what you describe is serious, sustained, mental torture and emotional abuse. Keep strong and believe in yourself ? harder to do than say I know! I am re-reading my sanity blog from a couple of years ago (ie notes to future self having left so I know I did right thing IYSWIM) when I wrote ?no decent woman would put up with this? then re-read what I?d written with HORROR and realised what crap that was ? I AM decent and so are you and we all deserve respect and normality and happiness. Xxx PS thanks for your good wishes!

Maggie kids are feeling bit more normal thanks and playing up like crazy. But they are giggling and being a bit normal, thanks to no contact or visiting old home today. I am so to read of what your fw is playing at, sending you out into snow

Charlotte I too was keeping it all normal to keep the peace till the very end even though I had an exit plan (which never happened as it all blew up suddenly before my planned exit) ? it?s self preservation and they have driven us to this. It also sounds like it?s very normal as the other posters have expressed the same thing.

why are these ... not real, having a huff, as only had one little glass left in my bottle for all my troubles today, and when I saw that row of glasses I just wanted to reach in and grab one (or all of them!) ha!... so huffing off to bed, to be up early for more snow

good luck with your deliberations Charlotte

just caughtyour post try and hoping that you can read his post the way I do, as pure guilt blackmail? In what sense can he call this a game?!?!

Try to stay strong, I know its hard coping with the fears of the imagined, really hard, but you cannot know what he will be doing, so try to wait until you do. You can only write what you've written. You've made it clear. He is responsible now for keeping you and the dc from their family home. They do, I've just realised, think everything is some sort of game, or a deliberate ploy to be difficult, obtuse, power gaining or controlling... this is definitely more to do with their FW coloured spectacles than reality. Take heart, let go of whatever he might do or think.. back to the detach, detach , detach and own your safety & space with your lovely DC. We're all on your side rooting for you (and your lovely DM is too). You will get used to being in your new situation and each day makes the shock and awe of it all slightly less, time, honey, time, be patient with yourself and just stay sensibly alert to any possible real dangers.

this game

It's obviously just a game to him. I do recall that when I asked H to leave in December, he was texting within a couple hours saying "when can we arrange for me to home tonight?" Obviously it was just a blip for him, not a real decision on my part. More fool me for caving in.

H was going for his second day of sleeping on chair/sofa in the middle of living room today. Honestly, why do this? He gets cross when anyone bothers him, so we end up spending the entire day tiptoeing around him trying not to make too much noise and keeping the children away from him. And any time I tell the children off for anything, he instantly shouts at them, even though he is laying there with his eyes closed. So obviously he is listening to everything, right? I insisted he go upstairs if he is ill today. I had to say it four times before he finally got up after I said "I can't possibly imagine why if you're ill you'd want to be down here in the middle of everything." It's certainly not because he is tired, it was me that got up repeatedly in the night with the children.

try, if you do meet him (definitely somewhere neutral), have someone else there. I made fw come to my mum's house. He will want an opportunity to talk you round and if he follows my fw's pattern, be prepared for himto cry in fro nt of the kids, them to get upset and you to feel dreadful.
Do not deviate from your chosen path, you know it's the right one. The dc will be fine once they adjust and get used to being able to relax when they are wherever you are.
It's amazing for me to not have to freak out when they break/spill something. DD has stopped asking why I'm so angry all the time. Because I'm not the person he was turning me into.

Leclerc, maybe a terse "Do not try to manipulate me through the dc!" would work for your fw?

charlotte, agree r.e not telling dc r.e interview. Pm me if you need any advice about current stuff/ofsted guff for any interviews you have. Everything changes do fast, my colleague feels out of the loopafter maternity leave!

Thanks Hissy for your clear voice of reason on these matters! It is easy (for me anyway) to get into the minimise/normalise mindset but we must be vigilant.

I mentioned to a friend who know the situation that 'FW' wanted us to go out to the countryside house (which involves river and boat ride) and the immediate reaction was 'no way FFS!' but in any event I've just had a phone call from him saying it might be a good idea if we didn't come... I played a stupid game and acted a bit sad but I'm really thinking YESSS!! HIGH 5!! DD and I get another day here without him to play in the snow and watch movies and drink hot choc!

So much going on here-- lots to think about. Charlotte I don't see why you couldn't just say to the kids that you were going to meet up with someone to talk about work that you used to do, they don't have to know that it is related to an interview, do they? And it's good for them to know that you have/had another career or interests out side the home (I speak as one who struggled for years with work/life balance, never quite got it right). LeClerc and others agreed re: always worse than it sounds. I've only recently thought about how it would sound if someone else told me their H was acting as mine does and it's a real eye opener.

PS LeClerc just read your post re: collie, utterly unbelievable... does he not see himself how manipulative that is? Hope DD1 OK with knowing it isn't going to happen.

Can I just ask for some opinions ladies? Its about how DS (just 5) is acting around FW and how he's acting when he's not around...

So, for example, the other day DS and I were playing upstairs. He suddenly said that he didn't like daddy very much. It was an out of the blue statement and I was really surprised. When I asked him why he said "daddy is too rough". Soon after we heard FW's key in the door he got really upset and said he didn't want him to come home. However when FW then came upstairs DS ran to him really happy to see him, saying how much he'd missed him and asking him to play with us

This sort of thing is happening all the time. DS is saying one thing when he's alone with me but acting differently when FW is there.

Is DS just really confused or is there something else going on here? I know some of you have experience of these things...

He is astute enough to know that fw wants him to love him as much as/more than you, so is overly affectionate to avoid angering him, is my first thought.