Support for those in emotionally abusive relationships:16

[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!!

[foolonthehill]

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[foolonthehill]

now and all round, pull up a chair and join in on the next thread. Posters and lurkers, all are welcome.
I am sorry that you find the need to be here at all, but since you do we might as well help one another to a better place for the future.

[foolonthehill]

Next place www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/1686357-Support-for-those-in-Emotionally-Abusive-relationships-17

[TheSilveryPussycat]

SBA of course you are welcome here, and boy did you need that rant! At least you are out of the relationship now (you are, aren't you?), but are you still working for him? You have got to find another job if so. Do you have friends where you are, people who understand?

[foolonthehill]

Now there are 8 posts left on this thread which means I am off to construct the new one: leave me space for a link if you would lovely ladies!

[foolonthehill]

scarred thank you, for sharing, there is no such thing as a too long post on this thread. I am glad you are out of the relationship but it seems that he still has a huge amount of power in your life given your work situation. I know a little of the artistic world and I presume that it would be difficult to find a similar job elsewhere and also possibly he would try to prevent it anyway BUT there are other festivals and i hope that you might find a way out.

I am so sorry about your sister, that must have been a great blow in your life and these men can never give you support when you need it.

If you would still value support for the alcohol there is a thread on here for those keeping away from alcohol various titles around the brave babes battle bus ( the current one is here )

In the meantime you are very welcome here
"wilkommen".

and much love to you

[scarredbutalive]

"own" child, of course, etc. Forgive the typos, please, I´m not dense, just a nervous wreck!

[scarredbutalive]

Not sure if I´m welcome here since I´m German and have no kids, but please allow me this one statement: I found this site y complete fluke ... and it´s been the biggest eyeopener of my entire life! So much so, that I spent the last 12 hours or so reading on this site and others about what I had sensed all along, yet had no name for it:EA! THANK YOU, I might not be crazy after all, and I´m still shaking and smiling and crying all at once about this revelation.
I try to be as short as I can:
I was studying Musical in Vienna 18 years ago when I was asked to join a group of young people who planed to create a theatre festival. Well, it was in the summer hols, my first real acting job, so I said yes. I travelled to this small town in Bavaria - and fell in love. With the guy who directed the play, seven years older zhan me, charming, sensitive, loved by everyone. He had a girlfriend, but that didn´t scare me off - unfortunately.
He fell in "love" with me, too, we ended up having an affair. Well, the affair didn´t end, and neither did his relationship. I knew this wasn´t right, but I just couldn´t help it. So he had his GF, he had me, constantly told me that he loved me, yet he got a child with his GF and started even more affairs simultaneously because I "had opened the doors for him", he said. I felt terrile but I kept coming back. I forgot my friends and threw my own career in Vienna over board.
Then he failed me miserably when my sister was killed whom I had loved like an old child. I was so traumatised that I ended up in rehab for catastrophic alcohol abuse. No word or sign from him. Resumed seeing me regularly again purely for sex but waited for more than a year before he offeres me another job to see if I was "safe". I finally became his GF when his former one decided to leave him. Things got even worse. He relied on me for everything, sexually, jobwise, being his best friend. (He had managed to scare away everyone of the group who started out with him. All their own fault, obviously!)
The festival was gaining some reputtation, I stood firmly beside him - but no rewards. On the contrary: I thougt I was going crazy. Verbal abuse, mind-numbing insults, huge fights that came out of nowhere but which were all my fault. I could´t talk to anyone because everybody adored him, nobody had ever seen him like this, noone would have believed me.
Finally i became so desperate that I decided to tape one of our fights via dictaphone, 4hours of his crazy yelling and me trying to bring reason into it. I just wanted to prove to myself the next morning that I did not make it up as he used to insist. He detected the diphone ... and went berserk! Pried it out of my hands and smashed it to pieces with a huge hammer with a phisical violence I had never, ever seen before.
That was it. I HAD to go now! HAD to, if I wanted to maintain an ounce of self-respect! ... But I didn´t. By then (summer 2011), I had become completely dependent on my job there. I was not married, I had no rights, I had invested 17 years in this "thing" without any safetynet.
HE on the other hand knew that I´d never be able to forgive him, that it was over. And he acted: called a former affair of his who happende to be single and willing (and French, the b*h). Well, and she became his new GF. Quasi overnight. Without so much as a short wink. I was left to find that out for myself. After 18 years he preferes not to talk about the 18 years, the end of them, nor his new relationship. I supposed to smile, act nicely and do may job - as long as he has the grace to let me do it.
I tell you, I was completely and utterly in ruins - until last night.
I know it´s difficult with kids in the game, but for those of you who expressed feeling guilty because of FW: DON`T! Just GO! For believe you me: most of these FWs won´t hesitate 1sec if a chance presents itself. New victim, new game! GOOOO!
Forgive for the überlong post, won´t happen again! THANK YOU, STAY STRONG!!! love

[ponygirlcurtis]

Awwww, Fi, sorry I missed you last night - I was actually feeling kinda the same. There's no denying it's lonely sometimes, being on your own, no other adult to talk to/moan with after a long day. And while it is, of course, better overall than being in the abusive relationship, there are still times when it gets overwhelming. Glad you're in a better place today. Sun is shining, and I'm off to the park with my boys soon.

Maggie, thinking of you. Be safe.

[FairyFi]

oh yes! only few messages left... I hauled my sad, self-pitying arse off to bed, now its sunday morning so not a lonesome saturday night anymore! I am with you Maggie on the meet up, be so lovely to see everyone, but I won't speak ... probably stow away in the mediTation room looking at clouds and typing still on my laptop!

I wish you could know their (ILs) intentions, could they could react by forcing him out, or collude in collusion with him [trying to find out what you are 'up to'] I'm glad you're not anxious anymore when he's out... good good. Is his FIL coming to stay when FW gone away??? I thought you were having time for yourself as FW away...

Talk about 'boxed in' MrsM - nothing nicer is there than not being able to do right for continually doing wrong

yes hold hands lahti TCM & listens and call them what they are?

There's part of me would love to be in a relationship (for some reasons, like last night! sharing, and, ummm, well the other thing!) but I also know there's all these other bits of me that totally reject the idea, the horror at there being a male in my home, the fear of going back into another abusive one, the trashed boundaries, well, you know I'm sure. FW would also be back on the scene with a vengeance, I feel absolutely sure of that.

Fool gosh, isn't gaslighting just awful and true! (please litle request too, for a link here across to the new, have to admit, still rubbbish at finding the new threads - heyelp! )

xxx lovely ladies, thanks for words

[MaggieOnTheSofa]

Mrs M and Lahti you will find no matter what you do it will never be good enough for them, ever.

Fool Hi lovely lady...is it new thread time? How quick has that gone?! Forever grateful for you sorting it out everytime

[Lahti]

Sorry that was so grammatically poor. Phone.

[Lahti]

mrsmorton I have had that too, as I took advice from an expert in a certain field rather than from him. It is a field that H know NOTHING about of course I would listen to an expert.

[MrsMorton]

Last night I was accused of having an affair because I spent nine hours Christmas shopping with a friend one Sunday.

I just went to bed. The whole we're not having sex enough thing came up as well. Whatever I do I can't do anything right.

[MaggieOnTheSofa]

Thanks Lahti I wish he would just stay out until me and kids can find a house

[Lahti]

maggie I hope he stays out. What a massive FW.

[MaggieOnTheSofa]

Just a quickie, just logging goings on as use this as my journal. Last night FW said he would be home before midnight. He didn't come home at all. I've just text him to see if he is alive basically and ask where he has been. He just text back he was 'out'. Then went on to text me the date in september we last shagged on. WTF?! So I text back asking was that the date he last raped me on. No answer. Shouldn't have risen to it. Feel like shit today now as not slept properly. Ugghh. Love to you all and hope today is FW free.

[Lahti]

noone i think you are right re same stage. I keep getting flashbacks though now. This morning I realised that the only reason his affair ended was because SHE dumped him and then he immediately agreed to to RELATE with me.

[Noonelistens]

lahti and TCM - I think we're all at the same stage. We've realised that our relationships are not normal or healthy (despite years of trying to refuse it to ourselves? - certainly true in my case), but we still love our H and have a tiny little hope at the back of our minds that we'll wake up and find our H's have suddenly changed into the men we thought they were (and hence can't call them FWs yet). Maybe one day we'll manage to take a deep breath, hold hands and take the plunge?

Leclerc yes I agree. At work I am generally one of the people that others look forward to working with. Junior members of staff come to me for help as I am so approachable. I have valued friendships there (on a kind of colleaguey basis). But of course H sees this not that I'm nice kind or approachable but that I'm a walkover. It's lovely that your ds1 is noticebly more chilled now. Good luck with telling your FW - just think what a difference it'll mean to ds1

I'd be up for a meet up but we'd need to come up with some collective good excuses for our Hs . I'm in the Midlands.

[Lahti]

Fi don't worry about moaning, you signed up for a nice loving relationship but ended up with a FW. This time on your own is only temporary.

Re people pleaseing. Yep, that is me, every single person apart from H would say that about me. I can't help it although I am getting better, I can notice now when people lay traps in a a conversation for me to walk into (Ex boss did that a lot) and I have learnt that a gap in a conversation doesn't have to be filled as that is how I always ended up being walked over.
maggie texting in a commune instead of speaking to each other lol but I know what you mean. I rarely go out and i get so nervous as I have so little to add to the conversation apart from DD.

I can see similarities between my H and my mum which is a worry as I will need their help when I get strong enough to do anything about H (daren't call him FW yet). They are away for another couple of months though so I have time to get my head a but more sorted.

[TieredConfusedMummy]

listens I agree about being a people pleaser. I am a massive people's pleaser, though of course according to H I am not. Yes Yes to the one rule for you and another for them, H does this so much, when I pull him up on it he just flat out refuses to acknowledge it. I know how you feel about having 'wasted' 10 years on this, I have spent 9 years on H, going through the crap and trying to sort it. I find it impossible to hurt or upset people, I feel so guilty and anxious if I accidently upset someone, so to stand up and deliberately hurt H and rip his world apart for my benefit is a struggle to come to terms with.

Last night in the 'I can change, can't we try' talk H pulled out all the cards, about me wanting another baby etc I did make one very small step though. Normally I agree that we'll try again, must try harder etc, but this time I haven't. I haven't said no I'm leaving, but I did not say that we can try again either. H has not liked this, it is making him very sullen and upset, and I feel so guilty for putting us in this limbo.

When I do tell my mum I know she will be supportive. She divorced from my father due to horrendous abuse, so much worse than what my H is like. When I told her about how my father was abusive to me, she fully supported me, never once doubted me. Looking back on it, H has never liked her, not since she objected to me moving out to live with him when I was 16, something which I can totally understand now.

I can also sympathise with the feeling of isolation. I have no friends, so no one to talk to apart from you lovely ladies. And I too am not allowed out at night. I went up to London 2 years ago for my birthday with my family to go to a horse show (I used to be very into my horse riding) so I was out from 6am until 9pm. I got so much grief from H afterwards, because I was out so long, I didn't always answer my phone etc etc I was made to feel so guilty for enjoying my birthday treat from my mum, that literally 5 minutes after getting home I was wishing I hadn't gone and feeling so deflated and crap.

Was going to write more, but got to go. DD is now crying as H has just shouted at her to 'stop messing with the fucking stairgate' (he's upstairs).