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!!

Is he definitely still on fb? Dunno how it works if someone leave as i am a fb avoider (xbf loved it) but i have heard of others who have escaped its clutches...

Yeah he is still on it as far as I can see as we have mutual friends and he is still connected with them so it shows it just couldn't have happened at a worse time if you know what I mean

Oh Maggie, I know how awful that feels, your lifeline in all of this. Any chance to contact him and ask him why (without making a big deal)?

Thanks Pony I was thinking of emailing his hotmail during the week and just casually asking if everything was ok. Its just really strange and out of the blue, he has gone from messaging me, phoning, texting etc to now just cutting me off out of the blue. I know he's not a FW type of man so just don't understand. Makes me believe what FW says to me all the time that i will never have any friends and lose all the ones I do have as I am nasty/evil/mentally unstable etc etc. Maybe I've just been blaming FW all along for my isolation but really it is my fault sorry for the feeling sorry for myself posts everyone thank god I have you ladies, please don't defriend me too!

Maggie kills the thread!

Still your friend, Maggie. :)

So sorry to hear of all that, though - it all mounts up sometimes, doesn't it?

Have just been having a good cry at a rather lovely love story. I'm relieved in a weird kind of way - over Christmas with all the loveliness with the MN Secret Santas, I just felt too detached, like I should've felt something and wasn't. Don't know when I last had a good cry. I know I actually have something worth crying about - the death of my dreams of a happy marriage and all that goes with that - and I know that though it hurts now, there's hope for the future although I don't actually believe that last bit.

Drained now. Off to bed. Suppose you're on the sofa again, Maggie? Is FW going away any time soon?

Thanks Charlotte

FW gone awol again tonight so another night of trying to sleep with one eye open until he gets in and I make sure door locked properly. Even though my escape plan is well under way, I just can't see the wood for the trees. I just don't know how I am going to get through the last few steps, especially the physically leaving bit. I am really hoping he does something majorily FWerty which will give me that excuse to just go. I just see myself struggling with life for ever more with or without FW. I have lost all social skills over the years and don't know how I am ever going to rebuild mine and DCs life alone with little support

Sorry ladies for posts Maggie now takes over thread!

You don't need any excuse, Maggie, as you well know! And about social skills... normal people are often lovely and generous. When FWery in this house has been particularly bad (still mild in general terms, but bad enough), just a smile and normal conversation in a shop amazes me. I could survive for a good few months just on that level of kind contact, I suspect. And quiet, in a house with no FW. I imagine that'll be quite therapeutic, too.

On an unrelated note, I have been reading St Lundy's other brilliant book, "When Dad Hurts Mom." Apart from his odd American spelling, that man can do no wrong in my eyes.

o hey maggie I have strength enough for all tonight having downed a couple of hefty glasses of vino you are none of those things! - you are gorgeous lovely, caring mummy and great friend here and in RL, shut all those things out! If you want to know how to do that, have a look at my link further back, well it will make you laugh at least

We will never ever defriend you! We will be here urging you on to greater things for yourself and your darling babies. We will hang on in there together to the great day of freedom, when you can't even remember all this awfulnesses, (ooops, hic!)

I hope I am helping. I just want you to feel better about the wonderful person that you show yourself to be on here all the time, and the strength that you have in the face of his quite frankly off the scale FWtery. You stay upbeat and positive. You are moving out lovely, and we're all with you hoping tha twill come quickly now. Try not to 2nd guess what could have possibly gone on with your special friend. He might even be feeling sensitive to having you publicly as a friend because of your situation and being careful on your behalf, until you speak to him you won't know. You can bet that he absolutely won't be thinking all those things you said.

I did have new flashback today, which I have to apologise to my dc about tomorrow, and will be very upset I know it. He threw DD1 across the room onto the bed having already dragged her upstairs, at top speed, by the tops of her arms shouting and yellling at the top of his voice in her face and then pinned her down on the bed (I chased him as fast as I could screaming at him to leave her alone, I felt more useless than a vaguely annoying gnat. When he was bent over her in the bed yelling in front of her face I was thumping him as hard as I couldon his bent over back; I'm really not kidding I was giving it every ounce of strength I had to stop him, and nothing would!!!! It was like I wasn't even there. She doesn't really particularly have a handle on this stuff... and.. but... I can't believe I didn't walk out after that. I don't know what I was thinking because obviously my reactions were working?!?!? I was as useless as a knob of butter.

Really going to bed now! :o

Oops, bad x-post. Dreadful, Fi - hard to believe people can do that, to their own children! Don't beat yourself up about it - you are an excellent mother and are doing the best for your dcs and it's fair to assume that you always have, it's just your vision was blurred.

and Charlotte

Aaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhhhh!!! And breathe

hilroliuds!

I hope the cry was a good thing relaxing releasing for you. I wish you deep dreamless sleeps.

It will hit me tomorrow really, but it feels like a stranger was there then and I'm so confused by that, as I don't remember what happened after (which is frankly quite scarey!).

For now its just another realisation, so I will wake tomorrow to see how it pans out.

oh! that should have said

hilarious - I don't actually know what the other word is?!

maggie you have lots of extreme FWtery to draw from without hoping for more to make your last step. even if nothing else happens, you hate life there, and thats enough. If you can imagine without any more 'events', that life just remains the same as it is now for the rest of your life? you know that would be awful and no more time to spend living like that.

Keep taking each step at a time asyou can manage, and then you can be ready to go, when you are ready. lots of (((hugs))) and concern for you feeling so down on yourself, and such lovely lady with a generous heart. xx

Thank you so much lovely ladies xx and sorry about flashback Fi all part and parcel of a life with a FW xx Tomorrow is a new day I suppose...FW off work tomorrow which I really could have done without after what's happened this eve

did I miss something awful happening maggie darling?

was just going to bed, after having friend here this eve, and another friend bottle of wine when the dog vomitted all over the sheepskin rug in front of friend

I just was heading upstairs to bed when I discovered DC hugging looo feeling sick. So back downstairs, nursing sick dog with temp, and now DC also. My turn to vomit now must be, right? xx

Hope puking has stopped Fi! Our old dog (rip) once puked up a tampon in front of a crowd, he had gone in bathroom cupboard and eaten one wrapper and everything-i wanted the ground to open up and swallow me, tampon and all! The wrapper came out the other end btw!

Soooooo....my big black dark hole has just got deeper and deeper...FW just got home...it would appear his Bfriend has now had "the chat" with him too basically asking him if he is unstable and saying how MIL is concerned etc cue FW coming home taking it out on me, I must be involved in setting it all up etc etc bollocks. I have pleaded innocence saying it must be connected with MILs recent "chat" but he said he is going to have it out with MIL and then god knows what she will say about me/the situation/what I have discussed with her. Oh for fucks sake! Why do RL people think they can fix things and they just end up making it worse a thousand times worse. Tomorrow is going to be hell on earth now, I will have his shit all day to cope with along with the secret sad pain I'm holding inside of me from losing secret DOldFlame friend and DD is poorly so will be clinging onto me for dear life love her heart. I don't know how to keep going...

Maggie You are so strong, all of the people on this thread are.

I an also wondering how the hell I am going to actually follow through with leaving, it seems impossible. I also worry that actually I am blowing all things out of proportion, as H is not as bad as what I have read. He is just too focused on money and things being done his way. And some times he can be lovely and really try.

Another moan about this morning, sorry it's TMI. I went to the toilet and H asked how long I was going to be as he needed to go to, I told him about 10 mins and he said that he'd watch DD. Anyway after 10 - 15 mins he comes and asks if I'm almost done... Sometimes when we have somewhere important to get to in the morning and he is on the toilet I have said to him 'just letting you know we need to be out in half and hour' and he will be pissed off when he finally comes downstairs for me 'rushing him'.

Also another incident I just remembered, for my 18th birthday my mum took me and him + my siblings to see a show at a theatre I used to be involved with - I was so excited. My younger sister in the car was about 12 at the time and was teasing H with Vaseline as he gets creeped out by the stuff, anyway she accidently got some on him, she said sorry, I said sorry for not stopping her (!!), but that wasn't enough and H was in a mood with me for the whole trip, completely ruining it. and then cheered up on the way home...

Also he used to make fun of me in front off my siblings, and when I got upset and left the room he would either tell me I was being 'over sensitive' when I came back through, or would follow me laughing.

He has grown up a lot since then, but now the problems have changed form this to being controlling of money, my time etc. If I phone my mum in the evening he'll want to know why, what she wants etc. In the summer before going back to uni I used to see my mum once a week, it was a nice break for me and nice for her to see me and her DGD (unfortuantly don;t have time any more, and the weekends he doesn't like meeting up with people on). Anyway H would say 'but you just saw her last week, I worry she's trying to be too involved in your life, she won't let you go etc etc.

I do think I would be better off if I had never met him at times. And yes, I know I can still change that and leave him... but I have no idea how to actually leave physically. I can make all the plans, find a house etc, but how do you actually physically leave, especially as I care about him

Tis you sound such a lovely mum. you are giving your dc what they need and God will be church with you in your home where you are

Just logging slight name change ladies xx thanks for support, you are all amazing x
crawls back up in a ball in black hole