Support for those in Emotionally Abusive relationships: 17

[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!!

FW refuses to acknowledge he's abusive...point blank refuses...

I did try and tell him a few times that swearing at, threatening, and manipulating his family was actually emotional abuse....but he turned it back round on me (as expected). It was then ME that was the abusive one, for saying such awful things to him...how could I be so horrible and cruel and upset him so much?

I was mortified (and TBH I still am)

Mine hasn't the faintest idea, afaict. He believes a completely self-fabricated history, which he has actually told to some people, and, of course, put in the Form E etc to go to the judge re financial settlement. That's what I think, that he is deluded - he could just be a liar.

But even were that fabricated history to be true, it still wouldn't justify not discussing things, ignoring me, and not sharing the upkeep of the house. How he squares that with himself I haven't the faintest.

laughed in my face, never heard anything soooo preposterous!

Mine does not even know that I think it is abuse if you see what I mean.
(when I say verbal abuse he hears swearing and swearing=normal)

Pretty much as soon as I finally woke up to what was going on (had been going on for years but I was in denial) I bailed without ever really tackling the issue.

as far as he is concerned I just ended it on some spoilt brat whim about him not doing enough (when of course he is a 'domestic slave' and I am an ungrateful cow with some kind of wrong headed ideas about feminism)

His medal is in the post. ;-D

mine didn't and stil refuses to see he's done anything wrong even aftetr the police told him to leave for doorstep abuse, that was also my fault.... I made him do it!!! I have far more power than I ever realised whilst I stood there trembling!

no point in trying to get them to see in my opinion...so much wasted breath...but then I can say this after FW has done individual counselling (17 months) Anger management (10 week course) Abusers course (27 weeks)...and of course Relate with me

Now some people would have made good use of all that input....the upshot is that..... he "would be ok if I didn't just push his buttons"...ie exactly what he said before all of it.....

So today, I am back on the 'dip' of the rollercoaster...

I am starting to wonder whether maybe he is not abusive and whether he is just a bit of an ass. 2 incidents of physical abuse, one instigated by him, and the other possibly instigated by me (cant really remember), but he retailiated...

And then obviously when we have had arguments, he has been a classic 'water torturer' causing me to be act like a screaming hysterical mess.

He doesn't swear at me, call me names like bitch, cunt (my ex used to do that)
I can go out whereever I want, and whenever I want.
He doesn't check up on me.

He does however call me names like nitwit, nutbar, crazy, basically words that allude to the notion that I am stupid or crazy. But on a good day he will say that I am really, really, intelligent.

But obviously...in the past he has sent up fake profiles on sex websites, contacting men and women about sex. He was even a paid member at one point. He had set up a private email address called 'The secret life' and everything. 6 weeks post birth, he was contacting a man about meeting up for rimming. It literally broke me, but he minimised it all, and said he was just bored and would never meet up for anything. Maybe I should have left him then. I don't see how I will ever be able to stay with him without wondering whether he is going to send another email to someone..

Must read my thread again for reassurance ( A valentines day kick in the teeth)..

I am in a constant state of confusion today (as you can probably tell). And I appear to not know my ass from my elbow once again. I apologise for any grammatical errors or spelling mistakes, it's a quick post as I am on my way to Tescos!

Neither did mine swear, stop me going out, or check up on me.

I'm pretty sure he thought I was nearly as intelligent as he was And I do think we are both pretty intelligent, fwiw, although I am somewhat ahead of him But what use is intelligence if you don't use it in some way. We are both old enough to have had all our education, up to and including PhD grants for each of us, paid for by the state FFS! I have managed to use mine, though far from the way I thought I would - him, well not so much. And earning enough for us to live on didn't seem to factor much either...

Well H is having his 1st counselling session as we speak. I am a bit worried about tbh in case the coinsellor says his behaviour is fine.
Last night was awful H crying saying without me and DD he has nothing, he will do anything to stay together, doesn't want DD to grow up in a dysfunctional family and that I don't know how lucky I am to have had a father figure (his dad died when he was 7). All I wanted to do was give him a hug but this is exactly the same behaviour as 5 years ago and I want him to see that I am serious. Meanwhile I am now feeling sorry for him and DD who has over the past week become a real daddies girl.

Help :-(. I lost control again with him.....absoluetely devastated and am writing this with tears streaming down my face. We got onto the topic of him emailing men and women for sex and how much it has killed my self esteem. Yet again he was minimising it or twisting things. I just end up losing my mind and I cant even remember what he said, or I was saying I just lashed out at him. I just want him to leave, he wont leave. I need to be here because I have just been given a job in the area, part time, temporary, but he says he needs to stay here because 'i am not well' and he doesn't trust me to look after my daughter on my own. He even said that he is going to look into a refuge for men that have suffered abuse. I don't know what it is he does, but this wretched feeling I get inside is something else, and he gets me raging. The whole time he is saying, just stay calm. Help me someone please.

I told H I wanted counselling and he thought it was ridiculous, yesterday I told him my best friend is having bereavement counselling after the death of her DP and he pulled a face like I'd told him she was joining a cult. I would love him to see someone but there is absolutely no chance whatsoever. I'm going to try to see someone in secret once I have worked out how to...

Rose :( - we have all been in the depths of desperation.
Keep posting.
Take time.
Baby steps, as is said here.
Try writing down your feelings, or thinking them out loud.
Then, with no time limit, look at what you have said.

Rose is yours mine? That's the exact same crap mine pulled (that I couldn't look after the kids on my own).

In his case, this (to him) justified him not working (much) and us all living off capital. Meantime, I was thinking he was going to find work - and he wasn't even really looking. I found work, twice, but that, combined with living with a FW, made me genuinely ill with depression.

Thank you for listening to me, sorry I am so needy at the moment as I know you all have your fw's to deal with as well. I just have no one to turn too in real life.

TheSilveryPussycat I often read your posts, and too be honest your situation sounds very, very similar to mine...

I am tired, and I am scared I am damaging my daughter. Are there therapists that talk to 3 year olds? when I get out of here thats the first thing I am going to sort out. I am looking forward to giving her a peaceful stable life from 3 till adulthood. Because, I have well and truly messed up her early years. Guilty. I am worried that he will try to make out like I am so unwell I cant care for her, and get her taken off me but I know I can. I just need freedom to be my own person.

Rose that strikes me too . We met when young (both 18) then had an on-off part LDR few years, lived together from age 29 onwards, married at 32, had 2 kids in our late 30's, divorced after 26 years, and obviously sort of together for a lot longer than that.

The kids were young adults when I divorced him.

I think it's the not wanting to work that resonates with me, and quite happy to just drain all the money that is in the bank account without thinking about how ongoing bills will be paid etc. Sounds familiar? I think yours is lundy's ' water torturer' as well?

They are quite content to live with a very low level of financial secuirty, scarily so...at 40 he often only has 10p in his wallet...in fact who am I kidding, he doesn't even have a wallet. .

So so drained...

Silvery What was your partner like in arguements about the relationship? In fact what was he like in general to just live with...hearing your full story will help me a lot.

I have had a cup of tea, and calmed myself down, need to stop this lashing out. Really, I do. Must stop bringing up the relationship. If I say something he did, he wll just counter it with somthing I did which is why he did it. So, so, drained.

Looks like it will be another takeaway supper tonight. Cant afford it, but don't have the energy to cook. Feel really sad for my little girl, I said to her I am sorry but I know she is too young to understand.

oh rose sorry you are having such a rotten time. i would say try to walk away and not engage when it comes to a tit for tat row but up until just before the end when i realised he was not rational, i rarely managed it.

so many times with hindsight i could see the point when i should have just left the room but instead i would end up shouting angry and regret it later.

so much easier said than done.

keep detaching and disengaging and eventually you will start to see him like the giant man child he is.
and that there is no point trying to have a sensible conversation frustrating though it is trying to bring up issues with him as if he were a normal person probably won't work.

i remember actually laughing out loud at my ex when he was standing all but stamping his foot shouting 'I will destroy you' because i suddenly realised how pathetic and ridiculous he was being.

try WA again.

Rose, sending hugs. You are taking steps by being on here and realising what he's like. Definitely call WA. They were my first big proper step. They will reassure you and help you.

Well we had a ' nice ' day today, which is normal for us EA people eh after days, weeks of shitness and the inevitable explosion ? After reading all your stories over the past few months, I feel stronger and less ' isolated '. I have never doubted my own sanity, even when he has tested it, and am naturally quite calm and patient, which adds to his infuriation I think. He can be incredibly patronising, and ( this I'm sure will be familiar to some of you ) would say black is white just because I said look how black black is.

He hates so many groups of people, tho never based on race or anything obviously abhorrent, just, well most of the world. He loathes women's groups .... Most people are idiots. He can be incredibly thoughtful to randoms and family but when he comes out with such incredibly venomous attacks on me his supposedly nearest and dearest, it just makes me wonder, it is not an intentional agenda on his part, I'm pretty sure, I think he is just rather broken in some way. He can be vicious with others too.
He says truly horrible shit to me, and I never attack back, but on the rare ocassion I may say something very mild, it's like I battered a kitten. Madness. The shit he has said to me and I always manage to not lose it and say things he really wouldn't want to hear ( I loathe deliberate cruelty ).
Sometimes his criticisms are so barking I want to laugh. Kids are there inevitably tho and I'm not going to upset them on purpose.
He acts to anger and extreme reaction quickly, usually to the bemusememt of those who love him.
His close family and mine have both said to me its disgusting how he acts towards me sometimes, in the past I have thought do fucking say something you fuckers. My mum is wonderful and supportive but he wouldn't listen to her. I once phoned his dad in a desperate moment during an explosion and he said he was going to have a word, but he didn't.

I now don't rely on anyone for emotional support. Tragic.

I reached some new level when the kids were brought into it. A line crossed that I cannot forgive.

Gosh this is long and rambly, sorry.

Sorry to hear those going thru really really terrible times. Hugs and wine all round. Or hand squeezing if you prefer.

I have cried through my counselling appointement today. She said she thinks he took on a parental role in our relationship in order to control me and I was the child. It rings true in how I was treated and spoken to and not given an equal say in what was bought for the house etc. Some of the language he used was just what someone would say to a naughty child.
I spent all day yesterday with a feeling of dread as my former neighbour rang to say the lock had broken on FW's house when she went to feed the cat. I was waiting to see if he'd got in ( christ knows why) and rang multiple times as I couldn't relax til I knew. Once I did get through I got a load of earache about not having come to help him ( with a 2 and 5 year old in tow after dark, loads of use!). I told him I wouldn't be spoken to him like that again, so he hung up on me, just like he used to.
The counsellor is helping me work out why I still feel his problems are mine. But after 8 years of it, it is ingrained. I am reading some interesting things online about how to recognise potentially abusive relationships and gradually realising that although I thought I had high self esteem, I really must have quite the opposite to have been treated like this for so long.

Matchsticks I thought I had buckets of self-esteem too ...

Rose it's a long strange story in which I am not entirely unblameworthy. I am happy to share - but there is so much as we were together 40 years on and off, and still part of the same social group when we were off (in our twenties). Plus the kid situation is different - in that they think I am the unstable one (they don't know why I divorced him though knew we were thinking of parting) as I have done most of the ranting, also they wouldn't help around the house from about 8 onwards - why should they when their DF did not lift a finger. They are under the impression that he worked a lot more than he did - an impression I colluded in, fudging things to my family and our friends out of shame, and to DMIL to protect her. I thought that time would prove my belief in him correct, I thought he was trying to fulfil his potential, like I was trying to do myself, somewhat ineffectually but I was trying.

Mine was miserly. We lived frugally, but lump sums came our way from legacies and the like, and we claimed Tax Credits on the basis of Ex working 30+ hours a week (playing Civilisation) and for the last couple of years Ebaying. I parcelled out drawn down capital thinking it would only be for a couple of years till he did the amazing thing I persisted in thinking he would do. We had enough that we could have afforded ordinary fun times like other people did - weekends away, meals out, holidays abroad, that kind of thing, or modest luxuries sometimes. But if I suggested such a thing he wouldn't show any enthusiasm, though would sometimes go to the theatre or for a meal if I arranged it.

The last straw was him expecting me to pay my Employment and Suppport Alllowance into our joint account in 2009 after I had to give up my work (our only earned income) with depression. In January 2010 I began the process of separating our finances, by insisting we paid equally from our own money into the joint account where the food and bills were paid from.

I'd be happy to PM you rose (probably at great length!!), let me know if there's any particular aspects you want me to rant tell you about.

i always saw him as the one with the problem. but i thought it was a series of separate issues and a confrontational communication style rather than part of a pattern of abuse.

and because I couldn't change him or fix his problems I tried changing the way I communicated.

and the only way to get any kind of an apology or admission out of him, which i felt i was owed, was to let him go nuts, storm out and then come back a few days later when he would make a grudging concession of some sort only to withdraw it later. and the only way to avoid arguments over him not doing stuff was not to ask.

result= very resentful doormat.

can see it all so clearly now with hindsight.

still don't know if i have self esteem issues. just a triumph of hope over experience and a tendency to always think things will get better.

glad I finally saw sense though. but I do feel guilty for the kids.

just a triumph of hope over experience and a tendency to always think things will get better.

This was me. And this is still me. Context is all, and now FW is out of the picture, my hopes have returned and things are getting better - and better!