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!!
Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody
Relationships
Support for those in Emotionally Abusive relationships: 17
foolonthehill · 17/02/2013 13:51
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I've been thinking about this over the last couple of days, to do with why I chose to (finally) take my wedding ring off the day after Valentine's, and why I was so able to believe in the relationship for so long, when it was so obvious to everyone outside it that it was a bad 'un.
I think I was half expecting him to send me something for Valentine's. I think I half wanted him to. I think I wanted to believe that he was sorry, that he could be sorry. I was grieving having lost my love for him, and wanted to know that my love hadn't been wasted, that there was a good person in there somewhere.
Part of me is aware that if he had sent something, I would be much more able to forgive him, and perhaps even be less rigid legally with the finances of the divorce etc. Part of me is appalled at how easy it would be for him to manipulate me, if he so chose. Part of me realises that this is how he manipulated me so easily. I read about DV and read about the massive apologies afterwards to reel the partner back in. 'He never does that' I thought. But he did, just in a much more underhand way. Every weekend would be horrible. Then through the week it would gradually get better until, on a Thursday (our 'date' night) he'd make an effort and cook a lovely meal. I've recently realised that this was not because he loved me, it was because he loved cooking. He would regularly cook inflict big elaborate meals on us all at the weekend, that sometimes weren't ready till 8/9pm (not great for my then 5-year-old DS). He'd say that he was determined to cook fresh for his daughters because they ate ready meals and take-aways through the week. But the act of cooking took hours and took him away from spending time with them. As ever, it was never about them, it was about him and what he wanted to do. (And part of it, I think, was about him wanting to be seen to be providing for them, he wanted them to be grateful and me to be impressed.)
Anyway, rambling slightly...
I also didn't think he gaslighted me, but over the weekend I remembered an incident where we'd argued a bit on a Friday morning (before we were married, when we both still lived separately, but I was pregnant). I was stressing about packing for selling my house, we argued, he said for me to just stay at mine on the Friday night and pack instead of going through to his as I had been doing every weekend. I was upset he said that, but a bit relieved (and also genuinely needed to pack, and gawd knows he didn't lift a finger to help me). However, what actually happened (I now think), is that he pretended to his daughters that he didn't know I wasn't coming through, and started texting and phoning me at 6pm to ask where I was. He then phoned much later and verbally abused me enormously while drunk, saying I was upsetting the girls, demanded that I come over there and then (it was 11pm, DS was in bed, I said no, he threatened to end things... I didn't go but went first thing the next morning, I ended up apologising).
My brain can't compute that someone would lie to their own daughters and get them upset just to manipulate and control someone else. I can't process it so I ignore it and focus on the stuff I can process, like a bunch of flowers, him telling me he loved me, the weekly promise of 'come on, let's have a good weekend' etc. It's easier to believe that, and believe that I'm the one at fault than to believe someone could actually be so calculatingly mean as to lie to their daughters and upset them.
So. If he'd sent me some Valentine's flowers, I'd have been able to focus on them and not process the fact that he's demanding so much money off me for the house, despite the abuse. In actual fact, he's probably missed a trick there. Not so bloody clever after all, eh? EH? Ahem.
But he didn't send anything. Thank goodness, in a way, but I think it still makes me sad inside, to realise that this is the kind of person he truly is. It's there, in bold fact, I can't focus on something else instead. I was so blind. I blinded myself and was willingly blinded. So that's probably why the ring came off the next day. I still keep rubbing my finger where it was though.
I think for my 40th this year, I want to myself get a lovely ring (for another finger) that I can rub at and look at and enjoy. I remember JK Rowling doing that with one of her first big payments, a kind of 'Eff U' ring. I want an 'Eff U' ring!
Fool. thank you.
Ex 7 years older and already had 2 kids. think that did make a difference to how much he respected me but only accentuated an issue that was already there.
scarred welcome. re ex hopping from one gf to next, i think that is why my ex is so utterly pissed off to have been exed. he says for first time on his life he has no one to love him. well he has been dumped or left before so can only assume this is first time he did not have his next move lined up in advance. feel sorry for next mug gf as he will no doubt be keeping a spare in reserve from now on.
And boo hoo again the boy can cry me a river. at least he can go out whenever he wants. if i find a new partner it is going to have to be based on 3 hours out a fortnight, my pottery class, average age 75 - they are all lovely...but married
...or work.
Even if i did meet someone i'd be smuggling them in and out while the girls were asleep.
That and the fact i have a fair bit in common with Miranda in the romance stakes...awkward clumsy geeky bit blokey...
Nonetheless i have the new haircut going to get the lashes done (hoping not to look like a transvestite (nothing against them just jealous that half the time they look more convincing in a dress than me
)and then see who i can trap in my wicked web mwahahah.
Dr who connection brilliant.
Fi lonely Saturdays suck. the fact that Saturday with FW can be worse does not make being on your own better. it can be like the choice between having cold sores or conjunctivitis... no one wants either (although i do know some people genuinely like being alone)
Its like what we chose from the menu of life was a warm loving relationship and what you got served was a month old plate of greasy bloaters with a nice dressing (well you cannot serve greasy bloaters without a nice dressing or ahem no one would order them...)...worse a plate of bloaters that cheats on you
Matchsticks!!!!! Is it wrong to say I laughed at your tale of wedding ring woe? That you had to get them blimmin well cut off (thereby taking away any possibility of being able to wear them). I should have thought of that (I did struggle to get it off on Friday, wondered if I'd be able, finger was turning a funny colour 
...)
FW actually demanded that I take my ring off and give it back to him at one point, so maybe that's why I kept it on for so long or cos I is a stubborn-ass mule.
mink V funny! Am snorting at greasy bloaters... No idea what they are but they sound funny!
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Have just been at my parents' house for a very relaxing weekend. FW has dd1, dd2 and ds on holiday; I am finding just having dd3 unbelievably relaxing, such a treat!
Am pleased with myself, because I put my headlights on full beam when possible, driving home, whereas last time in November I didn't because FW thinks they're unnecessary ("you can see far enough down the road as it is," he always says as he roars down narrow country lanes far too fast...). FFS, he wasn't in the car either time, so please FW get out of my head, too!!
FW came home for about 24 hours on Valentine's Day: long enough that I feel the need for a self-indulgent rant!
He says that being married to me is the most important thing in the world to him, so he'll do whatever it takes, even if that's a complete personality change. WTF?? Does he even know what he's saying? What does that MEAN?
I told him that his behaviour is damaging me, and he looked mortally wounded and muttered about it being "a bit strong." So I said that I'd told him that before about a month ago and he'd reacted the same way then! He didn't quite know how to reply to that - no recollection whatsoever!
I also used the N-word, you know - narcissism, and explained (v v briefly) that Ns have low self-esteem but come across as arrogant, which he could identify with.
Still, two minutes later, he'd rationalised all our problems into: "I think you've stopped loving me and you need to start loving me again and you don't know if you can be bothered." Great work, FW - don't let logical reasoning get in the way of a good theory, eh?
So, I'm not expecting it to be easy to tell him it's over... I'm half-worried that he'll avoid talking about it till his 40th birthday, then force a confrontation and make me look like a complete cow for ruining his big day. Whatever... It's going to be a bad year for him, however it happens, esp if he loses his job as well, but I can't stay around indefinitely putting him first while he also puts himself first, can I?
fool for new thread and helpful linky in old thread. And hi to SBA and DFOD and friendly waves to everyone else I've not mentioned.
pony sad for you that he is too big a twat to apologise but glad he did not too. think we want so much not to be right about them.
I came back from my parents to a lovely vase of roses...bought them myself before i left and they still look fab. decided not to wait for someone else to get them. these are my eff u flowers
its not the same pony but
Thanks mink! I actually won a bunch of roses at DS2's toddler group on Thursday, and put them straight on the front windowsill because then FW will see them every day on his way back from work. Naughty!
Charlotte lovely to hear you sounding so positive! Hurrah for a relaxing weekend. You are almost certainly right about his intentions to ignore the problems (since that's what he's doing for now anyway). Any opportunity to make it all about him will be an opportunity wasted.
Mink I have "new life daffodils", I like the FU flowers theory too
Charlotte my fw is reading from the same script as yours. My leaving him has been a wake up call, etc etc. I explained that he's left waking up too late by a couple of years. That when I am driven to an extreme act like leaving I do actually mean it.
Thank God he didn't turn up in my bedroom again last night. I was out with friends and came back and got really tensed up, kept waking up, tellingly I woke up at 4.30 am and couldn't get back to sleep, wondering if he would appear at 5am.
I put a stool in front of the door so at least I'd have some warning and I actually put my switched-off laptop (which of course contains the magical strength of this thread!) on the bed between me and the door, along with my teddy from childhood - I mean how silly am I - I had had a few glasses whilst out!
Anyway he didn't appear. I had a productive day, went for an hour's walk, did gardening for an hour, ignored the house being messy (which I find quite hard to do) and made stuff.
Thanks for new thread, Fool
Dam. wish i had not looked at that not worth it thread. only meant to read it but got a bit hacked off 
Nothing like blaming abuse on the abused at all was it? Now what kind of personality would do that i wonder.
and Mink that was hilarious, thanks for the laugh!
ooo lots of flowers going around at the mo!
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