Support thread for those in Emotionally Abusive relationships....can it be 18?

[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!!

Hi guys

if you want I can start posting links here about everything I found out over time...but I'll need some time to get it together

Snow - Brussles II is the legislation used in lieu of the Hague Convention if the two countries involved in a child abduction/retention case are within the EU (there are a couple of country exceptions I believe who have not ratified Brussles II but I can't think of them off hand) Brussles II has slightly different rules to the Hague convention but the concept is the same - "where is the child's country of habitual residence?"

I think I just had a lightbulb moment regarding my FWexH, our horrible relationship, and my part in it. I've been struggling for some time with just how much I played a part in it - especially as at times I became horribly abusive, sometimes with little apparent provocation (and Im not excusing that behaviour - I'm an adult and can do better) but I've just found this information on a website about abuse:

There is also a common pattern of abuse termed 'water-torture.' With this, a highly self-controlled primary aggressor keeps up a study drip of small but demeaning and crazy-making power behaviors at low volume. Often it is the survivor that loses composure and acts out. The primary aggressor than believes he can either 'restrain' the survivor quite harshly, 'in self-defense', or claim that the survivor is the aggressor, and the only one who is hitting (which is only superficially true).

www.abuseandrelationships.org/Content/Controversies/no_battering_abuse.html

Anyone got any thoughts on this?

Hi all, I've had a hectic time of it lately, and haven't really been able to get on here. My gran has died recently from terminal illness, so that has been taking up a lot of my time. Also I have found myself in yet another cycle with H... and I wonder why... Last monday it all blew up and he was actually in the car, going to leave... and I panicked and agreed to give it another go...and am now starting to regret it again, and generally have spaghetti head.

Oh also he has been doing the credit reports on us both, so found out about my secret bank account, which he has demanded I close. And he said he'll know if I open another one as it'll show on my credit report, which he'll do 'in a few months'... please tell me if I'm right in thinking this is very controlling and not normal?

On a final note I ordered the Lundy book 'why does he do that' last night. He'll question me on the money and what I've spent it on and why, but I'll just have to deal with his annoyance later..

Hope all the rest of you are doing ok. Sorry I haven't read all this new thread, I have very little time that I can actually come on here at the moment.

TieredConfused - VERY CONTROLLING!!!!!!! Not normal in a loving, respectful, mutual goal orientated relationship.

Sorry, forgot to say I'm very sorry about your gran - aplogies, the credit report checking and threat of another one in a few months kind of eclipsed the earlier part of your post. Big hugs to you - it's shit losing someone you love.

Sorry to hear about your gran TCM.

You are right, that's horribly controlling and not normal - I'm sure he's spun you a line about why you need to close the account, but the reality is he knows why you have it and doesn't want you to be able to escape. Can a friend open an account in their name for you, but you hold the paying-in book/can access it online?
I would guess that your H wasn't going to leave at all, or if he did leave he would have been back pretending nothing had happened very quickly. His attempt to leave was done solely to make you panic, and it did. You can tell him you've changed your mind at any time - but I can almost guarantee that if you do, he wont be so willing to go. Really glad you are getting Lundy. Hope you find it useful in helping clear the spaghetti.

trust - absolutely yes to your lightbulb moment. Quite a few of us on here have talked about this issue before, about feeling that we'd been over the top ourselves sometimes (as well as being told we are the abusive ones). It's part of the 'crazy-making'ness of the abuser. Glad you've had that insight.

snow clothes are absolutely not trivial. Clothes have the power to make you feel fantastic or rubbish, so it's important to use them to feel good about yourself, especially at the moment. Hot pink sound fab!!!!!

thank you trust I had a feeling it wasn't right, but then I start thinking well maybe he's right, and that I'm in the wrong for keeping it from him. When he confronted me over it he said he wasn't comfortable with it as he can't know that I'm not 'squireling money away to leave him, or for other reasons'...

Thank you for the condolences on my gran. It has been very hard, but at the same time I am relieved that for her it's over. Don't want to say to much in case it outs me.

Still can't believe I'm in another cycle with him...and it was so close to being over... arg. Really hoping the lundy book will help me

trust A few years ago I phoned Relate because of the state I was in.
I thought I had relationship problems
When the counsellor phoned for the session, the first thing she said was that Relate does not get involved in cases of abuse.
'Abuse?', said I 'Oh no, absolutely no abuse'
At the time I was covered in bruises from where FW had grabbed me and smashed me against a brick wall.
But this was not abuse in my f*itted up brain because FW had said he had had to restrain me for my own good when I was crying trying to walk away from him and his fwittery.
As I have said before, I really don't know WTF I was thinking

You see, Tieredconfused, from my point of view a decent, loving person would find out about that account and might then say something along the lines of....

"I don't want to alarm you, but I know about this account, and while I completely understand you are an individual and are completely free to have things like our own bank account, I was just wondering if I had done something to make you feel insecure in our relationship and if there's anything I can do because I in no way want you to feel that way..."

OTOH, after my experiences with a very very very skilled abuser who had everyone fooled, these days if someone said that to me I'd automatically think (and probably without any other evidence than just this one statement I've written above) "Oh, he's good! He's very, very good...." and be on red alert for weeks after...

These abusers really do leave their mark....

Oh my God arthritic!!!!! I'm completely appalled.

OTOH, now that you say that, there was this one time where things got totally out of hand and I went into the laundry room, picked up a cool box ad rammed it at the wall (god I cringe at that memory - still wrong, shouldnt' have done that) There was some glass in the way (to give some conext we were at that part in our relationship where I'd gone through the diagnosis if PND right along to the happy clappy diagnosis of Bi-polar, which was a completely wrong diagnosis - the actual diagnosis was "domestic abuse" - and I was on a cocktail of meds and exFWH had gleefully been using my "mental status" as a means of control)...

Anyway, the glass got in the way and broke...and he stormed into the laundry room....grabbed an appendage (can't remember which one) and my hair and dragged me sobbing along the floor back into the drawing room---our 10 month old DS was the other side of the gate and could see what was going on and screaming)

ExFWH's excuse for dragging me and restraining me?

"You we're trying ot slice your wrists with the glass." Nope, most certainly wasn't.....

Tiered That excuse for a man can't make you close an account if you don't want to close it. You just say, I'm happy with things as they are. If he doesn't like that, let him get in the car and go. On this one thing, that he can't do, even if he were to march you down the bank himself, you can stand firm. You can potentially back HIM into a corner.

he'll threaten to leave you, you don't back down, he gets in the car, you don't back down, you turn on your heels, go inside and close the door.

It does take quite a bit of courage to let them go, but it's SO worth it. It hurts mentally, physically and in every excruciating way imaginable, but as with childbirth, once that final push is over, it really is OK, and things get better and better.

Trust.... dare I say that a NORMAL person might not do a credit rating on his wife in the first place.

Don't we all wonder sometimes where they get the script?

Trust :(

Another one with a bi-polar diagnosis with actual diagnosis of abuse (and poss AS and ADD - I'm getting assessed next month).

Late in the relationship I got drunk on red wine, had screaming row of misery (and DD then 18 witnessed it) and got out kitchen knife thinking a cut would show them how miserable I was. Quite rightly? they called the police, who said it was either cell or A&E So went to A&E. Literally the minute I got into their car I sobered up, twas part 1 of my Realisation, was perfectly normal at hospital, waited a bit, saw someone briefly, discharged self, taxi home in the middle of the night.

My lovely CMHTT picked up on this the following week, and rang to check I was OK.

A few months later I had a another rant to FW and then sobbed on my own, I packed a bag and went to a hotel for the night. Again as soon as in car (lightbulb away from FW) I felt much much better. The next day I made my first post on this thread (well an earlier one), after having lurked for some while.

Hissy Logically I know that, but I know that if I didn't close it he would leave, and then make such a big deal about the fact I ended the relationship for a 'secret bank account'. And I know if I point blank refuse then I am committing myself to the relationship ending, which send me into a load of conflicting feelings.

Sorry to drip feed, but I only remember bits and pieces here and there. When we were arguing over the bank account H asked if I had been intending to put any inheritance I got from my gran in there (the will hasn't even been read and tbh I don't care, it's the last thing on my mind). I said I hadn't but it was actually a good idea as I wanted any I did get either now or in the future to be in a bank account I controlled separate from out joint savings. He freaked out to put it mildly. saying it should be where he can see it, etc etc etc. It was so hurtful.

Why do I keep going in circles in my head? When I look at the relationship logically it's not what I want...not even close. But I care for him, don't want to split the family up and hurt him, and get so confused about what I should do.

Tiered put any inheritance into a bank account held by a trusted friend. In the event of divorce any time soon your ?STBX could technically claim half of it, but in practice the courts look askance at awarding half of a recent inheritance to the non-inheriting party.

While I was divorcing, DF's part was to stay alive till absolute :) so that FWEx could not claim anything DF left me.

Obviously, I am not suggesting doing anything dodgy. In the event of a divorce, you would declare the inheritance on Form E.

Tiered - am I right in saying you don't want to look like a bitch in his eyes or anyone whom he happens to talk to? because if you are you're fighting a losing battle there - he doesn't care about you feelings, he doesn't care about how perfect you try to be. If you acquiesce to his demands things may be ok for, say, a couple of weeks maybe? And then there will be something else for him to walk out over and go telling his sob story of how you ended your relationship over (whatever his next hoop is that you have to jump through)

You are not hurting him!!!!! He is hurting you!!!!! Any innuendo or overt display of his "hurt" is just another cold, callous, calculated attempt to control you, to limit your options, to make you behave how HE wants you to.

He will not change - he will just move the goal posts around continually and reign in his behaviour (or escalate it, depending on the given situation) to make sure he keeps you in check!

mink Fw here - all the rest were a lot worse than him! Actually, he was the best dontcha know!
snow wrt hot fuschia pants - think Olivia Newton John (Geese)

I just woke up, I think we had at least 16 hours of sleep!!! wow! feeling all light headed and giggly! Is it dangerous to have too much after averaging 5 hours a night! I think it must be good as my eyes have stopped bleeding now

Tiered thoughts with you - and yes, everyone says the Lundy book is very helpful - am wondering about getting 'when dad hurts mom' - as I worry about unknown effect on kiddies.

Silvery lovely lady, terribly extreme distress according to FW brought on by self!????? Screwy f'dup FW!

So glad we can come here to realise our sanity, and their FWittery.

TCM - I agree with trust. No matter the circumstances of how and when you leave, he will not tell other people the truth. There may be a grain of it in there, but he will twist the situation so that it's all your fault. He really, really wont tell people that you left because he was an abusive twunt. In all likelihood, there will be some variation on 'She's crazy/very difficult/selfish/she abused me'. Chances are he'll even try and convince you that that's why the relationship ended!!!! And that's what he'll believe too, because nothing is ever his fault, is it.

Pony can't bear doing on phone!

and yy absolutely to the power of pants it's huge!

... and when I think again, I don't recall Olivia N-J being in the movie 'Geese' Grease of course, doh!

Note to self: do credit check on future blokes before getting entangled! (both previous long-term relationship had huge financial isshooos - money = drink, money = drugs, money = not having to pay council tax, money = having ccj's, money = money for self, money = being continually in debt) but having gf means all the above can be blamed on them [gf]!

Fi - I've been thinking about getting that Lundy book too. I have so many books on the go at the moment to help DS1 tho, my brain is bursting!!

y y TCM they continue to abuse, but via everyone else that will listen to his abusive rants about you

it never stops. No opportunity to berate undermine, abuse, blame and deny will be missed just because you are no longer together. Once we grasp the idea and it stops hurting, its only them that continues to be abusive all by themselves. I give nothing atall now, ignore everything, yet still he tells everyone how appalling I am being - I can't believe he stil expects me to even speak to him after all his unspeakable acts upon me, but yet he does!

Been away for a few days so trying to catch up. Tiered that sounds awful, so so controlling. I wonder if there could be something similar to the tenant deposit scheme that WA or similar could do for when abusive partners do this wrt money. It's so scary for you though.

Fi - the power of pants love it! And loving ONJ in 'Geese' too! Heh.

Now that I come to think of it, FW had a terrible credit history - he militantly refused to pay anything by direct debit, and I once got into a lot (a whole lot) of trouble for answering his landline and saying that FW wasn't available right then to whoever it was, when what I should have done was say 'FW? FW who?' and then shout abuse at them if they insisted on speaking to him (which is what he did if it was one of the credit companies calling up). I have no idea what the problem was, he refused to tell me [sighs at memory of another red flag that passed me by], and we had to wait till after a certain point to get our mortgage so that something had cleared from his credit reference.

And he had no TV licence the whole time he stayed there (7 years)!!! Maybe I am just a goody-two-shoes but I couldn't have done that! I'd be the one who got caught, for sure.

Sympathy for all the sad things on here today

fi I was searching on Love Film for Geese, no joy