Support thread for those in Emotionally Abusive Relationships - number 19

[CharlotteCollinsismovingon]

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 violence Are 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.
Warning signs you're dating a loser 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
What you should expect as a starting point for your treatment in a relationship, as you will of course be treating others!!

We've all tried to change to make our relationships work, TCM, and it's so wrong, because love accepts, warts an' all, y'know. Love is patient, love is kind, love keeps no record of wrongs - all that stuff. "It's your fault things are bad" otoh, is just childish selfishness. In a child, we put up with it. In an adult, we know they ain't never growing out of it.

It's so wrong that they make us feel we have to, I mean, not that we do it.

Thank you Charlotte It's difficult, as H always tells me that of course love is not like that, no-one else would put up with it, I'm awful to live with etc etc, it just makes me feel so confused! And with the death fantasies, I'm relieved that that is not just me. I have also had these, and that is when I know it's not fair on either of us, H or me, and that this relationship should be ended.

Humph to your FWH. End it and tell him you're doing it for his sake as you don't want him tied to such an awful person.

Then relax into a world away from him and discover how delightful you are to be with when you're not constantly in the presence of such a FW. x

TCM, you know that is not true, don't you, that if you just did this, or changed that, it would somehow be fine. It would not, there would be something else needing changing, till you were moulded into a person who is not you, and with no sense of self. Charlotte is right, if you love someone,you accept them (unless they are abusive of course, in which case the love disappears anyway!).

fi just wanted to add how utterly cr@p that behaviour from FW and new gf is. Does your DD have to go or still want to go? That is miserable for her.

yy to snow and of course abusers think everyone thinks like they do, so they can't conceive of people who genuinely want the best for others, love selflessly, and so on.

I do wonder if I just did this, if I moaned less, if I communicated more, whether we would be happy. But the more I learn, the more I look back and realise that since a year in things started to not be healthy. I also get confused as to whether he has valid points, and if I am being the abusive one: never listening, not communicating enough, getting angry or annoyed to quickly, name calling etc. I am so annoyed with him, I tried for years to make it work, each time getting rebuffed. If I wanted to cuddle or kiss he would sigh and get it over with quickly, he moaned if I wanted to cuddle him in bed, and if I tried to initiate sex, dressing up, touching etc, he would 9 times out of 10 say no, tell me I wanted it to much and only have sex when he initiated it. Now all of a sudden he wants to make it work and is 'ready' and gets annoyed at me for not putting in the effort! He blows so hot and cold I'm hopping from one foot to the other. When he's nice I'm pissed of from something he's done, and when I'm happy he then switches and withdraws. Why can't I leave him? I know it's not healthy, but when he's nice I see part of how he used to be, and I just think ...maybe....

It's so funny, I used to love H selflessly, and I think he did too, but there's none of that anymore. Theres no respect either. H being happy used to make me feel so happy, now all I think is when is he next going to find fault with me or what I've done, and I can't relax.

TCM I think it took me 6 years to realise that actually, I didn't need to change anything about myself, there wasn't anything wrong with the way I did things at all. It still took me another 2 years to leave and the push was still things affecting the dc, rather than me.
In the early days I changed things, behaved differently, thinking it would stop him kicking off, but there was always something else trivial that I'd not thought of.
I too got rebuffed most times I tried to initiate sex, told I needed 'taking to the vet to be seen to', which was so humiliating. Now I'm out I feel like I've woken up from a very long bad dream.
Although now, of course, he is perfectly amicable with me. Because he no longer has any power of me and knows it.

TCM - I could have written your penultimate post...again today I was reading an old email from my FW where he was being so reasinable and reaching out to me...and iff I went on the thought processes of it being all my fault - I was too demanding, too critical, too depresed, too negative, too rigid, too qiock tempered, too lazy, too dramatuc, too ruddled with mental illness, to crazy...the list goes on...and on....and then I compared that old email to his ones after he dumped me honeless and penniless and ge realised hed lost control because I wasnt backing down on handing over our son...Mr Reasonable rapidly disapoeared....dont doubt yourself. Abuse is a very complex cycle. If you want contact Womens Aid and tell them the truth about everything and see if they think you're the abuser...

The other thing of course is that the longer you stay, the longer you try to change, the more you absorb the criticism, the more you get damaged, you more you believe you are aggressive, iunfriendly, too sensitive, cold, incapable of loving someone, neurotic, it seeps into your pores and begins to kill you. Because the description is not someone you recognise, it is not you, but apparently you have changed, you just don't realise, you behave in this awful way, you just don't realise, and you start to lose your reality, your sense of self. At least that is how it felt. That was the effect.

the more you believe, that should read!

Hey trust this is how they work...mess with your head so it feels as clear as a mess of spaghetti...till you actually believe them that you are the mad one.

With all that is going on here, there is not one moment that I doubt that I did the right thing, now i can think clearly and see what is going on...no more spaghetti head mess. it really isn't you, you know that.

Keep checking in and gaining support we all know how isolating it can be.

trust didn't you originally post wondering about your relationship with current DP (or do I completely misremember?)? How are things there now?

fool your FW is a massive FW. That is all.

Just had a lovely lovely phone conversation (nearly two hours!) with my old friend - the one that's the sister of DS1's dad. So good to connect with people again, even though I more hinted at what has been going on with FW than actually spelled it out (she got the jist).

I saw a friend last night who said something interesting about FW. My friend (let's call her Tammy) has a close friend who lives within sight of our house. Tammy and her friend were talking. 'Does Pony not live in that house any more?' her friend said. 'No,' said Tammy, 'they have separated.' And Tammy's friend asked, with no other prompting, 'Was he abusive to her?' Seems she knows about one Saturday night when FW went out and went mad at some teenage boys outside our garden, proper shaking his fist at them, Scooby-Doo style. Then he took them out some home-made pizza, and as far as he was concerned they 'got it' and were very respectful of him after that. According to Tammy's friend, he'd been completely over-the-top aggressive with them to begin with, and they were all creeped out when he came out with pizza for them but were too scared to refuse it.
So even though I would never have thought it, the neighbours (some of them at least) are aware of what he's really like. Made me think of you Leclerc, and your church friend saying that things clicked together. Maybe there will be more of that. They are not half as clever and 'discreet' about it as they think.

Hi pony that aggression followed by pizza scenario sounds like something my fw would do, and then be all smug about how he showed them what's what and they then respected him for it, and isn't he bloody marvellous and if only I could manage to deal with people properly, etc.... very interesting to hear the other side of the coin!

Breathe - that's exactly how he was when he came back in from taking the pizza out drunk. Smug at how wonderful he was at knowing just how to deal with the kids, being a teacher an' all. Grrrrr. How're things with you right now? FW behaving himself?

Hi pony yes, he is the one walking on eggshells well except he can't restrain the fw tendencies so he's not really! But he knows he's on very thin ice - knows it's over, doesn't know my next move and he doesn't like that lack of control. He's busy planting a LOT in the garden!!!

And also praising my cooking. I would laugh if it wasn't so bloody tragic, how I would have loved to have heard his so called reasonableness a few years ago and how it's too late by three years

Another one who has secretly imagined FW dying and wondered how I could appear to be respectfully grieving when inside my heart would be leaping.

And another one wishing for a FF button. I can 'see' myself in 12 months in my own house and being happy but I just cannot imagine the pain and grief of getting there

MrsM - may thread 17 resolution was to see a solicitor and I finally did it earlier this week (so officially thread 19) I think the threads are moving so quickly it is hard to make a new resolution each thread. However my next goal is to get part time working sorted out.

TCM I have spent so long swinging between it's not abuse - it is abuse - it's not abuse and it's only recently that I have become certain that it is EA. I think it is normal to really question it because there are no physical signs.

When I look back on my journey, 18 months ago was the first time I heard of EA when I read the relationship boardsa and started thinking that sounds like my relationship. But I thought my husband can't be abusive, he's a good man (just stressed), I got married for life and meant my vows, abuse doesn't happen to someone like me...... so I stopped reading the relationship board and couldn't understand why I felt so sad and alone. Anyway I eventually made my way back here and after lots of questioning and finally plucking up the courage to speak with WA I am sure.

At times I feel like nothing has changed, and in one sense it hasn't as I'm still living with H and he still does not know that I'm planning to leave. But in another way so much has changed - I've spoken to WA, I've told my parents everything, I've spoken with a solicitor who I really like, I've got evidence of his affair, I've documented abusive incidents and finally I've discussed part time work with my boss - none of which my H has any idea about. It's almost like I'm doing all the training ready for the olympics and I've got to bein the best possible shape before the big event.

I'm cautiouslly optimistic about part time hours. I can't quite believe it that I;ve discussed it without even mentioning it to H. Feel quite guilty about that. But my boss seemed quite positive and thought that 3 days a week could be do-able. She needs to go and talk with the company owners, but I'm really hoping that something can be done soonish so that I can really establish myself as resident parent whilst H is working away.

H is still being lovely at the moment. I wish this guilt would lift

breathe I think that is part of my H recent loveliness. He has sensed a subtle change in my outlook, has realised that perhaps he's on thin ice (possibly feels slightly guilty about his affair - although he doesn't know that I know) and so is trying to put on the nice guy act

It's not even reasonableNess - it's what they think reasonable looks like, it's a skewed vision.
You'll laugh about it later. Right now just concentrate on ignoring no matter what he's doing.

You're right pony . My H's so called loveliness is actually probably a normal persons just standard behaviour ie saying thanks for his tea, actually smiling occasionally, not making rude comments about my appearance, not sulking but having a normal conversation. When I say lovely I'm not meaning - running me a bath, massaging my feet, buying me gifts, telling me I look radiant .....

YY pony and Bounty! Completely agree.

So sad when we are grateful for what ought to be normal.