support thread for those in emotionally abusive relationships: 20

[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!!

I also think you lot would be my bestest of best friends if we knew each other in real life

In fact I've relaised I've started 'picturing' each of you as I read your posts. In the same was as I picture DJs off the radio and then when I see what they actually look like I'm all surprised and think that they look wrong.

Don't worry though - you're all gorgeous, sophisticated and poised in my minds eye

Except for Bernard . He looks like borat in his mankini

I just tried to find a pic of 'Bernard' in his mankini to post. That's one internet search I won't be doing again

too, going to NOT do that search, am now busy scrubbing the visuals from my mind.

The lovely thing about here, is that we DONT see the exterior, ONLY the interior, and lovely to see such kind, sensitive, bright and witty interiors there are here. [love] Equally sure the exteriors are all the things you say, but so good to know we here are about whats on the inside

Feeling all 'fluffy' this morning

Oh no, no picturing. I am badly in need of a haircut. In fact I shall book one before the day is done!

Got Mr Nice at handover today. Reflecting on it,i realise of course can be nice, he has a gorgeous day with fun things planned, having ruined my weekend with dcs last week because of his harrassment shenanigans, and getting his way re the next two weekends.

Oh well, off to deep clean the house which has been much neglected due to recent illness. Small steps and all that. He is out and about with dc, not here. That is good for dc.

Wishing you all a good day.

Bernard budgie smuggler.

butter hope you have a cleansing clean.

bounty i picture people in this thread too.

On another thread i am hoping that no news is good news and the longer there is no news the more hopeful i am.

There is now another another thread from me...

Hehe, been reading last night's and this mornings posts...

Bounty, I find my lip quivering a lot, and I'm sorry to say I outright laugh at DS2's naughty antics a lot! I think partly it's a reaction to the fact that I wouldn't be able to enjoy it and react like that if I was still with FW, I'd be terrified he would get angry and kick off. So when DS2 chucked his bath towel, my watch and his only pair of shoes in the bath the other night, I was doubled over and cackling like anything!

Also, yes, you are completely right in your head picture - gorgeous, sophisticated, poised, all words that I would regularly use to describe myself!!!! not In fact, having just had my eyebrows and eyelashes tinted today (at last!!!), I can confirm that every time I look in the mirror I am reminded of she-of-the-dark-and-defined eyebrow Crystal Renn. Or is it the baby with the monobrow from the Simpsons? Can't quite decide.

Fi - hurray for your fluffy feeling, rather like a nice sun-warmed cat. Hope it stays with you all day.

butterfly - hope you have a cleansing clean, I need to have one of the too (the house, I mean, not me personally), and should do it today since both kids are out, but am sooooooo tired...

One thing I always had was fun with the kids. In many ways, FW wasn't too bad a dad, though we didn't go out as a family as much as I would have liked. But he didn't kick off about the kids.

I look like what I am, an old hippy, with long greying (very greying) unkempt hair!

Silvery - my FW also often had lots of fun with the kids, he could be great with them and probably more fun than me in a lot of ways - he'd get them doing activities, making things, helping out in the garden, lots of creativity and activity when he was 'in charge'. But it was his rules. Anyone having fun not sanctioned by him ran the risk of him not seeing the funny side at all. And he could bring me and the kids having a bit of a laugh to a very abrupt end with his moods/shouting over the slightest thing, and suddenly no-one would feel like having fun any more.

When I say I look like Crystal Renn, I only mean in the eyebrow department, although I am also on the curvy side getting fatter daily!

Argh, has taken me this long to do downstairs! Not that it was SO bad, though it was quite bad, spent nearly an hour on phone to a friend. Anyway, FW and fun, the problem was getting him out the house before lunchtime due to the various routines which had to be followed. Can't say what they were as it would out me. But it was very very hard work to get a full day at the weekend or on holiday to do anything.
The other thing was he used to be strict with behaviour, tidying, bedtimes when it was just DD, complaining about things, soon as dsd was there, the rules went out the window and I had to be bad cop and make sure the girls got to bed. He would be giving them icecream at 9.30 and then complaining when there were meltdowns from tiredness the next day. On the other hand, if dd alone was still up at 9.30, it would be comments and tuts, like I was a bad mother.

fluffy on inside, that is. Possibly fluffy on outside too!

glad to hear that DC gets some good out time Butterfly

yy to lack of news Mink and also at Bernard strikes again budgie smuggler

Tbh, my FW did undermine bedtime a lot, this was after he had stopped working f/t at all almost, he would be on the computer with DD (then 4 or 5) half an hour after I wanted bedtime routine to begin

ha ha ha! yooooou hip minx Silvery enjoy that

FW is all I can say to bedtime activities, not designed to embue with sleepiness just the f'ing opposite jumping around the place, high as a kite, only at bedtime tho the rest o the time, ignored pretty much.

Bounty meant to comment before about the lip quivering bloody hilarious! DD used to look at me, knowing I was giggling inside, and knowing that if she looked long enough I couldn't hold it in walk have to turn back/walk away to maintain air of 'I mean it' 'really'

Now the DDog does the same thing!!!! I'm not kinding... sometimes she'll even stop part way on way to bed having been sent there, to look back at me to check whether I'm really giggling, and she'll wag her tail, that actually I'm finding it funny!!! Just like having another toddler

Ok, slight rant time! Had eyebrows done at last, as I said. DS1 came back from his gran's.

DS1: I guess you've had your eyebrows done at last?
Me: Yes, do they look ok?
DS1: (studying them hard) You look like Simon Cowell.

On a slightly more serious note, DS1's dad just called, as he does every night. DS1 on the throne (he takes a while!) so he's calling back. Except he's absolutely guddled. This. This is my only concern about him moving to Scotland. This. DS1 has largely been shielded from his dad's drinking as an issue (I hope) up till now, but if he's seeing him more often, and in more normal circumstances (instead of not seeing him for a few weeks then lots of time at once, so it's always 'funtime' with Dad, who's on his best behaviour), I worry that it'll become part of his time with his dad. As I've said before, DS1's dad isn't a FW, but man, he can't half be an eejit sometimes, and he is completely impossible to talk to about his drinking being a problem (hence why I left in the end).

He's a fun drunk, goodtime guy, whereas FW was a touchpaper waiting to be lit when drunk. I guess the drink turns the basic character into a caricature? He's a good man underneath, but hearing him drunk and slurring his words on the phone just brings a lot of it back, and makes me angry all over again.

Rant over! time yet?

its not the same Simon

Aren't DC great for a reliable insult meant as a compliment ?

The FW here 'promised' (oh can't believe i'm even saying it) that he wouldn't drink around DD.. mmmm

Oh no, Fi, I don't think he meant it like a backhanded compliment, I think he meant he doesn't like them and I look like a man!!!!! Hahahaha! I am laughing though, he told me yesterday that I looked even more beautiful than normal, so I guess you win some you lose some!

DS1's dad refused to make any promises, even when he had DS1 overnight on week nights (before I moved away) he wouldn't promise not to drink on a weeknight! He saw it as me trying to control him and it made him more determined to dig his heels in and do the opposite. It is wearying, isn't it.

Anyway, , cheers all!!!!

pony - Simon Cowell!! Another one for our list??!

Am loving the irony - winory?

Mine was the other way - very down on booze, very controlling about what I drink, very critical if I had an even slightly boozy night out with girls or whatever. The winory is that he has now developed a bit of a red wine habit - not in the sense that I've evilly made him a lush but he has reluctantly started enjoying wine. But I well remember when dcs were smaller, him commenting nastily that the recycling was full of bottles and he was concerned "for the dcs" when in fact - and I had to force him to look, but he still wouldn't acknowledge - there was just ONE wine bottle in recycling and the clinking of bottles was from things like mustard, jam and hot choc jars . Idiot.

PS cheers

Breathe !!! 'concerned for the DCs' ffs. And just one bottle. What a FW. And the winory (love it!) is that he's done so much damage to the DCs through his abuse, where is his concern over his own behaviour?

I think SC is def for the list! What about Thunk from The Croods, is he on the list? That's apparently also who I look like! (Bounty, this must be doing wonders for your mental picture of me - a cross between Simon Cowell and Thunk!!!! )

aw no Pony LO couldn't do backhanded compliment.. aw.. I just think they're little shockers these DC, say such beautiful things and then blow you away wit something like that!

Fly thats a definite right? [Simon] not for the famous fancies tho, unless someone prepared to fess up?

Arf!! Def for the FW list, not the FF list. Although I'm sure there are plenty of women who are attracted to his aura of power his cuban heels, he's not for me!

I have a whole list of 'out of the mouths of babes' type things that DS1 has said. In M&S, me holding up a nice top (I thought) and asking his opinion. 'No, Mummy, that doesn't suit your face.' Eh? Top was duly put back on the rack.
Although, I have just remembered that my sister once told my mum, who was complaining about putting weight on, that she was 'as slim as a pig'!

Speaking of FF, I don't know if it's because I recently stopped taking my pill (figured there really wasn't much point any more...) so my hormones are a bit all over or what, but I have been having some extremely racy dreams this week! I have been thinking A LOT about the brother of my friend that I saw back in January (at my FIL's funeral), but it's all in my head. But maybe that's ok for now, a little escapism!

Watch out, world! pony is on heat feeling her oats

It would be quite hard to live down 'as slim as a pig'. Oooops.

pony I can understand your worries about ds1's dad and the drink. Nothing like a stubborn Scot and the bottle. My dad was a drinker, well, a problem drinker and it has kind of left me unable to cope with drunk people. I can tell on the phone if he has been drinking, not that we speak much on the phone anymore, and I just can't talk to him. My dad used to drink himself into a stupor though.
The first person I ever fell in love with, and I was very much in love with him, was a functioning drunk, so much so, you would not realise he was drinking so much unless you were counting the empties (whisky, not wine).
For both dcs fathers, the chief selling point was I think that they were not alcoholics. I am only half joking.
Not sure where I am going with that. Just reflecting on it. The one who was a functioning drunk is coming to see me next week, not staying at the house of course. It is funny, there was a time when I would have given anything for him to turn up at my doorstep. Now I just don't have the energy. I almost wish he wasn't coming.
Ramblings and I haven't even drunk anything. Just so very tired.
Who is Thunk?! SC def a no no, but that is not saying much as everyone is for me at the moment.

Ha, butterfly - I am Scottish, but DS1's dad is Cambridge-born! But comes from an enormous Irish family, a lot of whom are very fond of the beer... I can tell instantly on the phone too, if he's even had just a few.

Is it possible to tell your ex not to come? You don't have to see him if you don't want to?

Thunk is a character in The Croods (with big bushy eyebrows...).