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!!

pony and mink are you me? Except my way of dealing was to drunkenly pounce on someone I fancied - which is how I got FW.

Silvery, now that I think about it, I think my way of dealing with my low self-esteem was to make myself as repellent as possible, getting horribly drunk, so no bloke (no nice bloke anyway) would want me. And then I'd get all upset and maudlin that no-one wanted me (despite the fact it was my own deliberate doing). And then if one of the not-so-nice blokes showed any interest (seeing a vulnerable and drunk girl, I was a target I guess) I would let myself be carried along doing whatever they wanted, so as not to lose their vague interest, and ended up in no end of seedy and potentially dangerous situations with blokes I didn't know and who didn't care a jot about me. And then I would hate myself for days and days and days, lowering my self-esteem even more, making it even more likely to happen again.

Lordy, what a headcase!!!

Pony and Mink and Silvery are you me? ditto

Funny I was thinking about this earlier today as functioning drunk ex once said to me I was an emotional masochist. That was at the end of our relationship, some (yikes) sixteen years ago. The counsellor on Friday also said to me that I sounded very critical of myself. I took the dcs swimming this am and dc2 was just playing up and I ended up very snappy because I was so aware of all the other families with two parents and wel behaved children, and I wasn't enjoying it and then because I wasn't enjoying it, I thought I was spoiling it for dcs, and actually in retrospect it was probably fine, there was no need to worry. So then to the thought, I don't need anyone to beat me with a big stick, I do it to myself.

It is no surprise at all, then that I picked a partner who was willing to beat me emotionally and physically. Saved me the trouble.

The other thing, following the meeting with my mum last week, is that I can see how FW must have seemed a breath of fresh air in Mr Nice mode.

How do you get this stuff out your head?

yy to seedy and potentially dangerous situations but I had a kind of naivety (also an ability to talk fast if twas really needed ) which protected me except from yukky neighbour

^So then to the thought, I don't need anyone to beat me with a big stick, I do it to myself.
It is no surprise at all, then that I picked a partner who was willing to beat me emotionally and physically. Saved me the trouble.^

YYY butterfly. A part of me believed that I deserved the treatment I got, deserved to be called names (because I was a bitch, or mental, or selfish, etc), and while I wouldn't go as far as saying I deserved the physical abuse, I think it got mixed up in my head with the thought of 'I don't like myself, and this is all my own fault', every time he was awful to me I felt a kind of self-vindication - see, I told you all I was a horrible person, look, I must be, because he's treating me like this and I'm allowing it to happen.

I'm getting it out of my head by writing it on here, and seeing my counsellor. What we've looked at is why my self esteem is so low, why I'm so ready to believe the bad stuff he said about me, that kind of thing. And it all goes back to my childhood and my upbringing, I think. I never felt loved, was never shown love (although I know I was loved). I was never the apple of anyone's eye, and that is what I'm searching for, while at the same time not believing I deserve to find it.

Does any of that make sense? I can't tell any more!

Yyy to never feeling love - I needed hugs and neither parent is huggy - in fact DF finds hugging painful. They do both love me, and I love them, but I suspect all 3 of us have AS (manifesting slightly differently in the women than the man). I was v depressed throughout my childhood

Are you all me too?I also feel ugly and boring. I had a great childhood with affectionate parents. But they spent so long teaching me that brains are better than beauty and that what sort of person you are is all that matters (which is clearly right) that I never felt attractive. And still don't. When fw tells me I'm stupid it's ok cos inside I know I am intelligent. But when he says I'm fat and ugly a bit of ms believes him no matter how hard I try.

I remember jahmene off x factor. He had a fantastic voice but zero self esteem. His family really suffered at his fathers hands. Think he ended up in prison

Seems to have struck a chord. i am actually quite happy with who i am. more so than i used to be. but it did suddenly occur to me that i still have that issue tks deal with. most of the things ex said to me did not get to me. i could see it was nonsense and just annoying. But he could always get me with no one else would want you.
And yy to the dangerous and seedy. i can 'give it away' but then you always can but that does not mean you should.

The problem is ladies, that many men don't like (to go out with) funny intelligent women. (funny women are drinking buddies and best friends not girlfriends) you can be one or the other but not both. and we are clearly both

A male friend if mine who is very sharp and funny but straight talking told me once 'you are certainly no worse than average looking' (this was in response to a conversation about my extreme antiphotogenicness). I take great comfort in that because i know it is the actual no ulterior motive truth. i am normal looking. not hideous. (he also added something very complimentary about my other qualities)

But it was saying DD laughed at that suddenly brought it flooding back. i was just so acutely embarrassed as a kid and awkward and not a popular girl.

But from now on in the dating stakes i am going to try not yo take it as a judgement if men are not throwing themselves at me. that just means they are not right for me.

There was a great focus on Being Right On Factual Matters in our house, and also on Not Being Wrong. I was v intelligent and have a squirrel mind for facts, but was weird and ugly wore horrible glasses (which I had selected myself - why didn't DM stop me - why didn't I get the NHS John Lennon ones I really wanted)

I like being bright. I wasn't ugly!!! or fat!!! FFS I was young!

I just wanted to be Cool, and have a few more friends (had 2 or 3 very good ones)

Reader(s), I acheived my goal

min I had a couple of 'flings' with men friends who were part of male groups where I was at first almost an honorary male. Suddenly everyone is leaving you alone to fuck and the dynamic which brought it about is changed by the very fact of it...

mink, that was exactly it for me - I was friendly with lots of blokes, but I was always seen as a 'buddy' drinking buddy. I liked being friends with them, I felt comfortable on that level, it wasn't scary in the way that romantic feelings were. I was never 'one of the girls' so why not be 'one of the lads' - it felt good to be liked, at all. I was also a very awkward kid, shy, not popular (overweight, on the geeky/sensible side), reasonably intelligent but if the teacher singled me out for a question I'd die of embarrassment (and I blush easily, so I'd go bright red, then get even more embarrassed at that!).

I was also considered 'a bit weird' Silvery. I think I also quite liked that, it made me feel a bit different! still am a bit weird But that was part of my whole unachievable dynamic - I wanted to fit in and be the same as everyone else and be accepted, and at the same time I wanted to be different, not to be one of the crowd, yadda yadda. Oh the teenage angst!!!! Shame I'm still going through it at very nearly 40!

I have had a couple of experiences of very long standing male friends suddenly declaring undying love out of the blue. Always ends up being a bit excruciating. One friend dropped a letter through my door after fifteen years!! Three of which we lived in the same house with my at the time bf. too weird. said he had loved me the entire 15 yrs.

i cried for about two days just from sheer guilt and confusion.

So i think i must a) not be able to give of the right messages in anyway that is not totally embarassingly blatant and b) not be able to read signals either.

i can pull on the dancefloor though both genders but probably by being blatant!!

I think you are Cool, Silvery!

pony yes to writing and I think the therapy will help. The parents stuff I think I recognise more but it all got so nasty over the last 3-4 years that I need to process it.
My mum was always clear that having me ruined her life. I knew that from a very early age and that she was unhappy at home.

I think more the issue now is trying to step beyond that and think about what I need. So I have a great job which pays the bills but I also have two lovely dcs who I don't feel I see enough of. But I married a man who didn't think I should go part-time and wasn't prepared to help financially for me to go part-time. So how do I make life work for me etc? That kind of thing.

I guess it is a process of unravelling how I got here to work out the best way to go forward. But at the same time, not unravelling too much!

pony I know! 'Reader(s), I achieved my goal*s '

All the men I try to be friends with think I'm 'after them'! they all seem to take my interest and chattiness as fancying them. Maybe I do!?! I don't even know anymore, but those that I have 'befriended' end up just trying it on..... I figure I must be giving mixed messages!

still busy over thinking the Mink point about you can be one or the other, not both both funny and intelligent? Have lost my way totally

cannot read/give the right(?) signals, and can also pull [both sexes] on the dancefloor.

Ex got so paranoid about my dancing he told me the girls that I used to love dancing with, that had recently met, were both lesbian and wanted to 'have' me for a night (like I was 'his' to give or not, stupid arsehole). I felt guilt and like I'd led them on, so of course backed right off. They were obviously hurt and we never danced again :(

2 or 3 good friends Silvery that sounds very cool for school years. and very cool to have reached goal xx

Am still weird though!

Have been posting elsewhere for those not in the know. And using my academic training in sequential analysis Linguistics and life.

PM if it's been too confusing. But boy has it helped.

Hi all
Haven't posted in a while as things are a little exhausting here. DS is very unsettled at the moment and will only sleep in my bed so I am not very well rested thanks to his tossing and turning.
FW is bleating about how little money he will have to live on once the mortgage is solely in his name as our current deal has reached its end and new ones will be a couple of hundred more than he's currently paying. I got a load of crap about how much I must be getting in tax credits in front of the dc, prompting dd to say "You do love daddy though, don't you mummy? He's your husband!" in front of him. Silence from both of us.
DD has also told me today that FW called DS (almost 3) "chuffing lazy" yesterday FFS, he's 2! Obviously told her how wrong that is.

A friend who escaped her abusive marriage 7mths ago told me yesterday she is thinking of going back. This is to a guy who kicked her in the head in front of their ds. I don't know how best to be a friend as all I feel is anger that she is considering it.
Also feeling sad that I cannot imagine wanting a relationship again as I don't feel that the dc would deal with it well. It also brings back the feelings of panic I used to get whenever I knew a man liked me in that way.

Have tried to keep up with the thread. Has anyone else seen YummyTummy's thread? Very concerned for her.

fi just in case that came out wrong, of course it is possible to be very funny and intelligent. But a lot of men think.you should be one or the other. women who are both are intimidating, probable lesbians and should be nullified by being considered one of the blokes. there was some celebrity did a program about whether she should get her kit off for a lads mag. the 'lads' basically said you are funny. you can come and drink in the pub but we don't want to see your norks .

Hi match your FW sounds particularly awful just now. it's always 10 times worse when they involve the DC. for them too.

Do you think your friends is really thinking of going back or is she saying that to get reassurance that she is doing the right thing? It would be very hard watching someone go back knowing that it wil never end well. but you can't live her life for her,

Will have a look for yummytummy.

Hey Matchsticks. Sorry to hear about your lack of sleep - DS2 has been waking 4/5 times a night, most nights, for over a month now, I totally sympathise!

Poor FW. Why does he think it's anything to do with you how much money he has? Why should it be any of your concern? Your lives are separate now. doesn't he get that?
Regardless of all that though - saying it all in front of DD is shocking, hope he's ashamed of himself.

Yes, I was watching the yummytummy thread last night as part of it unfolded, not knowing what to do. Was so glad she'd phoned the police in the end. Hope this will be the line for her now, and she wont go back into it.

I know what you mean about feeling anger at your friend. When FW assaulted me in front of the kids in September, my best friend was quite angry at me for a number of reasons. I was a bit freaked out that this was her reaction, disappointed, upset, but she was entitled to feel that way - she was worried about me, and was angry with me for behaving in a way she considered reckless and foolish (even if she kind of understood why). I think you are allowed to feel angry at your friend. Her seeing your anger might spark some sense of reality back into her, it did for me.

On another note, I also feel utter dread and panic if I think a bloke likes me 'in that way'! As I have been discussing at some length today, I feel much more comfortable in the role of 'wahey, good drinking buddy'.
Actually, I'm amazed I've ever had any relationships at all!!!!

Anyone heard from Maggie recently?