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!!

Abuse is a twisted way to get needs met, but the twist toward limiting the other person's options is exactly where the destructiveness comes from.

so so right, I had money but had no other option but to spend it - on frugal living as I thought he was looking for more work. I myself looked for and obtained work - even with my mh history.

Occasionally I'd think 'at least we've got money - let's blow it on something exciting (my threshold for this was so low that a meal out anywhere seemed pretty exciting, but also thought bigger than this) Never a flicker of enthusiasm, never any exciting alternative suggestions. In the midst of (relatively speaking) plenty, I seemed to have nothing because I could not use money to exercise any options except to go out on my own or to drink tea with friends without FW which was a life saver

Hi Charlotte - I think just keep posting and see how things go. If he really has changed then he should be able to continue in this nice way. If he hasn't then we're all still here. And I think most of us have been hoovered several times....

colin - could you write a diary of some of the nasty things he says/does to you. WA suggested I did that and I actually find it really helpful to read back through when he is being nice. It reminds me what he is really like. we're so good at minimising the abuse, sometimes it's only when I read it several weeks/months later that i really feel shocked that i allowed him to speak to me in such a way.

better Really hope you make some progress this week.

No news here. Same old. A friend of mine has just been dumped 9w before her wedding. I thought he was a nice guy but she confided in me that they had counselling last year and he had cheated on her then. I suspect he is a FW too. All our other friends keep saying 'but they seemed so happy' and 'he seems so nice' but I suspect they think the same about me too.

Butterfly, I was going to suggest the same for better, filtering it all through your own solicitor, who can then decide which issues need to get addressed, etc. Definitely about control, but also stinks of desperation - he senses you are getting outwith his control, he is trying everything he can. Hopefully next week will go well. Keep us updated, and keep posting for support.

charlotte hello glad to see you! I echo what pony says (as always!) It's your judgment and your choice and your decision and we're here whatever you do. As you say, if you are holding your boundaries, he will then show if he can respect them and if he can, that it good news for you all. You sound like you're worried about things...try not to beat yourself up. Of course you need your own time to decide these fundamental life choices.

Colin what silver said - it is indeed like an addiction that I was subject to for many years too. And although now I am completely distanced emotionally, I still find it hard to take the final step and I still feel the reflex of jealousy when he's chatting on the phone and I don't know who it is, even though I actually want him to find someone else because that would get him off my back! Human emotions are never simple, are they.

Would PMs be a risky way (for her) to contact maggie?

[lightbulb] I think I was addicted to hope...

butterfly - I definitely still love(d) him, but I also despised him and was still scared of him, and we could not work as a family, and for my part I don't think I could get past all the things he had said and done. I wanted us to work so badly, but knew it wouldn't so called it a day. (sounds so easy written like that!!!!)
I liked that quote too - it gets to the heart of the problem quite simply, I think.

...and habituated to disappointment...

It's sad that hope has to die for us to achieve freedom

Silvery - YYYYYYY!!!!!

Breathe: I still find it hard to take the final step and I still feel the reflex of jealousy when he's chatting on the phone and I don't know who it is, even though I actually want him to find someone else because that would get him off my back!
This. Still this, for me. Even though he has found someone else. Yup, emotions are a right old pain in the arsssssse.

Not sure about the risk of PMs or not, I wondered that. Depends whether she is set up to receive an email for it or not (and whether her email is secure).

breathe it is the death of a fantasy and the beginning of true hope :)

Again, Silvery, YYYY! I was addicted to hope, but also to a fantasy that was entirely in my head, it never, ever existed in real life in anything but fleeting moments and glimpses. The reality was the daily abuse in smaller or larger ways. The fantasy, or the hope of turning it into reality, is what kept me there in it.

In the past few days, as I've been thinking more about possible future relationships, I've thought a lot about how I will be, how I will have boundaries, how that will feel, etc. And I do feel hopeful (sometimes!) that I'll be able to do it. When, I don't know!

Silvery indeed. Always hoping this time it would be different so i could have my family and so that i didn't have to admit i had made a mistake and if he apologised for all the things he said that meant he was wrong and they were not true.

Ex is being quite nice to me just now but his mask slipped wrt someone else. am hoping he does not think i want him back. i don't. even if he is looking fit i just want him to do right by the kids and us not to fight and struggle. it will all kick off next month anyway when i go to csa.

Sorry everyone, I just jumped in with no note to anyone else. So upset tonight.
silvery the limiting people's options is really the thing isn't it and he is till doing it to me now. In many ways when you have a relationship esp. with children it is easy to do and the law allows it to.
It was easier I guess as I didn't love him when it ended, I'd felt obildged to stay with him because I was pregnant when he ended it, I bolted the door. he tried to come back once but there were 25 bolts on. He retaliated by leaving all aspects of the pregnancy and prep for birth to me.
Pony and butterfly they are going through my sol but she has to inform me of them and this all costs me and the requests are just crazy at the moment and just hearing them winds me up (until I get it out of my system and let my mind process it all out - no sleep for me again tonight), they want to know what is going on but the court order does not state we have to tell them yet. He will know soon enough as the statement is winding it's way to him.
This is part of his plan to grind me down and gain control every step of the way. The issue of dates is in the statement which I want the court to look at. I also think the court would be displeased if in addition to the court work, side discussions are taking palace. If I was happy for things to be done via solicitors without the court I would have suggested that and not let it go to court they obviously want something skipped at court, I should be pleased really. I wish you could come with me. I wish Lundy could come with me. My sol said a psycologists would have a field day with that book FW produced.

That link on Angry Attachment - it's about angry abusive men. But I'm wondering if the combination of love, hope and anger attached me only too well to FW...

silvery you are being very wise tonight! I think I'm addicted to hope and the fantasy - whenever H is away and we have txt chats, in my mind I know that I turn him into the man I wish he was and start fantasising about how things are going to be different this time.

So I'm hoping for the death of fantasy and the beginning of true hope!

Not sure about PMing Maggie. I looked back - she was last on here late on 7th April so I suppose not that long ago if she is busy. Only a fortnight.

love, hope and anger felt by me, I mean.

You're right, bounty, I thought it was longer ago than that. But still, she said in that last one that she hoped to be out within a few days. Hope she managed it, and everything is just in a guddle now. Thinking about you, Iron Lady Maggie!

better we'll be there in spirit, beside you. Could you solicitor not just make a blanket statement to his solicitor that all issues will be dealt with next week, and no further correspondence will be entered into at this stage? Rather than going back and forth and winding you up like this - put every obstacle you can between you and him!

Anyway, that's me for tonight, another plan for an early night down the lavvy! Last night, DS2 had already been up about 3 or 4 times by this time of night, and was up every hour overnight so fingers crossed for a more restful night!

pony go to bed

better was also going to suggest sol writes that all matters be dealt with in court and that you won't be responding outwith these proceedings.

pony I do feel harsh about the love thing and I don't know when it came about, but I was just ground down and he didn't make it better, he added to it and so when he asked me if I still loved him, I honestly didn't know anymore and then I couldn't answer the question any more. I don't believe he loved me either because he would not have behaved the way he did at times if he did. But then I always feel on shaky ground when it comes to discussions of love because I am not sure what it means anyway. Apart from dcs of course. I love them beyond measure!

morning all

quieet here this morning. Just back from long hard walk! trying to find the sun!

Just read back a little and wanted to say to better that I really hope you managed some sleep last night, and are feeling ok this morning?

Butterfly this: I don't believe he loved me either because he would not have behaved the way he did at times if he did love is an act, acts of love, acts of hate - we weight it up..mmmmm mostly acts of selfishness, hatred, anger, rage, nastiness... that sort of thing. Acts of love... trying to remember.... ! He psych report on him validated everything I KEPT ON trying to say to him - not the faintest why he was happy to show it to me. Said all sorts about his horrible arrogant intellectual snobbery, that he's the only one thats right. I should be charging I tell you!

yyy definitely to the angry attachment Its a great site. Will go back to it again when feeling a lot stronger.

I am doing some writing to get it all out and remind myself I can do better than what he has reduced me to.

He's being textbook I guess - he says we are dragging each other down, I am stopping him from getting a job because I text all the time, he can't write job applications. Because I've refused to give him money, I'm being unreasonable. I actually have no money to spare. These points have me actually thinking I'm the abusive one now. Then I remember he had a job and just didn't turn up one day and that the money i've given in the past has been for the pub, not food.

He's bringing up a lot of very old stuff and asking for space. I would put my last pound down to there being a girl at the centre of all this.

So I am going to try very, very hard to crack this addiction.

I guess it's complicated by the fact that I had a lovely, supported relationship before this. But it had gone platonic and ultimately wasn't fulfilling. So now I kind of think I'm just a very dificult person and the grass is always greener. The relationship with FW wasn't platonic and there was a lot of fun, but I guess it wasn't very fulfilling either. I wasn't allowed to eat in front of him. I got into trouble for going to the gym. And so on and so forth.

Keep going with the writing it all down Colin

Its hard to hear you conclude that acknowledging a relationship is no longer fulfilling, followed by one with a FW, somehow means you are just a very difficult person there is no punishment for making the good decisions you made; you are now free to recover from them and move forward.

And very common to feel like the abusive one. Have a peek at the thread on the previous page where there's a link to the abusive behaviours in detail. I found it really helpful reading, for clearing those muddied waters....

Good decisions! but yeah, it can be a tough addiction to crack, but sounds like you're doing it? xx

Morning everyone fairy I slept better than the night before thank for asking. I was up later than I wanted to like pony but if I don't have that hour or two to wind down and process things I don't sleep well all night but I think loosing an hour or two to have a undisrupted nights sleep seems to be working better for me at the moment.
The issue of him loving me: I have learned to accept that it was never about that for him it was all about the love for himself and others meeting his needs. If you have that beliefe how can you ever love anyone else/me? and colin I agree with Fairy that that is why you can somtimes feel like the abusive one as no matter what you say it has no impact on them. They will never see what you are trying to say no matter how reasonable you are. I also think colin that your FW sees himself as such a victim it makes the tast even more difficult. As reasonable normal people it takes a long time to understand and I needed Lundy to really understand this. Years ago I couldn't understand that he could not hear what I was saying it was frustrating and I didn't always keep my cool. One of my main self talks is to keep cool no metter what, it is not very eary when they push you to the limits again and again.
I think I need to start writting things down too in a diary sytle again - just because this hassle isn't direct it is still harrasement and lies and manipulation and attempts at control.