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!!

Ah, no pressure to move abroad - that's going to be a tough one.

Match When I read your post, I really sympathised. You could have been writing my own fw?s words. I don?t know if it?s a comfort, but he says these exact same things and I think he really does believe them. He just cannot see outside his own reality IYSWIM. But seeing you write them about your fw has kind of bolstered me in my resistance to what my fw says, so I hope knowing mine has said the same will help strengthen you too ? if that makes any sense

Thats again, echoes from my situation and much sympathy for what you have written. I think you were right to say what you did, because the more we speak out, the better example for our DCs and the better for our own mental well being. Well done for walking away from the coffee incident and leaving him to clear up ?albeit uselessly?his own mess

pony and re your counsellor telling you off for making her laugh! It?s a lovely compliment And YY to laughter as the defence mechanism ? my dm actually told me off for laughing about being in hospital being diagnosed for something potentially scary (which was ok in the end thank God) ? I said to her, but that?s how I cope!

over severe head nodding is a risk on this thread! Welcome and I am sorry circumstances have made the thread necessary .

Fi awful though it is, I almost think the more we suffer from reaction to the fwittery, the more recovered that demonstrates we are ? it?s the minimising and acceptance ? that?s wot?s done us in! And for your threadbare dcat, w2e need a cat and dog emoticon as we?ve said before! In the meantime, here?s a !

Thats yy to fixing the world with their almighty dicks, love it (the expression, not the almighty dicks!)

Nini yy re having to like the person in order to have sex with them ? no, my fw doesn?t grasp that either, he thinks we?d be all roses if only I shagged like a rabbit. I have tried in vain to point out that being treated like shit doesn?t make me ?horny?affectionate!

Ah, charlotte - more echoes over here from my fw ? when trying to reconcile he said ?if only you?d stood up to me better, told me to fuck off occasionally? ? when angry he said ?if only you weren?t such a fucking coward? ? as I said to him, why the hell should I have to be strong and brave (physically) in the face of fear and threats to have a fulfilling relationship

How awful about your FP leader, how sad

And the wrong choice somehow leads to a lot of hassle until the other choice is taken... - absolutely ? very well put. I slowly caved over the years to a place I really really didn?t want to be in due to this clever tactic

Yep, I am firmly on the fence. It is hard to keep up with everyone's statuses!

Just read the Respect briefing paper mentioned earlier. See, despite it all, according to various bits in the paper (if I've read correctly), I'm not necessarily in an abusive relationship as I'm not afraid of him. I don't have the fear that he'll hit me again, for example (previous counsellor and police asked me that question many times "Are you afraid of him?"). Which is interesting and begs the question - do you have to be afraid in order for a FW to control you? I'm not sure the answer is always yes.

Anyway, I'm ruminating. Time to put the away, methinks...

Charlotte just read your last post - I hope you won't mind me saying this - but I feel alarmed. Hoovering then removing you from support network and indeed your country (to go to his - did I understand right?) I know you are very aware of things and very well able to see this for yourself, but I couldn't help posting - beware.

nini I've just got my out - let's say a passing cheers!

Thanks, Breathe.

Just been rethinking the fear thing: I was scared of crossing him, not actually because I hate conflict, but because I hated that sickened feeling of waiting to hear why I had it all wrong.

Huzzah!

YY Charlotte to the fear of 'knowing you'd made the wrong choice'. Makes me feel very childlike.

I get the fear of making the wrong choice too. Perfectly demonstarted by holidays. Any cottage/hotel/holiday that i had suggested would always have a multitude of things wrong with them. Any he chose had an outside chance of being an enjoyable experience..... so I ended up always going to wherever he wanted.

YY to feeling childlike

Interested by your ruminations, Nini - drink on from my perspective! :o

Breathe, this is allegedly his country, too - although he is more a child of the global village than a citizen with allegiance to any one country!

And please do point things out to me, as I'm back in thick fog and am aware of very little! Yes, it does look worrying, but otoh he's losing his job and might be unable to find a new one in Back of Beyond, Wales where we live. The alternative to moving overseas might be moving to London (but unaffordable, so not an option really) or my going back to work - and I don't want to be pressured into that, either. I want one more year with dd3 until she starts in Reception - then I can think about working (daunting though the idea still is!).

pony's so right about waiting and seeing if the change is lasting or indeed real - but big decisions have to be made in that time and can't be put off. It's not great, is it?

Hi there, can i come in? (i was invited honest :) ) I cant link to my old thread because im on my phone. i have a controling bully of a H who i have been struggling to leave for a couple of years now.

I know i need to get out soon and am in counselling at the moment. I am going to read some back posts to get to know you all a bit better and will be back :)

charlotte would there be any possibility of him living away from you in the week (ie renting a small flat in london) to work? at least then you wouldn't be hurried into a decision that might be very hard to go back on and leave you very isolated and playing into his hands. That would be my fear of moving abroad. You'd have very little support and escape would be 10 times harder.

I have been musing about why, immediately after leaving an abusive relationship, when other people think you should be getting the flags out and waving pompoms after the initial relief lots of people seem to feel a bit flat.
bounty I think it was maybe you that said that about every step closer you take.

I reckon it is like this: being in abusive relationship is like being in a car crash. to start with you think you are just out for a nice drive, going on a journey somewhere. then it all goes wrong. no one wants to be in a car crash. you are trapped in the car. it is awful you just want to get out. when you do get out initially you are very relieved. then you start checking you are ok and the kids are ok. then you realise, I have been in a car crash. bloody hell. how did that happen?

so obviously if you have been in a crash you are really really glad to have survived. but no one is actually happy they were in a car crash in the first place. and the car is totally wrecked. you have no car. it takes time to get over the crash. to get used to driving again. to heal your injuries.

but I still say we are survivors and for that and it will make us stronger.

that probably made feck all sense to anyone but me.

Hi frog welcome :) Post away and you'll get lots of good advice from the wise ones.

mink - yes I often get the 'why aren't I thrilled about this development' at each of the positive steps I take. I am fairly certain I will be sobbing buckets when I finally tell my H that I am divorcing him. The car crash analogy makes sense. It is a shock and although being out is a good thing, we really should never have had to experience the 'car crash' in the first place

I'm now humming Destiny's Child. I'm a survivor ......

Thanks "bounty" dont know where to start though. I need to get my head together a bit. Its nice to be here though :)

frog - do you need practical advice and hand holding on how to leave, or are you musing over whether you need to go, whether your H is truly abusive, how bad are things?? etc

fear of speaking oops I said it

Just raising a to all.

Tough talks with DD tonight, with some revealing (as I had been talking about noticing signs of his anger) - she talked of him raging at her with his hand held up crushing a can - as she was telling me this, her fist was clenched . Then she clammed up completely and wouldn't hear any more, as I said to look out for signs of him being out of control angry and knowing that they are signs of aggression. She doesn't acknowledge any fear at this, but does say that he is extremely stressed and angry person. All this is a big breakthrough.

I asked her if she remembered being thrown across the room onto her bed, etc[pinned down and screamed in her face]. for some reason she doesn't. She had been talking about how very anxious she feels about things generally, hence the convo about feelings of anxieties and often not being able to pin down where they come from when we think things are normal. Some of which normal to be teenager tho, poor luv.

Mine never wanted to go on holiday, so I went alone, didn't want to arrange anything, just pursued his own life really, and when he organised things they definitely didn't involve me. I remember that hurting a lot when I was with him.

Oh so well said to Charlotte Fly, about why have to stand up to such tactics to have a decent relationship.

Thread bare dcat is trying to turn circles in my lap as I type, but not before i cuddled some more threads off him .

hugs to all - certainly including Pony I was a bit confused about that too, glad its cleared up. xxx

Charlotte - in the absence of our lovely Tis, I'm going to be bold and say something I'm thinking but probably wouldn't normally say.

I don't think anything has changed with your H, other than he has realised that you are serious, and that he needs to put some serious effort in (for now) if you are to be gotten back into line. In a couple of your posts you have been back to looking for things that support you in thinking that he is not abusive, while ignoring anything that shows him up as being abusive.

I like bounty's idea of him living away (eg in London) during the week. Please, don't make any decisions that will tie you to him for the forseeable, you still need time to think things over and see how they go.

Sorry, very tired so only short post. I mentioned the briefing paper only because it demonstrates a broader definition of abuse that Charlotte's husband said he got on the phone. Not that anyone here should start wondering if they were imagining things.

FWIW, I am not sure if I would have said earlier in the relationship that I was scared of FW. However, I did recognise that I felt anxious before he was due to arrive and that I felt less tense when he was not there. Also, I do not think that fear has to manifest that obviously for it to have an effect. One time early on, I criticised FW for something which had upset me. It was relatively mild but it reaped a storm. It was terrifying, though he never raised his voice, just ice cold anger because I had criticised him. I am not sure I would have said thereafer that I was scared but it had an effect. I was not scared in that I feared for my life b
but I was scared of being the target of that anger again.

And because he never raised his voice, it was all so icy cold, it always seemed rational. Not violent. The violence was controlled too. It is only now that I am out, that I look back and I see the totality of it all that I feel anxious to the pit of my stomach because the level of control and the very reasonable way it was done is utterly terrifying.

than, not that in my first paragraph

Sorry, so much on this thread to reply to but exhausted so forgive me for saying good night. Thinking of you all and wishing you strength.

hi frog overtheraenbow any other newcomers and

my it is busy in the Staggering Vixens tonight although also that there seem to be so many FWs out there

(in case you have not read this far back in the thread- the SV is the drinking den sanctuary for those lost on a FW infested moor. It is like the small inn in the middle of nowhere where the lights are on, the fire is bright, the welcome is warm, the craic is good and the locals are half cut friendly and always happy to share your troubles and the dirty minded wotsits are very tasty every now and then the door opens and in staggers another vixen survivor escaping from her nasty FW)

come in slam the door behind you, keep the werewolves FWits out on the moor and draw up a pew. You are welcome to post, rant or just to sit quietly and have a rest and some of the house speciality bar snack: dirty minded wotsits

don't worry you haven't walked into a fantasy role playing game! just thought I'd explain in case you were wondering about the references to Vixens.

seriously though, welcome although I am sorry you find yourselves needing to be here. post away if you want or not. no pressure. don't know where I would have been without this thread.

butter very well put that resonates strongly with me, too.

mink fw infested moor, love it! I like your description of the Vixens, it sounds so cosy - and so it is. Cheers

night fly I know exactly what you mean (although ex was not icy, he was loud and shouty but I was never scared he was going to injure me physically) but that does not mean I was not on eggshells.