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 at carpet fluff.

What i was getting at though was that the pair of us, me included sometimes behaved like kids. no excuse really when you are a grown up.

Mind you re. wrestling i had other exes that i used to bed wrestle with...no not like that!...well not all the time it was a competition to see who could get the other over the side of the bed first. mostly a way of warming up in the cold winters. but i did learn pretty quick not to play that kind of game with fw as he would have taken it too far just to make sure he won. because really that was what it was all about. he was so busy making sure no one got the better of him that he was way over the top. Could not give an inch in case he was being taken advantage of. And he was the least obliging person you ever met.

Well shot if him actually i really was smiling just at the thought of it.

mink, FW was the same - constantly convinced the world was trying to get one over on him, determined not to let them. It was exhausting.

Exhausting is the word! Yeah for us that they are exes though weird how remembering he is a twunt actually cheers me up now.

Either that or it is the endorphines from the pain in my legs. Been doing jump training. and i didn't even wee myself

mink! I read that as train jumping!!!!

I think my FW might have a delusional personality- he is back to calling me 'love' and inviting me in for tea now after last week telling me I was banned from his house at handovers

match - he's trying out every weapon in his arse(nal) to see what will get him results. He's struggling to find something so he's clutching at straws!!!!

He's getting nowhere. I managed a really quick handover today, dodged a prolonged convo about the mortgage as well. Hope the judge approves the consent order so we can get the conveyancing started.

YY to sleep deprivation tactics. I need to go back to Lundy. He does seem to be wise. For some reason when I started reading him, it just made me feel not empowered or informed. I'm not sure why.

I've started to tell RL people about nsdh and hopefully going to catch up with one of them for lunch or a short break soon. I know telling people is important but I hate the idea of anyone worrying about me. I'm so used to being a 'coper'.

After over a week of broken sleep, I'm hoping I'll sleep through and won't be up at 4am or 5am. Night all.

mink, i do get what you mean about lite, and definitely about not having to make escape plans, but as someone said to me today, violence takes many forms. I always wonder what would have happened if I had not retained my own house. How easy/difficult it would have been then to get away.

Not sure if the bingo has helped. I am hoping to wake up in a better world tomorrow. All the best to everyone.

winnie I felt like that when I first read it. I think it is like any therapy you usually have to feel a bit worse before you feel better. Give it another go.
I also used to be a coper and it was just the most horrific bit of the whole situation and actually the pride as it is a bit, was the thing that cost me dear. If I had told more sooner I may be telling a very different tale today. One thing I thought about last week was that when he last knew me 8 years ago, I told very few people anything and now I tell everyone everything and he will at some point realise that and it may help or not lol
I hope for that better world tomorrow too butter
Night night wonderful people.

butterfly Yy to keeping own house.
He did actually say in an email 'i am a decent guy and not the sort of person that would not leave when asked' as if him actually going when i very calmly told him it was over after him screaming at me for 10 minutes made him some kind of stand up guy. Wtf?

Medal in post. not.

But yes i have no idea what would have happened if we had lived together. i decided pretty early on that that couldn't happen. in my head it was because we had arguments and needed space.
looking back i was always very ill at ease in his house. there were weird rules that i did not get and everything was on his terms.

Although the worst things happened in my house because they were post kids when we were only together if he was at mine, before the kids he was more tense/menacing in his house. it was furnished entirely with eggshells.

i did about two years ago think if we had a place that was both of ours it might make things better. thank feck that never happened.

Sorry, brief rant alert. Can't go into details as would out me, but I've been shouted at a number of times today and yesterday. I made a passing comment (not shouting, just a comment in exasperation this evening) and was told by H that he didn't like the way I spoke to him. WTAF?!?!?!

So I sit here... reeling at the ridiculousness of it all. I had plans to do some specific organisational work tomorrow and it's been messed with again. Just. Can't. Win.

If it wasn't so awful, it'd be laughable, really. Mental note... comments not okay from me, everything including shouting and swearing okay from him. Nope, no double standards here.

Alice what a fw. one rule for fws another for everyone else.

I tried to catch up on the reading on here but too worried I'll get caught out right now. I'll have to try later in week. Hope everyone is okay.

Alice stay safe. no worries if you just want to pop in and rant and then dive back out again. we are here with kitchen utensils at the ready (if you have not read thread that may not make sense- think Charlie's angels with whisks) and and sympathy whenever you need us.

Hey - well I'm in a very very bad place. He's cut me out completely, never wants to hear from me again and has let me find out via FB that he is in a relationship. He's followed a script claiming we broke up longer ago than we did, that I'm violent and psychotic

I can't stop shaking, crying or go to sleep

I can't believe he's just out of my life like that . I love and miss him so much

Oh Colin. sorry he is treating you like this. still think you need to view it as a lucky escape though. even though it does not seem that way just now. life is too short to waste your love on someone who treats you so badly.

Is there any possibilty you can get some counselling to try to work on your feelings.

You are worth much more then him Colin and now he is out of your life you will slowly start to feel better. Really you will it just takes time.

Oh Colin am so sorry Its such a shock for you. Sadly its not unusual it seems for these guys to be oh so over us, ridiculously quickly, which does say far far more about them than us. It tells you everything you need to know about him, but a crushing blow for us to discover.

Sending you huge (((hugs))) hun, and hoping that you did manage some sleep?

I think its very helpful to hang onto the fact that he's going to be the same to anyone else, he won't change, he will be just as appalling to her, and has shown himself to the world to be a total and utter FW with complete disregard for your feelings. This is normal service for a FW. Try to avoid tormenting yourself looking at it, as he and possibly she, will take great childish and cruel delight in posting their undying love for each other, living more of a 'show' life than the reality, and thats really very strange and wrong.

Take it easy today if you can, it sounds like he's done you a favour in getting out of your life, despite the awful way that's left you feeling .

Just try to hang on to the fact that of course once you have gotten over reeling from this shock, you will be free to have your life without having to live with all his awful behaviours. Sweep up those eggshells hun and have a ritual 'burning'!

We've all had a thorough slating, and slandering from them too. We are psychotic it seems, and violent, and abusive and everything else besides, he's showing true to form.

You take care xxx

y y to the 'coping' thing ladies. Keep going, best foot forward, keep that smile on for the DC and the world. Sick to death that I never realised that he was the one that got all his demands met. He totally lived the life he wanted to live, drank himself into regular stupors, took his drugs, treated us like shit, like his punch bags if we stepped on any of the cracks in the pavement (crazy fuck). He expended so much effort being a gaslighter and stone-waller. Someone said recently about their FW being guarded, and aloof, emotionally unavailable, etc. some kind of mysterious challenge...huh!

thanks all for concerns, but they were tiny little slices, no no nothing horrible or nasty, just wouldn't stop bleeding everywhere! Set to put it all right today, I have everything crossed for success today.

Poor child being talked to by FW in any way possible anti-mother that he can subtly squeeze in, as I don't think she'd tolerate any direct tactics now. So time for him to FOG her.

eating carpet fluff!!! Pony gave me a good laugh when I got home last night!

just wanted to to those that can't get here for a while, and to say thinking of you loads, (((hugs))) xx

Thank you. I've booked a Drs appointment this morning. I need help.

hi ladies....Im safe....am so so so sorry for going awol, signal/connection is rubbish here, ive had to buy a cheap PAYG phone too incase real phone won't work and he turns up. Managed to get one of those dongle things this morning too so can be connected to the tinterweb again until i get sorted! Have had so much to do to keep us safe here but Im out and safe....left when he was at work one day....my brother and mum came and we took the remaining stuff from house that I wasn't able to sneak into the storage unit, left the kids room sorted for when they go to visit so he couldn;t say I was taking kids away from him and then I just left....i didn;t even cry...still haven't...I left a nice note and also phoned him that eve to say we wouldn't be there when he got home...just tried to be as calm as possible incase things went to court later on down the line....oh my god....he went mental...crazy....calls, texts, threats...wreaking the house...starting fires and all sorts. I wasn't shocked but really didn't expect him to go as far as he did . He has never once asked us to go back etc etc so I really do think he is angry because i got one up on him and he wasn't in control of the situation. He always said if I left he would find me and that when he decided it was time for me to leave he would kick me and punch me literally out of the door. I stayed well away in a hotel with kids for first few nights with my mum too.....somewhere public-ish incase he did find us and we could get help quick. Me and kids in rented house now safe, sitting on garden chairs and sleeping in blow up beds until we get our new stuff delivered but safe and kids so very happy, its amazing how much DS (2yrs old) has really come out of his shell in only a few weeks, talking lots now, the fear has gone from them both :-( DD having a few nightmares about being back in old house and very confused about why daddy won't see her yet, she remembers the bad times, and says she will never ever leave me alone xxx hes not found us yet thank god despite him trying. Lots going on with my solictor re arranging supervised visits for kids for first few sessions which he is flaming furious about and making us go to one of those child contact centres instead of just seeing them at him families houses and have supervised visits over and done with by now....trying to make things as difficult as poss for me which i expected. Mediation appts being set up too re selling the house. Lots and lots of people thinking im the devil in disguise taking kids away from their ahem 'wonderful father'.....is hard.....sooooo very hard....but still 10million trillion times better than being still there with him.....love you all and couldn't have done this without you all xx i urge those that are not out yet to keep going, keep planning in secret, it took me 6 months of secret planning to get to this stage. The hardest part for me was taking the first few steps of starting planning...admitting to myself it wasn't normal the life of hell i was living through, once you have made that step the others will follow. You can do it, if i can anyone can, and you are not alone, we are all here holding your hand.

So sorry ive missed loads of the thread....hope everyone is ok......I missed you all loads and thought about you all lots. Vvv happy to be back online! Hope nothing bad has happened whilst I have been offline? Hugs to you all xxxxxxx

hello maggie! not even read your post just so glad to hear from you.
will read post now.

Yay!!!!

glad to be back! Have to log off now...but back online later tonight xx

maggie you are amazing. well done. I am literally crying with joy (at work bit embarrassing).

well done. well done.
and thank you for letting us know. i was hoping and hoping it was just lack of a connection but yes very important to change phone etc. so he cannot use it to find you.

stay safe and hope the police are aware and on high alert although i hope you never need them. brilliant news that the kids are happier already.

wishing you every strength and much love, you are an inspiration.

expect many overjoyed messages today