Support thread for those in emotionally abusive relationships...coming of age:21

[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 what a shit dad he is. Same as shit and Disney dad here, continually letting them down, making rash promises, buying things, but no patience or caring when they need it.

It seems eminently reasonable to keep DS home nights until his anxiety settles from being around ust you nighttimes. same issues with my DD doing overnights and going to bed so anxious she couldn't sleep til gone 12 and exhausted as a result.

.. on the revenge/suitable fitting endings theme.. also remember a lot of Wilbur .... crime adventure novels I read years back, and the dastardly ending that befell an ivory hunter in his own warehouse locked in with a cheetah, who 'raked' his innards out!!!!!! TMI?

is it too early to pop the first cork in the Vixens, I've been through the mill today and this week generally, and wanting that very welcome glow that can be seen emanating from across the moors and the lively chatter drunken singing ....

.. but its bad to drink alone, so i've brought my bff with me xxx

Hi all, I hope that the weekend is going well.
Loved yesterday's songs.
Apologies for the title here.....

but I do like it at the moment! Not good at links so hope it works!

colin time to delete/block the number? Sometimes I would respond to see what came back... usually, yes, another bucket of shit. And then I sometimes used to think 'oh, well if he's angry at least there's still passion and feeling there.' Hmm, no, if he was angry it was because he was always angry, that's all.

I'm having a stupid day wasting time reading old email exchanges for clues and signs. I'm half wondering whether I imagined the abuse/it was all my fault based on what is written in them, because all the emails are always about how I am to blame for whatever shitty thing was happening at the time.
Now I half wonder whether I am just an embittered and paranoid dumpee, imagining abuse where there was just misunderstanding/bad circumstances. In the other place wordy is telling me yes, that was abuse, and I sort of know she is right but I still don't feel sure. If any of you have the time or inclination, I'd love a second, third, fourth opinion.
I think maybe all along I was in the wrong for beginning the relationship in the circumstances. Mind you, it was such a juggernaut at the start there was no time for reflection or negotiation.
I also hate the thought of myself as a 'victim'
FW never called me names (except during sex, shudder), and was never verbally abusive in a sweary, name calling way. Nor did he ever hit me. So I partly think, well, this was not really abuse. That's the problem I have.

pony and Fairy the Disney dad acts must be just so hard to cope with. I think you're right to stick to your guns with overnights pony

I love the train ride to the far side of fuck!!!!

Warning- disturbing.
There was an extremely disturbing and upsetting story in the Guardian today, it made my blood run cold- not only because of the dreadful tragedy but because of the way the woman was described as coming out of the fog in her head to the point of realisation. So very, very frightening. :(((

Fairy

i see your 2013 and raise you

it might be worth getting another hobby! this one doesn't sound so rewarding it can take a while to emerge from that FOG hun. Just because you're in the FOG doesn't mean its not abuse. The way you talk and worry that its you, and difficulties in separating it all out say it is. It an oxymoron. guilt ridden abuser ???? uhuh.. no way.

consdier yourself a survivor of this, someone told me I was heroic to have continued through it all. I was floored by the term applied to me, but I do see it through everything I still managed to achievedespite him said through gritted teeth

do you have a link to the story... fancy a flick through the papers over a relaxing ...

Coming in to the Vixen's for a bottle glass of
I have been on the thread about being shocked at what women put up with, and it is rapidly becoming like that thread about how the OP would never have become involved in an abusive relationship and how women must be responsible.
Have come here before I get thrown out of there
My round!

I'm not reading that thread. It's up there with 'was that worth leaving you're arrange for'
V shocked at what I tolerated but its v complicated.

Hi all just wanted to pop back in and say hi and strength to all.
2012 I totally know where you are coming from and I think fairy has said it all perfectly there; being in a fog, worrying that it is all me, and difficulties in separating everything is exactly how I feel.

FW has not spoken to me in 2 months apart from to make sarcastic, hateful comments or for us to argue. He is leaving Monday (or so he says) and the suddenly the other night he asks me if this is really what I want. WHAT I WANT??? Putting the ball in my court. He was Mr reasonable, no raised voices, no anger, etc for about an hour. Still my answer is the same. Tonight he was back to Mr sarcastic. And unfortunately I forgot to breathe and use my bubble and called him a prick - now I feel guilty and rubbish all over again. I can't be nice to him because he has made me suffer. Does that make sense?
And yes, when things calm down and the anger has gone I too wonder whether the anguish, anger, anxiety was all in my head! But we don't make this shit up. It doesn't come from nowhere! You have to validate your won feelings. You felt those things and that is real. You have to say that to yourself!

Do you know what...you'll be better when he's gone. you'll be amazed how calm and free of anger your life can be. Sure there will be stuf to deal with...current and from the past. But life, even when he is testing, will be in your hands. You will be ok

cwtch up and take a load off arth --bottles- glasses of all round...

bottles glasses of all round... and not to forget handfuls of dirty wotsits....

Hi all, [sneaks into Vixens in inappropriately glamorous clothes because I'm so sick of dressing for wind and rain]

yy to wanting their validation but even more yyyyyyy to sam's comment that we have to validate our own feelings.

bounty well done on attempting to have the talk. I'm on your behalf that he just refused to engage.

nsdh actually taught me a very valuable lesson when dealing with df which was not to enter into conversations or situations with df, with the expectation that he would act like a normal dad or the dad from the Waltons'. It wasn't who he was. It wasn't my experience of him. Yet every time I went to see df I was disappointed and upset by the reality. What nsdh taught me was that I had to detach from my fantasies about that relationship and deal with the realities.

I need to teach myself that lesson about nsdh too. Of course part of the problem is that he is sometimes nice (as all FWs are) but they are only nice when it suits them and it doesn't go against their interests. I guess what I'm trying to say is maybe we shouldn't expect validation or assistance especially when leaving because it doesn't suit their agenda . . .

pony typical that FW's compliment to you is also about reneging on his responsibilities to parent his child properly

I'm running out of faces now. I've spent the day with nsdh and although most of it was fine. There seems to be an underlying current of anger that weaves through and between us all the time. I may actually opt for some real [drink] as well as some trashy tv to make me happy.

p.s. pony met Joss Whedon at a premiere. I hadn't expected to meet him or I would have pushed some of my scripts and nearly-finished novels at him and asked to join the inner clique of creatives that he keeps squirreled away in his sunny mansion

cruel how we seem to want to look to them for the validation, as its the one place we never get it...

NICE is only a 'part' of the cycle, it doesn't come from that real place you speak of...

arth, I gave up after reading the first page.

oh definetely y y for glam night at the V's ... ... mmm .. v. happy

has someone shown that lovely survivor the way here?

The V's is the place for Validation with a capital V!

I've got a new pair of red shoes to show off

I'm ready for a nice glass of Rioja.
My DS was 18 last month and as is the family custom XH made him an album of photos of his life. He gave me a copy and I have been laughing and nearly sobbing over the pictures. They show my DC enjoying family life and both of us being loving happy parents. OWWWWWW!

Evening all - for all!!!! And cwtches for all, and dirty-minded wotsits.

tether - oh yes, completely! I had noted that too. He's buttering me up so he can step away without guilt. This is from the man who, if I said anything about looking after DS2, would say to me (with aggression) 'I have had two kids before this you know, I do know what I am doing'. IE he was more experienced than me cos he had three kids and I had just two. Arsehoooooooole!
But what premiere???? That all sounds v fancy! I met Martin Clunes at a press junket for one of his shows once, ended up in the coat cupboard with him. That's not quite the same as Joss Whedon - you definitely win!!!!

Like your shoes, Lemon. V vixeny! - drink and drink deep.

Thanks, Fi don't mind if I do :)

It's nice in here! :)

Pony Some [FWs] will never be any good no matter how many DCs they have, right? yeah, thats right .. go girl... good venting .

pony do you mean you got your coat at the same time as Martin Clunes or ended up in a cupboard with him (in the style of Boris Becker)?! I can't tell if I haven't had enough wine or too much
Fi and Lemon - I love the shoes

I will visit properly soon but I'm all glammed up and out with my friend and I wanted to pop into my Vixens and raise my glass and that.

FWs be gone!

Am out the back of the Vixens, drinking tea and shagging an irishman up against the wall

So I may not post much... but I am here...

Checking in. I know I've been missing awhile, but I am still here. I've been a bit under the microscope and unable to read or post but will try to catch up as I can.

I'm still a bit disheartened over paed visit where she saw H's "calm act" and fell for it. She even said in her report that he was very relaxed and calming with DS. I flat out told her in the office when he stepped out of the room that he was not like that at home and she didn't seem convinced. I just feel set back completely by that and feel like I'm floating in limbo at the moment. Just struggling to get any momentum going at all.

I will try to catch up a bit over the next few days if I can. Sorry to post and run.