Support for those in Emotionally Abusive relationships: 24

[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!!

It's good to bump into you from time to time, GS, and know that you're still out, rebuilding life for you and your dcs. I'm glad you haven't namechanged: lots of people would be worried for you! As it is, I can think of you and know that's where I want to be, too.

Rose, I never did the snotty-nosed rage-crying thing, but then I trained myself as a teen not to cry when upset. It was just happening too often and I couldn't handle it. I collected all the hurt deep inside and squashed it into a bitter ball. For years afterwards, I couldn't cry. (Not once I had children, though - proper cry-baby through the hormone surges!)

I do remember times with FW when I felt so much pressure building up inside me that I felt like I was going to explode. In my head, I imagined throwing myself against the walls, screaming and screaming, punching and kicking. Even then, I think I only felt like this when FW was out of the way; as now, when he was there, my anger was turned so far inward that I felt immobile. Or was that the effect of the confusion? Whatever it was, totally unhealthy, and meant he could claim afterwards that he was totally unaware that I'd ever been upset - and that I was at fault for not talking to him more.

FW has sent a huge long email, actually a forwarded email conversation between him and a longsuffering friend. I started a thread about it, which has been very very helpful. It's basically bollocks, but I found it persuasive enough for it to worry me. Thanks to all the support I got, I've had a much happier day than I would've done without MN!

Have nc back. Haven't kept up with the thread. Hope everyone is doing as well as they can be and struggling on amid the FWery.
I am 10 days away from being able to apply for the Decree Absolute, but the finance is still not ready, so I won't be just yet.
Have finished my counselling and I'm doing loads better with my boundaries, much to FW's chagrin. He swapped a shift so he could change the contact days and was most annoyed when I said I'd made plans that I wouldn't change.
I am assertive with him and cut off any discussions I don't wish to have. I feel ten times stronger than I did 9 months ago.
I am kind of in a long-distance relationship with an old uni friend. We have met up once and dtd and are planning on meeting once a month. He actually likes me exactly how I am and is the first person I have actually been completely myself with. I am part excited, part terrified. But wanted to post and say to those in the thick of it, that life can and does get infinitely better than the half-life of an EA marriage.

Charlotte just read your thread - yep, bollocks. Case closed!

Hey Matchsticks - nice to see you back in your old name. That's good news re boundaries (although pooooor FW, eh?). What's your secret? realises there probably is no secret, dammit
And even better news re new flame/old friend! to you too!

I don't think I did anything more heroic than anyone else who manages to get out of an abusive relationship - no, maybe not (although your FW was a special kind of FW), but doesn't that just make us all a little bit heroic? I like to think it does.

The old Labyrinth line Pony "You have no power over me!" I think.

'I ask for so little. Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave.'

Wow!!!!

match, like button for your post. Especially like cut off any discussions I do not wish to have. How do you recognise these discussions before they get going? FW here ploughs on, generally ignoring previous requests, and tries a different tack, usually after a couple of weeks. I need a 10 second delaying tactic, I think, before responding, but any advice welcome.

charlotte, yes to bollocks, but also agree it is besides the point. If the marriage is over, it is over. However, I did waste an hour of my life reading about ASD and trying to be FW on the Cambridge adult autism screening test, followed by being myself, after reading your thread. In my defence, I am not feeling well, so not up to doing much else, and probably not thinking straight. However, let me be clear that I do not equate autism with fuckwittery, though it may explain the high level of need for control and order which FW has.

Oh well, love and strength to all , including GS, glad to hear you are doing okay and have RL support.

X-posted. Had my browser open for ages!

hey match life after FW sound good.

and GS thank you for the update. hope i dude not embarrass you. it was not just for tgeur getting out although that took enough. it was for all the MN tough love which MN dies so well which you took and listened to and you persisted and worked through. and your threads i think Will be there as an inspiration to others who will realise that yes it is tough to be in an EA rs and it is also tough to leave. heart breakingly tough. but it is possible to overcome all the obstacles. every one and take that leap....and then little by little it gets better.

Bernard!!! does not dies. and Bernard has made up a whole New word tgeur which he uses all the time. i think it means the. dude. i blame the cider.

oh and yy to snotty nosed and crying in the corner and on a couple of occasion being inconsolsble. sometimes in front if the poor bewildered dcs usually after he had detonated his emotional claymore mine and left the building. although i do remember one occasion when i was in such a bad state he actually stopped and stayed.

must be horrifying for the dcs though.

fabulous I can tell by his manner if he's about to 'have something out' with me. Sometimes I interrupt with something else, or I say that I'm not prepared to discuss it on front of the dc and I leave.
I think he's gradually realised he can't control me any more and the best thing for me is that it kills him that I'm happier since we split up.

Thanks match, have tried both these things, he comes back round and tries again. Itis most disarming when he does it in a reasonable and charming manner. I will try to detach and observe and slow down my response. I hate getting drawn in.

rose, you are doing the best thing you can for your dd. And it is a hard thing to do. You will continue doing your best for her. In an abusive r/s, it takes a long time to work out what is going on, and a long time to leave, because the behaviour is designed to stop you doing both those things, and doubt yourself.

There is something very odd about recognising what happened in other people's posts. It makes it a bit more real. FW would also always leave. The over-riding feeling was of not mattering. I did not matter, except to fit in the box he had marked wife, and to do the things he deemed wifely.

fabulous how long have you been out? It's only in the last month that I've been able to detach as much as this.

I am a couple of months behind you.

Blimey the thread's been busy...

Haven't got far in catching up so:

rose have no doubt, it's him not you. Mine seemed cold and logical - but his logic was flawed. But his FWittery put me in no state to pinpoint the logical fallacy, even though I knew there was one.

Feeling damaged, as so many of us did when we met our FW's, we recognise that we could heal and fulfil our potential with the right support. In my case that led to thinking that the damaged young man, who seemed to be damaged in a similar way to me, could be that support and at the same time be supported by me. A partnership of mutual growth. But it was not to be.

nini tis good you have captured and written down the interaction re dishes. And v v good you told him to FO.

For those feeling old at 40 - let me tell you feeling young at 60 is bloody great

had to hear you are feeling young silvery.
i think we all feel a bit lighter once we get the FW off our backs.

fab i think.slowly down your response is the right talk. i react too fast so need to change that.

this description is from a cake book (for beetroot brownie) that i read today...got me thinking
this:
this bad man is a good girl's deathbed. if it were poison you would still be glad you tried it

and this is from the song misguided angel

I said mama he's crazy and he scares me
But I want him by my side
Though he's wild and he's bad
sometimes just plain mad
I need him to keep me satisfied

papa don't cry cause it's alright
And I see you in some of his ways
Though he might not give me the life that you wanted
I love him the rest of my days

Misguided angel hanging over me
heart like a Gabriel pure and white like ivory
soul like a lucifer, black and cold like a piece of lead^
Misguided angel love you til I'm dead

this is what i used to think about FW.
now I realise there is nothing in the least bit romantic about being with an entitled twunt.

fff in reply to you wondering how not to get drawn in:

If you want to raise a topic, decide the outcome you are aiming for. eg. you will convey the information that you will be out next Weds.

Do not get sidetracked by stuff he says that is off the point. In my example, it could perhaps get a response like "not again!" or some comment about the way you are talking, not what you are saying. Equally, do Not Repeat Not try to second guess him or plan a conversation in advance where you imagine what he might say. Just focus on what you are going to say.

Once you've conveyed the info, and you are sure he has heard it, do not talk any more. Practise in advance saying "I've finished talking about that"* - so that if he tries to carry on it will trip easier off your lips.

*or whatever stopper you prefer

It will feel odd and scarey doing this. Be brave, but above all be safe.

Mind you, not long before we reached settlement, FW and I had the Mother of All Rows, covering everything we'd ever covered in rows, it seemed. It also took place in front of a mutual friend. However, it helped me to think even harder, and was the start of me finding a solution to the settlement.

fox - yes, it's beside the point to an extent, but I think that working out what was FWery and what was OK is part of the healing.

FP has helped massively with that and as of today I am a FP graduate! Got my certificate and everything! To think that at the beginning of the course, 12 weeks ago, I was still with FW and hoping to make a go of it and thinking it hadn't been in any way bad enough to be considered abusive.

I've come a long way! :o

Rose - it will be great to do painting and playing and all the rest. To brighter futures!