Support for those in Emotionally Abusive Relationships : thread 25

[CharlotteCollinsismovingon]

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 violence Are 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.
Warning signs you?re dating a loser 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?re 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 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
What you should expect as a starting point for your treatment in a relationship, as you will of course be treating others!!

mink love your BR dissection! What a typical FW indeed, to twist it and use it for his own 'tragic' purposes.

Don't apologise, Rose, you write really well and I enjoy reading your updates - well, the upbeat ones, anyway!

What a plonker, though! That "keep it real" comment - of course the subtext is: you won't get anyone else who'll treat you as well as I do. With his romantic conversation about, er, toenail infections! :o

rose he sounds like he is trying to tell you he is doing you a favour not shagging around. I also feel he is crossing your boundaries using contact time with DD to have conversations with you. His victim mentality shines through. You on the other hand sound strong - I like hearing your updates too and so glad you have more peace than you did. When does the course start? can't be long now - you must be looking forward to that, it will bring such fulfillment to yours and DD's life.

nini he thinks that by withdrawing his love from you it will teach you to do as he says - he doesn't get it that what you see is someone who withdraws his love from you as punishment and that is just not very nice at all. he looks like a FW and you see it.

flora he wants you to forget what he has done as he knows on some level it was wrong. He knows normal people know that good indicators of how some will act in the future comes from experiencing what they have done in the past, so he wants you to forget the past. If a FW didn't think it was wrong in any form they would not rewrite history, if they didn't worry they may be seen in a bad light they would not do it so covertly sometimes. Below these feeling of insecurity about thier actions they have the belief it is right what they have done and this is the biggest driver - but a FW thinks that he knows better than the society he fears knowing the truth, he is bigger and better than it all and everyone else. I really don't think any amount of reason can ever get past that. I guess that is why I think minimal communication should take place with them as the smallest of opportunities are spotted by the FW to stick the knife in, it is almost as if the addiciton to Fwittery has to be met at every opportunity otherwise they feel you are getting away. I find no reaction to what my FW does is the only option for me, he pushes harder and harder using shock tactics to get that reaction he so badly craves - he wants to surprise me and spends such a long time planning what he will do. It takes enormous amounts of strength not to react which is why we get so exhausted.
I think about how I react when a friend says they are feeling upset or anxious - I don't withdraw my friendship until they feel better, if they are too ill to make a lunch date, I don't sulk with them for weeks, if they can't lend me £50 for a few days I don't stop speaking to them or shout at them for being selfish or what kind of friend would I be? I think the FW hopes that we get amune to thier actions and we lose the strength to continue to protect ourselves and our DC. They make it look and sometimes even verbalise we will never get away.

I think the 'keep it real' comment is also to make sure you don't go out and find someone else Rose! He is basically saying he expects you to do the same! And the favour side of it that better mentions means that you are now supposed to feel beholden to him in some way because he's not out shagging about. It's another way, as better said, of him verbalising that he still feels he has control over you. Whatevs!

Thanks all. I had chips for lunch and feel a bit better now

Plans are struggling along, Pony. Doing my best to get the house up to scratch but still looking at at least December before I can really get a move on. For now, grin and bear it I think...

Sadly I have nobody locally who could go out with me at short notice even if I wanted to, Mink. But yes, if I want to go out it has to be planned weeks (or months) in advance. Shocking the way your FW used to speak to you about this, what a wanker. I love Blade Runner too

And the withdrawing love thing used to work on me better. Not now.

Rose, he sounds like a tool. What a stupid thing to be aiming towards when he should be thinking about more important, practical things. Nod and let it drop from your mind I think.

I just wanted to share this with you ladies.

My mum has just told me that my nephew (14, nearly 15) and his girlfriend have split up. They'd been seeing each other for a while, a year, maybe two. He felt that he didn't have the same feelings for her any more. So he went up to see her and they talked, he told her. Afterwards, my DSis took him out for ice-cream (cos even at 5ft 10in you're never too old for ice-cream wiv your old mam!) and he was upset, but mainly because his girlfriend had been so upset by the break-up and he left rotten.

He still wants to be friends with her (although I think this is his youth and naivety talking), and still sat next to her on the bus into school next morning. He hasn't told any of his friends yet because he knows they'll be all immature about it and potentially make fun of his ex and he doesn't want her upset.

When my mum told me all this, bizarrely I felt my heart swell with pride! My lovely nephew. He's a good lad. And he's treated his ex with dignity and respect. He's got more emotional maturity already at 14 than my FW!!!!!

That's very sweet Pony. Your DSis should be proud of how she's raised him. Hope my DD finds herself a nice, considerate young man (or woman!) when her time comes.

thats all sounds very familiar here too. On the rare occasions we go out for a drink then it always is me that has to go up to the bar and ask for something awkward that FW wants that isnt on the menu. When we're skiing, if I ski consistently faster than him then he takes the hump and says I'd be better off skiing on my own as 'hes holding me back' and then he sulks +++. I say that it's about doing something together, not holding each other back, but invariably have to slow down so that he feels like he is winning!

rose please keep up with all the positivity. It's great and uplifting.

nini please stay safe

pony id be proud of your DN too.

Whoever said about not discussing contentious issues and being told to 'just enjoy the night' is also married to my FW. He can switch from sulky arse to quite a laugh in a second if he feels like it, basically by avoiding any subject in which my opinion is different from his (quite a lot as it turns out)

Spot on bounty they have their say and then we have to keep quiet and enjoy ourselves - if all else failed my fwep would use a new drama to divert attention away. It usually involved me `having' to do something for him as he was once again the victim of some terrible circumstance.
mmm chips nini

I don't seem to fit into the same pattern as the rest of you on here. In that my FW used to dump me/ leave ect and come back after a few days / weeks but this time he hasn't and its been 3 weeks.

So I guess he has really dumped me. What do you think is going on?whats different? Maybe he's transferred to someone else? God it's so confusing. I know I have to stop trying to work him out as its impossible but I thought I knew him

Up till the day he left he was all for moving in. He'll he even got a passport with my address on it. Such a massive u turn seemingly over something I said that he didn't like. Aghrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Thanks everyone and thanks Mink for the Blade Runner analogy. He is a fw who likes to try and quote. If it's not Shakespeare, then it's something else. The 'leaving' letter i received when he went quoted something from Eat Pray Love, about slipping out the back door.
Whilst i see myself as an intelligent woman, i sometimes find it difficult to understand what his take on the quotes are.
Today my son called him to tell him about an award he got and my son asked where he was. He sounded awkward and said the shops. Now I'm getting paranoid! I just need to be strong and shut him out of my life apart from contact.

x post Jackie. With my previous LTP i had a light bulb moment and just cut him from my life. As there were no DC involved it was easy. We were together almost 15 years and from that day Ive never seen him. He tried to contact me but I had moved on. You need to be in that light bulb place to move on. You will get there. In some ways I wish I could just cut my fw from my life but I have to have contact for the kids. We are all here Jackie for you. Hugs.

Jackie my x used to leave and return.
Sometimes days, sometimes weeks.

Jackie, I think he got wind of the fact that you were feeling stronger about not taking him back this time... so he has disappeared so he can feel he did the dumping.

Thank you all for your support. In a way I feel a bit of a fraud because it should be easier for me than the rest of you as I don't have to have contact with him, it's just I'm hurting I suppose so I find it helpful to come on here

flora talking of lightbulb moments, it seems as though HE has had the lightbulb moment , at least that's what he'd claim, that I'd pissed him off once too often saying I was tired of his family chatting about his ex like I wasn't there. So he decided he couldn't take any more and ended it. THAT'S how he makes me feel its my fault

Thinking of you all too xx

Jackie, of course this is where you should post. Your pain is visible. Getting to the light bulb moment can take a long time. You have to grieve first. He hasnt given you a good explanation for his actions so you have unanswered questions, giving no closure. Untill you feel you have closure of sorts its difficult to move on. But you will get there (I keep telling myself that too) xx

Argh!

FFS. Just coming to rant.

After a couple of nice weeks, my partner has started with a couple of stupid things which have got me anxious again...

Just really little things like tonight he was going out, so I went to give him a kiss before he went out and said "have a nice evening" and he looks at me quizzically and askes if everything is alright. I know there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with that, but he will now be constantly be doing that ALL the time "are you alright" "is everything alright", because he has done this before. So now i'll end up constantly thinking I must be doing something wrong or acting off, in order for him to ask that. I'm not doing anything wrong, or acting off (am I?) so why does he keep asking (several times a day)

He also started quizing me on what i'll be doing when he goes out, to the point where I feel I have to stay home or they'll be a row. I was going to pop to the shops tonight but am now sat home as he'll only quiz me more if I go out.

This is mild compared to what he can be like so now its started i'm anxious as its going to escalate.

The things is if he can just turn all of this behaviour and more off, just like that, and we can enjoy some quality time together, then why cant he just stay like that.

Rant over.

flora thank you. It's so hard isn't it. I'm sorry I'm not more supportive on here but at times I'm just in such a state and I feel lonely on my own all the time, that is one of the benefits of having small children they distract you and keep you busy. Stay strong xx

Jackie my ex used to walk out for a few days then contact me, say i had to be nicer to him and maybe offer to change a few things he did. the bigger the row the longer he would go for. sometimes if I just wanted it over with i would contact him with some message unrelated to the row and make it possible for him to come back without losing face.

until he started getting the impression i was not rushing to get him to come back. A couple of years ago he stormed of and i just decided i had had enough, did not contact him and did not agree to his demands that we 'both' be nicer.

After about a month or two i was feeling pretty rotten but had told people that was that and decided to move on. then knew of his coworkers died and he phoned me out of the blue to tell me and we got back together.

he stopped doing the walk out as much because he knew it would not work. he was always going the what do i get out of this and you make me miserable. But i told him either opt in or go in that case. was really good for quite a bit then the verbal abuse cranked up and i threw him out.

So, i think in short your ex will be back in touch. he is just giving you long enough to convince you he might really go for good as if he has done the stop off a lot in the past it stops being convincing. and also he is probably sitting at home wondering where he has gone wrong that his ploy has not worked and you have not been begging him to come back.

Basically he is playing you and he is making sure you get the message this time.

Call his bluff! Let him go.

Also did you look for colin's posts. your situations is very similar. her FW tried to come back eventually. she did not let him. and now she is much better off.

skating he can turn the nasty behaviour on and off. so he does it because he wants to.

Help! Today my fw was on phone and indicated he was at shops but he sounded cagey. Maybe Im paranoid but im now worrying there is an ow. Just want to drive round to his house to see if his car is there.
Talk me through this girls please!

Why Im bothered I dont even know!