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!!

seen them now mink :) impressed!

They are from my embarrassing stock of knitting books. and yes i also make a lot of pots. (this will out me a bit). and jam and chutney and beer and rugs. basically i compulsively make things i also make up knits. the kids have some pretty weird clothes .give it about a year before they start refusing to wear them.

Now i shall go back and read the thread.

rose you know that feeling when you have to brace yourself against the wind, strong back foot and just face into it. well expect yo feel like that for a while when faced with a FW.
they do a lot of gnashing and wailing when you leave. let it blow over you.

Practise saying no. practise not speaking to him. practise not telling him things. the more you do it the better you will get at it.

his contact is his responsibility. but it may be best if he does not see DD for a while until he learns to accept the way things are.

So my FW had the kids gore the first time in many weeks. theirritating first reaction when i said he was coming to get them was to cry . But they seem to have had an ok time and he seems to have only done minimal bitching about me.

and lashings of [ginger beer]
First brew of my home made ginger beer is very 'warming'.

How is the craic in the vixens tonight. how is everyone?

Hi all not popped in for a few days, so will have a read and catch up in a while. I've had a few good days, he's still in my mind most of the time but I haven't been getting really upset, until this evening (its 4 weeks today since he left) but that's not why I'm upset. Had a great day with my mum and daughter and even laughed out loud, something I haven't done in ages

Then just sitting here tonight I text my daughter and said " shall I go on match.com?" Half jokingly, she said yes why not and I realised I would feel like I was being unfaithful to him, how ridiculous is that?. I ve just had a good cry. I have a stronger urge to contact him tonight than I've had since he went and its come totally out of nowhere. Help

Mink I have a vision of you from the middle-ages, dressed in battle armour with ye olde fashioned flagon of ginger ale mead and dirty-minded wotsits threaded down your pike! Bernard is obviously digging the medieval vibe tonight.

Hey jackie - glad you've had a good few days, and I totally know what you mean about him still being on your mind despite that. I spent a long time going with him in my head on a constant basis - walking round the shops I'd replay an argument in my head, trying to get to sleep I'd be tortured by thoughts of him being in bed beside me. Again, it passes, it's just time and further detachment. It's painful though, I know.
But in a way, with you even thinking about going on Match.com, that's a step forward in itself. Next time you think it, you probably wont cry, and might even dip a toe in. You only go as far with it as you feel ready for, there's no time limit.

Think how far you have come in how you feel since he went. You've come a lot further than you think. You've been very strong. It's not easy, this!

The ginger ale is good. but having just started second batch, the ginger infused raisins from the wort which i am just munching are better. so i shall add ginger infused fiery raisins to the menu at the vixens. nippy sweeties mmm.

I am feeling better for having unwound. girls were glad to have seen their dad. we spent nice afternoon watching a film and making things.

Sort of like this, mink
Mink with a pike of wotsits

Mmm.. ginger beer sounds good. We had to make some as a science project when I was 12. I still remember the taste - I loved it. Lost the recipe, though, and have never made it again.

Hello Vixens! [is the only thing that helps sometimes] apart from [ginger beer] cheers all

I think we need that ginger beer recipe!

Definitely

Ha ha at me in armour. i am thinking more tilda swinton in narnia with the big dreads with an army of knitted ninja.

Ginger beer is dead easy, as longs you like it quite dry. mine came out about 6.5% so heady stuff hic.
recipe i cut it down to be one demiJon full. takes no time to make and less than a fortnight to brew.

Wonder if ginger brewery knitting emporium could be my New career.

YY to Tilda Swinton look, with knitted ninjas instead of talking animals. Would have been a whole different film.

Can I just say - 1kg ginger? That's a lot of grated fingers. Where do you get your champagne yeast from?

'Mink's Knitted Ginger Brewery' open for business.

Ginger actuallygrates up really easily and it is one kilo for five gallons so only one fifth of that per demijohn. i have now moved on to a 2.5 gallon tub. took me about ten minutes to grate the ginger and no fingers were harmed in the process. i also add sultanas to my brew...and then eat them after i strain it.

Any old wine or beer yeast (tescos)will do.champagne yeast will goto 16 percent ifyou let it. (i know this from mispent youth) and is really a bit overkill for beer. my country wines were lethal

I bottle it into plastic lemonade bottles.
5 days fermented 1 week 4 days i have no patience in the bottle and it is done. cannot believe i did not do it ages ago.

And i got my kit off a site called...wait for it...bigger jugs.
Worth it just t have it arrive at work and say, ah my order from bigger jugs has arrived. cannot wait to get that home and try it out.

Apologies to anyone who has just arrived. yes this is the EA support thread. not home brew support nor the drunk thread.

Well, kind of a mixture of the two happy daze!

mink, re career, if you can make money doing something you love, you will have a happy life.

if you can make money doing something you love, you will have a happy life
Absolutely, quietcoach. Happiness is more important than money - I was always perfectly happy not earning much as a freelancer because I enjoyed my work and it allowed me to around for DS1 at school etc and that was important to me. FW stripped all that away by making me feel guilty for not contributing enough to the family etc (despite the fact that I paid for almost everything other than the mortgage and had zero left over for myself, while he bought himself whatever he liked whenever he liked) and suggesting I was actually lazy.

Mink do you think that would be a possibility for you? Freelancing part time doing your job stuff and doing this kind of thing on the side? Your pots and your knitted toys are lush. go for it!

sadly the work to reward ratio in knitting is too small unless you do knitting design and get them factory produced. the posts slightly less labour intensive to pay ratio but they have a high failure rate and you ahev to pay for those as well. so more likely i will keep a conventional job to pay the bills but try to move somewhere where maybe having my own kiln/wheel is a possibility.

although MN related merchandise could be an option i was already thinking t's that said LTB would be very funny before this anyway because anyone that knew what it meant would be outing themselves as a Mnetter.

on other news. so FW told my dcs that i had stolen dsd's money it is not hers and I did not steal it. the CSA will not give my children anything that is not rightfully theirs. but now my dcs will be thinking their mum is some kind of thief. FFS. I did point out that this was not true. and that even if it were is does not explain why both he and dsd have not seen them for almost two months as it clearly has nothing to do with them.

mink. I am sure the girls don't believe him - they sound fairly savvy regards him. And they told you, so they must have doubted him and now you've explained. And the difference is they know they can trust what you say, whereas they sadly already know that their dad lets them down.

This is where your resolve to speak to a solicitor comes in. You can speak to them about something like this - he is slandering you to them and destroying your good name. (I think that's the term?) Don't let him continue to control the situation re contact, with him picking them up and dropping them as he wants. Get ye to a solicitor, for the free half hr at least, and find out what you can do.

WTAF mink, urgh. The point is that dcs dad is required to pay for all his children, and previously he had not been paying the right amount for dcs, so now it has been evened out. Unfortunately, this means that dsd has less, but only because she was getting dcs' money in the first place. So, nobody has stolen from anybody, everybody is getting the right and fair amount now.

But the far bigger point is that this should not be brought up with dcs full stop!!! What planet does this man live on? Agree with pony this needs legal advice, to see how you can stop him using dcs like this. Log, log, log.

Good point i had not actually logged this. but yes other than saying this is not true and you don;t believe i would actually steal from dsd do you there is not a lot I can say without involving them in something that does not actually concern them.

Do all sols offer half hour free consultation? because two I have looked at so far say fixed fee initial consultation of £250.
also the danger is if i get a sol he will send them spurious letters because he knows it will cost me money if he does. (his dsis did this to him over another matter)

I emailed one to see what they said regarding fees but if they all charge that much for initial visit then I cannot afford it.