Support for those in Emotionally Abusive relationships: thread 26

[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!!

Read the thread about red flags Jackie my date was festooned in them. Divorced and bitter, bad mouthed his ex, no contact with children, no friends, no contact with relatives, withheld information, vain, boastful, financially abusive and mean to waitresses and animals. I saw him for a week then he dumped me! I'm with a lovely green flag man now

Hi all I was here a while ago and I'm so pleased to see so many moving on and up! It's a bad day for me as it's been a year exactly from the night my exp did something very unpleasant that I still haven't quite got to grips with. I have been posting in obt and getting great advice but springy suggested I needed a bit more of a talking to as there's a danger I am minimising things as I start to feel better. A firm talking to is needed! :) to all and if you have any advice/ stern words I could do with hearing them!

Hi there, not been on much but two things from what is here.

We think we are special to have been chosen. I am not sure exctly, it is more that they put so much effort into the seduction, they find your weak spots and work them in a positive way, so you have this person who you think is absolutely your soulmate. Then they gradually switch that off when you are hooked in, and you are disoriented because what happened to your soulmate? What are you doing wrong? So you try harder, without realising the seduction was a purposeful lie. So, I think it is not so much that we ignore red flags, but they make no sense, why would they?

I mean, I had never heard of a red flag. And incidents, what you at some point learn are red flags, are explained by you being too sensitive, emotional, temperamental, a nymphmaniac, too aggressive, unfriendly, non-communicative, too worried about this or that, defensive, tired, stressed, not intimate enough, using the wrong tone of voice, making no sense, that is all I can remember at the moment. So, not sure about feeling special, maybe for the first few months, after that, how many red flags are explained as your fault? So, where do you look?

FWs teach us to blame ourselves. We are kind and decent people who don't look to harm, so we try to moderate our behaviour. Saying we thought we were special to be chosen, is it not more that we thought the relationship was special, and that is what society teaches us to aspire to. And should our partners not make us feel special? The point is that it is a lie and we don't realise it is a lie. Why would we?

Not sure if that makes sense. Maybe people from healthy family backgrounds, with good self-esteem see the lie. Or maybe it doesn't matter, because the point is to erode your identity, make you subserviant, feed off you.

2013 Minimising now that you feel better. I have not read your thread 2013, but I think there is a difference between minimising and recovering, the latter you need to accept what happened as part of you, to understand why it happened, and move on with that knowledge.

quietcoach that is great insight and I can certainly relate to it. Especially about blaming OURSELVES for getting upset/ feeling bad at a situation where we should be perfectly entitled to. I wish I could turn the clock back and tell myself to trust my instincts.

Yy to believing FW when he told ne I was wrong. but i thought i was lucky to be chosen not special. as in lucky to have anyone at all. lucky that he wanted to go out with despite all my flaws.

2013 I haven't read your thread but, based on what happened with me, minimising and recovering seem to be very different. Minimizing was what I had become accustomed to doing for years in order to live in an abusive relationship. Recovering is what I am (hopefully!) doing now. In my case, recovering involves recognising how badly I was treated and properly acknowledging that. It is really hard, and sometimes I do wonder what the point of doing it is, but I am trying to have faith it will work out so I feel better in the end! I am talking it all through with a counsellor, and although i posted a lot on MN at the time, it's the first opportunity i have had to talk through a lot of the FW crap in rl. It feels a bit like the opposite of minimizing to me sometimes, as I find myself feeling really shocked and angry, and think 'was it really that bad?!'. But of course I think really I was minimizing so much at the time that I didn't properly feel normal emotions, I was trying so hard not to be hurt by FW's crap. So it hurts much more when you are recovering and fully appreciating what you went through.

Hope that makes some sense, bit of a ramble.

You say you haven't really got to grips with the thing he did to you. Do you have anyone in rl like a counselor who you can talk to about that? Although going over it may well be horrible, it may help you in the long run to accept what happened to you.

But we have all got flaws (except FWs, of course...)

I don't know mink. I am thinking about that aspect too. With both FW and my ex, I was not looking for a relationship. With ex, because I was already in one when we met, and it really was a seduction. With FW, because I did not want a relationship, and stated this. Did I think I was lucky to be chosen? Not sure, it was more with ex, when we were together, he took me into a space that transcended everything (so of course it was not real), but it was not that I felt lucky, more like that was where I was supposed to be. I felt at home with him (so goodness knows what that says about me). It took me a long, long time afterwards to see how abusive that relationship was, because I had been absolutely and utterly in love with him.

W ith FW, it is less clear, I think I had written off relationships, there was certainly a sense of really cannot believe this is happening, and in retrospect, it happened so fast, that should have given me pause. But it was tied up with so much other stuff, that I ignored any unease. And the soulmate stuff, he mirrored the person I wanted him to be, I think. I think I thought we would work together. Goodness only knows. Because of the way we met, it seemed fated.

Thanks for the thread Charlotte you sound busy but strong and moving forward with every day.
Jackie you went and you came home, it is more than I would manage. I just can't go. YY Lemon first class all the way.
Trigg sorry you are feeling low today, I hope the counselling appointment can be sorted soon, when I first had mine I came out of that first appointment a stone lighter sadly not physcially - is there any way you can keep a journal? I find just writting it down helps off load.

I'd like to think that next time I would see the seduction differently - i think a FW does it differently - speed of getting seious would be a red flag for me. Inthequiet I wasn't wanting a relationship and think I have the problem now as I didn't then, he talked etc. me round and it ended so badly. I know that is the main injury I carry from this - I do need to address it.

2013, have read a bit of your thread. Let go. He is not the person you want him to be, he wove you a fantasy. What happened is the person he really is. I know that is hard to accept, because you want to believe the fantasy. But step away, keep yourself safe. Change your phone. Do not see him, or let dcs see him.

I know how hard it is, because of what happened with my ex. I had no MN, no-one telling me what it was. It happened when we were no longer together, but even after that, I let him back in my life. Even when I realised, and learned how to name it, to place it, to understand it, he was still in my life. But you cannot reconcile it in any way, you would be giving up the core of your being to him. That would place you in great danger, even if he never does it again, because he knows, he knows what he did, and he knows you still let him into your life. There is no way of recovering or making that okay.

Walk away.

better, my ex took a year, but it was still a seduction.
So, not sure of the way forward.

to all.

I dont want to be with a man ever again. ... I just want to be alone

Me too, nini, me too. (Although can I say that the more children thing is over-rated? :o My totally biassed opinion! I think having one dc because circumstances forced it is fine, and you can make up for it by having your house full of her friends as often as possible.)

Funny, a couple of people have said I sound strong. I'm feeling anything but. Am dipping in and out of the thread a bit because I can't cope with thinking about it all. Finding out how you're all doing today, sure; thinking about the circumstances that link us all together, no.

I've found out my FP group is going to keep meeting as a post-FP group; and I don't want that either.

I don't know yet what I do want. Perhaps I'm just unbelievably stressed by the events I have to pull myself through the next few weeks. Scared of how the DCs are going to react to it all, too. After accepting all their life that Daddy is a minor background figure, they have now joyfully accepted the new doting specimen and are acting as though he's always been like this. I know time could well change everything again, and if it doesn't, I should be glad that they get a more engaged dad out of all this, but it just makes me feel more alone. People here and irl are still supporting me... but with both the DCs and FW radiating incomprehension, it's hard to hold onto the feeling that I am doing what I need to do.

I wasn't expecting to say all that! Or even totally conscious that I was thinking it. Early night beckons, I think.

Hoping I am not being insensitive, nini, because I am well aware how biassed my opinion is and that it is not shared by a lot of people.

Charlotte you have so much on right now just getting the basic things happy and peaceful. I found when my nightmare returned a year ago that I didn't know what else I wanted to do other than sort out what had to be done on that area to take that pain and feara way. It takes over in waves and then inbetween I try and do other things but only if I feel like them. I feel like I have to conserve my energy too. I am sure when the house is sorted you may feel like you know more what else you want to do but right now I think it is understandable other than that you are unsure.

I also think that my not wanting anyone else ever is a time and energy thing as much as the fear of anything like this happening again. Having an hour to myself to just be and do something which once I would have thought boring it now bliss - sometimes I think this is a good thing.

better, that is a really good point about conserving your energy. It is all emotionally exhausting, plus practically, loads to sort, Charlotte. At the moment, I need to sleep loads, which seems counter-intuitive as I have lots to do, and lots I want to do, but that is what I need to feel okay.

Re FW being dad of the year, do you reckon he will keep it up when there is not a point to prove?

matilda and inthe quiet really insightful comments that I will think about hard. inthequiet as you said, exactly. He knows, I know, he knows I know. He did what your ex did, ie carved out this totally other place, this totally other way of being. It was a fantasy. I was so in love I first discounted, then minimised, then believed it was all my fault anyway, then knew it wasn't and couldn't get out.
I agree re the fast forwarding and seduction. I feel I've lost all my innocence, I don't believe in 'love' anymore, just in love. I dont know whether that's the worst thing he took from me or the biggest lesson I learnt yet!

matilda and inthe quiet really insightful comments that I will think about hard. inthequiet as you said, exactly. He knows, I know, he knows I know. He did what your ex did, ie carved out this totally other place, this totally other way of being. It was a fantasy. I was so in love I first discounted, then minimised, then believed it was all my fault anyway, then knew it wasn't and couldn't get out.
I agree re the fast forwarding and seduction. I feel I've lost all my innocence, I don't believe in 'love' anymore, just in love. I dont know whether that's the worst thing he took from me or the biggest lesson I learnt yet!

Not insensitive at all Charlotte

No real advice on your current situation Im afraid, but as you're in the middle of it all maybe you feel like you're in a fog? Different to the FW fog though. You must be exhausted. I expect the Disney dad mask to slip. Be gentle to yourself - Im another one who needs sleep when dealing with emotion!

inthequiet I find the sleep calms my emotions as well as recovering from emotionally charged periods which zaps my energy due to the adrenalin.
I was reading about a form of mental training that lowers your brain frequency a bit like meditation - now don't think I have gone strange but it did all make sence - a lower radio frequency carries more signal too - so even if you just rest your eyes/ brain it can help you think through the haze, refocus and feel less stress. Then able to make better choices and have more energy.

I ended up suffering with burnout at the height of the fwittery all those years ago so I am hyper sensitive to the thought of ever having to go through that again. I was refusing to admit what was going on and I have just been talking about it on another thread about refusing to let myself be afraid. It didn't go well for me then. But I have better support now (you wonderful ladies) and have sought professional help - they need to teach all this in school.That is the good thing about the nightmare I find myself in as I am dealing with things that I had just put in a box and maybe they did need to come out and be dealt with.

Anyway speaking of sleep - work tomorrow morning for a few hours so I had better go - sleep well everyone

Well everyone having another of my insomniac nights!
Please guide me in the right direction although I do know really. I said I would never put up with FWittery again, yet here I am trying to decide if it is

The date I had the other night emailed me saying hed had a nice evening and would I like to meet again so I thought why not. He then sent me his number and I said I would text him mine which I did the day after. This was last night. He spent the whole evening online he did text me a few messages but never made any arrangements for this week as he'd originally suggested. I know I shouldn't be giving this headspace and should come off OD because I'm so out of practice and the men seem only interested in playing around

I really only went on out of curiosity and the last thing I need is to be messed with at the moment. I don't ned anything to knock my confidence more then it has been with FW and I think OD is almost guaranteed to do that.

Think I need to get some more sleep I'm posting on two different threads about this. Definately over thinking it all. I will never understand men, is there nobody uncomplicated out there?

better, thank you. Burn out does about describe it. Not only increasing levels of stress through the r/s with FW, which mafe me ill, the post-split fwittery, which has eased for the moment, but no settlement yet, and then working it all out, how it fitted together. Which I feel it where I am at, but so tired. The plus side is not feeling I have to rush around making everything okay. So, self-care, after many years of none, making sure I am okay, and of course dcs, but the two things go together.

2013, for what it is worth, I think you are enormously brave to be able to confront this. I didn't. I buried it away after it happened and 'forgot' for nearly 13 years. Even when I remembered, it took me over a year to confront it, and that was only with the help of lovely ladies on here, who listened to my opaque ramblings, that I finally walked away, as he was still in my life as a 'friend', and destabilising emotional presence. This is all very recent. By confronting it, what it means for you and about you, and walking away, my belief is that you give yourself space to heal. You avoid doing what I did, which was going into subsequent relationships with your boundaries shot to hell.
We have a tremendous resource of friendship and support here . You need support in RL too. But whatever you do, don't ignore this and think it does not matter. It does. You do.

Charlotte, leaving is a process, not an event. You are in the process, so are dcs and FW. What you have now is not how it will end up. Courage.

rose, hope you are okay.

to everyone else.

it's hard to hold onto the feeling that I am doing what I need to do.

Yes, this is true for me as well. I know I am better off this way, but I still sometimes think "was it really so bad?" and then I get a brief flash of the temper or the impatience or the "stroppy child" behaviour and I think "oh yes, there it is. That's the reason."

It's enough that I feel like I'm conflicted daily though. It's getting better, but I am looking forward to counselling and some "me" time as well as getting DIY things done.

jackie this bloke was for practice - and it seems you tend to overthink atm, not surprisingly. Now you have to practice putting him to one side, and keeping you to the fore, independent you, jackie the vixen :)