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!!

Briefly on to say Charlotte you go girl!!!! Proud of you, you have spread your wings, get ready to fly. xx

I think the fact that you see it as wrong Oneup is huge support for her as she starts to explore her thoughts about it.

I have a 'friend' situation going on, and I wonder what help I am, especially given my circumstances and whether I can be balanced, or am at the just seeing abuse everywhere stage! Am also going to try introduce her to here so she can have a look at the types of behaviour posted, and especially the links.

Lovely to hear you are showing everyone you are happier Charlotte! Its so great to hear, and hopefully you can be back regularly soon

Thats the difficulty isn't it Helza to not compartmentalise the horrible bits, to make the whole ok? Its part of the process I think?

hi, sorry to gatecrash a little but dont know if anyone would remember me? i have tried to start few threads recently but not much response so wanted to try here if ok? anyway long story short been in a nasty physically and emotionally abusive relationship for a while was trying to gather strength to leave.

however before i could he has made the decision to move out and rather than relief i just feel broken. why so much of ltb on here and u wont regret it etc etc i actually feel a million times worse than when he was here. dont know why such severe advice is given when it may not be appropriate for everyone. i dont believe those who say they feel better after relationship over. he had many gd points so maybe i wasnt as badly off as some others who knows?

i am devastated and it galls me that he has gone to his mums where he has emotional support and meals cooked etc and i am stuck here doing all the kids stuff and left totally alone. how is that better for me?

cant eat or sleep and am struggling with kids and chores. have no family support as culturally divorce or separation is so taboo so they are blaming me for driving him out and not keeping my husband etc etc and other various crap that i dont need right now.

i just want him here. yes he has been horrendous to me but i am not strong enough to be alone.

Oh yummy

This is what you say has happened:

he has gone to his mums where he has emotional support and meals cooked etc and i am stuck here doing all the kids stuff and left totally alone. how is that better for me?

He is being a man-child. You are being a grown-up woman. That's how it's better, for you and your DC.

He left you, which robbed you of the control you had while building up to going yourself. But that was the last time. Things will improve. How long has it been?

from me too Yummy you'll need a few going through this.

...and just to say, your story sounds familiar, with FW ex mummy running to make dinners, rally the family around poor him. Whilst, yes, absolutely agree with Silvery you be grown up woman and face realities of the life moving forward.

I am so sorry you had horrendous experiences with him, and glad that you no longer have to be on the 'look out' for this on a daily basis.

You have some grieving to do, and overcoming, before feeling the full benefits of not having him in your home and bed any longer.

Wish you strength xxx

thanks for support and virtual warm mugs of coffee it really helps!

still very raw i guess its only been a week and a big shock as never expected him to be the one to do it. my decision has been taken away from me and i was building up to it as i know i am not strong enough emotionally to deal with this right now.

its crazy but up till he went in spite of all the nastiness we were still intimate quite regularly and am feeling the lack of that comfort alot

it just hurts so much am physically aching for him

I agree with Silvery that he has left in order to leave you in this exact situation, yummy. Like she said, he could perhaps sense you gathering strength to leave, and has whooshed away your feet from under you the only way he could, by leaving himself. It's a control thing. He wants to see you flounder and then beg him to come back, perhaps. Or perhaps he's enjoying knowing that you are left doing everything. But you are stronger than you think you are, and much stronger than he thinks you are. Feeling like you want him back regardless of what happened is a normal part of the grieving process.

Do you have any RL support - health visitor, Women's Aid, a counsellor, a friend? If not, try and get some, and some respite for yourself. You need to stand back and look at the whole picture, you can't see it while you are in it and panicking in the mess he has left you in.

for you.

Oh dear, Yummy, I'm not one for the severe advice. Relationships are complicated. I've stayed with my marriage for a very long time.
Even though you're from a culture where divorce etc is taboo, I bet your family and his know about human nature, and, after all, he has done the leaving.
You are in a state of shock right now. You have endured abuse, and I really hope you don't blame yourself for it in any way. It happens sometimes, we think if we'd behaved differently it wouldn't have happened, but often it doesn't matter how we act, we get it anyway.
Take the guilt off your shoulders, you don't deserve it.
I hope you start feeling better in the days to come.
Do you have family to support you at this difficult time?

unfortunately dont have much rl support. family dont help as i can sense they blame me and they make me feel guilty. they dont understand the abuse as he has done such a good job at charming them into thinking he is mr wonderful and i am a weepy irrational woman so you can see they dont really believe me when i have tried to tell them how he really is. they think i have driven him away and it must be my fault.

no-one in rl has ever said that its him not you and that makes me doubt myself a lot. have distanced myself from family though as they are a drain of strength at the best of times.

would WA be able to help even though i am no longer directly at threat with him out of the home?

also have already done two rounds of freedom programme and am embarassed to go back as i feel i havnt moved forward am still trapped in his control really waiting to see if he decides to come back or not

WA would be perfect Yummy...they will hear you as well as just listen..they will understand.

many of the people who say you will be better off forget the process of grieving and rejection and hurting and the low place that we are in straight away...further down the line you will see that he has done you a favour but just now it is another damn thing he has done to you to make you feel bad. You are not the only one who has felt this.

Looking after everything and everyone on your own is hard. be kind to yourself and just survive one day/hour/minute at a time. You will feel better, you will be ok.

Many people in every culture wish to sweep DV under the carpet...so much more so in a chauvinistic culture.

Try to weather the storm and not to give in when he tries to weasel his way back in....if you wait you really really will feel better.

Hang on in there

Mr Charming! He sure fits the stereotype!
foolonthehill, apart from having a great name, I agree with everything you say.
yummy you sound as if you doubt yourself, but if he has used physical violence against you, that is inexcusable against a decent wife and mother such as you. Stay strong and take it slowly.

yummy so sorry to hear you're feeling so low. It does sound like he's trying to make you miss him because he felt you were gathering strength. They do like to pre-empt if they can, which is pretty cowardly IMO.

*yummy, definitely contact WA. I left in May last year, and they have continued to offer me fantastic support for both myself and my DCs on an ongoing basis, basically as long as I need them. I cannot speak highly enough of them. They are for women who have experienced abuse - you do not have to be currently experiencing it (although I have no doubt you are, through his deliberate actions) to get help and support.

Yummy I remember your threads. Didn't you get to a point last year where you were experiencing some particularly bad PA? Definitely contact WA. They could hopefully help sort some counselling.

Things okay here. Divorce is now final. I will have the settlement within 2 weeks and I've just put in an offer on a 3 bed house with a lovely garden for the dc. Trying to ignore the bleating a from Ex-H about how he can't afford to live. He has a house with 90k equity that he could sell if necessary and two large pension funds that I didn't touch.

yummy sorry you're feeling so low but agree with breathe that he wanted to pre-empt... and don't feel bad about calling Women's Aid, they will help you see through the tactics. Why do these men feel so entitled and how is it that they so often work to a script? Perhaps he's done you a favour but hard to see that now... things WILL get better!

Fool your sage advice is always spot on!

Hel how are things going? I was rereading your post about not knowing how to act when he is 'normal' as I have been in this situation and got into the habit over the years of just brushing it all under the carpet. But now I find myself wanting to remind him of it-- so after having been put through an absolute barrage of shouting and yelling, and now that I KNOW it's not right (thanks to you all here, Lundy B and others) I want him to acknowledge his behavior.

Such as yesterday we were driving on a motorway and the car started vibrating a bit, there is some problem which happens every now and again and H suspects one of the back brakes gets stuck a bit. So first he yelled at me that I hadn't taken it to the garage he knows that I had taken it to our local garage who had supposedly taken the brakes apart and put them back together and found nothing wrong but since then the vibrating happened again, when I was driving it last week so he'd said I need to take it to a specialist-- basically that's a whole day of my time as the specialist garage is a long way from here and I haven't made it a high priority as it fixed itself after I turned the car off and on again.

Anyway he yelled at me and said why wasn't I on the phone to them immediately to tell them that they are useless c**ts because they hadn't fixed it (our local garage guys are really nice and I am on good terms with them aside from this problem which they just don't understand. No way would I blame them...) and of course any time I tried to say anything he just yelled at me to shut up.

So to try to un-stick the brakes (we were driving v fast on the crowded motorway in the rain) he started slamming on the brakes (he's done this before so I wasn't totally surprised, made the dog who was in the back seat fall onto the floor. She gets upset when he yells, she trembles and shakes) and then gunning the motor. Then he started pulling up the handbrake. I did get quite scared when he did that, just seemed too risky to me, when we were going in the fast lane of the M1. But anytime I said anything he yelled 'I know what I'm doing, don't tell me how to drive'. Then he pulled off into services, did some fast reversing etc, pulled back on and it fixed itself about 10 minutes later. Then... all sweetness and light, as if nothing had happened. BUT I insisted on saying to him later 'I will NOT tolerate being spoken to in that way'... and he just said 'oh shut up'. Hmmm.

But I thought later about the car problem-- when it happened when I was driving and the only one in the car, I got quite scared but was calm, but drove slowly and carefully to a services area, carefully tried the brakes, turned the car off and on etc etc. All with calm and control. What he did was maybe not out of control (? maybe a bit?) but he was sooooo angry. And NO WAY should he get away with that. Or maybe not? So by ME not making a big deal of it now am I somewhat colluding with his ability to have an angry tantrum whenever and wherever he feels like it??

Sorry, didn't mean for this to turn into a long essay but just wanted to get it off my chest! TBH when we got to where we were going I had planned to run away out of the car and get the train back but he had calmed down so I totally chickened out of making my grand gesture. Plus we were with other people and he always behaves himself around other people.

I'm seeing someone from WA next week and before I brush this under the carpet though I might mention it as him being dangerous and perhaps a reason to leave ASAP... I just so need that push. So close but so scared of the consequences.

matchsticks crossed posts, I'm so glad it is all going so well. I read your other thread. Yay! Well done to you. And thank you for the inspiration.

thatsnot, it's so scary when the that kind of thing happens on a motorway. It sounds like he was ballistic when there was a problem, and then sweetness and light when it was fixed. I wryly smiled when you said he blamed you at first.
My Dh does the same. It's as if I am there to stop anything ever going wrong in his life!
I am ok. Dh works away a lot so I get much peace and quiet inbetweentimes, and time to recover!

that's that sounds terrifying. The rational thing to do would have been to get out with DDog at the services and sort your own transport - one reason why a 'running away fund' is a good idea, it can be used to keep you safe before you get to the point of going.

I realise that this is a counsel of perfection, though, and that I myself would have meekly got back in the car if t'were my exFW.

I was remembering today an incident from our 25th wedding anniversary long weekend away in nearby foreign parts. We were going to go into a museum, but I was starting to need to pee fairly urgently, and pointed to a bar up the street to go to first - just to use the loo FFS. He tried to persuade me there'd be one in the museum - I wasn't so sure, and said again I wanted to pop into the bar. He had another go at persuading me - and guess what? I gave in, I managed to enjoy the museum despite having a rather full bladder [angry. Furhermore there were no loos to be found in the museum.

This didn't happen all that long ago (though before MN), and today I was thinking - why didn't I just say, I'm off for a pee, and go? Why did it seem that I needed his agreement? The reason is, that I thought I was giving him information about where we were going before the museum. Saying 'yes' as any normal person would do, and setting off for the bar together, indicates that the person has taken in the information.

But saying 'no' as only a FW would, turns it into a request for permission, thus derailing the whole conversation and inducing spag-head.

silvery it's all about them, isn't it? Glad you enjoyed the museum anyway but... what if it had been the other way around?? I'm sure a suitable detour would have been made to ensure his comfort! Grrrr.

Just wondering again about the M1 thing. Is that bad enough to say NO MORE... I keep setting little tests and he keeps 'failing' yet I am still here, albeit totally disengaged. My latest ploy is to see if he remembers that it is my birthday this Saturday. I'm hoping that he WON'T as that is something that would be fairly indefensible in the eyes of some of my friends (who've contacted me to ask what we're doing... I don't take birthdays that seriously but I was involved in their birthdays both only recently and they wanted to return the favour so to speak). So pathetically (perhaps I am a bit passive aggressive) I've been asking him his plans for the weekend, he keeps telling me he might do this or that but hasn't yet decided... I had his mum on the phone yesterday and even she's remembered but H has NOT, I'm sure. Not that I am birthday-ist but it just shows how low I am on his list of priorities!

that's the M1 incident is clearly deranged. it is dangerous. it is illegal. and it shows a callous disregard for you, ddog and all other road users.
That kind of behaviour could actually get him jail time for dangerous driving.
Yes it is enough reason to leave. you could have been killed.
The birthday thing- someone else may remind him and he will act like he remembered all along.
The real test that's is do you truly want to walk silently by his side for the rest of your days. me i would put on my loudest clog and go skipping out the good

Door even.

thatsnot can totally empathise with the driving thing mine does/did aggressive/scary driving too. its really terrifying and again about power and control. these fw's are so shit its unreal.

matchsticks yup that was me with the pa and lots of ea too. you would think remembering all that would make me stop missing him but no.

also this is a bit embarrassing but i really really miss the physical intimacy that we still somehow had. am feeling really tense and frustrated and need to try to get over it as i know it will end up with me trying to get him back in bed which is ridiculous really.

will try WA again then. trouble is my local branch are a bit rubbish and dont always get back to you.

thatsnot, I can completely empathise with the dangerous driving/making it your fault. It is like we are a buffer zone between them and the real world.

And the birthdays. For me the final straw was not the Mothers Day when he 'forgot' to prompt the kids to make a card, and shouted at me really nastily at around 2pm when I asked, calmly if anything was going to happen. .''You're not MY mother.'

Not the next birthday when he didn't get me anything, not even a 'sorry it slipped my mind'. But the second Mothers Day in a row when he again didn't help the kids to do anything, and then shouted me down when I said calmly it mattered, I felt let down and it wasn't good enough. That was when I realised even if he had a personality transplant I'd never feel safe with him again. (But then had so many relapses, including supporting the kids to buy him a Fathers Day present...)

thatsnot that sounds really terrifying re the car on motorway situation. My exfw used to do things like that a lot, though latterly he went all middle aged before his time and drove doggedly in middle lane at 70 the reformed rake kind of thing - just as annoying but not scary and dangerous at least.

And re the bds and mother's days - absolutely ditto, again till recently when he was feeling me slipping away.

On another note, I heard that AnyFucker had been banned. Is this true? If so, it's terrible, because she has been an amazing support to so many.

Breathe I've been reading about AF-- how can this be?? I so hope it's not true, I LOVE her posts and the way they cut through the crap and tell it like it is.

redmaple I'm totally angry on your behalf! Can't believe he didn't even own up, final straw indeed! Hope you are well rid of him now... Why do we put up with it. I can't see clearly now-- I try to understand/make excuses for things he would never put up with from me. Or anyone.

BTW just to clarify (and to make excuses which AF et al would see through right away...) I don't think H was driving really dangerously yesterday, he was in control of the car (prides himself on being a good driver better than anyone else on the road ) but yes it was dangerous even if it wasn't DANGEROUS DRIVING per se. He pulled the handbrake up and down but it wasn't really on, he slammed on the brakes but not so hard that the car stopped in the road, he sped up but he didn't weave in and out of traffic, etc but it was scary because if anything had gone wrong especially with the handbrake-- it could have caused an accident. BUT when I contrasted how I had reacted to the same situation (calm and careful) that makes me think that he was way out of line... and if I tell that to other people it starts to look like he is as abusive as I think he is. Sorry again for essay but trying to make sense of it in my mind.