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!!

Well I can be quite argumentative, I make lots of smart remarks and digs and I pinch him when he annoys me. It is not just him, I don't really want to be with him but he can't let go and I end up being dragged into it all again.

That book looks really interesting quietcoach have ordered it thank you.

Well after P came back, he had a huge dig. It was all about I had shamed him, about making a fuss and how embarrassed I should be. Of course if I didn't do as he says he will take my son away from me. He also reminded me he has a lot more money than me.

quietcoach that's really, really interesting about the two choices. YYY.

Muff, I agree with everyone else, sometimes in an abusive relationship you find yourself doing the things that they do to you, to be seen/heard. We can all do abusive things now and again. But an abusive man is abusive, it's not something they do, it's who they are. Sorry you find yourself in this awful situation.

Albie really glad to hear that your presentation went well.

I agree, interesting about the two choices, and YYY from here, too.

This week, Sunday to Sunday has seen: deep sulk, hysteria, "suicidal" depression (necessitating constant talks at 3 in the morning), delirious adoration, hearts and flowers, fury, deep sulks, bitter nihilism. Hard enough for me, but for dcs, very very confusing and upsetting. How can he imagine I can ever feel attracted to him or love him again?

It is Marie France, not Marie French, Hirigoyen. Apologies. Hope it helps muff
I found the book very helpful. I am going to re-read.

My gosh breathe. What a week. I feel exhausted just reading it. How do they swing from one extreme to the other so rapidly?!?

quiet that book sounds so helpful. Another one for my anti FW library I think (Although as it gets larger the risk of discovery also increases). The 2 choices has really resonated with me.

For a long time I have been 1) Mrs Submission - and it's true, I feel the real me has been pretty much extinguished (although I'm failry sure there's still a pilot light burning to reignite me).

But more recently (thanks to said pilot light) I've changed to 2) Mrs Counter Fight Back - and yep, I don't recognise myself here either. I'm having to push and force things in a way that feels so unnatural to me. And FW knows it too, so tells me I'm controlling or oversensitive which then makes me start to question myself.

bountyicecream (longtime lurker, posted a few times etc) this is me!! I am starting to feel that to be with my FW (its been 4 years, we have 2 children) I have to sacrifice huge parts of myself. And when I do think about my self I am selfish but when I think about him too much there is nothing wrong and I am smothering.
My pilot light is still burning bright and the more steps I take to change aspect of my life, the ones I have control over, the more insecure he becomes. therefor the more regular the cycle is.
He does a lot of lovely things for me but I fail to appreciate them enough. Personally, I think if you are looking for appreciation for what you do, it negates what you have done!!!
The more I fight back, the more attitude gets returned. As someone before said, he consistently crosses boundaries. The last and most annoying one was when I got really angry about how he had gone out of his way to make my son do the opposite of what I was saying. I got mad, was still cross the next day. He told me if I get too mad I should learn to leave the room. I walked out the room when he said that as I was getting REALLY cross. He followed me. WTF?? He then said "why are you leaving the room??..."

I've just finished reading a book on boundaries. It's been really helpful - in thinking through relationships in the wider sense, but it doesn't understand the abusive mentality at all. What you say, coach, about two responses makes sense - there is no healthy response. The book, otoh, suggests that if your P is getting aggressive you could go and stay with a friend for the night and tell them why you've gone. WTF? What kind of simplistic rubbish is that?!

muff - can you make it harder for him to ignore your boundaries? Change the locks, change your number? Move to Australia?

Thank you for the msgs, got it more straight in my head today. I have no idea how he muddles up my head but he does. Firmer boundaries and positive affirmations is the plan.

Don't worry - everyone here understands about the muddled-up head effect!

ooh charlotte - just noted the nc

Thanks charlotte I do always feel I'm over reacting so others affirming his awfulness helps.

Love the name change Charlotte
I know what you mean about that book but for me it did show just how my exfw has ended up where he is being totally irresponsible and how I at times am over reasonaible. I did think that about Australia tis my only option I think. It is very hard to keep boundaries with a FW because you use the `normal' keeping boundaries routes and it leads to more fwitery. I found the book helpful in validating what has been happening and how I really do need to stay clam every time a boundary is attempted to be broken. I worry DS will not be able to handle it and will be very frightened.

Maybe - that's treading on eggshells, isn't it? Which we all do round FWs. Hopefully DS won't have to cope with it, at least not without a responsible adult around. (And if he does, you are his security and will help guide him through it all.)

I think the important point is that your DS will learn what boundaries are, better and with you, his boundaries will be respected. There will not be hell to pay if he does not do as you expect, he will not live in fear of your temper or other retribution, he will have a solid grounding in how functional relationships work. This will help him see that FW is well, a FW. I think this is an important starting point.

bounty, the pilot light is the little bit of yourself which remains, which will, sooner or later, propel you out the door. (If you stay, he will extinguish it; that is why you have switched to Counter-attack, you do not want to be extinguished).

YYY to being driven to uncharacteristic behaviour. That's a major lightbulb for me. I'm one person with him and the real me with everyone else.

breathe when I saw what I was sometimes with FW I could never go back and still can't. How I was, was and still would be driven by fear. What he does and is still doing is drive by anger for power and control.
In I keep thinking that when I have my positive moments thank you. I do worry that DS will have the same confusion i did as the fwittery will not start on day one. FW can't wait to get to unsupervised contact asap for that very reason. There is no way in the memeory of man I can say that to a court, they would just think I am nuts.
When I hear or read anything from FW it is like reading a different language but one I have sadly had to learn and I totally understand how someone new to it would not get it sometimes as I didn't. Because I think he is a sociopath I do analyse it because you have to, as there aren't constant big Nigella moments as I now call them bless her. In so many ways I wish there were. Being honest as soon as I read it, I know what it means - it makes me feel sick. I actually think he does now know I understand it and that still gives him power - am I over analysing now?

better, I think you are right, they don't let go. I think the power is in the fact you have to engage with it for legal reasons. You can't yet shut it down.

However, I do think, having grown up with an NPD mother and an alcoholic father, the presence of a psychologically normal parent, for a huge majority of the time, will be stabilising in the long term. If you are steadfast and true to your core values, ds will benefit.

DS may be lovebombed, he may be discarded after a bit, he may be drawn into a psychologically manipulative relationship with his father, there is no way to predict, but and it is an important but, it is one piece of his life, it is not his whole life.

If unsupervised contact becomes inevitable, your role is to help him be himself, I think, to validate him as a person, and trust that he will grow up to make his own judgements about his father.

Have just been reading this interesting thread and it's a revelation. Gradually through my marriage, I have internalised FW's belief that my parents' house is Not Good Enough, because nothing matches and (shock horror) they like it that way. FW always wanted everything matching (and no toys in evidence outside the DC's bedrooms). Now I read the majority of posters on that thread saying they believe mismatching is better because your personality is more evident.

It's lovely to hear that - but I think it'll take me a while to dismantle that belief and get rid of it entirely.

Charlotte that's quite a revelation, isn't it. You might find a fair few of these kind of things coming your way now that you are living apart from him.
I think whether mismatched or all-to-match - it's not about being 'wrong' or 'not good enough', more that what FW thought was the law. It'll take time for you to unpick through it all and try and work out what your opinions actually are about these kinds of things. Practice. Experiment. Play about with colours, styles, matching and unmatching, to see what you like best. It's also ok if you like some stuff to match! It's you and what you think and like that's important now. You can decide for yourself.

I still do things because either I don't want to get caught doing something I am not supposed to or else deliberately doing them to rebel even though there is no one there to know. not just FW also my dm who has her own ideas about things such as shelves (bad) etc.

But the main truth is I constantly feel judged about my house. I don't really like it but don't have the time or energy to fix it so just avoid having people who might judge it be in it which is bad because the dcs never get play dates because I don't want mums in my house.

I really admire the skills of my friends who make their houses look beautiful and planned and relaxed all at the same time....but I always wonder how they afford it. I just have whatever we could afford or acquired at the time or random stuff that I made knitted cocks

Can I just butt in in desperation. My h is, in my view, a completely unavailable 'person'. People are screaming at me to leave. He's been a knob - he's not supporting ds and I properly, and has forced me to work full time to pay half the bills - and if not, I could walk and ds would stay with him and he'd sell up go back to italy and in his words 'if I were in the mood to see ds, I could fly over to italy and visit him there'. No words. I am scared. DS doesn't want this.

So I've just gone full time he's now screaming at me that I'm a bad mum as ds is in afterschools childcare always. So he's putting this me paying half of everything back onto me.

He's contributing v. little to household./ I did get a pair of balls and say to him OK, I pay half the bills, you do half parenting, cleaning, childcare etc. He's not, of course.

I'm scrabbling around trying to ensure ds OK. H gone abroad - in the last 7 days he's only called twice ( for ds) but on facebook constantly (I'm not a real facebooker but can trace him). I cannot anymore compensate for him on every level and also try to negate the affect on our ds.

What do I tell him. He's an angry and abusive man. He's keeping us in poverty - he earns well -he's in debt (at leat £8k) and we see nothing. He's secretive and I cannot tell if he has another woman or a gambler.

What's the way to go about getting evidence. Obviously my main concern is not about assets but about our ds.

Hi howrude I do not have all the answers. Do I assume rightly that you are British and he is Italian? Was DS born in the UK? and has he always lived here? And (roughly - if you feel able to share) how old is he?

I would ignore the 'go back to Italy with DS' comment. Most abusive men seem to threaten that they will get full custody of their DC (Mine did and I think quite a few others) but legally that is not going to happen. It is just part of the scaring you into submission.

First thing - speak to a solicitor for a 30 min free consultation. ASAP. You will feel much stronger, and more confidnet when you know legally where you stand.

Second thing - speak or email Womens Aid.

I do not think you need evidence though I fully understand where you are coming from (I wanted evidence when my FW had a text relationship). The courts do not care who is wrong or to blame. They just want evidence as to what is best for DS.

Do you have family that would help out with childcare? Might it be possible that if you left and downsized and were in control of your finances that you might not even need to work full time.

Good Luck and keep posting here

My son was going mad at me today because his DF wasn't back for tea. I didn't lose it like i might when caught up in our relationship. Instead, I knelt down on the floor, waited for him to stop crying and I said "I know you are sad Daddy is not back but you will need to speak to him about his reasons. Instead, I have cooked your tea, so why not come and eat it." I felt phenomenally proud of myself. Sometimes i am so emotionally bogged down by my FW I can't speak clearly to my children.

tweedle well done not just for doing the right thing but also for knowing when to be proud of the good times and focus on them. The small things are the big steps in recovery/survival.

howrude do you mean evidence of finances? And what is the position re. house etc. do you own it?
Sorry for all the questions just trying to get a clear picture.
It all sounds horrible and stressful. Agree with bountys suggestion that you contact WA and sol and start making plans.
the ft work is not good if it makes you unhappy but may in short term give you more options financially to get a fund together.