So we split and now he has a proposition..

[EllieInTheRoom]

I need the wise women of MN again. I don't think I am being as strong as I should be. I suspect people might tell me to get a grip, maybe that's what I need.

So it's three weeks since the split. It's been hard work to be honest, mainly because there is no room for him to have DS at his DPs so he has been coming here to have him so there has been more opportunity for him to speak to me.

Also, I think DS has taken it badly, he is very unsettled. Ive posted about that separately this week.

But I Have been looking for new places, had decided me and DS would move in new year, then H would be able to get his own place too. We could all move forward etc.

But anyway, he came yesterday to play with DS and put him to bed. Afterwards he asked if we could talk...

He said his counselling is starting to make him see things clearly. he realises he did nothing to support me since DS came along. For example, i wanted to do a qualification to help me further my business but couldn't because he was never here.

He says he and the counsellor have discussed the fact he has been anxious and stressed and trying to be all things to all people. He doesn't know who he is. He says its not an excuse but knows he treated me badly, it was EA and he is determined to get over his porn addiction.

He wants me to keep this house on for another six months. He wants to live here too in the spare room and support me financially while I do the qualification and he proves to me he is the man I married not the miserable horrible one he became.

he said we can live as separately as I want. And at any time if I think it isn't working I can call it a day. But he hopes in six months I will have seen enough to agree to go to marriage counselling.

I'm worried about DS.

My mum thinks I should do it. She says What have I got to lose?

I'm not sure if I can ever get past some of things that happened. That its all gone too far. But then I think wouldn't it be nice if I could?

I think I have lost the ability to think for myself and I feel so cross with myself. I think what I want and what I feel I ought to do are getting all mixed up.

My brain might explode. Answers on a postcard please!!

Ellie - he may be deceiving himself as much as he's deceiving you.
He may well want to change, but he's not been at the process long enough to know what a long, long haul that is going to be, and just how much effort & commitment it will take.

He's going to have to practice not being an arsehole every single minute of every single day. It's like being an alcoholic...

Sorry but he sounds extremely manipulative and quite cunning.

When he says 'I can't show you I have changed if we don't live together' simply say 'That's fine, I can live with that. I don't care if you have changed or not, this is over'. Make it clear that nothing he says or does is going to change your mind.

He is who he is, people do not fundamentally change. He will always be a controlling, manipulative bastard who thinks his needs are the only ones that matter.

Ellie,

I thought that was the case re time of your originally meeting this person. He targeted you then just as he is targeting you now to pull you back into his web of control.

He will do and say anything to get you back under his control. Do not fall for it. Falling for it will only prolong your own agonies. You need to keep saying no and mean it.

WooWooSister's post should also be seen as a salutary lesson to you as well. He will never let you be your own person, he is quite happy to subsume your own identity so you end up not knowing who the bloody hell you really are.

Not at all surprised either to see that his own mother is of a not entirely dissimilar disposition; we after all learn about relationships first and foremost from our parents. He learnt all this from her.

Yes, that's exactly the point: he is saying he will stop being so controlling, whilst at the same time continuing to pursue what he wants rather than what you want (ie some time apart). If he had a genuine revelation it would have revealed to him that this woman has a right not to live with you if she doesn't want to. But he is not recognising you have that right, in practice. He's just paying it lip service at best, and occasionally less than that.

Love, you see, means different things to different people. He loves you like a child loves its toy. He bites it, throws it at the wall, takes out his frustrations on it, but cries when it's taken away. He doesn't recognise it has feelings. Well, the child is right about the stuffed toy, but the grown-up is wrong about the real live woman. She does have feelings, and hers have been disregarded too often already.

Great post there by Annie

Love the thing about the stuffed toy :o

I'm prepared to believe he does genuinely hate & sabotage himself. I do think that that is at the heart of a lot of abusive behaviour. However, he is parading it like a wound to get sympathy and control...

It's not true that he can't show you that he's changed if you don't live together. That is a bare-faced lie. Moreover the fact that he's trying to bully you into living with him, proves he hasn't changed.

I may have read it somewhere, to be fair

Hi Ellie,
NO, don't let him move back in. He's slowly worming his way back into the house.
This is not "one more chance"
His chance is to show you how he's changed by leaving you alone.
He wants to move back in because it suits him, he's not thinking about you for one second. Why did he think you split up?
Do you see how little he thinks of you by giving you this crap about how he's changed?
His only fear is that you come to your senses properly while you have some space from him.

Don't talk to him! You don't have to give any reasons, you have split up! Text him or email him your decision (NO to moving back in and NO to coming into the house again to see your son) and do not get into a discussion with him.
You've done remarkably well, don't undo it all now.

Thanks all so much for your replies, I'm about to be picked up by friends to take DS to a bonfire so I will read them all later.

Really appreciate the support xx

That would be a no.

I don't think it is a good idea. It can be very stressful having separated partners in the same house, it's confusing for the children and who knows what he'd do once he got home again.

I saw exH change tack as he crossed the threshold because I felt sorry for him.

I'd be telling him he's not coming back and that if he really wants it he can start showing he's changed by not pressuring me.

It's likely that he'll be back to his old self in a week, and you won't be able to chuck him out of the house.
If anything, put the house sale on hold just in case.

I think, when it comes to emotional bullies, 'love' can one of the most manipulative words going. The use it as both carrot and stick, giving it and taking it away when it suits. Whether it's deliberate, as in planned, is debatable. That would take intelligence! However, I think they are very selfish & work on the basis of it being OK to do whatever it takes to get what they want, no matter who gets hurt in the process.

Stay strong. This one's not for leaving you alone.

Ellie, it is very stressful to live in the same house as someone you're separated from. I think on a very practical level, trying to deal with that stress would make it harder for you to study towards your qualification.

Wouldn't do this for a million pounds, No counsellor after a couple of sessions would agree this was a good idea. and he can show you he has changed while living away.
Say no and I bet his reaction will be interestingx

It sounds like he is using this course as a way to reel you back in. He's picked on something he knew he was cruel to not let you do (he must have known at the time - and not cared - otherwise he wouldn't remember it).

He's pulled this one out of the bag to manipulate you, but it won't last, and will be held against you.

Or, he can withdraw it at a moment's notice if things aren't going his way... Think about that.

Space is what you need.

Just read your other thread...

Please do not let this man worm his way back into your home and your life. You've been so strong and just as the fog lifted, in he comes trying to mess with you - stay strong!

I say you should be open to him proving himself to you, yes to him being around more to allow you to get your qualification but he should do all this from another house. You sound like you still need space away from him. 3 weeks is not enough space and time in my opinion.

Hugs x

You got him out, keep him out!

I'm the same as Woowoosister, we were apart for 5 years and I only saw him when he collected our dd.

I now recognize the deliberate and controlled campaign to get me back, starting with the sadness and puppy dog eyes. It took him two years. But he forgot to tell me he loved me on our wedding day, and eventually admitted at counseling that "we" got back together for practical (i.e financial - paying child support was draining his resources!) reasons. Getting out this time is proving much harder.

So, don't believe him, he is not concerned with what you want, only with what he wants.

"yes to him being around more to allow you to get your qualification"

No, no, no to this.

Don't put yourself in a position where you have to rely on him for something like this.

He will use it to control you.

They very suggestion that him moving in would be a way that you could do it is an attempt to use the promise of it to get his own way.

There's something unusual about your posting style. Most people write from their own perspective, particularly so when writing during an emotional time. So you read a lot about 'I' and 'me': that is one's own feelings, actions, behaviours and attitudes. Nothing wrong with that at all: after all if you can't be sure of yourself, what on earth can we be sure of?

When you write, you focus on his perspective, feelings, behaviour, wants, needs, statements. You focus on what he says about everything. You occasionally write about your son. You rarely write about your feelings, wants, needs, attitude. When you do it is very self-deprecating.

From that I infer, that you have no sense of your own needs and wants. It seems to me that you don't seem to consider prioritising yourself, and you don't 'allow' yourself to have an opinion or an attitude very much. Does that make sense? If you were to focus on your wishes, needs, wants, feelings first - how does that change your attitude, if at all?

What do you want? How do you envisage your future?

It is perfectly okay for you to say, "you know what I want/need/feel, it's..."

I fucking despise abusive men.

My H was abusive, he cried a lot when I wouldn't let him in the house until I left the morning after he gave me two black eyes. He later shouted when I told him I had been to a solicitor and was filing for divorce. Then he cried/shouted abuse/cried and so on and so on.

Not long after that he suddenly got sick and died - I cried, but it was tears of relief; how sad is that? I was relieved I never had to deal with him again ( though he occasionally pops up in my dreams whereby I usually tell him to get lost ). How would you feel if your H was never coming back?

These men almost always revert to type. I did 15 years hardcore service in my marriage, promises of better behaviour, counselling (didn't work he jumped ship when he thought I was under control ) even family intervention.

I used to have depression/mood swings/anger/frustration/cry a lot until he died and I never relaxed. I just don't have these problems now and I have found myself.

DP whom I live with now is an entirely different character, thoughtful, loving, caring and it would be utterly impossible to turn him into an abusive cunt, as much as getting an abusive cunt to stop their disgusting behaviour.

L.T.B.

You will never look back

I have woken up with a clear head. And I think it would be ridiculous to allow this. more than anything, I don't want to feel like I owe him anything as I would then feel the famous guilt/obligation afterwards and feel even more trapped.

Funnily enough I have already spoken to my mum about my what my fears of going ahead are and even she said to forget her advice from yesterday. So thanks everybody you really helped me put things into words.

annie I loved the toy analogy!

sirsugar I'm sorry you went through that. Your story resonated a little bit. about a year ago, I was verging on depression I think, I used to have panic attacks about dying. I got really scared I would die without being properly happy first. I told my mum about them, although she didnt really understand, I told her that I felt like a bad person because I had thought about what if H died and how much easier it would be because I was so unhappy. That didnt go down well at all.

terror your comment, shocked me a little bit, but then I suppose it's right. I've surprised myself lately on my inability to think for myself and I just think its because I've never had to. It sounds silly but I'm the youngest in a large family of big personalities, also, I qualified in my profession early and progressed quickly so I have always been by far the youngest among my colleagues and groups of friends. I think because of this, I always just followed the crowd, went where they wanted to go, watched what everybody else wanted to watch, listened to what everybody else wanted to listen to etc.

I always put this down to being easygoing and laid back, but actually it was just pretty lazy. It was the same when I got with H, I never minded what we did, so I probably didnt notice he had controlling tendencies. I always knew he was a bit troubled and I made him happy. So that was my job to make him happy, and in turn he looked after me. But then he didnt look after me at all, and well, it turns out I could never make him happy. Although I am not self deprecating enough to think that's entirely my fault.

Anyway, I think in the future I just want to be happy. And independent. And to grab all the opportunities that come by and just enjoy life again. And show all of this to DS.

Thans everyone for your comments again, I really don't know how I would have done all this without this board. I'm pretty sure if I hadn't come here yesterday, I'd have just allowed him to move back in today and ignored the screaming mini me on my shoulder.

Well done OP, I hope you can keep us updated on how your ex responds.

I think this man is the one that has been reading "Why Does He Do That"

OP, glad to see your wobble has stabilised. Some great advice you have had on this thread. Please do post again if you have another weak moment.

Well done, Ellie, glad you are feeling good about your decision. :)